KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Why this Independent Brokerage Owner Joined eXp Realty & Profits $60,000 More Now

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

We grew it to the largest brokerage in my area, but I wasn't making money. You know, I was great. We were number one, but I wasn't, you know, enjoying the fruit of the labor. I enjoyed seeing the agents be good. The agents were making money, but I wasn't making any money. Are you a broker owner or team leader who's working so hard to give your agents everything they need? but at the end of the day, have almost nothing left for yourself. After $23,000 a month in overhead and boring hours upon hours into these agents,

and yet you're bringing home less money than they do. If I'm speaking to your soul, this one's for you. Today's guests, we have Bobby Hymel, and she's in the Mina, Arkansas area. She went from being an independent brokerage owner of the number one team in her area to partnering with EXP Realty. and that has saved her $23,000 a month in running her brokerage and has gained her 20 hours a week back in time so she can serve more in the church and doing other passion projects. Bobby is married, has four kids, four grandchildren, has way more time now to spend with them. She loves to travel and explore.

Get ready to learn a better way to run a profitable brokerage with less headache for broker owners. This one's for you. Gold miners, welcome, Bobby Hemel. Bobby, thank you so much for joining us. I want to hit the rewind button and talk about, so rewind a little bit, back to when you were an independent broker owner. Why did you first become an independent broker owner? And how was life like as you're, you know, I was running a team as running everything really. So I went to my own because I wanted to run the show. I mean, I wanted all the money. Let's get right down to it. I wanted the money. And I didn't want to work for someone else. And so I bought an independent company that was been in business for about 30 years.

And then it was one person and I began to grow it with a big team. And it was fun, exciting and, you know, challenging, very challenging. I have a question real quick before. I know Ali has more, but like when you're buying an independent brokerage, are you essentially like buying their database or like what are you actually buying? And I know that that's not the direction we want to go. I'm just super curious. Oh, sure. You are. You are buying their database and their name. You're not buying in their assets. You know, if they have if they have a brick and mortar office, you may be buying that office. In this case, I didn't. I just bought the assets and her database and the name. And so when you purchased it, what was the intention or did you have a different like thought process of what was going to happen versus what did happen? No. It actually worked its way out the way I planned. I say no, but in one way the money was not there, if that makes sense. Because all of the money that you have, you have to put

back into your business to compete with the bigger companies or anyone for this matter today is the marketing and to get your name out there. And that is not an easy task to be branded and to stay competitive. You have to buy all these tools and programs to stay competitive and be and give the best to the client. And to me it was about the best for the client. And given the to the client, I had to purchase all these tools out there that for a small person was truly expensive. And that's one of the things I love about being with EXP. I may be jumping ahead of it a little bit, but is that everything is there and you still get more than I ever could pay myself. Yeah, totally. Those like the ability for all of those big companies, you know, of course,

XP specific is that ability to get those mass discounts for their agents and then give all of the things that otherwise would literally cost thousands and thousands of dollars in monthly overhead at the cost of $85 a month, which is like insane. How long, so how long did you, what was the timeline going back in time? So you bought that brokerage. How long did you do that try to make it work financially, you know, that whole thing? Probably three years more. more than I should have, but eight years. Eight years I put into it and grew it from, and we're in a very small town,

but we grew it to the largest brokerage in my area, but I wasn't making money. You know, I was great, we were number one, but I wasn't, you know, enjoying the fruit of the labor. I enjoyed seeing the agents be good. The agents were making money, but I wasn't making any more. money. And so when years ago, about four years ago, I had a friend come to me and talked to me

about EXP and I really want to talk about this a second. And she come and said, you know, oh, you need to come to EXP, blah, blah, blah, but she never told me 80%. She never told me the small amount of commissions to be to 100%. She never told me about revenue share and how exactly that work and how I could actually bring over my agents and still receive a portion of that for myself. And so I was like, I don't need a franchise. I have, we're number one. I don't need the franchise, you know, and I kept feeling like I'm doing something wrong. And then in my, when I got to a point where I'm like, I've got to do something different is

when I was able to research EXP. up in my feed and I thought I'm going to research this and that's when I realized man I had made a mistake. So the final straw you know like you you learned a little bit about the expe that there is another way but a lot of people a lot of broker owners struggle with that like pride you know like I purchased this company I created this company this is my baby. This is you know we are number one what exactly was that wall where it was like the the final straw, no shit, let me just, let me just go partner with EXP. I think it was the fact of not being able to, we were out of standstill financially.

And we were at a point where I could not provide my agents what they really needed anymore. And you do, you have to be able to put the pride down. And it's still a struggle. I mean, you know, I've been in real estate 20 years. and so in owning my own for the last eight years, it definitely was a struggle. There's no doubt in that, but you come down to the thing is my pride or money. Do I want to make a living? Do I want to truly be successful or do I just want to look like I'm successful? And that is what it comes down to.

Let's skip to. Okay. So when you went to EXP, when you started making that interaction, you joined, there are a bunch of different ways that you can structure your team. How did you, because a lot of people don't talk about that, you know, like they're just say, hey, 80, 20, if they even tell you that, which, you know, nobody told you that in the beginning with whoever you were talking to. So as you're onboarding to EXP, how did you structure your team so that it's beneficial to, again, still to your agents and also this time for you? Well, I did something a little different.

If I would have known before, I actually, I had two. offices, okay? And if I sold one before I found out about EXP and I kept one and transitioned the other one. So had I known about EXP beforehand, and that's why I hope this gets out to as many people as possible, had I known, I would have done where I kept the brick and mortar and transitioned only because it's a small town, okay? And I would have done it like that as a brink. branch office and done the revenue share and done it as a team. However, being that I transferred my smaller office, we did it as a small team. And I did not keep the brick and mortar because that one, no one in a year,

we had been doing deals and maybe a handful of people walked in that door. And I was like, why am I paying for us to sit in the desk? All of this money. know, and me and the agents looked at each other and discussed it and we said, we're not doing this. We don't want to do this. Let's go and work from home, have Zoom meetings like we do, you know, we half of the time we did Zoom, it was one office was Zoom and one office was in person for sales meetings and things like that.

And I'm like, let's just go to what the rest of the world is transitioning to. And again, being in a small town, we're behind the times. And so, you know, this is new concept for our area, but a lot of my area, the state, or a lot of America is rural America. And they're like, I don't know if I want to do this. If I don't have a brick and mortar, will they even consider me legitimate? I have not had one pushback. They're, oh, yeah, everybody's doing that. You know, that's their answer.

Yeah, everybody's doing that. And I'm like, I'm saving money. And they're like, absolutely. I've never met to your office anyway. Okay. Yeah. Totally. I totally agree.

Back when I had a traditional team back in the day and we had a physical office and I felt the same thing. I was like, no clients ever come in here. And when my agents were meeting with people for consultations, they were at a listing point when they were at their house or with buyers, agents, they'd meet, you know, at a coffee shop. And these were like the choices that were made. And the other thing too is as you're growing a team and a brokerage and all the other thing, of those things. I wonder if you had the same experiences as what I did, which was everyone

says they want an office until you have an office and then no one comes. Like the agents. And even I find that very interesting in our world too, where it's, I think that it's human nature. You always want what you don't have because the agents with the office don't go and the agents without an office are like, if only I had an office, I would be successful. I don't know if you've experienced that. We have yes and no. A lot of the agents like to come to the office, but it's transitioning more and more because it becomes an inconvenience to be at the office. You know, you end up, if you do go to the office, you want two computers now because you want one at your home and one at your office. And then you end up making a office in your home because you're there more than you are in the office.

And so it's just a it's a struggle, but I believe that it's one that's easily overcomable and in going. And what I really love, too, is we have Zoom now. You know, since COVID, everything changed and we can still have, we can have bio consultations via Zoom, you know, and have those consultations and talk to them. You can do free Zoom. You can do all of those things where you're able to make that relationship without actually, you know, having to go to even a coffee shop to do it. So it really saves money and your time. Do you feel like you have kept your culture? You know, like so many broker owners are like, if I partner with somebody else, I'm going to have to tweak my name from, you know, coastline realty to coastline group with EXP realty.

And, you know, that's just, that's going to be the end of kill. It's going to be killing my baby that I've built. The culture is going to change. I'm not going to, you know, all these like rabbit holes. What does your culture look like now? What has changed? So it really, it's just changed to we visit online more than we do anything else. But if I was that in a, if I had a lot of agents steal with me and we did this, it would be,

I would say to someone, don't worry about the name change to group or team versus the realty. Because people are going to follow the person. The other day I did a marketing class, and one of the things he told me, it really stood out. You brand yourself, not really the company. Okay? And let me explain to you. Elon Musk could buy and sell squirrel shirts, and he would sell them because it's Elon Musk. No matter what he puts his name on, he's going to be successful at it because it's

Elon Musk, he branded himself. Well, when we're realtors, if we're doing the job right, we're branding ourselves by making relationships. And we're making those relationships. So people don't care what the name of your company is. They care about how you take care of them. And that will go a lot further than what your name is group, team, realty, or any of those things.

And so, you know, It wasn't a stress for me because people know who I am and they know what service I provide. And it's getting that more out there than what companies behind my name, if that makes sense. If you were to like, if you were to go back in time and talk to yourself back when you were in the middle of running the number one team in your area, maintaining a non-profitable, you know, like maintaining a, what would you, you know, what do you, you? know like how would you say that like just a non-profitable brokerage yeah not knowing too much about other ways that you can become a profitable brokerage what piece of advice would you give yourself you know when you you said you held on to

your brokerage three years longer than you should have what advice would you give you to yourself that during that three-year period where you just in the trenches overwhelmed get rid of the pride that that's one of the main things I would say get rid of the pride and call people and talk to people and in research what's out there and that will best suit you. I didn't want to tell anybody I was struggling and that kept me from reaching out and asking a few more questions and finding other things because oh I didn't want them to know that I was struggling. Even if you have to go out your area to say you know somebody's in Colorado and they want to call me. That's fine.

because I'm outside your area. Let me tell you what, you know, how it helped me. But reach out and talk to someone instead of just keeping, keep struggling because then it's pointless. In your transition with bringing your brokerage and partnering with EXP, has there been anything that has surprised you about EXP in general or our community within EXP, Five Pillars? Absolutely. It's the, we used to say.

No one trains like we do. I mean, I'm a real estate teacher as well, so I would train my agents like unbelievably. And you go to another brokerage and maybe not get as much training as you would with us hands-on training. And when I came to EXP, the app and with y'all, it was like, hey, I'm here to help you. Hey, I'm here to help you. You know, and I was just like, wow, this is awesome. And then I get into the world and there was all kinds of trainings available. I get into five pillars. There's trainings available.

There's, and I can't make them all. You know, it's like I want to get there, but I can't, which is awesome, but it's there. And so for a new agent, at first I thought no new agent's going to be able to handle this. And then once I got in, I'm like, they just need guidance because there is everything you need to be successful. and then some. I mean, we had a meeting for our state today that talked about how to gain the listing, you know, which was amazing. Last week we had it about forms. There's training for contracts. There's training how to invest. I was telling my hair lady last night she was talking about real estate. And I'm like, let me tell you, you know, I thought I was good. They're like a hedge above me, you know, and it was amazing. So the community that I didn't think was there, the commercial.

and the training really shocked me. I love to hear that. That makes me so happy because, of course, like, Atlee and I feel the same. And it's one of those things where Ali and I are both starting over right now in a brand new state where we've been successful agents in different states and we've moved, recently gotten licensed and are picking up and having to learn all of the new rules and regulations and requirements and, you know, just the ways of operating. And so it's gotten us to have this really cool taste of EXP from the perspective of someone

who's just onboarding or just maybe a new agent. And we are constantly like to each other. Dude, I can't even believe how helpful the brokers have been when you ask questions or all of the training that's provided or the consolidated information on, you know, welcome. Here's what you need to do to get set up. Step one, step two. It's all laid out. And so I love to hear when other people find it as valuable as, as, as, as we're going to

valuable as we do. At first, I have to be honest, it was a little overwhelming. For sure, yes. But then when I stopped and I went back, it was, you know, step one. And I'm going to hurry up and get through the steps. And I would suggest don't do that. Take your time, get acclimated with each one because it's going to, it's going to help you. The other day I went into the world the first time.

Not the other day. It's been a few months. But I went into the world the first time. And I have to tell the story. So I get into the world. and if you don't know what the world is, viewers, it's like a video game. I don't know how else to make it. It's like a video game that everybody hangs out in to get help from.

And you need an avatar. And I had never had an avatar. I don't play video games. I don't understand. I just don't. So I'm in there and I need an avatar and I want it now. I want to help now, not 10 minutes from now. I wanted it now.

So I heard you've been press all kinds of buttons and got it. in there and got my avatar and got my help. Only problem was my avatar was a, I don't know how to say this. It was my name is Bobby, so it was a man thinking I was a man, first of all. He had a bonnet on his head with a beard, a dress that didn't match in high-heel shoes. Wow. And I told Ruben, I'm like, I don't know what I did. I don't know. He can goes, but the thing is, did you get the help? I'm like, yeah, I got the help right away. He goes, you're probably going to get lots of attention. I'm like, no, I don't want that attention. I'm going to go fix that. Dude, that is hilarious. You know, I did fix my avatar, but anyway, even when you don't know anything and you end up with a messed up avatar, you still can

get the help right away. You know, it was crazy. Totally. And okay, Bobby, something that has been rolling around my brain now is that you mentioned, you know, we've talked a lot about finance and overhead. And you mentioned the office was something that was large that caught off your plate. But what other things having come to EXP overhead-wise have you been able to eliminate from your overhead? A lot of the things were the marketing. We spent 60 grand a year in marketing and doing those things. So like in the CRM it was huge. that's really expensive and having the right one is expensive. And so the CRM was important.

The programs to create the marketing that is up to date. That was another thing. And like I said, we all have our small agent fees that we all have to do, like our signs and different things like that. But having to have someone create them was, I had to eliminate that. So most of it was marketing related that I was. able to cut out, which is a huge expense. It's our number one expense as a company. Wow, that's awesome. 60,000 a year or two, what are you paying now? Probably 10.

I mean, for a year, if you put it all together. Yeah. How much were you paying for, you know, prior to this for your agents? Per agent or or total for your broker? Yeah, yeah, you know, whatever agent. Yeah, probably a better. Yeah. Marketing or you mean per for marketing or just per agent costing per agent. Oh yeah. Yeah. Costing per agent and like insurance I hear is super super big you know for broker owners have to pay for all the liability and it costs them their sleep as well sometimes. Yeah. The liability, the forms you we pay for forms per agent. The every time a new agent came on there was cost and expense for that that you don't have with the XP.

I can't think of individually things, but I would say each agent probably cost me 1,500 a month. Wow. To give them everything that they needed to be successful, you know, that EXP gives. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. What about time? You know, like how how many hours a week or per day were you working when you were the independent broker versus now? Has that changed at all? Oh my goodness, yes. I can get my job done in a half a day where it took me all day and I didn't, I couldn't sell. I mean, I could, but it was very limited amount of time to be able to do all of that because the bills alone, you know, without how I hired an accountant. I was still doing a lot of it. And I'm like, I'm doing it anyway. So I might as well quit paying for the accountant on a monthly basis.

And so the accounting being at the office having to have someone a secretary there and if not I had to be there, that was huge. It took up probably out of my 50 hour week because we know we don't work 40. Out of my 50 hour week, it probably took 30 hours. Yeah, that's a freaking huge change. I love it. My husband's loving it. That is so good. I love that.

And has anyone, I know you kind of mentioned earlier about like pride, but Has anyone like come out of the woodwork and be like, oh, like, why did you make that change or, you know, uncomfortable about, I don't know, what has the reaction been in your small town? So I haven't had anybody because I made a video and said, why did I choose EXP? And I made a video and put it out there and it's had a lot of views. So I figured nobody's asked because of that. And so I haven't had that because I thought, let me cut it off and just make it video. Hell yeah. If if as we're wrapping up, is there if a broker owner asks you a question, they're thinking about partnering or maybe they haven't yet realized that they should partner with a company that can pay for all of their expenses and give them back time. What would you tell them? You know, like what piece of advice would you would you give other people that were in your shoes a while ago, but you know, they're in their shoes now.

Right. I think would be really significant. down and put the numbers together and really research it out because of the fact that you're going to save money, you're going to still make money, you're going to make more than you're making now. The end result is better on your agents and it's better for you and you free up a great deal of time that you can be selling and making more money or you can dedicate to a hobby. You know, hobbies are are wonderful to have and when you are running a brokerage you're married to it you're married to any business you know but you have a lot more free time that you can use for your retirement and and see where you know God

brings you and on that note as you look ahead having made this transition and you know maybe you're looking ahead for the next year a couple years whatever what is the future hold for you what does it look like because I know you're a go gutter, but there's also like a balance to that. So I'm just curious what that looks like for you. So for me, I have taken my extra time and devoted it to ministry. And so that is what my goal was is I wanted to be more in ministry and I didn't have the time to put into it. And so I have balanced it with more ministry and selling again, which has been a refreshing time again to be able to meet back with people and I can still help my agents but I can say hey you know so-and-so

Shelby over there can help you do XYZ or you know Allie can help you do XYZ and I don't have to focus on on being the all in all and so yeah for me it's going to be ministry extra time that's amazing I love that so much for you because there's a lot of people just get so in the weeds with with you know just the grind it's just the grind it's just the grind every day until they croak, you know, and now you're getting time back for yourself. You're more, you're profitable. You have time. Your agents are making money.

Oh man. Heck yeah. I'm proud of you. Heading to our wrap up questions, Bobby. What events are you going to this year? So I'm going to two that I know of. Usually I go to the state meeting, but this year I have decided to skip a year only because I wanted some more time for the ministry.

Just the year though, because I love the state meetings. You learn so much and you great, so much do so. But I'm going to the EXP Con and then I'm going to Five Pillars. I don't remember what it's called, but it's a Five Pillars Retreat. Brite. Brintree. Yes. It's like our favorite event.

And so those are my two. That's perfect. I love that. Yeah, because the Five Pillars Retreat, we're just piecing together. Of course, we have the lodging booked. It's that, like, amazing how those two like mansions right next to each other on the lake in Lake Norman outside of Charlotte. And I was so excited when you were like, yeah, I'm coming. Me and my husband are going to come.

I was like, yes. So yeah, totally my favorite event. I also love that you're going to EXPCon. And we talk about this stuff all day, every day. So again, if you have any questions, if you're listening to this and you are maybe an agent that's part of a brokerage who is maybe considering switching and partner with ex P, send this to your broker owner. So this is somebody that you think that could help reach out to Bobby.

She's here for it. We're here for it. Hope you have a great day. Thanks for listening to The Agent Goldmine, be a bro, and share this show.