Latest / The Connect Practice Track & Grow Podcast / Ep022: Annual New Year Podcast 2024

Transcript

Ep022: Annual New Year Podcast 2024 · The Connect Practice Track & Grow Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Connect Practice Track and Grow Podcast.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Habits, routines, motivations, and mindsets from some of the most successful real estate professionals among us.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Check out the show notes at Connect Practice TrackGrow.com.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: This show is brought to you by the Strategic Resource for Real Estate Professionals, creating and coaching business opportunities and strategies that support and add value to the lives of real estate professionals at thestrategicresource.com.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: And by Roost Real Estate Company.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Today's real estate agent doesn't follow old rules.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: She makes new ones.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Learn more at CareerWithRoost.com.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: Hi, I'm Chris McAllister here with the Connect Practice Track and Grow Podcast and the Landlord Profitability Playbook Podcast.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: This is a special episode where we're going to put this uh conversation that I'm having here with Lacey on both podcasts.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: So, really, for both of these podcasts, it's my job to make your business better and your life easier.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: And I'm here, as I said, with my podcast partner and digital marketing specialist, Lacey LeBlanc.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, Lacey.
1:06
SPEAKER_03: Good morning, Chris.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: How are you?
1:08
SPEAKER_03: I'm good.
1:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm happy to be here, especially for this episode of this very rare double double feature, if you will.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, this is the first of what I uh expect will be an annual podcast where we get a chance to reflect on last year and talk a little bit about our plans for the new year.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: And this year is kind of special because not only is this our first new year episode of the podcast's plural, but it also falls on the occasion of our 10-year anniversary.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so Roost was officially licensed on uh January 7th, 2014.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Being that this is 2024, that makes us 10 years old.
1:51
SPEAKER_02: So happy anniversary to us.
1:53
SPEAKER_03: You know, my kid just turned 10, and I could just barely, he was born on January 3rd, 2014, and I could just barely believe it.
2:01
SPEAKER_03: Is that how you feel?
2:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:03
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the the you know, the looking back, the 10 years have gone like lightning, but my God, there was a lot of stuff that went on in those 10 years, and certainly a lot of ups and downs and a lot of learning.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it went very quick.
2:17
SPEAKER_03: It is kind of your baby, I think, right?
2:19
SPEAKER_03: Just like just like Simon is is mine.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, when we started Roost, I met this gentleman named Andy Hayes, who was a graphic designer and a logo expert in Springfield, Ohio.
2:33
SPEAKER_02: And I had seen some marketing around town that the Chamber of Commerce had used, the city had used, and a few other places had used.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: And it had a really cool feel to it.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: I don't even know how to describe it.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: What Andy does is very unique.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: And you know, he interviewed me, this would have been in early 2013, so 11 years ago.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: And what came out of it was that I wanted to build a company that the attributes were smart, passionate, supportive, and approachable.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: And I think that those really have evolved into uh professionalism, you know, to melt it down based on the things that we've been talking about the last year.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: But I think sometimes people forget that there there is that real estate is an investment and it's not something that anybody should dabble in.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: It's not something that should not be taken seriously.
3:34
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I truly believe that, you know, as a as an investor, home buyer, home seller, that you want to surround yourself with smart people.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: And from a passionate standpoint, you know, the very best realtors among us, the people that I had worked with in the 10 or so years prior to starting Roost, as I had my license, they were absolutely passionate about real estate.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: This wasn't something that they were just going to try.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a part-time job.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: This was something that they had devoted their entire careers to, if not their entire lives.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: And they had a true passion for helping people buy and sell houses.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: And supportive came around because, and I think that's more into collaboration and sort of us being a consultant and a coach to our clients, but that's where supportive came from, that we want to support whatever decision that our investors make, that our clients make, and help make that real for them.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of morphed into you know being the similar supportive nature to the agents that choose to, you know, associate with us.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: So supportive still matters.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: It's morphed a little bit, maybe gotten a bit more specific with collaboration and coaching, but it's all still there.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: And then approachable, and I have to tell you, Lacey, approachable was more probably about me and my personality because you know, people have always said that, you know, I'm pretty analytical.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: I may not be the thing I always remember when I was in the corporate world was Chris isn't an easy read.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if that was a veiled insult or what, but you know, I always thought that I didn't want Roost to be the kind of company that people didn't feel welcome, that they couldn't ask questions of, that they couldn't approach comfortably and confidently.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: So that's where approachable came from.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: So smart, passionate, supportive, approachable.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, to some degree, those are aspirational, but I still stand by those and I'm, as we would say, ready to guess and bet on those for the next 10 years.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know if something's happened in the last 10 years with the approachable portion, but I, you know, I've only known you for a couple of years.
5:36
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, approachable is one of the top words I would use to describe both you and your business.
5:41
SPEAKER_03: I think that you've just made all of this so readily available and so sincerely helpful, regardless of whether you're a buyer or a seller with Roost, or you're um, you know, an agent or a broker, or you're an owner or a tenant.
5:58
SPEAKER_03: Um I think that there's something here for everybody.
6:01
SPEAKER_03: And it is maybe one of the most approachable business models and businesses in practice that I've ever come up with.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: So I don't know about easy read.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: Maybe you're hiding stuff from all of us, but it really, you know, these four attributes are there.
6:15
SPEAKER_03: So I think that over the last 10 years, you've maybe it's still aspirational and that's always a good thing, but I think you've achieved um a lot of it.
6:23
SPEAKER_02: Well, you're very kind and I appreciate those words.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: I say once again, you know, in public, I want to thank Andy Hayes and Hucklebuck Design because, you know, it was Andy that, you know, had those interviews with me.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: And from those interviews, we got it distilled down to a few words.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: And four of those most important words were smart, passionate, supportive, approachable.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: And out of that came the name and the logo for Roost.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: And uh we have this story on the website, on the About Roost section of the website, but people ask me all the time, they would say, Well, how'd you come up with the name Roost?
6:55
SPEAKER_02: And I would just sort of chuckle and say, Well, Zillow was taken.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's the thing about trademarks and names these days, there's nothing easy about it because first of all, you've got to have a name that can be licensed in the state you're in.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: In the state of Ohio, as every state, although Ohio I think are far more strict than other states that I've been licensed in, you know, there are rules as to what words can and cannot be in your your doing business as name, your DVA.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: So to find a name of the company that embodied smart, passionate, supportive, approachable, and embodied and was not already in use just in Ohio, and was licensable in Ohio because I put forth a couple of different names and and got knocked down.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: And part of it was I didn't understand the rules.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: But it, you know, so so you get to this point where, okay, you want your name to embody what you want to be, right?
7:58
SPEAKER_02: That's the whole thing about marketing, right?
8:01
SPEAKER_02: But you also want you have to work within the framework that you're given.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: And being that we're licensed by the state, we can only have names that the state at that time, Ohio only, would allow us to have.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: And then the second thing is just because Ohio says that you can use it in Ohio doesn't mean that name isn't already in use someplace else in the country.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you start doing Google searches for just about anything you can think of, and pretty much you're gonna find it, right?
8:32
SPEAKER_02: There's not a lot of new ideas under the sun anymore.
8:35
SPEAKER_02: So that's a hard thing.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: And then the final step was you know, I've had it in my head for 10 years that someday we're gonna get this thing rolling so well that other people are gonna want to buy in.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: So everything I've done the last 10 years was designed to make it repeatable and scalable.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: Hopefully, not my mistakes, but the good stuff is repeatable and scalable.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: And to sell a franchise, you know, whether it happens or not, but it's just good business, is to be able to have a trademark.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: So Roos came around that it was the only name that we could come up with that met those four criteria.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, it certainly didn't argue against smart, passionate, supportive approachable.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: I think it's absolutely approachable.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't in use in Ohio.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: It fell within the guidelines that the state of Ohio would allow us to license it as a do-in-business ad.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't in it it was in use in three or four other real estate teams or firms across the country, but none of those folks had gone to the trouble of trademarking it when I first approached an attorney.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: So that happened, right?
9:35
SPEAKER_02: And then I'll try to make the stories getting a little long, but by the time we got around, or I got around to actually speaking to a trademark attorney, somebody else, a really nice guy, I met and visited with him in North Carolina.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: Actually, no, that not the guy in North Carolina still has a company called Roost, but it's Roost Realty or Roost Real Estate.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: It's not Roost Real Estate Co.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: And he wasn't able to get a trademark.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: So by the time I went and got a trademark, I found out why he wasn't able to.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: And this was because there's a company in, I think it's Philadelphia.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: It is they're in other states now, but they had a furnished short-term rental apartment building, which sounds suspiciously like a hotel, but they had a short-term rental apartment building, which put it in the real estate category for which they had a trademark with the name Roost, and they got there first.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: So a couple of things happened.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: To make a long story short, I uh we were able, my attorney was able to make a deal with these people that they I forget what the legal term is, but we give them uh we give them money every year, not a lot of money, but we give them money every year, and we agreed that we would only use Roost in three states, Ohio, Florida, and Tennessee, and that we would never use it as branding for our own short-term rentals.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: So that's how we have Roost.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: Well, of course, at the time, I you know, I was looking, I was thinking big, and it freaked me out that I couldn't get a trademark.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: And this is before we actually made that deal with those folks.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: So I started going crazy trying to come up with alternate names.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: And I must have been focused on it for a month.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: And I started flipping through old records and CDs and books and all that.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: And one day I came across an old Springsteen record from the 90s called Lucky Town.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: I thought that's a name.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: And I started thinking about it.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: I thought, well, you know, that's probably as smart, passionate, supportive, and approachable than Roost.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: So we actually have a trademark in all 50 states for the term Lucky Town.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: So Lucky Town Real Estate Company is a thing.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: We don't do business as Lucky Town Real Estate Company, but when we do get out of Ohio and Florida and Tennessee one day, the Lucky Town is available to us.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: So we actually did an alternate logo, which looks just like Roost, but it says Lucky Town.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: And uh so someday you may see Lucky Town, but for now we're focused on Roost for the time being.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and aside from Ohio, Florida, and Tennessee, we do have a trademark in all of Canada for Roost and Lucky Town.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: So that's the story of where Roost came from for what that's what that's for.
12:19
SPEAKER_03: You know, as a well-rounded marketer who enjoys the graphic design portion of things and the copywriting portion and the brainstorming portion and the strategy, I think that's a testament to, you know, how you when you choose your brand, when you choose, when you develop your branding initially, that's you know, it's not necessarily the end all be all for who you are, but you can really make anything work, right?
12:45
SPEAKER_03: If it's you can be smart, passionate, supportive, and approachable and and the name not reflect that as well, perhaps.
12:53
SPEAKER_03: Um it's really all about you know how you function day to day, what value you bring, and how you get that message out there.
13:01
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I think you hit on two very good options, but you know, even so, even if you hadn't been able to trademark those or you had gone in a different direction, I think that the smart, passionate, supportive approachable would have been clear.
13:14
SPEAKER_03: So just a note from you know, one marketing expert to anybody out there who's trying to name their business.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that would have been the constant, you know, for sure.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: But the other thing I think that supports smart, passionate, supportive approachable are the colors Andy chose, you know, the whole trademark guideline package, the colors, the font, all of those things I think go a long way towards subconsciously conveying the message of what we want this to be about.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: And now, you know, 10 years later, you know, with Kylie doing the graphic design stuff and managing all the social media pages, my God, she's taken Andy's ideas and expanded them, you know, dramatically and really increased our reach.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: So, but it all came down to Andy and Hucklebuck.
13:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and he created something really timeless.
14:00
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's the number one thing as a marketer that I look for in a brand, which is not just a logo, but it's the whole, you know, your whole company is something that is is timeless.
14:10
SPEAKER_03: And you know, color theory, we could talk about it all day, but definitely created that.
14:14
SPEAKER_03: And it's something that will, no matter what's on trend, you know, no matter what fonts and kind of colors, whether it's farmhouse or whatever's trending right now, you know, this brand is going to stand that test of time.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: So they so we had the words, we had the brand, we had the name, we had the name.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: So the next thing we did was we did a short video.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: It's a two-minute video, and it was called All About Roost.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: And you can still see that on the About Roost page on our website, roostrealestateco.com.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, at the risk of putting everybody to sleep, I'm gonna run through this really fast.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: It's a very short script, but I think it's interesting because the ideas that I had honestly going on 11 years ago now are still the ideas that I believe in and the ideas that matter today.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, what I said was early on, I said Roost is a different kind of brokerage.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: And most brokerages have two lines of businesses.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: They work with buyers and they work with sellers.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: And at Roost, we work with buyers and sellers too, but we also work with investors and the people who rent from them.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: So when I started Roost, it was all about, you know, working with investors and ultimately property management on day one.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: And the reason was, as we've talked about in other episodes, is it was about being in the shelter business.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: So embracing 100% of all the people who need a home, not just the 60 to 65% of the people who own real estate, creates a very different kind of company for our clients and for our agents.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: You know, many people who rent their homes will do so for their entire lives.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: Many do.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: It's the right thing.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: And many rent their entire lives at different income levels.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: Others will only rent for a few years before buying a home of their own.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: We help our tenant clients become homeowners.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: We all work with, but but let me rephrase that.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: I can tell you that we don't have a huge number of tenant clients buying houses.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: And if they do, as much as we would love them to buy them from us, uh very so it's very, it's not that often that they do, but it's not because they're going with somebody else, it's because there are many um people who decide that renting is better for them, whether because they want to be mobile, or I guess in some cases it's because they can't.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: But when we do have them, it's wonderful.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: And we love to teach people how to be fantastic tenants, and we love to teach people how to set themselves up to purchase a house if they want to.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: So that's still valid.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, it just doesn't happen as much as you would think.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: We help our tenant clients become owners, homeowners.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: We also work closely with investors, and this has only gotten bigger.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: So my vision was that we would help tenants get into homes, and it would be as great a part of the business as working with investors.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: Hasn't turned out that way at all.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: So working closely with investors, we help investors find, evaluate, purchase, and manage investment properties.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: By offering property management services to our investors, they're more comfortable buying more property.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: And what's interesting is, and we've talked about this in both podcasts this past year, Lacey, is you know, property management is hard.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: And it took up a lot of time and bandwidth the last 10 years to finally, after so many ups and downs, get that right.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: And it's funny that this year, you know, we've talked about changing manage with roost to invest with roost to better articulate or advertise what our services are to investors.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: But I do think it's interesting going back and looking at this that almost 11 years ago, what I said with investors was we want to help investors find, evaluate, purchase, and manage investment property.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: And that's truly what Invest with Roost has become today.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: And it's all in the connect or in the uh landlord profitability playbook podcast.
17:50
SPEAKER_02: Because we work in the property management business, we have relationships with skilled tradespeople that help all of our listings clients prepare and maintain their properties for sale.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you when I was actively listing and selling homes, how many times I was able to take care of something at a far more reasonable price for an owner than that they would have been able to find for themselves because you know we had these skilled tradespeople and maintenance guys working for us because of the property management business.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: This is the kind of situation where the property management division supports the brokerage and vice versa.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to tell which one ever came first, should have come first, or it doesn't matter anymore.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: There's a symbiosis there, and that comes back to wanting to service 100% of the people who need a roof over their heads.
18:31
SPEAKER_02: Roost real estate is a referral-based business, still is.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: We believe that the very best clients are those that recommend are recommended by our existing and past clients.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: We have a real referral-based marketing system that keeps Roost Real Estate Company top of mind with everyone we we work with.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: And the best example of that is what uh has become Roost Ramblings these past couple of years.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: So some of our tenants become buyers, and if they don't become buyers, they also refer new tenants and new buyers to us.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: So it's interesting.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people who never ever become homeowners refer future homeowners to us.
19:01
SPEAKER_02: That's come true.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: Our investors become repeat buyers, that's become incredibly true.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: That's happened in a far, far bigger way than I could have dreamed of 11 years ago.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: And they also refer new investors and new buyers and new sellers to roofs.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: Our buyers and sellers refer their friends, family, and coworkers again and again.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: We are the real estate company people turn to at every stage of their lives.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: Now, I granted, we've only been here 10 years, so we haven't caught every stage of everybody's lives yet, but it's still aspirational, right?
19:30
SPEAKER_02: So we are we want to be there when our clients rent their first apartment, buy their first home, buy their first investment property, and ultimately buy their retirement villa on the beach.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: So this is Roost Real Estate Company, smart, passionate, supportive, approachable, meeting people where they are today and helping them get to where they want to be tomorrow.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: So I think that still adds up 99% of it.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
19:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
19:52
SPEAKER_03: The word you never mention, I don't think I'm looking at this transcript right now, is relationship, right?
19:57
SPEAKER_03: And that's really what all of this is kind of you just say we have relationships with skilled tradespeople, but this is a relationship with clients, partners that that's really the word that sticks out to me.
20:09
SPEAKER_03: And that's really the I think that's very that you guys have no matter what you're doing, no matter what part of the business you can focus on, you know, and it goes both ways, right?
20:19
SPEAKER_03: So that's the shelter business at play.
20:21
SPEAKER_03: It's not just a relationship with, you know, one side of the story, it's a relationship with tenants and owners, it's a relationship with buyers and sellers, it's a relationship with, you know, your property management team and the tradespeople that you all use to get the work done.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: So I think it's just a really comprehensive kind of at the I guess at the point you wrote it, it was goals, right?
20:43
SPEAKER_03: But now it was all inspiration.
20:45
SPEAKER_03: It's a mantra.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: When I worked at Mosquito Authority, we did a mantra video, and I can still recite it to you word for word because it was, you know, we make backyards worth mowing and front porches worth swinging, right?
20:57
SPEAKER_03: Um and it was because it was true, you know, it was sincere, it was how everybody at that time, you know, and it was the the franchise or who lived in my hometown in Hickory, North Carolina, and started the whole thing.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, I think when I started, we had 20 franchisees.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: And then when you fast forward to seven years later and we had more than 200 franchisees, that mantra video still rang true.
21:22
SPEAKER_03: And when you looked back, it was grainy looking because the technology wasn't brand new, right?
21:26
SPEAKER_03: And the owners in the video who were saying the lines, you know, they looked like different people.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: But the message was the exact same message.
21:37
SPEAKER_03: We were taking to market, two clients, two employees, you know, to everybody every single day.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: And I think that when, you know, when you nail it, it doesn't matter how much time passes, it's still the truth.
21:47
SPEAKER_03: So that's what I see here.
21:49
SPEAKER_02: But we're going to share this video again on Facebook because it's actually a very well done video.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't feature me at all.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: It's me reading the uh copy in the background, but it's animated, and you know, some of the words pop up.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Up and stuff to you know make it more interesting to get through the two minutes.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: But it's I'm proud of the video.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: Let's say that.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: I after all this time, I still feel great about it.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: So, well, that's uh kind of summing up the last 10 years, I guess, very quickly.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: But I have to tell you, I was having a little bit of trouble getting some perspective on everything that had happened this past year and some clarity on what I want to accomplish, both for me and for the company in 2024.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: As usual, just in the nick of time, I got some help from Dan Sullivan and Strategic Coach.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: I got an email in my box, I guess it was right before Christmas, and they published a great last-minute gift called the Bigger Future Countdown.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: And we're going to put the URL in the show notes so you can get to it if you'd like to download a copy.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to be a strategic coach client, though I heartily recommend that you check into it to get this graphic.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: So the gist of the of this instrument, of this worksheet, was that his challenge is that you as an entrepreneur that you reflect, and I think this is great for agents, obviously, right?
23:08
SPEAKER_02: And it's also great for uh people who invest in real estate, even if this is even if you have a full-time profession and a stock or lawyer or whatever, that you and you know, that you have that, and but your investment business is still, at the end of the day, an entrepreneurial venture.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: So I think this applies to everybody.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: But his challenge to all of us is to set a new path for the new year with these 10 mindsets in mind.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: And the first one is, and we're not gonna, I'm just gonna run through these, and uh as we go through the rest of this, you know, discussion, some things will come up.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: But these are great things to keep in mind all the time.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: But always make your questions bigger than your answers, always make your purpose greater than your money, always make your confidence greater than your comfort, always make your cooperation greater than your status, always make your enjoyment greater than your effort.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: Man, I feel like I try really hard, Lacey.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: I'll have to work on that one.
24:02
SPEAKER_02: Always make your gratitude greater than your success, always make your performance greater than your applause, always make your contribution greater than your reward, always make your learning greater than your experience, and always make your future bigger than your past.
24:19
SPEAKER_02: And as I reflected on these mindsets, it really helped me out.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: And what became really clear is as I kind of think through the wins for last year was that every win, anything good that happened last year, any win I enjoyed last year was in collaboration with another team member.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: It was a collaboration, whether they were somebody on the payroll or somebody outside of the payroll.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, Lacey, you're at the top of my win list this year.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, having Dean introduce us and what you've done, helping me with the master classes, the landlord profitability playbook, Connect Practice, Track, and Grow has just been terrific.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: And there's no way we'd be doing this today if I hadn't hadn't met you and Dean Jackson hadn't referred you to me.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: So thanks for being a key win this year.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
25:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that feelings mutual.
25:09
SPEAKER_03: And I don't just say that I know that's probably what everybody expects me to say right now, but I think there's a point here where if it can be mutual, then it's even more important.
25:20
SPEAKER_03: It answers your questions even more than so.
25:23
SPEAKER_03: I I have very much enjoyed it.
25:25
SPEAKER_03: And I think finding people you work well with and can align with and compliment is a huge part of some of these new key girth mindsets that Dan recommends.
25:36
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, pleasure's all mine.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: Second win is Gretchen Mitchell, who used to be Gretchen McAllister before she got married.
25:43
SPEAKER_02: Gretchen's my daughter, and she's been, she actually started property management before we were even roost, uh, as soon as she got her real estate license.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: And so she took us from, you know, zero doors 14, 15 years ago to the thousand or so that we look after as of this morning.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, Gretchen has just done an amazing job working directly with the owners, working directly with the tenant.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: But what's really fun to watch is that Gretchen has become a leader and a fantastic manager, a team leader to her crew.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: And God knows we've had some ups and downs this past year, but to see Gretchen take the reins and grow and get us on a solid path to growth and property management has been fantastic.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: So, property management, our restructuring this year has been a giant win, but never would have happened without Gretchen.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: Kylie, I mentioned Kylie, she came with us a year ago, December, as our graphic designer.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: She's just done a fantastic job expanding the brand.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: So if you haven't liked Roost Real Estate Company on Facebook, or you haven't liked Manage with Roost or Career with Roost, please do, and it'll give you a great chance to meet Kylie.
26:57
SPEAKER_02: A newer team member we have, Taylor Cole, she just came on with us in October.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: But Taylor is going to be working with, as you've met Taylor, with Lacey and Kylie and I to sort of build out to this marketing and education and relationship team.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: And whereas, you know, Lacey's helping us get the marketing together, helping me get the message together, get product out there, Kylie is helping us, you know, spread it out to the world, you know, making it pretty, giving us the right words, the colors, the reach on social media.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: And then Taylor is bringing it all back home one-on-one to the people who receive that message, whether they be potential home buyers with uh Space Coast Condo Guide opt-ins, or whether it's potential agents who come to work for Roost from Connect Practice Track and Grow, or it's uh owners that come to work with us through the Landlord Profitability Playbook.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited about our future with Taylor and just in the last few weeks of this year and the last year and into this year, she's already made a massive contribution.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: But that property management team, my gosh, we went through so much.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: And I've said this before, but you know, COVID was interesting.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: We picked up so many doors, and you know, it was one of those situations where tenants never moved because and they always paid the rent.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, I know people say during COVID they had trouble collecting rent.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: We had no trouble collecting rent during COVID, none at all.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: And it was because people had the extra cash in their pocket from the government.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: And but when that cash started to dry up and interest rates went up, and owners you know stopped buying new houses or it became more disserting about buying new properties, and tenants suddenly either had to move or could move, and then suddenly we had vacancies.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: The property management business just got ugly.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: And you know, the last two years were really hard.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: And you know, Gretchen got through that with me the past two years.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: But the team that she's put together in Columbus, Marcy, our tenant relations specialist, she's just amazing with uh tenants.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: Brenda's our leasing specialist.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: She works, she does leasing for both of our offices.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: Jade working with Heather and our rehabit maintenance department.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: She's done a wonderful job making sure that our maintenance guys are dispatched where the tenants need them at the time the tenants need them.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: And the feedback we're getting from tenants because of Jade's work has been so much better than what we had in months and years prior.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: Dana in Springfield, she does the team relations function just like Marcy does, she does in Springfield, and Josie and Angela are accounting people.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: Holy crap, if it wasn't for them, I don't know what we would do.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, one thing and all the ups and downs we've had over the past 10 years is we have never had to worry about trust accounts or accounting or that piece of it.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: And one of the reasons um brokers don't like to get into property management is that the trust accounting is is hard.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: There's laws you have to stay within, it's other people's money.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: It's a tricky business.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: But Josie and Angela and my wife Kelly, who look after that, and our accounting, our accountant Jill McGregor, they have just done a fabulous job on that.
30:04
SPEAKER_02: And if there's anything that keeps me up at night, it's never been accounting, and that continues to be a win.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: I mentioned Heather, we started a technically a division called Roost Rehab and Maintenance.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: And roost rehab and maintenance, I think, is something that we're going to be talking more and more about as we go.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: I think it's the thing that's going to become such a force in and of itself that we can market directly to our agents and be able to help sellers who need to get some things done before they sell or after an inspection.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: And the service that Heather and her team, her and Jade, have provided to our owners when it comes to rehabs and so forth, has been phenomenal.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: So big win is the rehab and maintenance department.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: We've talked a lot, you know, it's been a tough year in real estate, and I think that's true across the country.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, some of the very best agents in Ohio, I mean, we're talking people who do half a million a year are down, you know, as much as 30, 40 percent, you know, through the year.
31:01
SPEAKER_02: But our agents, they still came through with their heads held high.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think about Priscilla McNamy.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, she's been with us for almost the entire 10 years as Roost, and we were together when I had REMEX franchises.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: She still had a heck of a year, and and and she's become a great team leader and a great mentor to many agents in the market.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: Josh Hufford, he did property management with us for years and finally decided to go on and just focus on sales.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: He's had a hell of a year.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: DJ Corps, she's been with us since 2003 when I had a Remax franchise in Urbana, and Didj's still with us, and she's still had a phenomenal year, even as she starts to spend more time and take better care of herself.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: Tina, we can't discuss the agents without talking about Tina Blathing, who is not just a key agent, but a key part of the PM team.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: So Tina is our property manager in Springfield and Dayton, and her and Dana look after those owners and tenants in that area of the state.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: And she has done a phenomenal job this year, just going through so much upheaval and stress and everything else.
32:05
SPEAKER_02: But you know, she's come out that much stronger.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: And she had a really good sales year.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: And I think you've all met Ann before on previous podcasts.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: She's a newer agent.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: She helped us out in property management this year, and I believe her sales were pretty close to last year, which is saying a lot.
32:20
SPEAKER_02: Susan Elliott, she's down in Florida in Port Myers Beach.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, they just came out of the hurricane a couple of years ago, and she just had a massive closing in January to kick off the new year.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: So I think she's going to be able to put that hurricane behind her and become that force in the market that I know she will be.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Alicia, newer agent, has a full-time job, but her business keeps growing year after year.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: Great job.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: Matt Conkling, he helped us get to property management back on track.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: Great guy, skilled person.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: He's an investor, wonderful.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: I already mentioned Taylor, who's got her first sale under contract with Roos.
32:52
SPEAKER_02: Congratulations, Taylor.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: And Rena, she's been with us for almost 20 years, and she's down here in Melbourne where I am today.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: I mentioned Kelly, my wife, you know, she's been, we've been at this for, I guess we've been married not quite.
33:04
SPEAKER_02: What is it, 37, 38 years?
33:06
SPEAKER_02: And she looks after all the money.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: And like I said, we had a lot of wins, a lot of struggles, but there's not one thing that happened this year that didn't happen because of being in collaboration or being able to be introduced to find, leverage, whatever you want to call it, unique ability, anything.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: That if it wasn't for these folks, we would not be the company we are today.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: The other big win, and you mentioned early on, or maybe that was you and I before we went live here today, is that these podcasts are something that I actually look forward to now.
33:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, they've gotten me out of my comfort zone.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: I the prep work helps me and it helps me lead the business as I think the prep work helps me think through things that improve the business.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: So that's great.
33:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, the whole idea that, you know, you can be the best leader, manager, realtor in the world, but if you don't have a story to tell and you aren't able to tell it, it just doesn't matter, right?
34:03
SPEAKER_02: So which came first, marketing or the practice?
34:05
SPEAKER_02: And again, it's sort of like sales and management.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: It just doesn't matter.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: So again, thanks to my podcast partner here, Lacey, once again.
34:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I so not a lot of people get to see the back end of a podcast, right?
34:18
SPEAKER_03: You just hear what comes through the microphone.
34:21
SPEAKER_03: And I am fortunate enough to be privy to the note taking and the preparation to a certain degree.
34:27
SPEAKER_03: And that looks so different today than it did when we first started this in such a great way because now the podcast notes that I get before the show, A, they're not always a week in advance.
34:40
SPEAKER_03: So that tells me that we're being a little more spontaneous, which translates to a more authentic conversation and a more authentic experience for the people listening, I think, as well as you and I.
34:52
SPEAKER_03: And the other thing is they're not mapped out like a like the conversation, right?
34:57
SPEAKER_03: You don't think about when you're making these notes now, like you did before, where I'm gonna interject, right?
35:03
SPEAKER_03: Or what questions I might be able to ask.
35:05
SPEAKER_03: And some of that comes from some of the other campaigns that we do from a marketing perspective, but some of it is just you being more comfortable with the process.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: And you never even know you're an introvert by listening to these.
35:16
SPEAKER_03: But I think that's a huge thing that I've noticed.
35:19
SPEAKER_03: The other thing is, and I think it's just worth pointing out, if you're listening to this and you hear you, Chris, talk about individually every member for the most part of the team that you're working with, I think that just speaks volumes to you know, this mantra that you've put out there in your video and how you work day to day.
35:40
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's just a team effort and it's something that everybody has their place and everybody is acknowledged for that.
35:48
SPEAKER_03: And everybody has the autonomy they deserve to do the work.
35:51
SPEAKER_03: And you hire the right people, um, which, you know, if I'm investing in a property or if I'm buying a home with y'all, that really gives me a lot of confidence.
36:00
SPEAKER_03: And I think this is just an example of how you approach the business.
36:03
SPEAKER_03: So honored to be on that list.
36:05
SPEAKER_03: But I think it it says a lot about Roost and you that you go through, can go through at the you know, drop of a hat and just kind of mention and acknowledge every team member.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I appreciate that.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: And again, a lot of this is aspirational.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, we had our challenges the past couple of years coming out of COVID, and you know, I'm ready to leave that behind.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: But we did turn through a lot of people, but the team that we have right now today is without a doubt the best team that uh I've ever had.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: So I'm grateful for that.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: But let's look ahead to next year.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to kind of discuss some of the things that I am looking forward to seeing as a win 12 months from now.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: And part of the reason for putting this out there is if I say it out loud in front of all of y'all, then um maybe something will happen.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'll do something about it, right?
36:52
SPEAKER_02: So one of the key things that uh you and I are gonna be working on, but the entire company is gonna be working on is an initiative that I'm calling Have I Earned a Five Star Review Today?
37:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, and I think this goes back to the conversation about yes, you've got to do a good job.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: It's one thing to do a good job, but if you're going to expand the business, if you aspire to help more people, then somehow you've got to find a way to let the let those people know that you're somebody worth considering, that you exist in the world.
37:18
SPEAKER_02: And one of the ways that happens in this 21st century is through, quite frankly, reviews and Google reviews and Facebook reviews and Yelp and all that, which you know, I I've got mixed feelings about all of that.
37:33
SPEAKER_02: But the one thing that you can't turn off, that you can't stop, that is very hard to manage are Google reviews.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: And you know, we gotten to the point where so the Google reviews are tied to the Google Place pages, and the Google Place pages are critical to managing those pages correctly and having the right information on it, having current information on them, I think is critical to people finding us organically, right?
38:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe you remember Lacey Yellow Pages, phone books that used to show up in your front porch.
38:06
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, but we used to have this thing called the yellow pages.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: And if you wanted a realtor, you would go to the yellow pages, you'd go to realtors, and you go down the list and you'd you'd look for an ad for a realtor and you'd find one that spoke to you and you would call that realtor, right?
38:17
SPEAKER_02: Today we don't have yellow pages, we have the internet.
38:20
SPEAKER_02: And Google Place pages are the key to being visible and projecting the type of project yourself as the company you want to be.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: And quite frankly, our Google presence and our place page presence and our review presence didn't come close to lining up with you know the aspirations we talked about in that video that we did 10 years ago.
38:40
SPEAKER_02: So have I earned a five-star review today is our initiative to embrace Google reviews and ask for reviews when it's appropriate to ask for reviews, but to do it in as authentic a manner as possible.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: In the property management business, it's you're always going to have people who don't get picked for a house.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: I can't do anything about it.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: And those people may lash out and they may do it unfairly or otherwise on a Google review.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: The problem is when we had our worst times operationally, when we were really struggling to get our arms again around the business and the owners that we had and wanted to keep, um basically that whole Google ecosystem ran without us even considering it or looking at it.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: And I had no idea what damage it was doing, but our reviews were just crap.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: And we weren't managing, we weren't going after them, we weren't doing anything about them right.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: And whether I like the Google review process or not, it doesn't matter.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: It is what it is.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: So if you take the approach that, all right, all of us as a company, whether we're agents working with buyers and sellers, whether we're tenant relations working with tenants, whether we're rehab and maintenance working with owners, we want to be earning going forward five-star reviews from every person we serve.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: Agents, right?
40:06
SPEAKER_02: Could be agents we look after, it could be owners we look after, it could be tenants we look after, it could be first-time buyers.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: People, when they're happy, they don't do a review, right?
40:14
SPEAKER_02: They're only when they're really angry with you or they feel like they've been done wrong or you haven't done your job correctly.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: So have I earned a five-star review today?
40:22
SPEAKER_02: The low-hanging fruit here is, you know, Marcy and Dana and Brenda and Tina, you know, they're just, you know, lovable people, right?
40:32
SPEAKER_02: They're professionals who get the job done.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: And to get to the point where have I earned a five-star review today rolls trippingly off the tongue, almost like when you're at McDonald's, and would you have prize with that?
40:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, would you like prize with that?
40:44
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're trying to get to.
40:46
SPEAKER_02: And I think that I don't know that you and I have settled on the uh technology we're going to use, but it looks like podium is like the number one tool that companies who successfully not just manage their reviews, but leverage their reviews and respond to their reviews use.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: So this is something you and I will be focusing on hopefully over the next uh 10 or 12 weeks and really get a report card on how well we're doing.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: And if we mess up, right, we have to go online.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: We have to say, look, we messed up, please get in touch with me.
41:19
SPEAKER_02: We're going to fix this, right?
41:21
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's one thing to make a mistake and acknowledge it, right?
41:24
SPEAKER_02: It's another thing to make a mistake and not know you made it.
41:27
SPEAKER_02: And then it's another thing when you have somebody who's just not being truthful or fair.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: And in any case, we have to have our ducks in a row.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: We have to believe in how we're approaching the business and the people, the relationships every single day.
41:40
SPEAKER_02: And we have to be prepared to ask for feedback.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: So this is the biggest, and I think most important initiative of the year because I think it absolutely affects the growth of the company in every everything we do.
41:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I think it would to reiterate your point, it would be ideal if the Google reviews accurately reflected the experiences of the people that you work with and for, right?
42:00
SPEAKER_03: But that just doesn't happen.
42:02
SPEAKER_03: My dad owns a car lot here in our small town, and somebody very recently gave them a negative review, a one-star review, because they weren't happy with the purchasing process.
42:12
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't even my dad's car lot, it ended up that they purchased from, but you really have no recourse, right?
42:19
SPEAKER_03: So the only way to manage those reviews, they did respond and say, we don't have a record of you purchasing a car here.
42:26
SPEAKER_03: You know, we'd love to talk to you about your experience anyway, but that one star review is still there, taking that five star down to a 4.6 or whatever the case may be.
42:34
SPEAKER_03: So the only way to effectively manage the Google review process is to have enough, and I'll say positive here because that is an accurate review, I would say, for most of the folks who work with you, but to have enough accurate reviews to offset the inaccurate ones.
42:51
SPEAKER_03: Now, if that means, you know, you're a three-star business, then that's going to be what's there, and that's gonna be what, you know, what offsets the one stars or the five stars, and I guess in that scenario, right?
43:01
SPEAKER_03: But it's just to have enough to make sure that one or two that get put out there that aren't accurate don't really negatively impact your overall kind of score.
43:12
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, it's just another thing.
43:13
SPEAKER_03: I don't know of any businesses, at least any that I work with, even the smallest of the small, who can do nothing about Google and just have it not negatively impact their business.
43:23
SPEAKER_03: If they don't, everybody is gonna have to focus on this moving forward and put forth some effort into maintaining what their actual, you know, experience is.
43:34
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I'm excited about it because I, you know, I'm excited to work with an organization where I don't have to worry about what the reviews will be when you ask the question, have I earned a five star review today?
43:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, I I appreciate your help with it because I absolutely believe that not to put too fine a point on it, but this could clearly break the company, but it could also really make the company uh if we if we do it right.
43:56
SPEAKER_02: And I expect we're going to do it right.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: So that's my first key initiative.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: second thing I want to go back and revisit is the whole idea of list with roost.
44:03
SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, we were talking the past, gosh, it's been two months now about that National Association of Realtors lawsuit that the the where the realtors lost the lawsuit and what that might mean for our business going forward.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: And I I do think and as unpopular as this is that we are going to see some commission compression.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: And I think that somebody has to step up and look really hard at the entire process of of putting a home on the market and and getting it to the closing table.
44:34
SPEAKER_02: What that entails, where the bottlenecks are, where does it become unpredictable, where does the the service and support angle fall apart?
44:44
SPEAKER_02: What do we need to do to take a fresh look at that?
44:46
SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the things that is worth considering and I don't want to get too deep into this, but I've been toying with this idea of testing something called a roost certified pre-home.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: And it's almost like you know we're a business too and people get concerned about how much commission usually as a percentage that they get charged by their by a real estate brokerage.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sensitive to that.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: But you know by the same token if I am charging 6% and I can show where I'm delivering six, seven, eight, 10% worth of value to that transaction, I'm surely not going to apologize for that or run away from that.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, as I've said many times this year, I'm a professional and I have to get paid too.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: And it's the same with our agents.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: But having said that, how much of the listing process can be automated and if not automated, how much of it can be made routine?
45:42
SPEAKER_02: How do you get the listing process to be a lot more like getting the same hamburger every time at McDonald's?
45:50
SPEAKER_02: You know I don't know if that's the perfect analogy because obviously hamburger's a hamburger and this is a service but I think it starts with the idea of a certified home and knowing exactly the condition, physical, legal design, everything there is to know about your home up front, have it in a format that can be shared, have those things quantified so you know what that home is worth relative to other homes who have sold in the market and make that some sort of a package that is valuable for that seller in and of themselves, if that makes sense.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: So I know that sounds pretty cryptic, but the whole idea of a home that's designated as a certified pre-owned home, you know, with a big old roost check mark on it, right?
46:39
SPEAKER_02: I think there's something to that.
46:41
SPEAKER_02: And it may be that it becomes a product that you know includes some real value added things.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: It includes a lot of value added consulting, a lot of knowledge, a lot of wisdom.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: But it may be something that stands in in and of itself that the seller can choose to do with what they wish.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: And I know that's controversial, but you know as we've discussed with this whole NAR lawsuit, things are changing and things are going to start changing fast.
47:08
SPEAKER_02: And the sooner we get out of the box, the better off we're going to be.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: So anyway, I think the whole listing process needs to be rethought from top to bottom.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: And as I said to you, I'm pretty jazzed about this, even to the point where I'm never going to go without my team but I'm kind of jazzed about doing a little bit of listing myself and testing this out.
47:28
SPEAKER_02: So you know I've got to be pretty excited if I'm going to go back out there and do what got me here today.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: But this is something that I think I'm pretty passionate about.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: So list with roost is something that we're definitely going to be working through this year and testing out there in the market and I'm going to personally be behind that.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: The other thing that is just critical to us going forward is you know recruiting agents.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: And as we've talked so many times and everything that Connect Practice track and go podcast is about is career with roost.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: We have focused on that relentlessly over the past couple of years.
48:00
SPEAKER_02: And the whole thing has morphed into you know we want to be the brokerage for the new real estate professional, right?
48:08
SPEAKER_02: We want to be the brokerage for the person who's going to be in this business for the next 25 years.
48:14
SPEAKER_02: We want to be the brokerage for the people who are questioning everything that came before, but also the brokerage where with agents who count on things that they know aren't going to change for the next 25 years, whether that's the concept of home whether it's a concept of relationship service or whatever.
48:29
SPEAKER_02: But we're kind of flipping the whole thing on their head you know instead of looking for agents to join our team I think we're I think we're done with that.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: So I think the initiative for Career with Roost is what it really should be is we want to join your team.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: You know I think the whole idea has been pretty well debunked that brokerages hire agents it doesn't work that way.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: Agents hire brokerages right so or if they don't they should right well that's true too the agents are the buyers here and you know we want to join your team we want a job on your team we think you should hire us to support you is is where this goes you know just because we're the ones that has to write the checks because we're the broker doesn't mean that you're not paying the bills.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: So and what's what value do we of brokers have or should we have what should an agent pay for you know what should they get for their split or monthly fees or whatever.
49:20
SPEAKER_02: And our role on your team as a successful agent is we're here to help you get more referrals.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: We're here to help you turn every listing you take into multiple sales we're here to help you convert more leads we're going to find all the buyers you can handle and we're going to show you how to get listings in any area you want to get listings in.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: What would you do if you could count on yourself to do it right yeah well yeah exactly and you know so those are pretty key things and and we're putting together a new uh set of recruiting brochures that actually show the tools that we include that we give to every single agent to make things happen right so we're doing some marketing tools that show you point blank what tools we use to to help you get more referrals what is the process what are the tools what does the marketing look like to turn every listing into multiple sales how are we converting these leads for you so that you have warm leads coming your way you know hopefully on a weekly basis at least what are we doing to make sure that you find all the buyers you can handle you know how is your brokerage becoming a market maker so we're going to be showing you exactly what these tools are we're going to you know we're going to show our work on these and we're going to be showing some pretty significant results and we've already started so I'm excited about that.
50:39
SPEAKER_02: But you know it the whole thing comes back to just like you said we would do everything we do everything you would do if you can count on yourself to do it right we we want to be your assistant.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: The other thing that we're you know the other thing in this brochure is we do the sit ups you get the six pack right so you can count on us to get your roost ramblings out you can count on us to get your Facebook page set up and managed for you.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: We can you can count on us to have a website that's constantly up to date you can count on us for your personal branding team you know we're going to do it for you.
51:08
SPEAKER_02: We're going to help you identify your five star prospects we're going to we're going to get you listings and you know the subdivision you want or the you know just like Space Goes condos on the beach, right?
51:17
SPEAKER_02: We're going to set that up for you whatever your niche happens to be so that's a huge initiative and that's the third one.
51:23
SPEAKER_02: And the fourth one is invest with Roost and we've been working on this so much and I think this is more of just getting a little bit more dialed in on our value proposition and our job being to automate your rec collection and so you can get on with your life.
51:39
SPEAKER_02: And I want to expand our roster of agents who actually have great experience working with investors so that we can help people truly expand their portfolio.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: So invest with Roost I think is going to be it's not a new thing for this year, but I think we're really going to sharpen that message and I expect a lot of growth there.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: So those are the four key things I'm working on.
52:02
SPEAKER_03: Is it four people have choices now, Chris that I mean with everything, right?
52:07
SPEAKER_03: If I want to order you know chapstick I'm looking at my chapstick here on my desk I can get it on Amazon and get it in two days.
52:13
SPEAKER_03: I can run up to any of the CVS at any time of day I can go to Walmart if I need it in the middle of the night right so like we just have so many choices and that's the same thing is true now for agents and investors and every tenants everybody you work with right it it doesn't matter which franchise is like operating in your specific area or it doesn't matter you know you you're able to find the right brokerage, the right property management team, the right agent that fits your personality because there's so many choices out there.
52:45
SPEAKER_03: So you know I think this is just really a next level kind of approach to signing up agents and tenants and owners and you have to be really clear about what value you provide.
52:58
SPEAKER_03: And on the other end of the conversation people need to be really clear on how they work well and how to find what they need in their partnership.
53:06
SPEAKER_03: So you know luckily you've got all these masterclasses out there about how to find the right broker and you know how to kind of determine what's right for you.
53:15
SPEAKER_03: But I think this is just the way of the future and I'm happy to see that you guys are the way forward.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: Now the other thing that we're going to push out there this year is rent with roost.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: And we haven't done anything that really has been targeted to educate tenants you know and don't forget I I don't want to sound overly uh paternal about this but so many of our tenants are first time renters.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: They don't know how to be a successful tenant.
53:40
SPEAKER_02: They don't know how to you know make sure that they're going to get a great what do you want to say report card from their previous landlord right they don't know how to make sure they get their deposit back etc so we're going to be rolling out the first iteration of rent worth roost this year also.
53:56
SPEAKER_02: So those are the five key areas that we're focused on.
53:58
SPEAKER_02: But the number one thing is have I earned a five star review today because that cuts across everything we do.
54:03
SPEAKER_02: So I've been thinking about to you know now that we've got this thing in place, you know, now that we're doing this I have some key goals for the next five years that we're going to go ahead and tell the universe about today Licey are you ready?
54:15
SPEAKER_03: Oh I'm ready.
54:16
SPEAKER_03: I was born ready for this one.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: All right.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: I think in the next five years my goal is that we will have 200 agents in the company between Florida and Ohio that see the world as we do.
54:28
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's doable.
54:29
SPEAKER_02: I think it's aggressive but I think that we're already seeing more and more people you know listen to the podcast, download the books, open the emails every single week.
54:39
SPEAKER_02: So I do think that's possible.
54:41
SPEAKER_02: The other thing I'd like to see in the next five years is that we double our door count.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: And I so I think 2,000 doors under management in the next five years is very doable.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: We're currently at a thousand today and we have enough we have enough staff and infrastructure support to easily manage 1500 doors right now without missing a beat as we get closer to that 1300, 1400 mark again, we'll have to start looking at where we're going to add staff but I think in the next five years a minimum of 2000 doors is definitely going to happen.
55:10
SPEAKER_02: The other thing and this may be a little bit conservative but I think I've had between the three main books that we've been promoting out there right the two agent books and the and the profitability playbook we've had maybe 800 total downloads not quite a thousand so 5,000 book downloads is probably not the best goal that seems pretty conservative but I think what this goal needs to be is 5,000 weekly email opens.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: Right?
55:41
SPEAKER_02: So if if we end up sending if we have 1000 people in the database because 1000 so really it should be 1000 book downloads is what we need to be looking for over the next five years that result in somewhere around four to five thousand individual agents and potential owners actually opening up the weekly emails and reading what's in them that's that's a hell of a goal because if that happens over the next five years, the next 25 will take care of themselves.
56:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely I mean these are powerful numbers and I think that you know to dispel any sort of like number myths out there, right?
56:18
SPEAKER_03: We know what 200 means to us but that probably doesn't sound like a lot to other people necessarily we could have 200 agents maybe this year but the thing is these are agents aligned with your values right these are ideal we talk about you know ideal target markets and targeting folks we want people who this information that we're sharing is going to mean something to them and help them sincerely even if they never consider being an agent or never come on board ultimately same thing with doors under management same thing with the book downloads right so I think that those are definitely some aggressive goals and some admirable goals but they're totally doable because you know you have the system what comes to mind is you know the tortoise in the hare is slow and steady wins the race.
57:04
SPEAKER_03: These things are all happening simultaneously if you were just a broker looking for agents then these goals would probably not be big enough right if you were just a property management company looking for doors if you were just a consultant looking for you know people to to coach and to help along the way then none of these would be I mean they're still pretty big numbers but none of them would be you know it would be almost a given but you're doing all of this roost is doing all of this simultaneously with the goal of each part of the business feeding into another part of the business and helping more people.
57:42
SPEAKER_03: So I think it's just a really uh it's worth noting that invest, career, you know, rent buy sell buy list whatever is they're all happening at the same time.
57:54
SPEAKER_03: And that is something so to coordinate that just logistically is huge.
57:59
SPEAKER_02: I just want to say this you know 200 agents you could say it's an arbitrary number and I guess it is but let me tell you something if I can't find 200 agents of the exact same caliber of at least caliber of Gretchen Priscilla Josh Deedri Tina and Susan Alicia Mack Taylor Rena, then we won't get 200 right if I only get 50 and and they see the world the way the books we have now do that would be a massive win.
58:25
SPEAKER_02: But I think putting something out there makes sense.
58:27
SPEAKER_02: So I think that hopefully between the markets that we work in that there's 200 people who do see the world the way you know we do right now.
58:35
SPEAKER_02: So that's my goal.
58:36
SPEAKER_02: But and then why you know if if I'm an agent a natural question is why?
58:41
SPEAKER_02: What's in it for me?
58:43
SPEAKER_02: I you know when I think about this I find it fun I find it entertaining it's what I don't know how to stop right so why do I want goals like this that feel pretty aggressive as we sit here today?
58:57
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm entertained by it it's fun.
59:00
SPEAKER_02: And no matter how you slice it market share does matter to all of us the more we can the more reach we can achieve over the next five years the better off every one of us is going to be because that extra reach that that extra opportunity to serve that extra opportunity to create you know a raving ban you know that generates profit that I'm then able to reinvest in our agents and team members and future opportunities.
59:28
SPEAKER_02: And you can't do that if you're not a growing company.
59:32
SPEAKER_02: You can't do it if you're not profitable.
59:34
SPEAKER_02: And profit has to come first but you can't reinvest if you're not growing.
59:39
SPEAKER_02: It's growth that creates new opportunities you know it's growth that allows agents to decide that they want to hire an assistant or build a team or open their own team office or open their own roost office or go to a new market or become a you know a sales manager or a business development director or what have you.
59:57
SPEAKER_02: It's growth that creates those opportunities for all of us.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: And probably the most exciting thing is you know you start doing what you say you're going to do, you start to have some success out there.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: Growth starts to attract new people with capabilities that we don't have yet that are only going to make us stronger in the future right you know you could argue weak companies attract weak people and strong companies attract strong people and for that reason alone I want to be the the the strongest real estate brokerage that I could possibly be.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_02: So as we get close to the end here's my New Year's resolutions.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_02: So my New Year's resolutions for this year that I will never Lacey you watch me I will never show up anywhere without my team I may be going out there and then may start listing some houses with the certified pre-owned home designation but I can tell you right now Taylor you're coming with me.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_02: So never show up anywhere without my team we're going to let the leaders we've hired do what we've hired them to do.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_02: We're not going to micromanage we're not going to look over the shoulder but we are going to coach we are going to measure you know we're going to be right there with them but we're going to let them do what we hired them to do.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_02: One of the other things that I want to do this year is, you know, I want to spend more time with our clients.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think I've done a fairly good job of this but I want to be even more intentional about one-on-one understanding the dangers, the opportunities and strengths that not just our agents but our owners, our buyers and our sellers are facing because if I don't know what those dangers, opportunities and strengths are, then I'm never going to be in a position to know what value I need to figure out how to add.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_02: So more time with clients, one-on-one time with clients is on my list this year.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_02: I also want to spend more time in Florida.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_02: We've got huge opportunity here and you know Kelly and I love spending time here.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_02: So you know that's more personal but you know the stuff we've been doing with you and and Dean and this whole Space Coast condo guide, I think there's something there.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: And once we get that to the point where we can scale it the sky's the limit here in Florida.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_02: You know we talked a lot about in uh the last podcast we did about the part five of the NAR and what guessing embedding over the next 25 years.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: And you know I'm dead serious about the next 25 years but I'm also interested in doing and experience other things.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_02: You know I'm I'm going to be 63 this year.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: So the whole option of taking care of myself it's not an option.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: And me doing what's right for you know myself that's got to be good for me.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_02: And it's ultimately going to be good for the team.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_02: So you know my goal is that I want to be doing this for the next 25 years but I also need to find some moderation.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_02: I always hated that word maybe a little balance always hated that word but whatever I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure that I am adding value for this company and this business for another 25 years.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_02: And that means it's uh time to be more intentional about taking care of myself.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: So those are my new year's resolutions for this year.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_02: I'll have to pull this out next January and uh see how I did Lacey.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_02: So um a couple of other things being a great real estate consultant means nothing if nobody knows what you do.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_02: My job and our job at Roost is to do everything I can to promote our agents and their connections.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_02: That's why my focus will be more and more on marketing and less on operations.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_02: I spent the last 10 years building the perfect car.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_02: I think of Roost as a race car and now it's time to take it out and see what she can do.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_02: It's time to deliver and it's time to let people know what we do and how we do it.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_02: And that means it's time to grow and Lacey you know obviously you're already a key part of that.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_02: This has been a challenging year but I have to tell you it's been one of the most satisfying years I can remember.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm super proud of the every single person we have at Roost today and I'm super grateful and I thank you all.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah same.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_03: I mean I think that this is a real lesson in what you expect your business to look like and what it actually ends up looking like and how to not find a silver lining but really just to how to embrace you know be here now.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_03: That's what Ram Das taught was be here now.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_03: Where are we now and where are we going?
1:03:59
SPEAKER_03: And it's great to have goals and it's great to to remember that this is supposed to be fun, that life is not about just waking up and going to work and making money and paying off bills and then doing it all over again the next day.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_03: And I think that I mean if I'm here to judge your first 10 years then you get a resounding pass from me.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_03: But I'm so excited about what's to come.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_03: So also grateful also you know thank you for letting me be a part of this but I think this was a really cool insight for folks who maybe are just joining us don't know the whole backstory or maybe people who are thinking about you know becoming part of the whole Roost mindset.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_02: Well if anybody's interested we would be thrilled to talk to them and there's a million ways you can get a hold of me directly so please do.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_03: All right.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_01: Yep see you next time and there we have it thanks for listening in if you want to continue the conversation go to www.connectpractice trackgrow.com that's connectpracticgrow.com where we have additional information about the podcast archived episodes and an option you can select to be a guest on the show we'd love to hear from you.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_01: So that's it.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_01: We'll be back next time with another episode of the Connect to practice track and grow podcast