No Broke Months For Salespeople - How Relational Prospecting Can Help You in Your Business

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Keith Hinton is the Principal Owner and Operating Principal of two Keller Williams Realty offices in Virginia's Hampton Roads/Tidewater area, including Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and Newport News Peninsula.   Join us today to learn how Keith Hinton uses Relational Prospecting to sell 56 homes in his first year of business! To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check these links:Website: No Broke MonthsPodcast: No Broke Months for Salespeople PodcastInstagram: @donrochonxFacebook: Dan RochonLinkedIn: Dan Rochon

I'll give you three things, mindset, mindset, and mindset. Most real estate agents that fail, very, very few, very low percentage fail because of a skill issue. So yeah, it's mindset. Welcome to the No Broke Months for Real Estate Agents podcast. Working as a real estate agent can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling, but it can also be frustrating if you aren't making the money you deserve. So if you're ready to end the stressful cycle of working hard for no results, then get started with a proven step-by-step system so that every month is no broke months. Keith Hinton is the principal owner and operating principal of two Keller

Williams realty offices in Virginia's Hampton Roads slash Tidewater area, including Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and Newport News Peninsula. Join us today to learn how Keith Hinton uses relational prospecting to sell 56 homes in his first year of business. My name is Dan Grosjean. I'm the host of the No Broke Months podcast, which is a show for real estate agents to help you have no broke months. Thanks for joining me. Enjoy the show. Today, I am joined with probably one of my longest longest running friends real estate agent friends keith hitton who is the operating partner of several keller williams realties offices in the virginia hampton roads tidewater area and keith and i are going to talk to you about well keith's going to talk to you about i'll be i'll be riding along for the ride is how he used relational prospecting for his first year in business to sell 56 homes. And now through

many, many years, though, I don't know how many years those are. Well, he'll tell us here in a second. He's been able to evolve his business to a true, true business. And I'm going to ask Keith about like, where are you today? So what you're going to hear today is a journey of a very successful agent that starts with 56 homes in a prospecting way of relations to building a massive business. And I know that there are successes and peaks and valleys in that massive business, Keith, right? Because we all know how business is, right? So, Keith, welcome. How are you? I'm awesome, man. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm really excited. All right. I'm excited as well.

So, okay. So, first of all, because I don't know the answer to this question, because I think pretty much since I've been a real estate agent, I've either known of you or known you. How long have you been an agent for? So, I got my license at the end of 2005. So, basically right at 18 years now. So, getting old, buddy. I know it, man. I know it. We both have the same hairstyle. Yes, we do. All right. So if you listen to this audio, you'll just have to Google us just to know what this is

to get into the jokes if you can't see us visually. So all right. So 2005, do you remember? Well, I know you probably remember. I mean, what did you do before real estate sales? Yeah. So, I mean, just like expedited version. I grew up in Michigan. I went to college at University of Michigan that I tried to play golf professionally for a couple of years, about two and a half years.

So I met my wife in Virginia playing like minor league golf, like, you know, like, like semi broke golf type, right. You know, and so I was being housed out by a family that her family lived a couple doors down. She was going to Janus Madison university time. So, um, fell in love, dated long distance, got married in 2000. So located, you know, ended up in Virginia, uh, realized I was not headed towards making tens of millions of dollars on TV, play golf.

My wife very kindly helped me realize that. So I had to get out in the working world and start to support our family. So my first job, I sold room additions, like sunrooms, like glass enclosures for homes for about one year, about 11 or 12 months. And I would never want to do that for 20 years, but awesome sales experience, like got a career before really well and be able to close and stuff. So I'm grateful for that part of my journey. Then I went to work for a uniform company called Syntos selling uniform contracts for a couple of years. Then I went to medical supply sales,

which is what I kind of thought I was building a resume to doing. And I got into it. I just got into the wrong segment for me. I got into a segment that just really wasn't aggressive enough for me. And I just, I didn't find it fulfilling. So towards the end of 05, I was trying to think of what I wanted to do. And my little brother, who's now a Keller Williams agent in Chicago, but at the time was a golf pro up in New York. And he said, have you thought about real estate? I had a couple of investment properties about that time and enjoyed it. So I got my license and a 05. So this is going way back, right? So a lot of people listening to this won't have been in the industry, but that was like right after, right as it was kind of hitting the brakes from like the, the last, like really crazy time, extreme seller's market, you know,

et cetera, et cetera. And then it was pretty solid still for 2006. And then it got really tough, you know, for 07, 08, nine, 10, 11. Particularly, particularly in your area, for sure. Yeah. Hampton roads, Virginia. So the moral of that story is if you, if you want to grow up and be a PGA or a live tour pro, real estate may be in your future.

Yes, it's very possible. So the first year in business, 56 transactions. How's that? Yeah, so I jumped in, like I said, end of 2005. I mean, like right at the end. It's like 06 is my first year. I was like mid-November. That's when I got licensed.

So yeah, you know, I wasn't from our area. Knew very few people, handful of people through my in-laws and stuff. And so, um, and I was, um, at that time I, uh, I was, I had to make money. My wife had already stayed home with our first daughter for two years. She was a school teacher for a couple of years after we got married. And, um, this is like, I don't recommend this to anybody, but she was eight months pregnant with our second daughter. And we bought new construction. So again, this was back when you didn't even need to have a job. If you had good credit, no problem. You didn't have to have proof of income, assets, nothing. So we bought new construction that was going to be closing in April the following year of 2006. And our mortgage payment was going to be $3,800 a month.

It was only about a $400,000 house. But when you get a no-doc loan, it was like 8.5%. So in any event, so when I got in, I mean, like, I had to roll. Like, it's go time, right? So anyway, so I didn't have the luxury of waiting for people that I knew to maybe move. The other thing too, right. It's like everybody I knew at that time also knew that yesterday was my first day in real estate. So it doesn't mean they're going to trust me with their largest asset just because they know me. So anyway, so I realized right away that I got to

get in front of people that are mentally in the game, like they're about to do something, whether they know me or not. So I called on fizzles, expireds, withdrawals, did open houses. And I make the joke that somebody was in a 20 mile radius. If they were thinking about buying or selling, somehow I'd find out about it. And so I worked really hard for the first 90 days, I legitimately probably worked 90 hours a week. I was in the office by 7 a.m. cranking out thank you notes, et cetera. Anything I could do before was kind of appropriate to be able to call people, hopped on the phone, prospected, set appointments. I don't know how, but I made it home for dinner almost every night. And then I went back to the office for a couple hours and cranked out more stuff because I knew I wouldn't do it very well if I was sitting in it so um yeah so but so the makeup of the 56 houses um I used to teach a class on it so I had all this data but it was

probably I mean 45 were people I didn't know in any um probably almost half of them were fizzles and expireds and then another chunk that were like sign calls and people that came into open houses from you know spin-off business from those then a little bit of word of mouth but not much netorship sort of uh i i heard a coach once say this and i don't agree with it but i he called it the maserati strategy of uh sales which is um go buy a maserati and then you have to succeed to be able to keep that car um so it seems like you you had a little bit of that going on there i mean not that you went you know explored but you had your family in eight months you know so so you and you even said you're like i'm not sure if i recommend this

please don't go do that. I mean, like this random guy on a podcast one day said it's a good idea. Yeah, I don't recommend that. Yeah. All right, cool. All right. So then, yeah, I want to fast forward today, but I don't want to, there's several steps in between then and this year.

So I know that you, at some point you got into leadership, you bought a brokerage and then several brokerages. And I know you've sold some brokerages and got into leadership, you bought a brokerage and then several brokerages, and I know you've sold some brokerages and you partners, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So how long were you an agent before you got into like, call it a leadership capacity? So in 2007, I was just, you know, selling more and more. It's like I said, I sold 56,006. I was little, was doing a little bit more in 2007. And so I didn't even know what I didn't know, but I started to like learn a little bit about growing a team and, you know, mortgage and title and things like that. And so the company

that I was with, super nice people. I really enjoyed them. It was a traditionally structured type of company. And so one day I just realized, you know, I love all the people here, but this just isn't an entrepreneurial enough setting for me. Like it just doesn't fill my book. Right. And, and so, um, so I started to look around, you know, quite a bit. And I looked way into the model of both Remax and Keller Williams at the time. And, um, I ended up, uh up joining Keller Williams in the fall of 07. And as I was joining, I'm kind of like a business nerd. I just really love learning about business structures, et cetera. And so their business model really intrigued me. And so as I was joining,

I asked somebody, I was like, how do you start one of these things? What is, because I was learning more and more about it. This is really cool. So, um, somebody gave me the information to contact the Virginia regional leadership ownership and stuff. So anyway, so in oh seven, when I joined Keller Williams, by that time, I'd already agreed with the region. Like they were going to give me a shot to try to recruit enough people to launch an office. And so we officially launched the office that I'm sitting in right now. Um, wasn't not the original location, but the, this franchise, um, in, uh, so our official launch date was October of 08. So that's interesting because that's when the actual market crash happens. So, but, uh, luckily everything's worked out really well. Um, over the years I've, uh, been the operating principal and or primary owner of two or three Keller Williams offices. Most of the time, we started a second one, different set of partners.

But in 2011, in Newport News, Virginia, then I ran one in Virginia Beach. Now, I'm part of the ownership of two of them, one in Chesapeake, the one I'm sitting in, and then one in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. So, now it's old. I think that's partly what you're asking so i got into leadership like 0708 and i continued to sell very actively through 11 so for six years for 2006 through 2000 the very end of 2011 january 1st 2012 kind of talked about it like almost as if to be funny as if it's an addiction i stopped cold dirty i stopped selling real estate, cold dirty,

never sold another house ever from January 1st, 2012. So for the last 12 years, I have not been on the sales side. And then I just recently started a team, which I'm sure we'll get to, but yes. That's funny, Keith. I quit leadership, cold Turkey. I don't know. I don't know which one's the start of the debate. It's interesting because you and I have had parallel careers, but we've been, you know, parallel but a little bit different, you know,

because I never gave up the sales. And I became an operating partner, I think, in April of 2009, so maybe five or six months after you. So you and I were both in that same boat of, Oh, did the market just crash? Sounds like a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny when people think this is a hard market, which this market does have its challenges, but I mean, 2009 and 10, I mean, it was rough. It was tough. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

So I was actually asking you that Keith, because I'd like to ask you. What is the one thing is you have tons of experience. I was really just sort of laying the foundation so that the audience can understand the credibility that you have, which is huge. And I know that. Right. You know that. Of course course you're humble, right? But what if you had one thing that you say, I've learned this through all my years of experience, that is the one thing that real estate agents, if they could just do this, their lives would be different. They would have a different legacy, a different trajectory of their careers.

What would that be? Yeah, I'll give you three things. Mindset, mindset, and mindset. All right. I love it. So it's about leaving first, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I love this. I love this conversation. I love this subject. Most real estate agents that fail, I mean, very, very few, very low percentage fail because of a skill issue. It's because they couldn't get out of their own way. They couldn't get their mindset, right?

It's, you know, it's not, um, it's not, I mean, our industry is, uh, it's just not one. I mean, like, I'm not going to go play in the NBA. Like there's a limit you know that like very small amount of people can't communicate well enough to sell real estate it's it's because they didn't believe in themselves the you know to the extent they needed to they viewed things as glass half empty all the stuff you know so yeah it's mindset. All right. Thank you for that, for those nuggets. So let's fast forward to today. So today you are now, you're still in leadership, but now you've also started a team and you're

putting a ton of money into it, a big investment into it. Obviously the experience that you have, except for describe to us, what is your, not the brokerage, what is your sales team look like today? And then if you could, I'm going to ask for you to describe it. Let's start with like step one. When did you decide to start the team? Like what caused you to do that? What was your first step, your second step? And then where are you today? So as far as how I decided to start it, kind of neat. We'll work Christmas. A friend of mine in Philadelphia reached out to me one time. I'll actually plug them, Steve and Lindsey Soprani.

They've got a great company that's related to their, it's called Soprani Consulting, but they're headhunters. I mean, they do consult, but they also act as a headhunter for ops people on real estate team, team leaders for KW offices and stuff. And they're some of my favorite people. So he texted me randomly one morning and it was super nice. Like I woke up to it. I was like, I just really appreciate our friendship, you know, and stuff. So I called him back a couple hours ago and told him how nice that was. And so he asked me at the time, have you thought about

getting into any form of coaching? Would you be possibly interested in coaching me? And that so I don't know, people would ask me that from time to time along the way. And I don't know. So he just got me at the exact right time. And over Christmas, you get a little bit of downtime, right? Just kind of think, you know, you're not doing as much right. So, um, so anyway, I started to think, all right, like, um, maybe I should take a look at that. So fast forward a little bit, a couple months later, I started a coaching company, which is very small, but it's to serve agents that do 100 plus units. So that have teams, you know, and so, which I'm really enjoying. So then a couple months after that, it just dawned on me one day, and I'm diving into these people's worlds every day, you know, trying to figure out how to help them out.

I should just start my own real estate team where I live too. Number one, it's a profitable business. I mean, it's, um, and then also it'll make me that much better to help them out. Like I'm in the grind with, so to speak. Right. So, so that was a lot of, and in transparency, you know, the, the brokerage game, it's still good. I'm still very grateful for it, but I'm not making the same amount of income from at the brokerage game, it's still good. I'm still very grateful for it, but I'm not making the same amount of income from at the brokerage level that I was five or six years ago. So part of it is an income component, but I'm really enjoying it. I mean, I'm glad I did it even if it wasn't an income component. I mean, I'm really enjoying it. Excuse me for interrupting my own show. You are freaking amazing. And because you're amazing, I'm going to ask for a quick favor.

It'll just take you 30 seconds for you to leave a favorable five-star rating or review on your favorite platform. Then what I'll do is I'll enter you into a raffle where we can meet 45 minutes for a free coaching session. And I'll also give you a copy of the book, Real Estate Evolution, which is the 10-step guide to CPI, consistent and predictable income. Oh, by the way, I'm the author of that book. So if you'd like for me to coach you, give you some nuggets and help you in your business, go ahead and leave a review and

you can enter into the monthly raffle to win. Okay, so what was your first step? So you had the idea around Christmas to start coaching, and then several months after that, you said, hey, wait, I could do this, and it will make me a better coach. So when you decided to start the team, what did you do first? Yeah, so I think I think you gotta go back to like February March April when I'm starting to think about it I just um yeah I thought okay I I want to start a team I want to like kind of feel like there's some business principles and

practices of the business world that are often applied to real estate, you know, for some reason, I thought, huh, if I could kind of apply some of those and I'll kind of elaborate in a minute that that would help a lot. And I just, you know, I'm assuming most people that are listening to this have heard of the Millionaire Real Estate Agent book. And so basically I was kind of like, all right, what if I kind of started a seventh level team day one is the concept, right? To where I'm not in the field, et cetera, et cetera. And one of the business principles that I'm talking about is that, I mean, I want to be responsible with the money, but most of the time when people start a small business,

they set aside some money, they put it into a venture, they lose money for a bit. And then, so, you know, I mean, I don't want to- And then hopefully they make it know, I mean, I don't want to, and then hopefully they make it right. Exactly. Exactly. Um, I'm not looking to lose, lose money long-term, but it's like, I feel like in real estate, somehow we think, Oh no, the only way to, to start a business and build a team is that you've got to be making money the whole way along the way you need to go sell on your own first, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe I'll find out that is the case. But I thought, I feel like I can challenge that.

That's not the way most businesses in America are started. And so I started by, I was working on stuff and so then building out the model and stuff. And then so my first hire at the end of April was my director of operations, shout her out, Tiffany Christian. She's awesome. And so she came on last week of April. And so we worked together through May. On June 1st, we absorbed a team that joined us. One of my best friends, Garrett Maroon and his agent, Jesse Hutchison. So they joined us. Garrett, who's awesome, is getting into more of what you're doing right now, more podcasting and coaching and things like that. So they joined. They're really productive. They do 60 to 80 transactions per year on their own. And then three agents, team members as well. Dan Matter, Tracy Caddy, and her husband, Chris Caddy. And then we also have a transaction coordinator based out of Atlanta. And we have an ISA, a full-time ISA.

So that's kind of how we... So most of it, we did most of that July 1st. A couple of the other hires were last coming up. What would you say is the key ingredient to that sauce uh defining the talent is that what you're asking no um well we'll get i'm interested in that as well um but you found talent i mean you know hope you know i'm assuming that it sounds like they're you know all talented people yeah what is your um like now that you have this group of people who are presumably a team of people, what holds that team together? If you were to say there's like one component in that team, that's like a vital like keystone, who would that be or what would that be?

Yeah, culture is so important uh everybody on our team i mean we have really good human beings i mean everybody on on our team for sure i would say hey let's go grab a beer for a couple of hours or so and then and look forward to spending time you know and they feel that way about each other i was uh i can't remember where it was i was out of town a couple weeks ago and they sent me pictures of this impromptu happy hour they all had together. And I had FOMO because I was like, oh man, I wish I was there and stuff. So they're doing that without my direction or encouragement. They truly enjoy being around each other. Everybody cares about each other's families. They want to make sure that things are a win-win, you know, both, both ways, agent side,

operation side. So yeah, finding great people, what I would say is the key in my opinion. And what's your, so how do you find great people? Yeah. Credit to Keller Williams. I've learned a lot from like the career visioning process, which of course you'd be familiar with. Yeah. I've learned a lot over the the career visioning process which of course you'd be familiar with um yeah i've learned a lot over the years that i mean back when i first started a team which was i tried to even get a team start a little before i joined kw so back in like 06 no idea what i was just kind of like so i didn't know how to hire and all those type of things so um you know kind of some of the stuff that i'm sure a lot of people would already think of but you know dive not rushing diving deep finding multiple candidates, taking your time,

making sure you think of all the what ifs, right? And of course, you're still not going to, you're going to have turnover every now and then you'll come together with someone and it won't be a, you know, down the road. But if you do it quickly, it's really highly likely it won't be a fit. Like if you make decisions out of urgency. And so, yeah, going through, you know, all the steps to really get to know each other and relational. It's funny, we started talking about maybe touching on relational prospecting,

like relational hiring. Yeah, you know, let me ask you, you know, it's really, really interesting because we have so many similarities, but we also, it's almost like we have like this parallel where we're not like intersecting in some areas, right? For me, the biggest challenge that I've had through the years is really that hiring component. And today, God willing, I either have an eight, nine, or a 10 in every single role within

the team, if you, you know, or I have a zero, meaning like there's nobody in that role. Okay, so that that to me, all right, so that to me, it's like, okay, I feel really good about that. Now, there's still some, some places where I have to, you know, find the right person. And I was having this conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. And she was like, well, what makes you such a great hire? And I'm like, no, I'm actually, I sort of suck at hiring. At best, I get it 50-50. I said, but what I do is I would say I'm a better retainer, right? And so it's like, if I'm at the best, and I've gone through the career visiting and the recruit select and, you know, all that training, and I thought I was pretty good at it. But what I really realized is at best, I'm going to get a 50-50.

But the difference, I think, of building a really, really successful team versus not is having the discipline to quickly get out of relationships with the 50% that you make the mistake of. Now, maybe you're better than 50-50. I don't know. I bet you are. But that's been sort of my experience. Yeah.

I mean, I've certainly made good hires along the way and poor ones. I have gotten better at it. You know, like over the last five years, my percentage of hires, I like using the word hire. It's like, I feel like I'm partnering with people and like, yeah. So over the last five years, certainly a way higher percentage of people have worked out. It's been successful. We've been together long,

longer term than like, you know, in the first five years that I got, it was just like everybody else. There was a time where I was a pretty good salesperson and literally didn't know anything about being a business person. So, I mean,

that's one thing I would suggest to people that if there's trouble that don't beat yourself up too bad, like it's not, we're not born with business aptitude. I mean, we've got to acquire it. Make sure. So Keith just walked through something I'm going to give a sort of a template for. So you, you just said I was a pretty good salesperson and you already previously said that mindset, mindset, mindset is the difference between success and not success. So the way that I would framework that is if you think about like building a building and the basement of that building would be mindset, mindset, mindset. Then on top of that, the first floor is going to be sales. And when you master sales, you can make a lot of money.

Yet, if you want, and we take the word money and we can replace it with the word impact. Okay, because that's to be organization building, which is what we're talking about right now. And you can make a more significant impact, more money when you, when you build, when you understand how to build an organization. And then finally, and this is what I think Keith really, what you really excel, at least I perceived it, is in leadership. And that's the top floor. If you want to make an infinite impact or the most amount of money possible, then you have to learn leadership. And there's three different or four different skills right there when you break them apart. And one doesn't necessarily lead into the net. And so what I've learned is that you have to learn what go, you know, I have to learn the skill of

mindset. I have to learn the skill of sales, of organization building, and of leadership. And I'll leave it with this, and I want to hear your thoughts on this, Keith. My definition of leadership is to teach another person how to think so that they can get what they want. And I think just having that understanding of that definition in of itself makes you a better leader. And so I just want to make sure that I throw that out there as well. Keith, what are your thoughts about the way I framework that? Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. And it's, you know, people, we can make an impact in so many different ways, right? So and it's not, one's not better than another, you know, somebody can make a huge impact by doing whatever they do for a career

and just making a huge impact to their own family. Somebody can make it through a small team of five to eight agents if we're putting in the real estate frame. Some people are called to make an impact to lead a 100, 200, 300 person real estate sales organization maybe. And then you're a great example right now. You're making an impact to thousands, or I don't know how large your podcast, but I don't, maybe it's millions, you know? So, so in any event, I mean, there's so many ways, right? I mean, so actually like let's peel back the layer just for a minute of the mindset part. And this is all just stuff I made up. So, I mean, take it for what it's worth, but the way that I view mindset is, so I'm going to go one step, one layer farther back.

My few coaching clients, these teams, I've asked them, what do you think the largest assets that you have of your team? So of course, they'll give me all the normal answers, which aren't bad answers, but leads, operations staff, systems, things like that. All know, operation staff, you know, systems, you know, things like that. All these things are important, right? I'm asking the question to make it point. So what I say to them is in this order, the number one asset that your team has is the leader's mindset, which is I'm talking to the leader at that point. So is your mindset. Okay. Number one, number two is the leader's time. Okay. And they are definitely in that point. So is your mindset. Okay. Number one, number two is the leader's time.

Okay. And they are definitely in that order because if you don't have number one, you will misuse your time. Okay. So, so that's, so I'd say that then the next thing that they'll say, okay, so what makes up, how am I defining a great mindset? A mindset, a great mindset is two things, the willingness to think big, the willing to ask yourself, why can't I do that? Why couldn't I do that? Instead of constantly talking to yourself and limiting belief language, that's one, the willingness to think big. And then the second one, coming from a standpoint of abundance instead of scarcity. And that's where you could think big, but if you still are out to like, make use of everybody to your benefit and you're not, you're not open-armed and you're not a

fun and thinking that's not the mindset that I'm it's both. I love that, man. Thanks for breaking that down for us. Let's go back to the organization of your team. So I know that you have a little bit of a, um, not necessarily a traditional compensation model. Would you be willing to talk to, talk to us that you have a little bit of a um not necessarily a traditional compensation model would you be willing to talk to talk to us through about that a little bit yeah well yeah of course um and this might might be helpful for people that have thought about this

so i know we had dinner out too long oh by the way it's just great reconnected with it um so uh i you know one of the things that i thought about as I was starting this team, I was like, all right, normal business principles, what happens? People make a trade for security and stability of income and that type of thing. So I got to thinking there's probably some very talented people out there that would do really, really well in the real estate industry, but don't get into it because it's 100% commission and because of their perceived risk of it, et cetera, et cetera, right? So as you know, I started down the road of doing a W-2 salaried model, okay? Salary, it varies a little bit, but basically $60,000 base salary, and then percentage of commission obviously is lower than if the salary wasn't there. So it's 15% of a team-generated lead and 30%, this is to the agent, of a self-generated

lead, right? So blended over the course of the year with the expectation is that ultimately the cost of sales related to the agent, including payroll taxes and stuff like that, would be between 35% to 45% depending on how high of a producing person they are. So I have three agents that I recently, I'm going to change the model. I feel strongly about keeping my word. So I went to all of them and asked them if they would like to stay grandfathered in what they are.

They did choose to. So I found out it was appealing to people. What I did find is that I accidentally kind of shifted some money from our top performers and gave it to the people that are on the team for two, three, four months and don't make it, is what was happening by that. So what I'm doing now is I'm going to a model of 30% for a team lead, 50% for a self-generated lead on the first $300,000 of GCI in a year.

Then once they cross over that, they go to a 40% split on a team lead and a 60% split on a self-generated lead. And then that would start back over at 30, 50 every year. And then to factor in, to put in the stability of income standpoint, everybody will be on a $5,000 per month draw against that. So I'm still willing to take risk, but it makes a big difference in the numbers if it's too much to get into. You already know 87% of all real estate agents fail in this business. And you also know it doesn't have to be that way. If you're a real estate agent and you're looking for consistent and predictable income,

I invite for you to get your free copy of Real Estate Evolution, The 10-Step Guide to CPI, Consistent and Predictable Income for Real Estate Agents. And you can do so when you visit www.therealestateevolution.com. I'll share with you your book that I authored to show you the way. Thanks. So you've replaced the W-2 salary now with a draw. Yeah, yeah, with a 1099 set up, but with a draw. And part of it, quite frankly, actually a huge part of why I did it is because of the tax situation to it.

As a W-2, the payroll taxes over time will add up to a lot of eating away at profit, will impact profit a lot. And it's not just that, I'm learning stuff every day. So in 2018, apparently, they changed the tax codes to where a W-2 can write off essentially nothing. So our W-2 employee agents cannot write off their mileage. They can't write off if they take somebody to coffee or lunch or that type. We cover most anyway, quite frankly, but the mileage is big. So that's part of it too. So they can write off things they couldn't and so the payroll taxes don't kill me. What's your break-even point to make this compensation model work in regards to how many transactions closed and then walk us through like the journey the

sales journey of how many leads are you you gathering and then I know you have an ISA who's a really key component and then from there it goes to the agent how how long of the journey does the ISA take to work you know before it gets to the agent and then how many leads is the ISA take to work before it gets to the agent? And then how many leads is the ISA getting? And what are the numbers going through that funnel? All right. I think you asked about four questions. So let me see if I can remember them all. Yeah, but I know that you can follow me. I probably lost out the first, right? But you can follow me. The first one you said was the breakeven point was one of the things you talked about right there. So yeah, right now, I mean, this will evolve over time, but right now we're at about $25,000 a month pays for our CEO salary, director

of operations salary, the lead gen that we're putting towards, we're buying about $8,000 a month worth of sync leads. Oh, sorry. Put that to the side for a second. So $25,000 is the CEO, salary, director of operations salary. Some of the campaigns that we're running, which I told you about before we got started with like the agent referral campaign, there's a cost of that, right? So we have a monthly drawing for agents for $1,000. We have a monthly drawing for our database for $1,000. So those are all costs, right? So that comes to about $25,000. Then the way that we're framing it is like, or the way that we're kind of thinking about it is then we're basically adding pots of an ISA and a group of agents. Okay. So we have one pod right now. So the ISA costs us $40,000 base salary, and that is bonus, but the bonus is already

in the cost of sales, you know, so we already, we already factored that in. Um, and then, uh, and then, and then the, the leads fit. So we were just spending about $8,000 a month through now. So, so that pod on a monthly basis costs us $12,000 a month. And then after ISA bonus and after a little bit of like closing gifts and entertainment, you know, for the client, that type of stuff, we're then set up to average in our market about $6,000 is what it comes to in company dollar per unit. Okay. Now that would be more in Northern Virginia, of course, but so to answer your question, so we need about, um, so the, that pod, I hope this isn't too confusing, but that pod

you've got, so say we close six transactions, six transactions times $6,000 is 36,000 subtract the, the 12 that it costs us to run that pod, not the operational cost yet, but just that the ISA and the ad spend. So 36 minus 12 is 24. That pod would be making a profit of $24,000 a month, which basically is the break even point for those operational costs because they're about 25, right? So basically the first pod breaks us even. The profit from that first pod covers our operational costs. Then as we add on more pods, one ISA, two to four agents, depending on how much they want to do, and do six to eight transactions per month through each one, each one of those represents between $20,000 to $30,000 a monthly profit. So that's kind of the game. Let's make it simple though. How many units does an agent have to close

after their first 90 days to keep their job? Oh, so yeah, agent requirements are, they have to close one transaction per month self-generated. So from their sphere, open house activity, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Then after that, their next, I mean, they've got requirements to like attend meetings and stuff, but as far as production requirements after that, it's like, then the responsibility

shifts over to us. We're responsible for providing them leads after that one per month. Okay. So they have to close a minimum of 30% of the appointments that we set for them from Sink. Now, of course, not the set of all Sink leads. That'd be amazing. They run through our eye on sailing.

Like we're looking to close about one to one and a half percent of all the leads, but it's after they come to them as appointments, they need to close 30%, minimum standard 30%, goal of 50%. So, and then of course, when they go to to town, they have to close at a higher rate, like agent referrals, pretty much unless the person decides not to move to town, we expect them to close that. When they're getting the lead, is it just merely that they've expressed motivation and means,

or have they gone through some sort of consultation and already hired you? At what point do they get the lead? Yeah, so by the time it gets to the agent, we're pretty much, and we're learning every day on this stuff. So at one point we thought, okay, we can make sure they're pre-approved before we get them in front of the agent. We can make sure like this, this, this.

We realized, you know, we have rapport, but we're still just a voice on the phone. You know, that ISA is just a voice on the phone, you know, to that person. So now what we do, unless we share language that like really seems to make it seem like they're not going to be able to be financeable or that type of thing. We try to get the agent in front. We try to get the agent in front. Okay. And that, if that means, you know, quite frankly, our ideal scenario is that we get them out

to see us. Now, why is like the traditional mind says, like, be better to do a buyer consult in the office? Yes, it would be. The no show rate is higher for a consult in the office than to see us. They're excited to see a house, not to meet an agent at that point. You know, right. So then once we get the agent in front of them, that's when the magic starts to happen. Now they start to see that person as a real person. They start to see them as bringing them value and those type of things. So when the agent's going out to meet with them, basically, I mean, there's not a lot of pre-qualification, you know, from that standpoint yet.

So for every three that the ISA introduces to the agent, one should close? Yeah, so far that's where we are we have uh 26 appointments set so far and we've got four closed and then four in what the agent has defined as very like like this is headed towards quote they're active they're out in the car so that'd be eight of 26 was just a little bit over 30 my hope is is that, I mean, we want to err on the safe side on everything. My hope is that we'll be able to close more like 35 to 45%, but even at 30%, it works. It's profitable. Yeah. You plan for the worst and then you drive for the best. Absolutely. Yeah. You mentioned about your Zoom drawing that you do monthly. So I know that you host a Zoom meeting for agents as well, and then also for your database.

Can you share a little bit more about that with us? Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for the plug. Yeah, on that note, by the way, you know this about me, but I just love the collaboration. I mean, so anybody, whether it's now or at the end if you want me to share my contact information i mean when i say like reach out anytime anytime i mean i'd i'd love to send anybody our whole playbook whatever we're trying to figure everything out so it's don't don't just go do everything and know that we know what we're doing something like that right but um

but yeah so so anyway one of the things we do that's part of our playbook, we do this for our agent database as well. I mean, so when I say agent database, like our sphere, our team member sphere database. And then we're basically running a parallel play for agents across the country in the hopes that they'll refer business to us. So the basic strategy is that the agents across the country, they get an email a week. Of course, tons of them don't remember getting in stuff. The open rate is amazing. It's like 50%. But I don't know that they remember it a week later or whatever.

But then ultimately, on the fourth Thursday of every month at five o'clock Eastern time. So obviously for people out West earlier time and at five o'clock Eastern time, we do this thing we called our monthly zoom drawing. So we get on zoom for literally five minutes. We'll always offer to people, Hey, if you want to stay and hang out a little bit and just kind of introduce yourself to each other on it. Great. You know, but in the first five minutes, we literally hop on, say a little bit about, you know, we're out here in Virginia beach area. We'd love to handle any of your incoming clients. And then we tell them what our referral plan is, which I'll tell you in a minute. And then within five minutes, we draw for a thousand dollar piece of gift and hand that out every single, right. And so the hope is that we

can just get five minutes of FaceTime, you know, with people out there that might think it's right. And then, um, I know I've already told you this, but the referral plan itself, we're, I mean, we'll see how it works. We've got some already. Some people have already referred some stuff to us, but so it's, we love, it's our favorite source of business. So, um, when somebody refers something to us, we pay 30%, not 25. So we pay a 30% referral fee. And then we call it, it's our favorite source of business. So when somebody refers something to us, we pay 30%, not 25. So we pay a 30% referral fee. And then we call it, it's what we call our 30-15 model. So we pay them a 30% referral fee. Then we tag that person in our CRM to the agent, say you. So now that says Dan Rashad next to it. If that person ever does a second transaction with us,

it doesn't matter if it's five, seven years from now, we send you a second referral fee for 15%. So I'm really looking forward to that day when like somebody literally texts me and goes, this is super cool. I just got two grand. It's not expected, right? So that'll be it. So we do that. We do the thousand dollar a month drawing. And then the last thing we do is anybody that at the end of the year, any piece of closed business that was referred to us for, you know, if you send us three things, you'll have three entries into this. We do a drawing in mid-December so people can have a little spending money before Christmas and stuff. So it's third place $2,500, second place $5,000, and first place $10,000. So we want to encourage people to think about us and we'd rather share the money

that way. It's more fun than the idea of us buying a billboard, you know, or something like that to generate. So rather share with agents. So you got five minutes of time to be able to, you know, just say hi to Keith and you know, maybe winning a thousand bucks. That seems like a no brainer to me. I'm going to be there. I'm going to have, I'm going to have my kids there. Right. I mean, I only have one kid, right. But I'm going to ask her to bring her friends and I'm going to say, Hey, go get your real estate license. So we can go, we can go get a thousand bucks from Keith. That sounds like a

deal. It's been really fun. So we've done it three months now and it's just, it's super cool, right? Like one person, I mean, they're really excited. And we had a guy send us the nicest email that night. Just like, Hey, you know, I mean, this was really relevant to my family at this time. This is, you know, it was, it's really cool. It's, it's a great feeling as well. Keith, what's your, so how can somebody get in touch with you directly if they can't wait to give you a referral for the Hampton Roads area and they want to give you that referral and get that 30, 15, you know, be a part of that. How does somebody get in touch with you? Yeah. The easiest way is just so my, you can directly call me, text me,

et cetera. So my name's Keith Hinton. My phone number is 7 5 7 4 7 8 2 3 1 5 again, 7 5 7 4 7 8 2 3 1 5. And my email is Keith at realty group CV. That stands for coastal virginia.com. So, uh, Keith at R E a L T Y G R O U P C as in cat V as in victor.com. So yeah, and really, I know I said it already, but I'd love it if you reached out and refer some to it, but just reach out to say, man, I've been kind of trying to grow a team too. Can I pick a rate? I mean, anytime I'll learn as much from receiving that call as that person. And what I can tell you is I wouldn't,

yeah, I've known Keith for 15 plus years. I wouldn't endorse Keith if I didn't feel comfortable and confident that he's going to treat your referrals like gold. He will make sure his team updates you throughout the process. And most importantly, he's going to make you look good. And hey, it's a freaking awesome referral fee. Keith, thank you so much for joining us and sharing with us your wisdom. I appreciate you. I appreciate your friendship and consistent, predictable income. You have the best day of your life. Be grateful, make good choices

go help somebody and go help somebody god bless you thanks so much for listening to the no broke months podcast today until the next show i invite for you to be grateful make good choices help someone have the best day of your life and you'll find a listing. Dan, you are such a fascinating man. I mean, he has this purpose in life to help people achieve their dreams, their greatness. And he doesn't just say it. He actually has steps and mythologies in order for them to follow. Our very special guest in Featured Time of Your Day.

I cannot even sit in my chair. I'm so excited. Dan Rochon, all the way from beautiful Virginia. Dan, it's an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much for taking the time. And what I'm encouraging for you

is to focus on who you're being because that's your foundation. And when you focus on that, you're going to find that you do activities that are going to lead to the outcome of having whatever it is in this life

that you're looking for.