No Broke Months For Salespeople - How You Can Increase Sales in 12 Months While Working Less - Jordan Terrell

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Jordan Terrell is a Real Estate Coach and Founder of Community. He has built an enviable real estate business, selling more than 1,400 homes and over $850 million in volume. Jordan's leadership, passion for real estate, and unique business insight set him apart. His approachability and dedication to client and team success further distinguish him as a trusted industry professional. Join us in this episode as Jordan discusses how he sold 77 homes in 12 months, working 4 hours a week.Here  is how you can find Jordan:InstagramYouTubeOne-on-one with JordanYou can email Jordan at: [e-mail] 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

You can't just walk in and say, I'm going to do everything. You have to introduce yourself as we work this way. This is my role. This is this person's role. This is this person's role. And they're really gifted at this. I'm really gifted at that. And I would say that, yes, I had to give up a lot of commission to do that.

But making 500 grand on four hours a week is a really good ROI. 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. Jordan Terrell is a real estate coach and founder of Community. He has built an enviable real estate business, selling more than 1,400 homes and over $850 million in volume.

Jordan's leadership, passion for real estate, and unique business insights set him apart. His approachability and dedication to client and team success further distinguish him as a trusted industry professional. Join us in this episode as Jordan discusses how he sold 77 homes in 12 months, working four hours a week. My name is Dan Roshan. 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 Jordan Terrell, and we're going to talk about how you can increase your sales in the next 12 months while working less. He's got a passion for real estate and his unique business insight, which you're going to learn a little bit more about, really sets him apart.

Jordan, welcome. How are you, sir? I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. Really good to be here. My pleasure. So tell us about Jordan. So you've been in real estate sales for a relatively short period of time, I guess is all perspective. But I mean, for everything that you've created, you've done that quickly. So tell us about the journey into real estate sales and maybe even before that. What should we know? Yeah, I got into real estate. I got licensed in the end of 2017. So I've been in a little over six years. And I've always been in a leadership role. So I've built a lot of different organizations, nonprofits, churches, things like that. And so I have a leadership background. So building people and building organizations is something I have a lot of experience in. Real estate was new, at least on the license side.

I started investing in real estate probably 15 years ago. So when I decided to change careers and jump into real estate, real estate just was a natural next step for me. And thought I was going to get into investing, got licensed, but I would focus on the investment side of things that I realized you needed money to invest. So I started selling homes and then I realized that selling homes was an inefficient model doing this by myself. So I built a team. Got it. Yeah. So you realize the ability to be able to scale and get the right people around you allows for you to have more effect than doing a million

and one things over a 24-hour period. Is that what I understand you're saying? Yeah. Well, I think the only other career on the planet where you're the jack of all trades, you do everything, you're the salesperson, you're the accountant, you're the admin, you're the doer, you're the everything is a handyman. Anyone who makes the kind of money we do in any other industry has a team around them. And so for real estate agents that think they're really good at everything is foolish to me. So I think the customer experience, the real estate agent experience,

the family attached to the real estate agent experience, everyone wins when you work with other people. Yeah. And of course it has to be the right other people. I think that that goes into maybe, not maybe, but it comes into like a limiting belief of some agents when they hear somebody like you or I say that, which is, yeah, but nobody cares like I do. And all my clients, they want me, they want me to do everything. What do you have to say about that? Well, I think that your clients, they work with everyone else that way. Why wouldn't they work with us that way? That's like saying that when we go to a restaurant, we demand the waiter cook our food. Or when we go to the doctor, we demand the doctor to take our temperature and get our weight and take our insurance payments. We don't. We work with other people at every other profession, except for

handymen. And we expect the handyman to do everything, but we're not handymen. And that's fine. So I think when people say that to me, I'm like, why would they do that? That's in your head, because in their head, they're used to it it as long as you set them up correctly to understand how it works you can't just yeah you can't just walk in and say i'm going to do everything and then surprise there's this new person that's now you know working with you you have to introduce yourself as we work this way this is my role this is this person's role this is this person's role and they're this person's role. And they're really gifted at this. I'm really gifted at that. And so that's what we do.

That's what I coach my agents to do is to present themselves and use the analogy of a doctor and say, when you're working with me, I'm going to be involved at the time of negotiation, writing offers, and solving problems. But you're going to be working with my team and introduce team member, team member, team member along the way. And this person is going to do this and this person is going to do this. And quite frankly, it's a model that's allowed me to scale. In my last year in production, which was 2022, I sold 77 homes working four hours a week. And I would say that, yes,

I had to give up a lot of commission to do that. But making 500 grand on four hours a week. And I would say that, yes, I had to give up a lot of commission to do that, but making 500 grand on four hours a week is a really good ROI. Yeah, it's not a bad career there. So one of the things that I sort of give my team a hard time because one of the, and I'm happy for this, when I go to closing, because I'm still in production, and when I go to closing, the number one thing that I get from our clients is, Dan, your team was amazing. And I'm like, yeah. And I will always walk out of there just chuckling to myself, like, wait, someone's going to say I'm amazing. But I just say that in jest. When I hear that, I'm really, really grateful because I believe, as I know you do, Jordan, that when you get the right people in the right place, you can provide a level of service that exceeds the client's expectations to a level that they never would have even imagined. But you have to communicate up front, communicate through the process, let them know, hey, I'm going to be doing negotiations.

I'm here with you through the entire process. And not only am I here with you, but here's these other additional resources as well. So, Jordan, so you within five years got yourself out of production. And I know you've done that through scaling, through, you know, through growing a team of people and getting a portion of the revenue through that. But what would you say through your journey is the biggest mistake? What's the biggest mistake you've made in your real estate career? Well, I think first and foremost, I think people need to hear that the goal of starting a team wasn't to get out of production. The reason I got out of production wasn't because I'm just getting paid so much money by my team. Getting out of production actually cost me quite a large decrease in pay. Because it's really hard to lead agents, lead staff, and lead clients. And I just, quite frankly, enjoy the leadership of staff and agents more than I do the clients. And so I was willing to take a decrease in pay so that I could have the sanity and the freedom of my time.

And it just worked better with my family. So financially, it wasn't the greatest decision. But from a family standpoint and from a quality of life, it wasn't the greatest decision, but from a family standpoint and from a quality of life, it was the best decision I could have made. And so I actually really like what I'm doing right now. And I'm just coaching agents and serving people and building systems and things like that. So I want to say that because I think a lot of people might fear that and make the biggest mistake of their real estate career. So I want to make that clear. As far as my biggest mistakes, I would say working with people longer than I should have, hanging on to

staff, hanging on to agents. I have a couple agents right now that used to be on my team. And now I run a mastermind in my market with some of the top team leaders. We're all really good friends and I started this mastermind. And so what happens is sometimes there's an agent on the team and they leave one of the teams and they go to the other team in the group.

And we've kind of built a pact of like, hey, we're just going to take care of these people and we're not going to poach each other's people. But if someone needs to leave and someone has a better fit. Well, anyway, I have two agents that were on my team and they weren't doing well. It wasn't a good fit. They're absolutely killing it on these other teams. And I just think that there's times where we hang on to people because we're either too nice or we're scared of losing their production or we're scared of hurting feelings or we're doing things.

And I've held on to people way too long. And not only does it hurt me, it hurts them in the long run. And so I think being more decisive and when I know, when I see a spade isn't spade, I'd be to call it. I think people are who they are in the beginning. That's who they're always gonna be.

Like people reveal their cards pretty early. Like this is my personality trait. This is my motivation. This is my drives. And we have to decide really early, are we a good fit? And if we're not a good fit, then it's just going to be painful for a long time. 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.

Yeah. One of the things I do in hiring is I, I, I don't hire, I, I, I audition, you know, so, you know, if I'm working with an agent and they, and they want to work with, with my, with my sales network, I say, Hey, come on in, work with me for a week, two weeks, three weeks, whatever. Come in and you do the activity of what we do. And it works. The way we make sales, it works. I guarantee you it works. Now, does it work for you or not?

I don't know. Yet, if you come in and work with us for a couple of weeks, at the end of that couple of weeks, if it seems like we're a good fit, then let's talk about it. You know, and I've only gotten burned on that one time because another piece of that I say is, look, if you actually I'm such I got burned on that twice. If you go and you take a piece of business from me and don't and then and don't pay a referral fee because I'm not even going to sign a referral agreement, then that would be the best amount of money that I've ever spent to not get into business with the wrong person. And of all the years that I've done that, it's happened to me two times that somebody got business while they were working with me for those couple of weeks, closed it and, you know, never paid a referral fee on it.

I'm just like, I'm good with that. I'm OK with, you know, because I don't I want to be in business with people with integrity, you know, that paid a referral fee on it. I'm just like, I'm good with that. I'm okay with, you know, cause I don't, I want to be in business with people with integrity, you know, that fit the culture. Right. Right. Yeah. Matching personalities is the big deal and understanding the, the, the quality of different personalities. I think the thing, when it comes to agents saying, Hey, leverage doesn't work or my clients want me. It's this mindset of everyone's got to be like me to build something. Or in order for anyone to like me, they have to be like me. And I have salespeople on my team that I remember when I first was hiring other agents, I genuinely thought that if they weren't wired like me,

they probably wouldn't succeed. And then one by one, I started watching these different people with completely different wiring succeed in this business. And so it's more about your ability to be yourself and be genuine and connect with people than it is about your personality. But once you step into that

and you start building a team around you, you have to build the right people around you. So I'm a hundred percent galvanizer, innovator. I'm a big idea person, not a details person. And I need administrators around me. I can close, I can get people to sign on board, but I need details around me. But I have another one of my top agents. She's extremely administrative. And so the way we're building around her is we're bringing salespeople around her because she can sell, but she's not energized by selling. She's energized by getting things organized. And so I think that everyone needs to understand what they're really good at.

And more importantly, what they're not good at. If they can understand what they're not good at, they can back in and fill that in. And their whole life is going to be much better. Because when we're doing what we love, we're energized. And when we come home, we feel present. When we're doing the things we're not good at, we're drained and we come home not present and that's when our lives start to be burned out.

That's my experience. So besides the things or maybe, you know, expanding on the things that we've already talked about, how can you increase your sales in 12 months and work less? So here's a model that we've played out at a high level that we've been doing now for, I started this model in 2020 and built it out. And essentially it's an agent partner model. And so I, the idea is that you bring on a new agent to become your agent-partner. And it's really important that they are a personality fit, that they're the right agent.

It's not any agent. It's not someone just with a license that upholds. It's like their personality has their drives as the match your drive. Their work ethic has the match your work ethic. And really, the way I look at it is I can put an agent into production and hope they go well. That's like me sticking a marble on a table and saying, go, roll, roll across the table. And it just sits there. Versus me taking a marble and

putting it back on the slingshot, pulling it back and then launching it. The agents, they might not be, there might not be as much upside for them on each transaction, but if I pull them next to me as my partner, they're going to get their PhD by working alongside of me really fast. So that's the launch. So Rachel, one of the agents on my partner, they're going to get their PhD by working alongside of me really fast. So that's the launch. So Rachel, one of the agents on my team, she came to me as a new agent and I put her on as an agent partner. And what that looks like is I pay her a $3,000 a month salary and I give her 5% of every transaction that I do. I give her roughly 25% of any transaction she does.

And keep in mind, we're still paying the team the split that we normally pay. So I'm giving up some of my upside and I'm paying a salary. So I'm committed about $36,000 out of pocket. The 5% roughly equals about another $36,000 to her. And if she does any of her own deals, it could likely end up to be another $36,000. So she could make up to $100,000 in her first year. And so what ends up happening is that for an agent to do out of the gate with no leads and no team, for an agent to do 70 deals, it'd take them 10 years. On Rachel's first year, she got 70 transactions under her belt walking by my side. Well, she becomes leverage. She becomes my assistant. She becomes my showing agent. She

becomes my whatever I can't be so that I can maximize my time. Well, year two, I promoted her out of agent partner because I called it intern is really what it is. I promoted her from intern to agent partner. So agent partner is now, I don't give her a salary. I just give her 15% of my commission and she gets 35 of hers. I get 15 of hers and she gets 15 of mine. But naturally, and if it's a company lead,

all company leads are mine. She can only bring her sphere to the table. And if she brings her sphere to the table, I get 15 of hers. So what ends up happening is I give her more responsibility of my production and then I hire another partner. So now at this point, I'm giving up 15% and 5% and paying three grand.

Really, I'm only getting to keep about 45% of my commission, but my time invested in my own personal production is buyer consultations and listing consultations only. At that point, I'm only meeting with the buyers on the first meeting and meeting with the sellers on my first meeting, and then with the sellers on the first meeting. And then they take it to the closing table. If there's a fire, if there's like a huge, like unique thing that they can't solve, obviously I jump into it. And so we've, we've created this model and I mean, we've got to dial it to the point where we create a text thread with me, the two agent partners and our assistant, which is our follow-up boss number.

So anytime there's a question, it goes to that text thread, which means it gets recorded in follow-up boss. And so at some point they might have a problem and they text me on the side and say, Hey, we Jordan, we need you to help. And so I go back in and I look at the notes and I'm trying to see what's going on. And then I call the client and I'm like, hey, here's what we're going to do. Here's how we're going to solve the problem. But meanwhile, I'm focusing on other things. I'm focused on investments. I'm focused on my family. I'm focused on whatever I want to focus on. But my production didn't dip at all. So that's how I would encourage any agent that wants to scale and get their time back and make more money, is that's how you do it. You put more hands to work on your business.

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 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. What would you say has been a mistake that you made implementing that model, if any?

So I've helped other agents do it. And I nailed the partnership model with me, like the right match, the right agent. I've helped other agents do it. And I underestimated how important it was to match with the right agent. So I took a top producer on my team and I said, hey, I got this brand new agent. This guy, this gal looks hungry. I think you should take him on as your partner. And then they got excited and they jumped right into it. And it was a disaster. Six months in, my top performing agent is like hating his life and like almost wants

to quit because they got assigned a problem, like a mismatch. And so that's my biggest mistake. And what I would coach people is take every personality profile possible. Like, and you just have to know how to lead people. If you don't know how to lead people, this model is going to really be challenging for you. Like this person becomes an employee of mine. Like more or less a W2. I tell them what to do, when to do, how to do.

And versus a 1099, it's really hard to do that. What's your definition of leadership? You say you have to lead people. Tell us more. Oh man. I think, I think leadership first is, uh, is the willingness to go first. Um, secondly, it's caring more about the people you're leading than, than what you carry more about their outcome than your outcome. And I think, am I willing to go first so that they can win?

And I think that's leadership. And so am I willing to sit down with them and say, hey, I've gone first. I want you to win. I'm willing to have a hard conversation with you, not because I'm mad at you because I love you. So I can love you to success or I can love you to failure. And so loving you to failure is not saying anything. Loving you to failure is not being honest. Loving you to failure is letting you make mistakes and not calling it out. So loving you to success is saying, Hey, you made a mistake. Let's fix it. Hey, I need you to hear it this time. You're late. Hey,

I need you dressed appropriately. You're not dressed appropriately. Like it's, it's all the little things that, that is important. The other thing I would say that that's a big deal here is your willingness to let people fail. You're never going to grow anything if the people around you can't fail. Because if they can't fail, because if they fail and you yell at them and come down on them, then they're going to be scared to try without your leadership first. So if you want to empower them to fail, like, hey, you're going to go do this and you're going to probably fail. You're going to miss the appointment. You're going to not convert the deal. You're not going to close it. And I want you to feel it. And I want you to learn it. I want you to go to the university. Your tuition is missing out on the opportunity.

Your tuition is missing out on that $18,000 commission. That is your tuition. Please go to school and pay attention, take notes and learn from it. And my ability to let that happen, I mean, that's costing me money too. Like I just, that's your, that's your investment into them. But you know, ultimately, hopefully you get a return on that. But I get what you say when you say you, you lose money also. That's your investment. But I think a lot of people in leadership, they, they're like, it's too costly for them to let them fail and lose them that money.

And they see it as their loss. And that, that's why they can't grow, which is saying it as an investment, like you just said. Like today, I had my transaction management team doing some stuff with our commission structures and they were supposed to do this thing and invest these dollars over here and they missed the deadline.

They didn't know the math on it. They really had to nail the deadline perfectly. And anyway, I basically caught it this morning. I said, Hey guys, that cost me $12,000. And I said, what can I do to communicate more clearly? Clearly I didn't communicate. I have this thing where I assume everyone knows what I'm thinking. And so I didn't communicate. They can't read your mind and I need you. Yeah. And I said, so I made this mistake and I didn't communicate clearly.

You didn't listen clearly. Something happened. It lost us a lot of money. How can we fix it so it never happens again? And I'm okay with it. I'm not like losing my mind today, even though I lost 12 grand. I promise you it won't happen again. Yeah. Yeah. I think you it won't happen again. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's about, you know, when that happens. That's happened to me for sure. And not only just opportunity costs, but real costs, right? So it seems like that may have been even real costs. And that's your $12,000 tuition. Now, make sure you just got $12,000 of education because I paid for your tuition. Now, make sure you just got twelve thousand dollars of of education because I paid for your tuition. Right. And that's not it's not like it's not about me, but it's about it's about understanding to say, listen, I am here for you and I'm investing in

you and we just lost that money. But that's your tuition. So let's make sure that you, you got the education that, that $12,000 would buy. Yep. And it happens, it happens every day. And I think my, like I listened to our agents phone calls. I go in our CRM and I listen to their phone calls with their clients and I find situations where I'm like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe how you just took a $20,000 opportunity and lit it on fire because you just blew that phone call. And rather than getting mad, I'm like, hey, I want you to see what you did i played football in college and on um sundays we would have film day where we'd go in and watch film with the coaches and like the whole team's there and they would have like the projector shining onto this

big dry erase board and they would pause it and they would circle you like in the film and be like, what are you doing on this play? You're horrible. Never do this again. And like, you're kind of embarrassed and people are laughing like, like at you. And it's not about shape. It's about learning. And so I, I don't, I don't play the, our agents phone calls to the whole team, but I definitely will send them an email and say, hey, listen to this call again.

I just listened to it. At this point in the call, you should have turned left. You turned right. And here's why. Well, that's what makes you one of the things. That's really important. Yeah, that's one of the things that makes you a great leader, Jordan. Jordan, I know that you serve the Denver, Colorado area, and I know that you accept referrals from many of the real estate agents listening to this podcast right now. So if I'm an agent, I've got a referral for you. How do I get that to you?

Oh man, that's a great question. The best way is to send me an email at Jordan at realcommunity.com, realcommunity.com. Otherwise, just find me on Instagram, Jordan Terrell, at Jordan Terrell. But yeah, we serve the entire Denver Metro. So basically a 50 mile radius of downtown Denver. So pretty much everywhere. But yeah, where are most of your clients

that listen to this located? All across the country. Jordan. I love it. Thank you for your time today. Viewers and listeners, thank you for listening. And I want to wish you to have the best day of your life. Be grateful.

Make good choices. Go help somebody. And let's do one activity today to be able to help another person. So one thing to help somebody, I don't care what it is, go help somebody today. 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.

Hey, I just had the best 45 minutes interviewing Dan Rochon. He's from Virginia, right outside the DC area. He's been in a stable market for a long time. Within 18 months, he created so much success where he was actually able to buy the brokerage as a real estate agent. Dan is a leader of vision, focus, and passion. His enthusiasm is truly infectious. He just came out with a book for real estate agents to kind of help people pivot. We went through and talked about how to succeed in adversity, some of his big traits out there.