E105: Ryan Serhant: How Successful Entrepreneurs Manage Time (1,000 Minute Rule)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The David Weisburd Podcast | E105: Ryan Serhant: How Successful Entrepreneurs Manage Time (1,000 Minute Rule)

Host: David Weisburd
Guest: Jonathan [Last Name Not Provided]
Release Date: October 22, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode 105 of The David Weisburd Podcast, host David Weisburd engages in a comprehensive discussion with Jonathan, a seasoned real estate entrepreneur featured on the hit Netflix show Owning Manhattan. The conversation delves into Jonathan's business strategies, his passion for sales, company culture, branding, and his innovative time management technique—the 1,000 Minute Rule.

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Impact of "Owning Manhattan" on Business Growth

Jonathan begins by discussing the substantial impact his Netflix show Owning Manhattan has had on his business. The exposure from the series has significantly increased website traffic and social media engagement, leading to a surge in client inquiries and high-value listings.

• Notable Quote:
  "Our website traffic has increased by about 1900%. Follower count across social has grown by the hundreds of thousands." [01:23]

The show has also diversified his market presence beyond New York City, with balanced volume distribution across new markets like South Florida and Georgia. This diversification has reduced dependence on a single market, fostering sustainable growth.

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Defining the Business and Competitive Advantage

When asked to define his business, Jonathan highlights that his holding corporation, Sirhan Technologies, operates in the "sales as a service" sector. The company offers brokerage services to a wide range of clients, including buyers, sellers, developers, vendors, and agents. Additionally, Jonathan's venture, SellIt.com, focuses on sales education and training, catering to both individual professionals and large enterprises.

• Notable Quote:
  “We provide brokerage services to buyers, sellers, developers, vendors, and agents. Our customer is the agent on a global scale.” [04:14]

Jonathan emphasizes the company's competitive advantage lies in leveraging technology to automate and enhance sales processes, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing costs for clients.

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Passion for Sales and Overcoming Challenges

Jonathan expresses a deep-seated passion for sales, believing it to be the cornerstone of business success. He underscores that without effective sales strategies, even the best products can falter in the market.

• Notable Quote:
  “If you're not selling anything, then you could invent any product you want, but you could invent it for your mom.” [05:15]

He addresses common misconceptions about sales, such as the perception that selling is inherently "gross." Jonathan explains that successful sales hinge on creating win-win scenarios where both parties benefit, fostering trust and long-term relationships.

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Building and Scaling the Company Culture

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the importance of cultivating a strong company culture. Jonathan believes that a positive and supportive work environment is crucial for retention and performance. His approach includes minimal management intervention, allowing agents to work autonomously while providing the necessary support and resources.

• Notable Quote:
  “People don't quit jobs, they quit managers.” [10:54]

Jonathan shares his journey of transitioning from a traditional real estate brokerage to founding his own company, driven by the inability of existing firms to answer critical support and growth-related questions. This transition led to the creation of tools and systems that empower agents to reclaim their time and redefine their work processes.

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Leadership and Future Vision

Jonathan candidly discusses the challenges of balancing multiple roles as CEO, including sales, management, and strategic planning. He acknowledges the difficulty in relinquishing certain responsibilities but emphasizes the importance of focusing on his strengths to drive the company's success.

• Notable Quote:
  “I'm the best at sales. I think that's really important for brand, for culture, for revenue.” [13:06]

Looking forward, Jonathan aims to build a leadership team that can sustain and expand the company's vision, ultimately envisioning a culture that thrives independently of his direct involvement.

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Branding Strategy

The conversation shifts to branding, where Jonathan articulates his philosophy that a brand is fundamentally its reputation. He differentiates between personal and product brands, advocating for a cohesive integration of both to drive business growth.

• Notable Quote:
  “If the personal brand is what drives the attention, which is the product which brings in the business to allow you to retain so that you can get the revenue, then I have to own it.” [27:02]

Jonathan explains that his company's branding strategy involves consistent content creation, media presence, and leveraging personal stories to build a relatable and trustworthy brand image. This approach not only attracts clients but also aids in recruitment and retention by aligning the company's values with those of potential employees.

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Time Management: The 1,000 Minute Rule

A focal point of the episode is Jonathan's innovative time management strategy—the 1,000 Minute Rule. This framework divides his daily 1,000 productive minutes into distinct segments dedicated to finding business, maintaining existing operations, and executing day-to-day tasks.

• Notable Quote:
  “I wake up every day. I'm the CEO of my own bank of time. I have a thousand fresh dollars today, which helps me be really, really smart with my time.” [31:24]

Jonathan emphasizes the importance of treating time as a valuable currency, meticulously allocating minutes to maximize productivity and minimize waste. This methodology not only enhances personal efficiency but also fosters resilience in the face of setbacks by reframing negative experiences as temporary hurdles to overcome.

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Conclusion

Episode 105 of The David Weisburd Podcast offers an in-depth exploration of Jonathan's entrepreneurial journey, highlighting his strategic insights into sales, company culture, branding, and time management. His 1,000 Minute Rule stands out as a practical tool for entrepreneurs aiming to optimize their daily routines and achieve sustained business growth. Jonathan's blend of personal passion and strategic acumen provides valuable lessons for aspiring leaders and seasoned professionals alike.

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Key Takeaways:

• Diversification and Growth: Expanding market presence beyond primary locales can mitigate risks and foster stable growth.

• Sales as a Service: Leveraging technology to enhance sales processes can provide a competitive edge in the brokerage industry.

• Strong Company Culture: Building an autonomous yet supportive work environment is crucial for retention and performance.

• Personal Branding: Integrating personal and product brands through consistent content and storytelling can drive business success.

• Time Management: The 1,000 Minute Rule is an effective framework for maximizing productivity and maintaining resilience.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• “Our website traffic has increased by about 1900%. Follower count across social has grown by the hundreds of thousands.” [01:23]

• “We provide brokerage services to buyers, sellers, developers, vendors, and agents. Our customer is the agent on a global scale.” [04:14]

• “If you're not selling anything, then you could invent any product you want, but you could invent it for your mom.” [05:15]

• “People don't quit jobs, they quit managers.” [10:54]

• “I'm the best at sales. I think that's really important for brand, for culture, for revenue.” [13:06]

• “If the personal brand is what drives the attention, which is the product which brings in the business to allow you to retain so that you can get the revenue, then I have to own it.” [27:02]

• “I wake up every day. I'm the CEO of my own bank of time. I have a thousand fresh dollars today, which helps me be really, really smart with my time.” [31:24]

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This episode provides actionable insights into managing a high-growth business, the interplay between personal and corporate branding, and innovative time management strategies, making it a valuable resource for entrepreneurs and business leaders seeking to optimize their operations and personal productivity.

Transcript

[Ryan Sirhant]

You live by this thousand minute rule.

[Jonathan]

I wake up and have to make my own life happen. I was a real estate agent for 12 years. I did Millionaire listing in New York, Bravo, all the spin offs. And I went to every other real estate brokerage under the sun and said, I have a team of 65, we do a billion a year. I think I should switch firms. What are you going to do for me and how do you see your support in 2030? No one knew how to answer either of those questions, so I really blame every other real estate brokerage for making me do this.

[Ryan Sirhant]

What effect has your new hit show Owning Manhattan already had on your business?

[Jonathan]

A guy just finished the show, got in his car, drove to our office in the Hamptons, knocked on the door and said, I'd like to sell my house. I think it's about $8 million. Who can do it?

[Ryan Sirhant]

How much of the show's real?

[Jonathan]

What I thought Owning Manhattan was going to become was not what it ended up becoming because Netflix was really, really Ryan.

[Ryan Sirhant]

I've been really excited to sit down chat ever since my beautiful fiance, Jessica Markowski, one of your cast members on your new hit show One Manhattan, introduced us. Welcome to 10X Capital podcast.

[Jonathan]

Thanks for having me. I'm glad your fiance works with us so I could strong arm you into having a real estate broker on your podcast.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Absolutely. Well, you know, my fiance certainly loves this room, so let's get started. So I've seen on social media, so the show just came out a couple weeks ago, but Sirhan just had a record month. Can you talk a little bit about the metrics and what effect has the show already had on your business in growth mode?

[Jonathan]

I think most companies are always in growth mode, but because we're still pretty young, we're just about four years old now. We're growing every single month and June leading up to the show. So the show came out on Netflix on June 28th. But I was curious to know what were my entry metrics for the month leading into that type of launch. Which means what's the business that we really put into contract? Q1, let's say Q2, even a little bit of Q4 of 2023. And so our total volume in terms of all ACT activity was like 1.1 billion for the month of June alone, which for a publicly traded real estate firm is tiny for a four year old startup like we are is a lot and it puts a lot of stress and pressure on systems and support which we're working through. But for the month, it was about $845 million, not including like all active listings and everything. And what was exciting about it for us was because we only started really expanding into new marketplaces about a year ago, is that a lot of the volume is now spread out evenly. You know, it used to just be like 90% New York City, 9% South Florida, and then 1% everywhere else. But now it's kind of gone down to about 50% New York City. And then all of the other markets start to take a little bit of even share, which is great. Georgia had a great month, so it's fun. The Netflix effect. Since then, I think we've. Our website traffic has increased by about 1900%. Follower count across social has grown by the hundreds of thousands. I don't know off the top of my head, I know me personally, I went from 2 million to 2.2 million. And the engagement alone, like the engagement metrics have, like, all quadrupled, which is important, right? Like, you can have great lead flow, but if the lead flow hits, you know, less than 2% of the time, that's not great lead flow. But if lead flow starts hitting between 10 and 20% of the time, like, that's great. There are instances of every single market, both with your fiance, but also with other agents who are not featured on the show. I am flooded right now with a guy, just finished the show, got in his car, drove to our office in the Hamptons, knocked on the door and said, I'd like to sell my house. I think it's about $8 million. Who can do it? Melissa McGrath, a newer agent, was in the office, now has her first $7.85 million listing. All thanks to a guy who finished the show, literally got into his Ferrari, drove to our office and said, you, you come do it. And then there you go. And we have that from Tampa all the way north, and then the referral business and everything we have.

[Ryan Sirhant]

So you're great first principles. Thinker. We've talked a lot about business. I know a lot of people think you're just in the real estate brokerage business, but how would you define what business are you in? What is Sirhan really and what is the competitive advantage for sir.

[Jonathan]

If I look at like the definition for our holding corp. Right, which is Sirhan Technologies, we are in the sales as a service business. The real estate brokerage. Right. Is brokerage as a service. So we provide brokerage services to buyers, sellers, developers, vendors and agents. Right? We are the place they come to be able to provide their service to Their, their customers, but our customer and brokerage is the agent at this point on a global scale. We then have Sell it. I didn't wear this on purpose, but we just have a lot of media today for sell it.com, which is the education side of our business where we provide sales training as a service on a kind of, on a monthly subscription basis, on a one to one coaching basis and on a B2B basis where we go in, where we do the sales training for big companies like enterprise SDR sales training, any companies you could name, IBM, JP Morgan, auto car dealerships in Florida, like it's, it's a big mix.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Why are you so passionate about sales?

[Jonathan]

Because if you're not selling anything, then you could invent any product you want, but you could invent it for your mom. You know, like you I. One of my biggest clients of all time is a big tech guy. I'll just leave it at that. And I remember asking him on his plane how cool it was that he had created that software. And he said, I'm not in software, I'm in software sales. I could have the greatest software of all time. But if no one buys it, then yes. Is it about the product? Absolutely. You create a great product, the sales will come. But if you don't know how to then sell that product, then there's tons of products out there that are probably great that you and I will never use or know because they were poorly managed or poorly sold. And they have product intelligence. At most major companies, right, you have huge sales forces. You have a hundred people, you have 10,000 people. They have clear product intelligence on what they're selling, but they don't have clear revenue intelligence in as much as what those salespeople are able to produce, especially post Covid. So when there used to be the sales floor of an enterprise sales team, you have your sales leader, your manager, you'd have the boards and everything. But now like one of our major clients, we're doing sales training for their entire sales force to save money is now spread between Ireland and Alabama. The headquarters of this company is Dallas, Texas. And so it's all totally virtual because you don't have to pay as much of a base, you're just paying more incentives. But their churn has gone from like 20% to like 55% because now a virtual sales rep. There's no culture, there's nothing keeping me working for you. You're just on a screen. I just got a better deal to go do sales for this company or this company or this company, you just.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Change your zoom background.

[Jonathan]

Exactly. So how do I reduce churn for sales teams, for enterprises, for CROs? And if I can reduce churn, then I can increase their overall kind of net effective impact that these salespeople have. And then we're not a cost, we're now just literally coming in and being that community and then enabling us to give them feedback like, hey, here's where they're having trouble, here's where they're not. We have a sell it six part sales cycle that we just want to drive into everybody and it works. Well.

[Ryan Sirhant]

You've worked with thousands of people going through your programs and you've worked with a lot of beginners. And I agree with you. I think everybody should know how to sell, even people that are not in the sales business. What are the most common hangups that people have when they start to learn sales?

[Jonathan]

I think, well, the first hang up that most people have is they don't like it. They think selling is gross. They don't, they don't like it. People, they, they feel like they're taking something from somebody. So the first thing that you do with someone who's brand new to sales, like brand new to real estate sales, let's say you first have to fix the mindset and fix the framework. Okay. So that's one. Once you do that and you understand that even the pharmacy is going to sell you hydrocortisone cream for your itch. Right. Versus just telling you just go home and figure it out. Okay. Then they don't understand process and that they don't understand how the process works forward to talk to somebody who's going to buy something, whether it's $5 or $500 million. They don't understand that process of working with a seller. Right. What is the process of the sale? What's the structure of the sale? What are the words I should be using? What kind of questions do I ask? The third thing that most people have a hard time with is we all grow up playing or watching sports. And so we think when there's two sides, there's a winner. And so everyone says, oh, I'm going into sales, I have to win, I make money when I win. But when you're in business sales, I'm selling my fund, I'm selling my real estate, I'm selling my insurance. You have to play for the other side to win. So we have something called codo C O D O which is close on day one, but something that we, we talk about that a lot is as you play for the other side to win by default in business, then you win. If the other side wins, that means the deal got done, which means you win.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Yeah, I think a lot of people say I could sell ice and Eskimo, but that's not really what great salespeople do. I think great salespeople inherently will not take on sales that they don't believe in. That's something that I've seen, and the opposite is true as well. The people that have produced millions and tens of millions of dollars personally have a product that I think they really believe in.

[Jonathan]

Yeah. And I think it's even outside of the product they really believe in their service. Like, listen, I sell a lot of real estate, and we have clients who buy real estate that sometimes I think they shouldn't buy. And we say that when you're honest, you know, and you're fully upfront, if they still want to move forward with it, what am I gonna do? Like, park in front of your car so you can't go drive and buy that condo you really want? But I really believe in our service. Like, as the technology we all use becomes more ubiqu, like as AI now enters into all of our spaces, that one to one interaction between two human beings is just getting, I wouldn't say stronger. It's like it's just getting more important because you want to automate almost everything except the decision. And that's what key executives are paid to do, which is make key decisions that think that's what great salespeople are, are being compensated to do. It's what is my decision matrix. For a large financial decision, I need somebody, not something, to help me make that decision. And that's really what we do. And that's a service that we provide. And the best salespeople are then compensated for it, most times without a base salary, without any benefits.

[Ryan Sirhant]

To an outsider, it seemed that real estate has a commoditization where the relationship is really central with the person, but people go from one brokerage to another. How have you institutionalized service into your offering across all your agents?

[Jonathan]

That's a big question. I definitely start with culture, first and foremost. You know, people don't quit jobs, they quit managers. And we don't have a whole lot of managers here. Like, you're in our podcast studio at our headquarters in soho, because I live here and I wanted one. But for the most part, our business is fully in the cloud. Our agents work from their cars, from their homes all over the country, all over the world at this Point so they can sell to anyone, anywhere, on any device at any time. But understanding that culture and having them say to themselves, yeah, but working at Sirhan is fun. Yes, but working at Sirhan is good for my career, right? I've doubled my sales flow, I've increased my client base. Sure this place could pay me more. Sure that place might have more X, Y or Z, but my life is better at Sirhant has been a big part of our vision at the beginning. And we do that by also not just doing things like creating single sign on, but building, right, building things and helping agents make their lives easier. One of the whole reasons I started this company was because I was a real estate agent for 12 years, right. I did Millionaire Listing New York on Bravo for 10 years and all the spinoffs. And I went to every other real estate brokerage under the sun and said, I have a team of 65, we do 1 billion a year. This is 2017. I think I should switch firms. I don't know why. I just. It's that time. What are you going to do for me and how do you see your support in 2030? No one knew how to answer either of those questions. And so I really blame every other real estate brokerage for making me do this because then I just was forced to go and start this company and build things like simple, you know, and enable agents to buy all their time back and redefine the way that they work. And I think that also creates stickiness and helps us provide the product of helping people buy and sell homes at kind of mass scale in a way that other firms aren't able to.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Everybody or I've seen you on a million dollar list. You really seem to love the craft of selling and closing. Do you miss kind of being on the ground and getting deals done and taking on more of a managerial and a CEO role?

[Jonathan]

100%.

[Ryan Sirhant]

How do you balance that and how do you make sure that you still have that in your life?

[Jonathan]

I do a pretty bad job at it. It's one of my goals now, now that I turned 40 last week, to focus a bit more on the things that I'm really good at. And it's hard when you're starting a company. You have to wear all the hats. I was the top selling broker, plus the CEO, plus the president, plus the coo, plus running finance, plus being the direct report for everybody. Like, you know, that's. But that's the job I signed up for. And then I just complain about it all day long, you know, and lose Sleep and stress out and work seven days a week. We're at the point now where I'm able to say, okay, I am the best at sales. I think that's really important for brand, for culture, for revenue. I'm the best at leading, so I'll continue to do that as CEO. And then I brand and expand all day long. Everything else, I would probably say I'm not the absolute best at and I don't have that domain expertise. So let's go find the right people, put them in the right seats to get us the right results. And I don't want to go out there and pretend to be somebody I'm not. That's been a big effort as to what we've been doing. So that way I can also buy my time back so I can sell more, so I can be in more pitches, so I can do what I do best. Which is why you do see me selling on Owning Manhattan on Netflix, like there are, it's not a lot, but there are a handful of scenes that like, were very nostalgic for me to watch because it felt like old school million dollar listing New York days. Like doing a deal in the back of a car, sitting there in pressure, you know, putting the phone on mute and saying, God, we got to put this together. Like those are, you know, I'm passionate about that and I can do it well. And so I want to do more of it.

[Ryan Sirhant]

A lot of people ask me how much of the show is real.

[Jonathan]

Way too much. I wish we had scripted that out. I mean, you can ask your fiance, dude, they did that podcast here in real time and it blew up in everyone's face in real time. What I thought Owning Manhattan was going to become was not what it ended up becoming because Netflix was really, really, you know, they were, they were intense with us and they said, this isn't going to be a year long shoot where you have story meetings and we go, you know, because we're not shooting an episodic, we're going to make an eight part occupational docu series. And the people who want to see the real estate space, they are going to binge it and that's what you need to go create. So, so you think about the production of television then in a way where you're not thinking about commercial breaks, you're thinking about hooks and cliffhangers and you're thinking about a through line of a storyline. Instead of this episode, we're solving this case, and this episode we're solving this case. There's only so Much of that you can watch. It all happened in real time. If it were up to me, everything would have sold. But it didn't. If it were up to me, you know, Jessica would not have been in this room with Jonathan while he was badmouthing the entire company publicly and then putting it out on the Internet for everyone to hear. I don't think I would have scripted it that way. Right. Would have protected her more.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Just to play devil's advocate on that. Do you think Jonathan has really contributed to the success of the show?

[Jonathan]

Yep, 100%. And I think people see that too, you know, for as many people probably gave me. And I think I even said this up to him when. When I was letting him go. Like, I had a lot of strife in the hire of bringing him on because I get a lot of pushback when we bring on newer agents. We bring on disruptive agents or people that maybe don't fit the culture necessarily. I also see a little bit of myself and everyone, you know, a little bit of an outsider, someone who thinks differently. He's up at 4am in the gym like I am every day. Like, he's. He's trying to get things done, and I really like that. And I. My vision for him was really to go from. From bad to good, you know, kind of the opposite of Breaking Bad. Yeah. I was like, you have probably 30 seconds to change someone's mind about you when you meet them. That's kind of awesome. Most people show up and you say, okay, that's a guy, that's a girl. They've made no impression on me, so now I gotta go create one. You make an immediate impression.

[Ryan Sirhant]

It's a niche.

[Jonathan]

Yeah. And which is great. You know, I think that's. That's a superpower. I just wish she had gone in the opposite way. But he's good tv. Right. Chloe, good tv. Your wife, good tv. Jade, good tv. I mean, the whole cast. I think the reason the show has performed so well is not just because of the real estate, and it's not just because of me, and it's not because it's New York. From all the feedback we're getting both from Netflix and all the reviews and all the social and all that stuff is it's really like people have picked their love it or hate it cast members, and they're really drawn into those specific stories. And the cast is so unique and so diverse and so different that everybody can watch it because you're not just getting, oh, that's the show with X. And that only Works for people that like X. It's like, oh, that's the show with the Alphabet. And so, okay, I'm going to go watch that because I really want to follow her journey or his journey. And I think that's why it's been so globally. Well received. Yeah.

[Ryan Sirhant]

An incredible production as well. It's like watching a movie.

[Jonathan]

Yeah. Thanks. Sirhan Studios. Hats off to the crew filming this right now. They were thanked at the end of those episodes, you know, which was. Which is wild even for us. Like, Netflix came to us as they were filming and doing stuff to, like, do you. Instead of us trying to figure out how to shoot Manhattan and shoot real estate and drone through the canyons of New York City, can we just bring on Sirhan Studios to do a lot of that? Yes, sure. Which I think was really, really cool for our team, which is mostly young. You know, on the. On the content side, it. Mostly young. And they move really, really quickly. And. Yeah, and it was. It was fun. I think the city as a character, even this building as a character on the show came across really, really, really beautifully. And it's a TV show. It's got to be visually appealing.

[Ryan Sirhant]

So going back to. You see, you have this superpower of being able to see potential in people. You see it all over the show, and you're oftentimes disappointed. Tell me about that. And does that hurt? Over the many years of constantly going through the cycle and people not appreciating your faith in them.

[Jonathan]

Have gratitude. God damn it. I don't know what it is. I know what I'm good at, and I know what I'm not good at. I'm a much better leader than I am a manager. I'm actually a pretty terrible manager. Like, I was a few minutes late to this because I had to do my 90 day review for somebody upstairs, and I'm like, I don't know. Just do your damn job and I will empower you and I will lead you to do it really, really well. But I don't want to be. I'm not, like, I'm not the guy to sit here and talk to you about, you know, how we can improve your KPIs. That's just. That's not me. But I do like finding good talent. Kind of like a head coach or a general manager of a NFL team. I grew up watching the Patriots go from Drew Bledsoe in that game against the jets through the Patriots era and watch them win all those championships with different players for the most part, every single time in One of them, you have Chris Hogan, who was a national lacrosse player who they found, brought him in, made him a wide receiver, and then they good, okay, they win. And so I think it's about figuring out, okay, we're all here to win, what's the game we're looking to win. And then I need the right players, and I got to make sure that we've got redundancy coverage and what we're, you know, taking care of our people as we go and training them. You know, I think training and the reason we do so much training is like, if you can teach someone to fish, they'll fish with you for a life, right? If you just give them a fish, then they're going to say, okay, yeah, Ryan was good while he was giving me fish, and then he got busy and stopped giving me fish. But this company is going to give me fish. And then you kind of set up this instance of, oh, when there's deal flow, I'll stay at that company. But when there's not, and we really, really harp on, you're going to come here to build deal flow, and then it's going to be hard to, like, why would you go anywhere else? This is where the deal flow is.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Speaking of development, I look at Sirhant as, in many ways, a tech company, and I see you as a tech CEO in hypergrowth. And one thing that's difficult is scaling your team. You've got some incredible people like cto, coin, Josh, your president. How do you even know who to hire to get to the next level? Talk to me about scaling and hypergrowth.

[Jonathan]

I can hire people to do everything, but hire people. And it's become something I've had to really, really learn how to do. I am a big believer in homework. Right. Like, you've got to show me that you can do the job and not just tell me and not just have other people tell me you can do the job. We use personality tests pretty heavily.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Which ones?

[Jonathan]

We use wimbush. We've just always had really, really good success with them. That also test for memory, too, right? We test for memory, we test for personality. And that also helps me understand where they're going to fit within culture. And you can know what type of person I am, and you got to do it for yourself, too. So you take a wimbush test.

[Ryan Sirhant]

I have a user manual on myself that the company created. It's like the key to interacting with me.

[Jonathan]

Exactly.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Pretty well.

[Jonathan]

I have the. You know, I have the same thing so that people can understand when I do what Ryan tells me to do. He's still going to get irritated kind of, but here's why. And you got to understand that based on everybody else. And then we use different types of, you know, systems to help us hire the right people to fit the team. It is a sports team and you have the owner, head coach, the general manager, you have all the other assistant coaches down to all the players. You need all of them to win the games. But they're all hyper specific in what they do. And so you know, our CTO I also have known for a long time. And there's, there's a loyalty, there's a trust, there's. Right. Josh, our president, we went out and searched for and he was somebody I never thought we could ever get.

[Ryan Sirhant]

How many people did you talk to before you hired Josh? Like how big was this process?

[Jonathan]

It was terrible.

[Ryan Sirhant]

And you Talked to all 90s or.

[Jonathan]

Your kind of homework, everything. It was hard to find somebody that could really understand what we do, understand the growth and also come from a very senior level of. He was president of all Keller Williams. I mean that's 180,000 agents based in Texas. We're here in New York. When I first started talking to him, we were 300 people. Why would you want to do that? Unless you think there's a multi billion dollar idea, right? Unless you say that, okay, this is the next thing on my list. I went from here to here to here. You know, no one wants to make a lateral move, especially employees, because you don't have to explain it down the line. I think when you have the right culture and the right vision and then the right team, it's like Tom Brady going to Tampa Bay. Like what? But clearly he saw something that said, that's the championship team. I'm going to add my ingredient into it and we're going to do it. He did it that year. Crazy. I saw hiring people, right? Especially on the technology side. I love a good outsource. Right. And I love variable costs, you know, especially with developers. Like I look at what some of our competitors have done and they bring so much on the books and they have incredible payroll. Because I feel like people think that quantity. I feel like people think that quantity mean something.

[Ryan Sirhant]

I think when people ask you how big is your company? I have 300 employees. They don't ask necessarily how, how much revenue do you have exactly?

[Jonathan]

I think because I'm a salesperson, I want to do a billion a year as a salesperson of one. All the salespeople that I Have to. Have to be able to do all of those sales means less revenue. And now I got to manage all these people. I want to have the leanest, most efficient team I possibly can if I can build a massive company with as few people as possible. Which is why AI is so important for us and everything that we do here. It just increases the value of all the people who are here and then.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Allows you to scale your support. Support by. By salesperson. You clearly are a great leader. But the mark of a level five leader is somebody that's able to eventually step out of the business and the culture is infused. What do you need to do in order to create that culture that survives yourself?

[Jonathan]

I read from good to great as well. And that that level five leader, it's.

[Ryan Sirhant]

An incredibly rare leader.

[Jonathan]

Yes. I don't know if I'm a leader because that level five leader isn't doing press about themselves all day. That's, I think literally the difference between level four and level five is. Level five is company first, you know, man or woman second, you know, personality second. And unfortunately, we are a brand and a business based on attention. Like 10 years ago, I think I made the realization that the product in sales used to be your skill set because that's how you get business. Because people would say, hey, David, who sold your place? He did a good job. Oh, I'm going to go hire them. That was it. Okay. Your product was your skill set. Today your product is attention. And if you can match attention with skill set, then you win and you actually beat the person with a better.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Skill set, which goes back to your engagement of your followers. It's not just you grew by 10%, but you grew by four times engagement. You're correct. You're more center of mind.

[Jonathan]

So anyway, I'm trying to be a level 5 leader. Eventually we'll get us to a point where this Ryan of Sirhand can step out and that the brand can stand on its own outside of the guy.

[Ryan Sirhant]

So when we first met six months ago, I went to your office and I saw like 50 pictures of you. I've never seen that in the business office. And I'm like, wow, this guy's really into himself. But as I've got, as I've got, as I've gotten to know you, you're a very deep and empathetic person. Is the paradox there that it's a necessary evil for you to go out and just brand the hell out of yourself, like dissect that. That contradiction in your personality are my.

[Jonathan]

Personal brand and Therefore, our company band brand is what drives revenue.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Right.

[Jonathan]

It's what drives recruitment.

[Ryan Sirhant]

You just embrace it, essentially.

[Jonathan]

Yeah. It's what drives recruitment, retention and revenue. Right. If that's what's going to make it happen and that's also what's going to inspire people. So the reason my photo is everywhere here is because the agents photo, by the way, the agents who join the company and come here to our headquarters almost kind of come into this space. A little bit like a museum. Right. Every moment is a place to take photos. It's a little bit of a. An homage to the last 15 years of my life. Like be in the room where it happened. Here it is. And also here's some history. Here's the reason why you're coming here. Because Ryan sold this or he did that. There's photos of other people too. If the personal brand is what drives the attention, which is the product which brings in the business to allow you to retain so that you can get the revenue, then I have to own it. Like, I would be an idiot.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Did you ever for a second consider having a neutral name and not Sirhan?

[Jonathan]

I pushed for one. I agree with the decision that we ended up making, which was calling it Sirhan with a period. But I really tried to call the company sunflower.com. we had other names, man. Because I was like, what if something happens to me? What if I do something dumb? And then it does hold you to.

[Ryan Sirhant]

A higher count of accountability. Your name on it. I've talked to people with their names like it's a different level of commitment.

[Jonathan]

Yeah, listen, you see it in the show. You see it in my conversations with a lot of the agents.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Like leads to better decision making on personnel.

[Jonathan]

If I owned a company that had a different name other than myself, would I care as much? Yes, probably. But when they're running around saying, hey, I'm so and so with Sirhant and not hey, I'm so And so with GPS realty.com forever. The reputation is set with that one sentence. And so I think we probably from all of our competitors have the highest reputational standards because it's always going to be sir hand hired or sir hand fired. Right. Not X and X with company where Ryan Sirhant is the CEO. It's just a much easier.

[Ryan Sirhant]

There's no backing out of when it's. Your name's on the building.

[Jonathan]

Yeah. No, man.

[Ryan Sirhant]

So you are you. You wear many hats and I consider you a branding genius. Tell me about what is a brand fundamentally and how should businesses maybe LPs, venture capitalists think about building their brand.

[Jonathan]

So a brand is reputation, Right. If you think about the math, like math starts with. I mean, there's two types of brands. There's personal brands and there's product brands. You know, there's like Phil Knight and then there's Nike. So if we start with personal first, you've got core identity. So who am I? That's. Most people don't know. Most people have no idea. Like, define yourself without using your name and try not to just talk about your job. That's weird for people. They have a hard time, principles thing.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Or what is core identity?

[Jonathan]

Honestly, it depends. I think the easiest way for us to think about it, especially when we're talking to salespeople. Okay. Is say, okay, you are what you do and who you are. So what is your and? You could have a hundred ands, or try to pick one, try to pick two. Because there are riches and niches, right? Maybe your and is social media. Like my and for a long time has been media. It's what we get hired for. It's why people come to this company. It's how we generate revenue. I mean, it's. It's everything, right? People come to us and say, well, I could go everywhere else, but media sells. And if people aren't building media companies that I don't know what they're really building, and we are a media company that sells real estate. Um, so that's my. That's my and. And people have to figure it out. Maybe your and is tattoos, Maybe your and is kids. Maybe your and is kayaking or cooking. Um, so really figure out what that core identity is. Figure out how to define yourself without using your name. Then you've got creating consistent awareness. So that's consistent content. That's doing a podcast and staying consistent at it. It's social, it's LinkedIn, it's blogging, it's personal emails. Maybe your thing is in person events. You do a dinner once a month, but you're consistent. And then part three to that math is creating what I like to call, like shouting it from the mountaintop. No one cares about your successes more than you do. So people have to know about them. Kind of going back to the original product. Product being skillset. Like, you got to let people know that you are skilled to match today's product, which is attention. So the skillset doesn't go away. It's just. It's transferred differently to your audience. And if you know your audience and you know your target market, you know, that community, then you can start to really, really, you know, commoditize it. Right. And build it on a product. We try to always turn products into people. So, okay, 10x capital, is it you or is it really? Like, who is that target? Who's the person 10x is? Bob, it's Sally. What does she look like? What's her social media account look like? What is her core identity? If she was creating content awareness, what would it be? Right. And how would Sally be amplifying her message? And you got to do that same math to then go out and build the reputation. That way you can control your brand because everybody has a brand whether they like it or not. They're either just in control of it or they're not.

[Ryan Sirhant]

And final question, you live by this thousand minute rule. Tell me about that. And how has that evolved over time?

[Jonathan]

The thousand minute rule. I get flack for this. I appreciate you bringing it up as an entrepreneur. Right. Like, I'm not. No one tells me what to do every day of clients who say, you got to be here by this time. But that, like, other than that, I wake up and have to to make my own life happen. And so I was trying to figure out a way to manage my time. Like, what do I do? And so I started with just kind of creating what I call finder, keeper, doer, which was helpful for me to say, every day I'm going to find business, keep business, do business. I'm going to CEO, COO, CFO. Every day I got to wear all three hats. So from 8 to 10, I'm going to find business. From 10 to 12, I'm going to keep the business I have. And then from 12 to 5, I'm going to go and do everything I got to do. Right. And that kind of morphed into saying I got 1440 minutes a day. 440 of those minutes roughly on average. I'm sleeping.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Yeah.

[Jonathan]

At the gym, whatever, hanging out with your spouse, kids. So I got a thousand minutes to be productive. And how do I use those minutes as dollars? So I wake up every day. I'm the CEO of my own bank of time. I had a thousand fresh dollars today, which helps me be really, really smart with my time. So I'm not wasting it. Because being wasteful with your time, as I've met more and more successful people in my life, is probably one of the clear things they think about and operate on. And then also helps me with like, bad days or bad phone calls because it used to be, you know, Someone would be mad for 10 minutes. I just ruined my day. You ruined my week. Ugh, that was terrible. And now I'm throwing out $990 because you took 10 of them.

[Ryan Sirhant]

We saw on the show you lost a large listing. How do you recover from that very quickly? Like, what's your best practice? Do you do yoga? Do you do meditation?

[Jonathan]

Or I think a guy with a thousand minute rule does yoga. Do you think I have time to do yoga? No, I wish I did yoga. I very specifically, I started doing this a long time ago. Evolutionary. We are not built to remember pain. We're built to remember pleasure, right? That's why we have kids. And we got to repopulate the earth as much as we can. So you don't remember pain. Otherwise you wouldn't get on that bike because you fell off that time and scraped your elbows. You would literally remember the pain you had on your elbows and not just remember that you fell and that there was discomfort. You'd never get back on the bike. And so to get over those times, I wanted to figure out, how do I create muscle memory for getting over tough times? How can I be tougher than the tough times? And I literally go into my calendar 30 days out. Like, if this was a terrible meeting, something I hate, you just killed a deal for me. I would go into my calendar 30 days from today at this exact same time, and I'd just say, open me. And I would type them out how much I hate you. Like, how much this sucks. And this deal and this. And it just unload in that calendar invite. And then what happens is 30 days goes on, right? And then I wake up and I come to that day and I see that calendar invite. I'm like, oh, damn it. And I open it and I feel one of a couple things. One, now I don't care anymore because it's been a month. Two, oh, I fixed it. Oh, that deal did go through. Or I fixed that problem. Or three, it's still a problem. I got to take care of it, right? It's one of. It's one of those three. But now I have new sites on it. And it. And so now what happens is anytime that thing happens, like if you watch the show, I think in the first episode, I feel like I'm about to do a 200 plus million dollar deal. And the broker calls me and says, nope. And for a split second, I literally turn to this wall in the Empire State Building and put my face on it and just hug the wall for a split second. And What I'm really doing in that moment is making a mental note. This bad thing just happened, which is telling my brain, you're going to get over it. Because one of the best pieces of advice I also got getting into sales, which is a roller coaster of a life, right? You're up and you're down, you're up and you're down is this too shall pass. And bad days come and go and so do good days. That great deal you did, it's only as good as far as the time you did it. And you're only as good as your last deal. You're only as good as your 1099 in this business.

[Ryan Sirhant]

I think it also helps personally, I found surrounding yourself with level headed people. I have Curtis here, you know, I go through these meetings.

[Jonathan]

He's super level headed.

[Ryan Sirhant]

He hasn't, he literally hasn't moved these ups and downs. And then Curtis is like, well, we have 75 LPs, we have this and this. And I'm like, yeah, that's right. Like nothing really changed from the last meeting. But, but having that is like a nice way to.

[Jonathan]

It's anxiety too. Not to cut you off, but like one of, one of the exercises they teach you if you have panic attacks is first you have to sit, so you have to relax your diaphragm. And then you get a pen and paper, old school style. And you, on the left side of the paper, you write down everything that's bad in your life. What is the panic from just you go through all of it and then you do a big line and then the right side of the paper, you write down everything that's good in your life. And when you do it right, 99.9% of the time, the right side of the paper is much longer. And you just have to be honest with yourself that way. And by then you've caught your breath, you've calmed down and you realize like, what Curtis does for you. Oh, right, things are great. And my worst day is her greatest day of all time. It's like that meme where you see the guy in a car, he's like, I ate my car. And then the person next to him in a bike who's like, I wish I had a car. And then the person waiting for the bus is like, I wish I had a bike. And the person walking by is like, I wish I had money to afford a bus.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Absolutely. And speaking of slowing down, you've built these like three businesses. How do you make the decision on whether to go wide and deep and do you ever think I need to take two steps back so I could go for that $10 billion, a billion dollar development? Like how do you look at what challenges to take on and when to go forward, when to go back and plan?

[Jonathan]

I mean I made a decision a long time ago that sales, that's kind of why we started this conversation. But we're, you know, sales as a service. Sales is our oak tree and we can go build a forest of those oak trees. I'm probably not going to have this similar success rate if I go and try to make an apple orchard, you know, or an orange tree farm. Like I have oak trees, those oak trees can then have branches or I can have other oak trees. And so like along the lines of like the tech, right? So like building simple, which is AI powered back office support for salespeople to buy all their time back. And I can empower humans. It's really what it does. So I can take a human support person who with our competition can handle four to five salespeople a day. And using Sirhan simple, one human support person can handle between 100 and 120 salespeople a day. Because we've taken all of the tasks custom based on the individual salesperson and we've automated them using recipes. That is right now a pretty big branch of our oak tree, but will soon become a separate oak tree in the same forest. Right. Kind of underneath our holdco. But I wouldn't go out.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Identity as a sales organization will never change correctly.

[Jonathan]

And which, which also stops me from making decisions that'll be a distraction. It's like the Steve Jobs quote where he says, is this issue a focus? Like, I don't want to be distracted by trying to create a line of shoes just because I could. It's not what I do. I don't even have that many shoes.

[Ryan Sirhant]

I think it becomes hard to focus if you don't have that core core focus. If you don't have that core identity, you're always kind of like the dog chasing the next car.

[Jonathan]

You got to know what you want. Like, what do you want? Can you define the difference in your own life between what makes you happy and what makes you joyful? Like, are you trying to be satisfied? Are you trying to be content? How do you define success? Like, these are big questions that I think most people should try to answer because it'll help them with their own vision. You know, from myself to you to Curtis to Danny. And when you can answer those big questions, it just really, really helps that decision tree for everything else in your life, what restaurant to go to. This, this, this.

[Ryan Sirhant]

You know, my mentor, Eric Anderson, taught me this concept of building your last business. What business do you want to work in the next 30, 40 years and then go about building that? And then that. That leads to kind of work, life balance and happiness in life. So on that note, I really appreciate you jumping on the podcast. Obviously, I binged. I came home at 3am or I woke up at 3am to watch the show with Jessica, I heard, and we binged through that.

[Jonathan]

And she's great, man. So great on camera. I love that she has an arc as well. You know, kind of starts, gets in the middle of it, which is, listen, it's a reality TV show, and then comes out strong. And I think the future is super bright. And then you get people that root for you like you don't want to be. One note.

[Ryan Sirhant]

Yeah. Yeah. And she's really evolved, and I really appreciate your faith in her as well. And thanks for jumping on the podcast.

[Jonathan]

Thanks, man.