Latest / Massive Agent Podcast / The Path to a Billion $ Real Estate Team w/ Dan Lesniak

Transcript

The Path to a Billion $ Real Estate Team w/ Dan Lesniak · Massive Agent Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: On this episode, we're talking to a team leader that runs one of the largest teams in America to talk about how to build a team from scratch.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: When you're a solo agent, maybe you're just starting out in the business.
0:10
SPEAKER_02: Who's your first hire?
0:11
SPEAKER_02: Who's your second hire?
0:12
SPEAKER_02: How do you compensate them?
0:13
SPEAKER_02: How much?
0:14
SPEAKER_02: What does that look like?
0:15
SPEAKER_02: And then what's possible one day when you build this thing the right way?
0:18
SPEAKER_02: We're talking with Dan Lesniak, hyper fast agent, an agent who sold about 1,100 homes this last year on how to do it the right way.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: The massive agent podcast.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: The lead generated different strategies to give you more leads and sell more balls.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: I love to buy houses.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: I like to sell houses.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: I've got better.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh have I got your attention now?
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Here's your host, Dustin Brohm.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: What is up, everybody?
0:55
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to episode 246 of the Massive Agent Podcast.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: I am your host, Dustin Brohm.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: Glad to be back in Salt Lake.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: I spent the last uh what four days or so in Hawaii.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: I was in Honolulu with my team.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: We did an event there.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: They did an event there called Digital Agent.
1:12
SPEAKER_02: It was amazing.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Michael Reese was there.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: If you guys remember Jay Kinder, Michael Reese, Kinder Reese from back in the day, uh an absolute legend in the real estate industry.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: He was a speaker there as well.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: Nisa Ferris, Travis Ferris, it was just such a cool event.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: And it was in Hawaii.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: That didn't suck.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: And I was able to meet some of my team members that I haven't met in person since uh since they became team members because COVID kind of screwed things up with travel to Hawaii.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: So it was amazing.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: Had a great time.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: Even better when it's a business trip, you know what I mean?
1:45
SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna have to get out there again soon.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Hawaii is incredible, and I need to see the other islands, of course.
1:51
SPEAKER_02: So guys, great episode for you today.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: Today we have the hyper fast agent on the show, Dan Lesniak.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: He is the he he leads a team.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: He's uh the co-leader of a team, the Carrie Schull team in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia area.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: And they he said that they sold about eleven hundred homes last year.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: And that's 750-ish million in production, and they have about 80 agents and staff.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: About 55, 56 of them are agents, and the rest are staff.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: But obviously, he didn't start out that way.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: He started out as a solo agent trying to figure out how do I just get some clients to work with.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: And now they're selling billions and billions of dollars in real estate, you know, collectively.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: Um hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of homes, you know, over a thousand last year.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: And you can build to that.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it's possible.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: I now know many agents that are selling over a thousand homes every year.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: But they they ha you have to build things a certain way.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: First, it starts with some knowledge and understanding that these things can be done, and then it's understanding how can they be done, who do you hire first, second, third, you know, all of that.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: And that's what we're diving deep on today.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: We get into some specifics about salary and bonuses and and how to compensate your team members for how to how to scale in the best way.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: We talk about some of the mistakes that Dan made when he was growing, when he was first building that business.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: But another thing that you're gonna hear about is how he started make he started hiring before his first year as an agent was over.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: In his very first year as a realtor, he started making hires.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of you guys that I I know are not hiring, you're not growing, you're not building that team yet because you think you have to have a certain number of years in the industry first, or you have to have your broker's license, or whatever the hell.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: Like you have some excuse.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: No, you don't.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: You need to kind of understand the business and then build it.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: So hopefully, this is a very helpful interview for a lot of you guys with Dan Lesniak, hyper fast agent, team uh co-team leader of the Carrie Scholl team in the DMV area.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: Before we get started, got to give a shout out to Follow Up Boss, our partner for the show.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: Speaking of very large, very productive teams, follow up boss is the platform that the vast majority of these teams run on.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay, they're all using Follow Up Boss.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: And it's not just the large teams, okay?
4:21
SPEAKER_02: Solo agents, agents that are that are productive or want to be productive, that just need better organization.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: You need a mobile app so that you can input notes as soon as you leave a listing presentation.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: You want to do it right there in the driveway without waiting till later.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: You don't want to write it down on a on notes like on paper and then transfer it to your CRM later on.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: You just need a decent or great mobile app.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: Well, follow up boss has that.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: They have amazing systems.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: It it works and functions a lot like Trello.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: If you guys are familiar with Trello, it just makes sense.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: It's very user-friendly, and that's why it will become the CRM that you actually use and it has all the tools.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: So follow up boss 30-day free trial because you listen to the show.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: If you go to their website, 14-day trial.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: Because you're a Massive Agent listener, they're hooking you up with 30 days for free.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: They don't even want your credit card.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: All you need to do is go to MassiveAgent Podcast.com/slash follow up boss, take advantage of that right away.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: And speaking of right away, let's jump into the interview right now with Dan Lesniak, Hyper Fast Agent on how to build a team the right way.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: What's up, guys?
5:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm here with Dan Lesniak, the billion dollar agent, real estate developer, and somebody who sold thousands of homes, and he's he has a hell of a story of how he got into the industry.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: So Dan Lesniak, co-host, sorry, host of the Hyper Fast Agent Podcast.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Massive Agent Podcast.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: How's it going?
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Doing well.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm pumped to be back on uh on with you on this amazing show you put on.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, brother.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sec uh second time.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: You're a repeat repeat guest.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: We don't have a ton of those, so uh it speaks volumes about you and and what you've built.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: So, Dan, I wanted to have you back on the show because you know you you and your wife have built such an amazing large team and you've branched out into other business lines, I guess you could call it, you know, developing real estate investment.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you may or may not have a REIT, maybe that's just me, you know, seeing what you're what you're offering, maybe it's a syndication, but you're doing more than just selling homes, and you've used selling homes as kind of the platform into more and broadening, which I think is super cool.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: And people that listen to this podcast are I mean, a lot of them are looking to grow, they're looking to scale, they're looking to get some traction, but they're also wondering what's next.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: And you're a great example of that.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: So would you mind spending just you know 60 seconds or so?
6:49
SPEAKER_02: How long have you been in real estate?
6:51
SPEAKER_02: How did you start out?
6:52
SPEAKER_02: Like, what were the first few steps that you made when you decided that I'm gonna start selling homes now?
6:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I I started a little over 10 years ago, so it's been a decade, and you know, like you said, it's evolved into a huge ecosystem for us.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the real estate team drives uh a lot of it, but if you if you get good at building out a real estate team, you can build an entire ecosystem around it.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: So we have syndications and and developments in the DC area, we've added passive income with Airbnbs, you know uh coaching program, podcasts, title mortgage, all this kind of stuff, right?
7:32
SPEAKER_01: So you that that's kind of what is possible, and and you can do it in under a decade, which you know isn't as long as a lot of people think.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh I started off like most other people, you know, just got my license, wasn't something I grew up wanting to do or went to college for or that the Navy trained me on, right?
7:52
SPEAKER_01: So, like, you know, this this wasn't something that I thought I would do.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: I got my license.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: I was uh in DC at the time.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: I'd bought and sold a couple houses, I was a you know, a landlord, so I had a little bit of experience.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: Kind of I was one of those annoying buyers, right?
8:08
SPEAKER_01: I thought I could do it better than the real estate agent, and actually I I didn't get I didn't get the jobs that I thought I would get coming out of business school because people doing the interviews said I would not be good at sales.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: So they told me to go get sales experience, and I thought, well, I'll get my my license because I like real estate and and I'll I'll reapply in a year.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: So I got my license, was working part-time, and you know, I just focused on a kind of a tight niche.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: I like to think it was all like super intelligence and and strategy, but really it was the circumstances kind of forced me.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Like I had this uh other job and I couldn't go in a huge you know radius or go out to all my friends and family.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: So I focused on the closest 200 condo units to where I lived and ended up getting a ton of market share from there.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, a few months later I looked up and my 90-day pipeline was bigger than the income my full-time job was gonna pay me for a year.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: So I thought I should just quit this and do this full-time.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: And a year later I'd sold 22 million, made my first hire, and was kind of off to the races.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: So that's interesting that you started as a part-time agent because you hear a lot of people say, if you're part-time, just don't even try.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: Like it's not even, you know, you've got to be full-time or nothing.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: Are they wrong?
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they they are, because why can't you work a nine to five and then you know, put in an extra five, six hours, eight hours a day?
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't look at it as being part-time, I just looked at it as like I have two full-time jobs.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: There's you hear a lot of stories about people that do that in minimum wage jobs.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: And if if you're gonna if you're gonna build any business or build a sales funnel, like why can't you grind, right?
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh and it's not gonna take you a year, right?
10:03
SPEAKER_01: And anyone, anyone can can do it for a year.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: So I think if you're new, you've got a couple options, right?
10:10
SPEAKER_01: You can be in you know independently wealthy uh already and you know have that buffer of money you need for 90 or 60 days or 90 to like 180 days to get started, right?
10:25
SPEAKER_01: I think most people in that situation aren't motivated to go out and grind, though.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, you can have a spouse or significant other with a source of income, or or you can you know, you can work hard and save up and then go do it.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but you know, there's there's there's not a lot of options.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: You need to plan on other using other resources to live the first 90 days or or so uh minimum.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: So why can't you just work two jobs for six months or however long it takes?
11:00
SPEAKER_02: I like the way you put that.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, you don't have a part-time job, you have two full-time jobs, and and so it sounds to me, Dan, like it was more the mentality that you approached it with.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't the hours you put into it.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: Is that fair?
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and if you think about it, are most real estate agents putting in 40 hours of like actual focused work?
11:20
SPEAKER_01: I I doubt it.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: Nope.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: Unless you count TikTok.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you count TikTok and and like look or looking at TikTok, looking at Instagram, like you know, around the the traditional real estate office, people just go and hang out and shoot the shit and uh all of that.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: So you like you take all of that out.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: Like most people probably could be successful on three to four hours of highly focused work a day.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: Like if it's just on generating leads, closing deals, like you know, that I think for a lot of people it would only take that amount of time.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's fair.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when I look at some of my most productive days, if I'm being honest, it's probably like three, four, maybe five full like real hours of work, and the others are just kind of like you know, busy work or you know, just checking the boxes on some shit.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: But I think that's fair.
12:12
SPEAKER_02: Like you can make a lot of progress pretty quickly.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: That's uh that's interesting.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: So you told me before we started that you know you you hit the ground running, you focused on the condos that were closest to you, you you were successful, you got some listings there.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: And how soon after you started selling homes as a solo agent did you think about scaling to you know, bigger than you, building a team?
12:36
SPEAKER_01: I I think it was um I think it was like probably seven or eight months into it.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I read the millionaire real estate agent book um about halfway through my first year.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh I started at Century 21, by the way, but halfway through that that first year, I had an attorney client, I started a title company with him, and you know, between like starting the title company, um and learning about employees there, reading that millionaire real estate agent book, I I knew if you wanted to go beyond you know just owning your own job, which is what a solo agent is, you're not a business owner, you're a job owner.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Um I knew you had to make a hire.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: So I went out and I right around the end of my first year, I went out and I hired an assistant.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: Do you think that it's a mistake when agents are only focused on selling more homes and not on growing and scaling and expanding?
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: I I see this all the time.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: I think you know the the issue, there's there's a ton of issues with it if you just focus on more homes and not how do you make better use of your time.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh I I always say you're cheating three people when you when you do that.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh number one, you're cheating your clients because you're gonna reach some sort of limit, and you either are going to do you know, do more deals but decline in the quality of service, right?
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Or you're gonna keep the level of service the same, but not be able to add any clients.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: And then if you're offering great service uh and you're not figuring out how to do it for more people, you know, you're cheating those other people that you could be helping.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're also cheating the person that you could be hiring, right?
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Like someone else is probably more attentive to detail than the typical agent and can do a better job with paperwork, contracts, email, scheduling, right?
14:44
SPEAKER_01: All of that stuff.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: So you're cheating that person, and then ultimately you're cheating yourself, like not just out of money, but out of development, leadership, growth, all the stuff that comes with you know expanding beyond yourself.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: Ooh, I love the way you put that, Dan.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: You're cheating three people.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna have to use that.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I guess you're also cheating who you could become, right?
15:04
SPEAKER_02: Your future self.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, the the other the other issue I see is a lot of agents want to like build a team and they and they they do it the wrong way.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: They go out and they they get another agent.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Um and they and they pay, you know, they figure, oh, I don't have to pay this person a salary, they're 100% commission, I'll just split the deals with them.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, now you have two agents and no admin, except in reality, you are the admin, right?
15:34
SPEAKER_01: So now you're you're you're doing it for yourself and for this new agent, and you know, you're not building out the the systems and struct infrastructure that you need to really grow the agent side of what you're doing.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: That's a great point.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: So you recommend that agents start with admin help to take care of the the non-income-producing activities first before you bring on other agents?
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I think your first hire should be an admin, your second one should be an inside sales agent, uh, you know, someone that can work the phones for you, get you more appointments.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: Um once you have those two people in place, I think you can get up to three, four, five even deals a month, right?
16:19
SPEAKER_01: And still live a not so crazy life.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: And then at that point you have infrastructure, right?
16:26
SPEAKER_01: You have systems in place, you have more value you can offer someone.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: You can you know offer a new agent administrative support, more leads, more appointments with the ISA.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: So when you have those two positions in place, you know, now you're ready to go out and add agents.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: What did you do wrong?
16:46
SPEAKER_02: You know, when you first started scaling and leveraging the time of others, what mistakes did you make that you would tell people to avoid now?
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my my first hire was was only with me for about a month and a half, and I did not do a good job up front on the job description, right?
17:08
SPEAKER_01: On on what this person actually is gonna be doing, on setting the proper expectations.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, because of that, a couple weeks in, I just I wasn't really getting uh the results I needed.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, this person did not feel good about you know their work either.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it didn't that first hire, and and most people will get it wrong, I think, uh, it didn't it didn't last long.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: So when I you know did it again, when I went back to the drawing board a month and a half later, I really focused on listing out the responsibilities, listing out the parts of the process that I wouldn't want to do, and that I wouldn't want other agents to have to do.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, you have to for each job position, you have to have you know clear responsibilities and tasks and and then a method of them reporting that to you, especially in the first you know 30 to 90 days.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a lot of agents out there, maybe most, don't take action and don't take the first step because they think they've got to have everything perfect, like they've got to have the job description perfect.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: They they're like, well, I don't know how to train them, so you know I'm just not gonna hire uh you know.
18:30
SPEAKER_02: Is that what's happening there?
18:33
SPEAKER_02: Like, why are agents who are at this point where they need to scale or want to, what's holding them back?
18:39
SPEAKER_02: Like, is that it or is there more to it?
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh I I think it could be a couple things.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: I think for some people it's a scarcity thing.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: They're they're afraid of paying out, you know, I don't I don't know what the rate is in all the markets, so we'll call it four or five grand a month.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, with payroll taxes, benefits, all that kind of stuff, right?
18:58
SPEAKER_01: They're they're afraid of of that.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, maybe they're afraid of the responsibility because now another person's livelihood is in your hands.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you have a duty not just to yourself to go and your family to get business, but you have a duty to this person.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: So I think I think maybe sometimes people are afraid of that.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: They haven't saved enough in reserve.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: So I think I think there's that element of it.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: And then I also think they get short-sighted with how they look at the investment, right?
19:29
SPEAKER_01: You have to put money and time into this person, right?
19:33
SPEAKER_01: Finding them, hiring them, training them.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: And at first, you're not gonna get an ROI on that, right?
19:40
SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna immediately help you do more deals, right?
19:45
SPEAKER_01: You're putting time and money into the system, and and you have to wait 60 to 90 days to start getting benefits from that.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: It's it's the same reason why I think a lot of agents are really bad at online leads.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, 90% of the online leads are closing in 90 days or more.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: So they're not good at putting the time into that.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: Right.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: No, I I think you're right.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: So they they're starting with unrealistic expectations of how fast things can go.
20:14
SPEAKER_02: They're not prepared for you know how long it really will take, so there's no buffer or cushion financially, you know, to get through that.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've seen that, Dan.
20:24
SPEAKER_02: I I think you're spot on with that.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: I've seen that with some agents that like, I'm gonna hire an agent, and then like 45 days later, they're like, oh shit, I'm gonna have to let them go because like they haven't closed anything yet?
20:34
SPEAKER_02: Like, well, did you expect them to?
20:36
SPEAKER_02: Right.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: They did.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: They did expect them to.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: So what what other expectations?
20:42
SPEAKER_02: Let's correct some expectations, Sally.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: Like, what else do agents need to know if they're about to go on this journey?
20:47
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna start hiring, they're gonna get their admin, then they're gonna bring on agents.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: You know, what other expectations will most of them start with that are incorrect?
20:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, I I think I think again, uh, just to harp on it again, you have to have a little bit longer vision than most people do.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, take the second hire you should make the inside sales agent.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh, this person typically is gonna cost you a base salary of we'll call it around 30,000.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: And depending on how good they are, they could build up to making you know anywhere from 40 to 70k a year in bonuses, right?
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Like a good ISA can do 100,000 a year, they never have to meet with clients, they don't have to show homes, right?
21:33
SPEAKER_01: Write write contracts on the weekend.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: So I know I know agents can make more, but um, you know, the the inside sales agent position is for someone that doesn't want to meet the clients, they want you know a nine to five and they can make six figures, right?
21:51
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people are afraid of that 30k base.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's gonna take them 30 days to get good.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: All right, training.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Another 30 days to like book a bunch of appointments.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: Then it's gonna take you and your or your agents, if you know if you already have agents, 60 to 90 days to close those leads.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: So you're not getting the the return on them for six months.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: But guess what?
22:14
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't take a lot of extra closings in a 12-month period to cover that base salary, that$30,000.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you're you're talking in some markets like two deals, you know, maybe in lower price markets it takes four deals, right?
22:30
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's not a a lot of time until you you get a positive ROI on that investment.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: So you need to you need to switch from a 30-day window, which I know we're all like deal, deal, deal, thirty, you know, 30 days, right?
22:46
SPEAKER_01: You need to switch from 30 days to a year or longer.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh you have to realize at first it's more work, right?
22:55
SPEAKER_01: People always think of it as like being glamorous, but it's it's more work.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're you're bringing in income to sign people's paychecks, you have more responsibility.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: So it's you know, don't you know, don't do it unless you're you're ready to be responsible for other people and put in the work and you have a longer term vision.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: That's fantastic.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it's the same with with lead gen.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned it, you know, agents get leads and they think like, oh, these leads suck because they haven't closed any of them within the first 30 to 45 days.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: And you said it, like 90% of them will close after 90 days.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: I've closed leads three years later, and I love that because it you know it it showed me that it's not a bad lead, it's just a not ready yet lead.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's very few bad leads, they're just not ready, or you're you're you're not doing your job, you're not a great communicator, and they're just gonna go with somebody else.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: It's not the lead.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's somebody that raised their hand.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: So uh great parallel there.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: Talk for a minute about your team structure.
24:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, you've you've built one of the largest teams in the Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia area.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, what does that look like today?
24:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, you you you talked about where you started.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, what what should agents look forward to?
24:17
SPEAKER_02: What can it grow into?
24:18
SPEAKER_02: What does your team structure look like now?
24:20
SPEAKER_01: So in 2021, we closed almost 1,100 deals, I think 725 million or or thereabout.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Um so that that was kind of the overall, you know, deals, deals and volume.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh I think we we had uh for most of the year we probably had about 60 agents, about 25 support staff.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: So um definitely you know a lot of payroll and overhead.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Um we've we've netted uh just to give you know you guys an idea.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: I think I think since 2014, we've netted at least seven figures every year just from the real estate team.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: That also has allowed us to build up a pretty big development team.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: So we've got a development team with about 10 people, you know, project managers and and um uh you know people on marketing staff and uh you know, CFO and all that stuff.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: So we've got a development team with about 150 condos in our pipeline.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh we've also built out the hyperfast agent coaching program and and podcasts.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: So you know that the team has driven a lot of other businesses in addition uh to the team itself.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, within the team we've got a marketing department, recruiting department, admin department, uh train, you know, people that train the agents, managers.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's you know, we've built it up to a a fairly big structure.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: And you know, even even throughout this decline we've seen uh recently, the the Carrie Scholl team is still doing I believe 50 to 60 deals a month, you know, even even with uh the the kind of recent fall-off in buyer activity.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: That's uh I mean if you look at the size of the company, that that's not a small company, you know, in any industry.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: You know, you've you've built a legitimately you know good-sized company that employs a bunch of people, you're doing a bunch of revenue, it's that's awesome.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: Where does the majority, or can you can you kind of break down like where is the business coming from?
26:42
SPEAKER_02: How are your agents getting clients?
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so obviously with the amount of deals we've done, the number of years we've been in that market, uh, we we focus a lot on repeat clients, referral clients, and we we do events and you know, really good about staying in touch with past clients.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: So that's a pretty good big pillar of what we do.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: On any given weekend, we're doing 15 to 25 open houses.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: So we train our agents on how to do open houses.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: We've got an inside uh sales department with eight to ten inside sales agents, so you know, they're all making phone calls every day, and we've got a variety of different online lead sources as well that they are working, that that department in particular.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, they've and it and it and the online stuff kind of you got to monitor it, right?
27:36
SPEAKER_01: It's constantly changing.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: But you know, historically, we've done realtor.com, Zillow, uh, Google PPC, we've done uh paid social media, organic social media.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: So we've we've got dozens of different lead sources all together, and then the the development company, too.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: The cool thing about that is like that feeds a whole nother group, right?
27:59
SPEAKER_01: Because we have all these new construction listings that are like exclusive to us, so that feeds back into it.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: So there's there's a ton of different lead sources, and you know, even even when you're kind of small and starting out, like I wrote a lot in my book about focusing on one niche, right?
28:19
SPEAKER_01: And that's important when you're starting out, it's also important when you want to go into a new market or add more layers to what you're doing in the process for doing that.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's also important to have multiple legs of your business, right?
28:33
SPEAKER_01: If if one thing stops working all of a sudden, you don't want to like completely take it, take it out, right?
28:38
SPEAKER_01: So you want redundancy in like everything that that you build, I think.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: That's smart.
28:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Zillow offers comes to mind.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, if if they had all if they had gone all in on Zillow offers and then it didn't work out, Zilla would be in big trouble, right?
28:54
SPEAKER_02: So but that was that was just one one revenue stream, that was just one division that they had.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I I think it's smart to diversify within your business.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: What um talk about that a little bit more, because I I think there's a lot of agents out there that just cannot see the top of the staircase, so to speak, and they don't really know what they can build to.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: You did a great job kind of describing your your team structure and all that.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: How did you then get into development and and all of that?
29:27
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: So I I you know if you're a real estate agent, I think you come across a lot of deals.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: I I I like to look at doing deals as a real estate agent as a stockbroker that's allowed to trade on inside information or like which they're not allowed to do, right?
29:44
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that's like a congressman.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say a congressman can can do this, right?
29:48
SPEAKER_01: So as a real estate agent, you you can you can trade on inside information, right?
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Just like Congress.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you see the good deals first.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: So I think when you're starting out, your goal should be to buy buy a home every year, right?
30:05
SPEAKER_01: Buy it, buy a deal that you keep every year.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was kind of my philosophy, right?
30:11
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to do a something I buy and held every year or or do a flip.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I I came across I started to come across deals that I knew could be done with development.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: The first one was 2013, in my second year.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: I ended up buying a lot from uh one of my clients, subdividing it into four four uh parcels, building four luxury homes that I partnered with a builder on, right?
30:37
SPEAKER_01: So we we you know I found a builder partner who was good at building, and um and I kept doing that model.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: And I would, you know, first I was doing it with my own capital, carry carry and eyes capital.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: Then I realized, well, why not do two or three at a time, right?
30:54
SPEAKER_01: So I went out and had a way of syndicating it, getting money from investors, which a lot of them were past clients.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: And after uh you know, doing that, we just decided to make it its entire, you know, its own entire company.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: So it it really just came from my desire to you know use the fact that I was getting access to good deals, and then when that worked, I'm like, well, I should do more of it.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: That that's that's great.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: One of the biggest mistakes that I made as an agent was being way too tunnel vision on just helping buyers and sellers, and there were a good dozen or so times that great investment opportunities came across that I would just I'm like, oh, that's not what I do right now.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: So here, and I I'd send it over to you know an investor partner or my broker who was one of the investors that I worked with, and then they would go flip a house and you know make 200k on it, or or that they'd pick up rental properties.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: And in hindsight, I'm like, why didn't I do that?
31:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, so it's I'm glad that you broke it down the way you did because as agents, we're out there seeing all this opportunity, and if we're too focused on any one, then we're not gonna see the others.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: And in hindsight, you don't want to be kicking yourself in the ass for that like I do.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: It's uh you know, you're out there in the middle of all these uh property owners, and other stuff's gonna come up, and you just had to be knowledgeable enough and aware enough to take it down.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: And don't and don't just do flips, right?
32:30
SPEAKER_01: Because flips is just a bigger sale, essentially, which is trading time for money or building a system that will trade other people's time for money.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you have to think of how I can build income that comes no matter what happens every month, and holding on to real estate is a great way to do that.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: Not the best way, but a great way.
32:56
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: Dan, before we wrap it up, we do these rapid fire questions with our guests, either or one or the other.
33:04
SPEAKER_02: You don't need to elaborate unless you want to.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, let's blow through those and then we'll let everyone know where they can find you, where they can connect with you, and get your book and everything like that.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh, which, oh, by the way, will be in the show notes in the description on YouTube.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: Make it easy for you guys.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: So, Dan, let's do the rapid fire if you're ready.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: Let's do Facebook or Instagram?
33:28
SPEAKER_02: Instagram.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: Instagram or tick tock.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh, TikTok.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you really dove deep into TikTok over the last year or so, right?
33:39
unknown: Yeah.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: And how big's your following on TikTok?
33:42
SPEAKER_02: It's big, right?
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like 305,000, I think 306,000, but it's it's um I think the quality of contacts and connections is probably better on Instagram.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: You can build easier on TikTok, although that's declining um right now.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Um But you learn a I think you learn a lot of cool stuff on TikTok that you can then bring over to Instagram reels or YouTube shorts.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: Ooh, great point.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: Great point.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: Do you prefer books or podcasts?
34:11
SPEAKER_02: Books.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: Audiobooks or physical books?
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Physical books.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: Rental property or flipping?
34:21
SPEAKER_02: Rental property.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: Burgers or pizza?
34:26
SPEAKER_02: Burgers.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: New York or LA?
34:31
SPEAKER_01: That's a tough one.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: Um can I say neither?
34:35
SPEAKER_01: What would you say?
34:37
SPEAKER_01: I guess I guess LA if I had to.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: LA or Florida.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm down in Florida, so yeah, Florida all day long.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean the water's actually warm in Florida.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can swim in it.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
34:52
SPEAKER_02: Um baseball or football?
34:54
SPEAKER_02: Baseball.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: Pro or college.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Pro.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: Mountains or beach?
35:03
SPEAKER_01: I like them both.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh if I could only do one, probably beach.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Beach.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: Podcast or vlogs?
35:12
SPEAKER_02: Podcast.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: YouTube or Facebook Live?
35:17
SPEAKER_01: Definitely YouTube.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: Rich Dad Poor Dad or Millionaire Real Estate Agent.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, that's a good one.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh Rich Dad Poor Dad.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: Uber or Lyft?
35:28
SPEAKER_02: Uber.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: Gary V or Grant Cardone?
35:32
SPEAKER_02: Grant Cardone.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: Right on.
35:35
SPEAKER_02: Dan, where what's the best place people can find you and find your book and everything?
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the book is on Amazon.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: You can get it Audible, Kindle, all of that.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: Um paperback.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: So it's called Hyper Fast Agent?
35:48
SPEAKER_01: The hyper local hyperfast real estate agent.
35:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
35:52
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: So and then on social, what's your what are your handles?
35:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's just uh the Dan Lesniak, and I think TikTok's just my name, YouTube's just my name.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh there's also the Hyper Fast Agent Podcast, which is everywhere that podcasts are.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: And then there's also like the Google machine.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: The Google.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it works.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: Love it.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: And and like I said, we'll link to all of those in the in the show notes in the description if you're watching on YouTube.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: And my dog is barking.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: That's fantastic.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: Dan, I appreciate you being on the show, my friend.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: This is really good stuff.
36:24
SPEAKER_02: It's good catching up with you.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh, as always, I had an amazing time.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: Guys, I hope that that was very enlightening for you and helped fill in some of those missing pieces.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: The more podcasts you can listen to with people who are at a level that you aspire to get to, the better.
36:41
SPEAKER_02: The more you can get around these people and talk to them at different conferences or events or masterminds, the better.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: That's how it works, guys.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: Dan had to ask a lot of questions along the way.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't able to just build what he's built just by like, oh, I know all the answers like magically in my brain.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: Like he go, he went through trial and error.
37:01
SPEAKER_02: He had to learn a lot, he had to ask a lot of questions, he had to get the information from outside, uh outside forces, I guess.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: That doesn't make sense, but you know what I mean.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: From outside people, right?
37:12
SPEAKER_02: That's what you guys can do right now.
37:13
SPEAKER_02: That's what you guys are doing by listening to this episode, but don't just stop there.
37:16
SPEAKER_02: Keep it going and then take action.
37:18
SPEAKER_02: Right?
37:19
SPEAKER_02: Like he said, he learned he learned how to make his job description right, how to hire the right person after he hired the wrong person, after he made his first hire the wrong way.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: That mistake was not a mistake.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: That was an investment into doing it right the second time.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: So many of you guys are afraid to or hesitant to start out because you don't have all the answers.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, if you just start out, you're gonna get the answers.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: By learning how not to do something, that's pretty damn valuable.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: And you're a hell of a lot further ahead than if you never did anything at all.
37:53
SPEAKER_02: So please, for the love of God, take action on what you learned today and continue the education.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: Continue filling in those missing pieces and make sure that you have all the right systems and tools in place.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: I highly recommend you guys go try the 30-day free trial of Follow a Boss.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: They don't even want your credit card.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: Just all you need is to sign up, email address, boom, boom, 30-day free trial.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: Use that because that may be one of the missing pieces.
38:20
SPEAKER_02: That may be something, no, no, that will be something that you need if you're going to be scaling and bringing on team members and distributing leads and coordinating on tasks and all of that to make sure a client's taken care of.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: You need a better platform to go get Follow Up Boss immediately.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: And uh I'd like to thank all you guys for the awesome messages and comments and everything over the last week or so since we've made it official that this podcast is part of the Broke Agent Media Network.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh it was super cool.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: Just it's really cool uh what's happened and the cool new people that I've met, people that have reached out.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: It's just awesome.
38:56
SPEAKER_02: And I'm really, really stoked for this partnership with Broke Broke Agent Media.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: So this episode and all future episodes will be part of Broke Agent Media, the BAM network.
39:05
SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, just excited to tell.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: So appreciate you guys listening.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: We'll see you again next week for episode 247.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: We're getting dangerously close to 250 here.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: Nice round number there.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: Appreciate you guys.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: Go take action.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: Do this shit.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: See you next week.