How Garrett Maroon Closed 650 Homes by Living in Balance

Summary

Stay Paid Podcast: How Garrett Maroon Closed 650 Homes by Living in Balance

Podcast: Stay Paid Podcast
Episode Title: How Garrett Maroon Closed 650 Homes by Living in Balance
Date: November 13, 2025
Host(s): Luke Acree & Josh Dyke (ReminderMedia)
Guest: Garrett Maroon (Founder, The 210 Collective at eXp Realty, host of Faithful Agent Podcast, author of “The Balanced Breakthrough”)

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Episode Overview

This episode features returning guest Garrett Maroon, a real estate agent who has closed over 650 homes primarily through nurturing a small, intentional database of relationships. Garrett shares the philosophies and systems that allowed him to build a high-producing business while protecting time with family and staying true to his faith and priorities. The conversation revolves around redefining success, building an authentic business model, and his new book, The Balanced Breakthrough: Winning at Work Without Losing at Life. This episode is particularly impactful for agents and entrepreneurs striving for balance between professional growth and personal fulfillment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Redefining the Scoreboard of Success

(Starts ~02:18)

• Better Questions Lead to Better Answers:
  Garrett urges agents and business owners to rethink what they measure as “winning.” He emphasizes moving away from industry metrics (number of transactions, GCI) toward a more holistic, self-defined scoreboard.

  • “The industry only cares about how much money you make and how many deals that you do... But we get to define what winning looks like, not the industry.” — Garrett Maroon (04:36)

• Practical Example:
  Changing the goal from “How do I sell 50 homes this year?” to
  “How do I sell 50 homes, take my wife on two day dates a month, and take every seventh week off to spend with my kids?”

• Luke’s Reflection:
  Luke brings up the “dash” concept—what the dash between your birth and death dates on your tombstone really means—a metaphor Garrett explores in his book.

• Garrett’s Personal Dash:
  “What I hope mine says is passionate follower of Jesus, loving husband, great dad... served the people around him, whatever those scenarios are going to be right for me.” — Garrett Maroon (06:35)

2. The Pitfalls of Agent Hustle Culture

(07:19–11:53)

• Many agents unconsciously accept the industry’s definition of success—hustling at the expense of everything else—without questioning if it matches their values.
• Memorable Story:
  The “number one agent in the market” received top awards but was broke and estranged from his family. It’s a cautionary tale about defining success too narrowly.
  • “He’s up on stage... being the #1 agent, then he goes home to an empty house.” — Garrett Maroon (07:40)

3. The Tension Between Family and Production

(09:19)

• Common Dilemma:
  Many agents want more balance but get stuck thinking, “If I don’t grind, I can’t provide.”
• Garrett’s Response:
  Most agents believe they need to do everything, but can rarely prove all tactics are necessary. Instead, analyze what actually works for you and double down on that.

4. The Rule of Eight: Master Before You Multiply

(11:53–16:00)

• Don’t try to master six lead gen methods at once. Identify where most of your business is coming from and rank according to enjoyment and effectiveness.

• The Rule of Eight:
  Focus on your best lead source (often sphere of influence) until you’re at least an 8/10 in consistency and execution—then refine or layer in others.

• Super Relevant Quote:
  “Your entire business is foundationally built on this [your sphere]. Let’s get that to at least an 8 out of 10 every single month... Only then do you have permission to move into open houses and try to make that better.” — Garrett Maroon (12:23)

• Industry Critique:
  Too often, the industry pushes one-size-fits-all tactics (open houses, cold calling) without regard for agent strengths or what truly works for them.

5. Consistency Over Tactics: Don’t Quit Too Soon

(16:10–16:32)

• Luke’s Experience:
  Many agents jump from strategy to strategy, never mastering one, and thus see little ROI.
  • “They haven’t actually developed the systems... until you do that, you’re going to keep finding the same mess.” — Luke Acree (15:51)
• Many successful deals from paid ads or sphere may come YEARS after the first connection—reinforcing the idea that relationships and consistency are more powerful than quick fixes.

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Deep Dive: Garrett’s PDA Formula

(16:32–23:09)

• PDA = Predictable, Profitable, Aligned (with who you are)

  • Predictable:
    Develop a “lead generation recipe”—just like a cake recipe, list your ingredients (activities), do them consistently, then “taste and tweak” until you find what works.

    • “Lead generation strategy should be the same thing... Taste and tweak along the way. You'll find your own secret recipe.” — Garrett Maroon (17:45)

  • Profitable:
    Be ruthless about tracking and improving ROI—not just gross results. Example: Lowered event costs from $2,500 to $800, kept the same results.

    • “We could get to a dollar to produce $90 return on every dollar we spend.” — Garrett Maroon (19:55)

  • Aligned:
    Build your business FOR and FROM your authentic self. Don’t try to be who the industry says you should be—excel at what you naturally do best.

    • “Your job is not to be who the industry says you should be. Your job is to figure out who you are already and then go be excellent at that.” — Garrett Maroon (21:06)

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Authenticity and The Energy Audit

(24:07–28:03)

• Discovering Your Lane:
  Garrett illustrates how playing to your natural strengths and passions, rather than chasing shiny objects or copying others, drives both joy and results.

  • Tactical Tool:
    Time Audit + Energy Audit
    Every 30 minutes for three days, record what you did. Then mark each with:
    • PLUS (+): Gave you energy
    • MINUS (–): Drained you
    • CIRCLE (o): Neutral

  Use these patterns to figure out what business activities you should double down on.

  • “Pay attention to what actually gives you energy — that's a huge clue right there to say, maybe you should do more of this because this is what you naturally enjoy doing.” — Garrett Maroon (25:46)

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Overcoming Laziness vs. Leaning into Gifting

(30:52–36:00)

• Industry Challenge:
  The real estate industry sometimes confuses “laziness” with “misalignment.” There's an overemphasis on activities (like cold calling) as discipline markers.

  • “Are you not willing to make the phone calls because you're lazy, or are you not willing to make the phone calls because...that's not your natural gifting?” — Luke Acree (30:53)

• On Motivation:
  You can’t make someone work hard if they’re truly unmotivated or not self-starting. Sometimes, the honest answer is that a person may be better suited for another industry.

• Faith Perspective:
  Both hosts and Garrett discuss working “heartily as unto the Lord,” and the idea that our work ethic should reflect a deeper purpose.

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Stick With It: Persistence and Infinite Runway

(38:12–40:14)

• Do Not Grow Weary:
  Referencing Galatians 6:9: “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
  • “Literally, the only requirement of success is the infinite Runway—the unwillingness to stop.” — Garrett Maroon (39:06)
  • “The only time you can’t afford to fail is the last time you try.” (Charles Kettering)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “We get to define what winning looks like, not the industry.” — Garrett Maroon (04:36)
• “If you ask a better question, it will force you to stop wasting so much time chasing terrible ways to generate business.” — Garrett Maroon (03:36)
• “Your entire business is foundationally built on this [your sphere]. Let’s get that to at least an 8 out of 10 every single month.” — Garrett Maroon (12:23)
• “Your job is not to be who the industry says you should be. Your job is to figure out who you are already and then go be excellent at that.” — Garrett Maroon (21:06)
• “I've never met anybody who gave themselves an infinite Runway that didn’t finally have their plane leave the ground.” — Garrett Maroon (16:15)
• “Authenticity is the secret to success.” — Luke Acree (24:07)
• “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” — Garrett Maroon quoting Gal 6:9 (38:41)
• “Difference between top producers and mediocre producers in every business: Top producers take action.” — Luke Acree (42:18)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:18 – Defining your “scoreboard” for personal and business success
• 06:25 – The “dash” on your headstone—what will your life represent?
• 12:23 – The “rule of eight” and mastering client relationships
• 16:32 – Introduction of the PDA formula (Predictable, Profitable, Aligned)
• 24:27 – How to discover your authentic business model (energy audit)
• 30:53 – Tension between laziness and misalignment in real estate
• 38:41 – The importance of persistence and not giving up
• 40:25 – Where to find Garrett's book and resources

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Closing Advice & Book Info

• Find more about Garrett and his book The Balanced Breakthrough:
  • GarrettMaroon.com
  • Available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Walmart, etc.
• Final action step:
  • Define your own scoreboard of success—clarify what your “dash” should stand for and set intentional goals to align business and life.

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Summary for the Listener

Garrett Maroon offers a practical, data-driven, and deeply personal roadmap for agents seeking both business excellence and a fulfilling life. This episode challenges listeners to define their own success, focus on mastery and authenticity, weed out unnecessary hustle, and never give up on what matters most. If you’re feeling burnt out or out of alignment, revisit your scoreboard, focus on your strengths, and remember that being true to yourself is the surest path to winning at work—and in life.

Transcript

[Garrett Maroon]

Foreign.

[Josh Dyke]

Your number one sales and marketing podcast on a mission to help you close more deals, keep more clients, and build the life of freedom you're working towards. But that can only happen if you're willing to take action today. My name is Josh Dyke, chief marketing officer here at Reminder Media, joined as always by Luke Acrey, president of Reminder Media. And returning to the show third time, three times.

[Luke Acrey]

He's getting up there next to Sean, I believe.

[Josh Dyke]

Yeah. Next to Sean Carpenter on the hall of Fame, return guest Garrett Maroon. Garrett started in real estate with just 40 names in a database and 11 years later has closed over 650 homes, 100 by relationships. He co founded the 210 Collective at Exp Realty as well as host the Faithful Agent podcast and has a new book releasing November 25th called the Balanced Breakthrough, Winning at Work Without Losing at Life. Garrett, welcome to Stay Paid Again. Welcome.

[Garrett Maroon]

Thank you guys for having me back. It's awesome to be here. Whoever has beat me, I need to come back next week. So, yeah, I think it's literally you.

[Luke Acrey]

And Sean Carpenter and Stephen, my brother, which obviously he's kind of co host now, so that's not a fair assessment. But yeah, I mean, and shout out to you for people who don't know Gary. I mean, he's a top producing age. I mean, you're always closing, you know, a massive amount of deals every year. And what's most impressive of you, I remember the first time we interviewed you, you had like 288 people in your database and it closed like 80 something deals that year. And that is a common theme I see amongst top producing agents, is they have really done an incredible job at nurturing a core database of relationships that feeds the majority of their business. And I'm really interested to get into your book because you call it the Balance Breakthrough. And this whole idea of balance, it feels like a misnomer because, you know, I've been trying to seek balance in my life for years and I've never got it. So I'm curious of your take on this. My first really question to you is in the book you talk about creating a scoreboard in life and business, and I'm just wondering how agents, even entrepreneurs, who listen to this can begin really redefining what winning looks like for themselves. Like, what does that scoreboard mean in your mind? And how do they start with that in mind to create balance.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah, so, and thanks again, guys. Love being with y', all, but. So I think it starts with the salespeople and business owners. Ask Bad questions. And so here's what I mean, right?

[Luke Acrey]

Recently, I just asked you a bad question.

[Garrett Maroon]

I didn't want to say that out loud. We can edit that out. The, The. That's fantastic. No, that's. That. Let me restart. That is a great question, Luke. Let me share with you my, my thoughts. But so, okay, so I'm on a show recently, I'm on a podcast recently, and the gentleman says, hey, tell. Talk to the agent who, if someone came into and asked you, how do I sell 30 homes this year, what would you tell them? And I said I would tell them. That's a terrible question because I would answer, you go work 120 hours every week, spend a hundred grand, borrow that from the bank, and you'll find your way to 30 transactions. That's a terrible question. But most of us get stuck there, right? And we're like, how, how do I sell X amount of homes? How do I make X amount of money? Getting that answer is really easy. The scoreboard comes in to say, we gotta ask better questions. The balance comes in when. What do I actually care about, right? So for me, it shifted from how do I sell 50 homes a year and under 40 hours a week, which is a pretty good question, to when I created a scoreboard, which I'm looking at. It was, how do I sell 50 homes a year while taking my wife on two day dates a month and taking every seventh week off to spend with my kids. So now that I had a better question and it forced me to go find a better answer, right? So it was, well, the only way I can figure out how to do that is to master working by referral. I can't figure any other way out. So it forced me to become an expert and solve that problem, right? So for the business owner that says, well, I gotta put food on the table. What you do. So do I. My wife is she homeschools. We have five kids, right? We have a lot of expenses. You absolutely have to provide. My challenge is not saying, well, don't work hard, don't hustle. Sometimes, of course, you have to. My challenge to them is you're probably not asking the best question that you could. What if you say, for example, right? In real estate, a lot of times it's, how do I make six figures? So instead of just asking, how do I make 100k this year? What if you say, okay, but who matters in my life? So maybe you're a mom, right? There's a lot of young moms in the industry. And you say, how do I make 100k this year while still being at every family dinner and. And never missing my son's soccer game? Whatever your scenario, if you ask that question, it'll force you to stop wasting so much time chasing all of the terrible ways to generate business, or the things that require four or five hours a day, or the ways that you generate business where you only have a one out of three shot to even convert that deal. Right. It's gonna force you into a better solution. And so that's what I mean when we start crafting the way that matters to me to keep score. Because the industry only cares about how much money you make and how many deals that you do. Most brokers are non competing. What does that mean? The only way they make money is if you do more deals. It doesn't matter if you're like, I'm good at 20. Well, why aren't you doing 30? I hear that all the time. Right. So we get to define what winning looks like, not the industry. And when we get that clear definition for us, Luke, then we start asking a better question to. Which leads to a better answer, which leads to a better and more balanced life.

[Luke Acrey]

Yeah, it makes so much sense. It's like the definition of success. What is your true definition of success? And you know, there's that famous book of people on their deathbed, right. And they're, you know, the things they regret it the most. And I forget what it's called.

[Josh Dyke]

The Five.

[Luke Acrey]

Yeah, something. It's like the Five Things. Whatever. It's a great book. We'll see if we can look it up for people. They should read it. But it is interesting of, you know, when you get to the end of your life, what is going to matter? And. And I think you had something in your book. I think it was at the end of your book, you asked readers, what would you like the dash on your headstone to mean? What do you hope your dash represents? And I would pose that question to you of going like, hey, your dash, Garrett, which is, you know, the. The concept of Luke akers, born in 88 and, you know, only God knows when I'm going to pass. But the dash in between represents my life and my impact and what I did for you. What does that dash mean to you?

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah, so such a good question. And I'll answer that again. I'm just going to talk about how good your questions are now so you don't feel bad.

[Luke Acrey]

But.

[Garrett Maroon]

That is a good question. So it all stems from. Right. So my mom passed away in October 20, 22. And every year we go back and we visit, you know, where she was buried and you look at her headstone. Now, mom wasn't a real estate agent. She was a French teacher. But if she was a real estate agent. We live our lives as if it's going to have a real estate stat sheet on it. Right? Garrett sold a thousand homes for 100 million GCI and $5 million in profit. Whatever it is we live like that's true. By our day to day choices. What I hope mine says is passionate follower of Jesus, loving husband, great dad. Right. Amazing friend, served his. The people around him, whatever those scenarios are going to be right for me. I know what the top ones are. I don't know how the rest of my life's going to play out.

[Luke Acrey]

Not sold 650 homes.

[Garrett Maroon]

Right, exactly. Well, if selling more from today, that'd be pretty bad. But. Right, but, but the reality is we live like that's what's going to matter and it. And it won't. Now again, you must provide for your family. That's a given. So we're everything I'm talking about. That's the number one priority. You have to do it. You could do it in a better way, but stop falling prey to you made this point. Luke, I'll give you a quick story. There's an agent in our market, I'm not going to say his name, who two years ago was the number one agent in our market. Right. He had sold the most homes by far, had the highest gci, all of the things. Now, it was broadly known that he had actually lost money that year and that sadly he had gotten a divorce and wasn't talking to his son. But that was very public knowledge. Well, what's happening at Realtor Prom at the end of the year? Well, he's up on stage receiving the award, taking selfies with people about being the number one agent, and then he goes home to an empty house. And so most of us, if we say, well, what's success? We. We'd say, I mean, I sell a lot of homes and make a lot of money, great. But then, because that's how we're wired to think. But then if we caveat and say, no, I don't think that's what it is. So you're telling me if you did that but you went home to an empty house because you didn't talk to your son anymore, would you. Oh, no, no, no, that's not what I mean. All right, then actually go create the definition and then be in Pursuit of what that is. That's the problem, is that we sit and we get stuck at, oh, it's about making money, selling more homes. We don't bring everything else in because we assume we're already living in that direction. And when we stop attention, most of the time we're not. Because how many family dinners did you miss because you had to take that emergency phone call? Being on the beach with your family, writing offers? Why are we Instagramming about that? We shouldn't be proud of that. Hey, look at me not being present with my family. That we shouldn't be proud of those things, right? We need to put them to bed.

[Luke Acrey]

I feel attacked right now.

[Garrett Maroon]

Dude. I'm feeling it. I mean, the dolphins won and I'm excited. And so this one. Good.

[Luke Acrey]

I love the point, but to be devil's advocate here, or where my mind goes, is like, I don't think most people want to have to be the hustle culture and the grind. I mean, some do, right? I've fallen prey to that a little bit. But, like, they've tried the other paths to be able to spend time with their family, but it hasn't produced enough to provide. So they're torn in this, like, almost like, tension of, like, I really want to be here with my kids, but I have to make my phone calls, because if I don't make my phone calls, then I can't provide for my kids. And that is the great. Whatever you want to call that, like, problem is, most people would want the balance, but the balance isn't producing for them what they're choosing in the balance. Does that make sense? They're choosing the non phone calls. What do you say to that? Or what advice would you give?

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah, so it's the tension, right? That tension that exists 100%. And I run into that all the time. And I ran into that, right? The tension of I've got to do all of these things, right? And I've got to figure out how to sell homes and do X, Y and Z. When I coach agents, my first question is, prove to me that, you know, they'll show me their Legion plan. It's like five different things that they're doing. My first question is, prove to me that all of those are necessary. They can't, right? Okay, well, tell me the data that says that you've got to do X, Y and Z every single day, all the time. You can't prove that to me. Right? So we live in a false idea of what is necessary to succeed when you know you guys were kind to have me on the show years ago, and it was, I'm selling 50 homes a year and under 40 hours a week. Well, how did you do that? Well, people shouldn't be surprised that when you just focus on mastering something that it leads to greater success than trying to do all the things the industry tells you to do. So I would first, if I'm sitting down with somebody, first of all, I empathize with that because I was struggling with that too. Right, I empathize with that. But the reality is, if I look down, I teach in the book and I teach now what I call the rule of eight, right? So I would sit down with them and say, okay, you've got six ways you're generating business. Well, let's actually look at what are the three best ways to generate business for you. It's almost always fear. Let's say it's fear, social media and open house, whatever it is, Right, Fantastic. Now tell me, and that's got to be data driven or most of us don't have data. So it's just tell me, where is most of your business coming from? The majority would say my sphere. Then I'd say, okay, now re rank them based on what you enjoy most. Oh, okay, Well, I love sphere. I love open houses and social media. I just kind of do it because I feel like I have to do it. Okay, fantastic. And then I'll say, well, tell me, on a scale of 1 to 10, how excellent are you at working your database? How excellent are you in working a system and being. Being consistent on that? They're like a five out of ten. Open house. I'm like a nine out of ten. Social media on eight out of ten, overwhelmingly the least important piece of their business, they're really good at the most important piece of their business they're struggling in. And so the rule of eights concept for me is keep doing what you're doing. Open house, social media, that's fine, but stop trying to make those better. Your entire business is foundationally built on this, right? So let's say sphere and you're at a 5 out of 10 until we can get that to at least an 8 out of 10 every single month, like clockwork, like it's a habit stacking right then and only then do you have permission to move into open houses and try to make that better. Right. That's the flaw, is we think we've got to do all these things when really successes hone in and focus on what you're doing, right? You guys sometimes send the magazine. Cool. Do you do it consistently? No. All right, well, that's why it's not working. Right. What kind of things are you doing? So it's just a misunderstanding in the industry again. The industry doesn't care if you run yourself ragged. Super quick story. I was selling 50 homes a year. Was my second year in a row doing it. I hired a real estate coach. I get on the phone with her. She's super sweet lady, and I say, here's my goal. I don't want to sell more homes. I want to do it in less time. I want to go home. And she said, okay, we're having a conversation. At the end of that call, she says, all right, Gary, here's your homework. And granted, I've never hosted an open house in 11 years. Made a cold call anything. And she says, garrett, your homework for the week. You need to cold call 300 people and you need to door knock 100 doors. And I was like, I'm not going to do that. And she literally said, well, Garrett, you're not going to succeed in this industry. And I thought, well, I don't think that's true. And so, okay, I'm not going to do it. We get on the phone the next week. She said, garrett, did you do your homework? I said, I told you I wasn't going to do my homework. No, of course I didn't do it. And she literally said, again, garrett, if you don't cold call 300 this week, if you don't door knock 100, you will not succeed. And I'm like, what is going on here? Where's the disconnect in this industry that says this is the only way that you can succeed? Therefore, if you're not in the office four hours a day cold calling, you're clearly not a very good agent. That's totally. That's true for some people. Totally untrue, honestly, for the majority of people. So let's just be super intentional. Did we choose the way we were building the business, or did someone tell us how to do it and we just followed their plan? We really got to be clear on that.

[Luke Acrey]

Yeah. So it's so good. And your nugget of mastering an actual strategy, it's like the old saying with CRMs. What's the best CRM? The one you use. Same idea, same principle. It's like you have to actually master the strategy and. And even to apply it to, like, the cold calling side or the lead side, because it's so powerful. It's like I have a client call here in like an hour of an upset client that has spent, you know, I think a couple grand with us on generating some leads through a Facebook ads program. We have and hasn't gotten anything. And they've stopped at like 9 months in, 10 months in or something like that. And they've gotten 348 leads, $7 a lead, or like 729 lead. So all the stats and metrics are good, but they've stopped because they haven't gotten anything. So I went and looked at Acre Brothers, right? Majority of our business, like you said, sphere. But we have another avenue, which is Facebook ads we generate to grow our sphere. Well, we've only closed this year 11 deals from that. But you know where those 11 deals came from. Five of them came from leads generated from paid ads three years ago. Three of them generated from two years ago, two from this year, another one from a year ago. Think about that. Like it was a bunch of these deals. Oh, one of them from five years ago. And you go, so it is a relationship, right? It is the sphere. But my point being is this lady's just quitting too soon. And that's the problem with the industry is they don't focus in. They don't go the actual extra mile and master it. Whether it's Facebook ads, sphere, open houses, and then they sit there and wonder. It's not working for me. And they slowly spin their way out of the business. They hop their way out of the business, from one marketing strategy to the next, next. And I'm all about. It's like serious fear. Fear that is number one, should be number one. You should never go to anything else until then. But the whole point is, I just don't want people to miss it. Whether you're doing farming Legion, you're giving up too soon, you're not focused enough. You haven't actually developed the systems become. The rule of eight is genius to at least become an eight skilled person in that avenue. And until you do that, you're going to keep finding the same mess where you just don't know what you're doing. So I want to dive a little deeper. You have this piece. PDA formula. Can you break down this PDA formula? You know, it's kind of the heart of your system. Yeah, exactly.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah. So that is what it is, Josh. It's. I wanted people to think about in high school when their friends were holding hands. You're like, ooh, that's gross. Right? That's the. That's what this is no. So 100 what you just said, by the way, Luke, I agree a thousand percent really quickly. My encouragement to anybody is anytime you're trying to become expert in something, it's like you walk into a completely pitch dark room and they close the door behind you. In the room there's one light switch, right? There's furniture in the room, there's stuff you're going to bump into the reality. Hopefully you have a mentor in there who can verbally help guide you around and say, hey, be careful. And maybe a step you're going to run into something you're going to bump your way around, right? The question is, are you going to stay in that room long enough to find the light switch? Most of us are going to say, I can't do it, somebody let me out, somebody let me out, somebody let me out. Until someone opens the door. And now you're done, right? Just stay there long enough to find the light switch. You're going to be fine. I've never met anybody who gave themselves an infinite Runway that didn't finally have their plane leave the ground. Absolutely true. So, okay, the PDA formula. So how do you build a predictable, profitable business that aligns with who you are? So we'll start with the predictability. So what I teach is what I call the lead generation recipe, right? It says, I love food, so I like to talk about food. And it's my book, so I get to write whatever I want. But the reality is, when I thought about it, think about Grandma's secret cake recipe, right? Well, Grandma couldn't go Google that. She couldn't ask chat GPT. Those things didn't exist. And so Grandma had to say, well, I want to make a cake recipe. Maybe these are the ingredients. You know, I don't know how to make cakes, but flour and eggs and chocolate and whatever. She took those ingredients, she mixed them together, she baked in the oven for 30 minutes at 350, whatever. And when it came out, she tasted that cake and she said, is this exactly what I wanted? Probably not. So maybe I should taste it and tweak the recipe. I'll try again, right? Maybe instead of five eggs, I'll put in four eggs. Whatever. I don't know what that would do. But maybe instead of five eggs, I put in four eggs. I'm going to bake it again. I'm going to put those ingredients, bake it and I'm going to taste it. I'm just going to taste and tweak until I get the exact right recipe. Lead Generation strategy should be the same thing. We overcomplicate. Right? A good lead generation. Let's say you're social media and I'm not a great social media guy. But let's say you want to build on social media. A really easy, good social media lead generation recipe is, okay, I'm going to post one personal post and one business post a day for 30 days. There's my ingredient list. The 30 days is how long it's going to bake. At the end of that, what came out right, was that social media cake good. Did it produce business or did it not? And if it didn't, do I need to tweak it? Maybe next time I do one personal post and two business posts and I see how that does. If we just do that. It took me three years to master my lead generation recipe, but it's worth it. And so the problem is, to your point, Luke, earlier we say, well, that didn't work, so I must not be any good at social media. I don't know. That's true. Maybe you just weren't good at your recipe. The worst part is, Luke, is how many agents say, well, I did it and it didn't work. And then I ask them and I'm like, well, you only put one of the two ingredients in. If grandma put in flour and chocolate, but no eggs, of course it would taste terrible. But you just assume, well, I didn't do the work, but clearly it doesn't work for me. Did it not work or did you not do the work? Right. That's the right question. So when you build out a lead generation recipe, it should be that simple. Taste and tweak along the way. You'll find your own secret recipe. The profitability part is literally this idea of we fall prey to, I spend a dollar and I make $5. Like, that was amazing. I'm just going to keep doing that in perpetuity. Right. As opposed to how do we hold every single dollar accountable? Right. And they're going to have to buy the book, honestly, to really understand how it's built out. But when I started my business, as an example, I was spending $2,500 per client event on average. And it was great. It was generated so $10,000 for the year because we do four events, it was generating 50 closed deals. Awesome. I started to ask myself the question, I wonder what would happen if I spent less? Like, what if I could I get, instead of, you know, put a dollar in and get $30 out, which is what we were doing. I wonder If I can put a dollar in and get $50 out, right? So we dropped our. Our cost on the party from 2500 to 800. Guess what happened? 50 sales, nothing changed, right? My own database brought in 50. What we saw was we could get to a dollar to produce $90 return on every dollar we spend in lead generation, right? The challenge for most agents, especially in the market we're in now, which is hard, is we just spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. We don't hold our money accountable and say, could I actually produce more if I'm better at this, right? So again, there's some tactical stuff in there. Maybe we have time to go into, maybe not. But ultimately, the biggest piece of this is, is what is in alignment with you, right? So Albert Einstein said, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. In our industry, we have a lot of fish, right? We have a lot of fish that be really good at swimming. And the industry says, hold on, you gotta. You gotta go climb this tree, right? I need you on the phones every single day. I need you on social media every single day. And they're like, man, that's not who I am. But I guess that's how this is supposed to be built. Here's my challenge to anybody. Your job is not to be who the industry says you should be. Your job is to figure out who you are already and then go be excellent at that. That's really what your job is, right? So when I did all the classes on the cold calls and all the things, when I realized, and I was only 27, I didn't know anything, but I knew enough to say, man, I'm a relational guy, so I got to build a business off of who I naturally am. That makes more sense. I can show up and do that. It's not going to burn me out, right? And so we've got to show up in the most authentic way possible. So when we. When we combine those things, right? When we talk about balance, to your point earlier, Luke, is how do we achieve balance? How do we. And it's not perfect ever. But how do we achieve balance? How do we. How do we achieve this new scoreboard? Well, it's by building a business that is more predictable, more profitable and in alignment with who you are. Because even if it's hard, guess what happens when you're operating outside of your skill set. You are worn out at the end of the day, and you show up to your family and you're like, Man, I, I'm falling asleep. I don't have any worst of you. Exactly. But if you build it in alignment with who you are, what fires you up. Great, right? Still going to have hard days. I mean again, we have a lot of kids. It's still hard, but I show up, more energy, more excitement over what's going on. And I didn't spend all day running in the opposite direction. I tried to run wind at my back. So my hope is the PDA formula is going to help agents kind of reset the way that they build their business and really hyper focus in on what is the avenue that's actually going to help them get to where they're trying to go and they're going to do it in less time. And that's an amazing thing too.

[Josh Dyke]

Yeah, it's such a good way to measure. You know, you talk about kind of your authentic business model, measuring your authentic self. It's hard to sit down and go, oh, this is my authentic self. But, but measuring your energy at the end of the day, coming up from where, man, that's such a good, it's really good, Good point. Yeah.

[Luke Acrey]

I heard at a conference a similar takeaway of like if you feel burnt out, it's probably because you're doing something out of alignment with your passion. Because there's a difference between the feeling of being burnt out and the feeling of being tired. Like we are all tired after a great day of hard work in the.

[Josh Dyke]

Yard after a good run.

[Luke Acrey]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Dyke]

Great. That.

[Luke Acrey]

Yeah, yeah. And so it's like if you feel just burnt, it's probably because there's an alignment thing. Like what I love is like you're so good at relationships, you're so good at the referrals and sphere. And so you leaned into that and you were bold enough to say no to the coach, like the expert. Most people don't have that skill, unfortunately. It's like most are followers, not leaders.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Acrey]

And you were, you were. Yeah. Confident enough to go, no, I'm gonna kind of do my own thing. You write about authenticity being the secret to success. You know, playing the game that you were made for. How does someone in your mind discover their authentic self, their authentic business model? What's your thought process there?

[Garrett Maroon]

So, yeah, great question. I'll give you a story and then a tactical way. So I share this all the time. Right. We live in a hyper competitive and comparison society. We know that. Right. Social media, we see all the things, we do all the stuff. Right. And so we look around and we say well, they're doing this kind of business. I should probably do that too, right? What about this? What about that? And so we start to doubt that we have any value in and of ourselves. Right? The way that the Lord actually specifically wired us. And so, for example, you guys will appreciate this story. So my wife's best friends growing up. The dad is 6, 10. Okay.

[Luke Acrey]

He's a huge.

[Garrett Maroon]

I'm 5, 6 and 3 quarters. When you're 5, 6, the 3 quarters matters, right? I'm sitting down and I can barely touch the floor. Now, that's not true. But so the reality. I don't know. I said that. Edit that out, Josh. Okay, so. So here's the reality, right? We're visiting him. Yeah. Not. No, don't. Mr. Jensen is his name. We're visiting Mr. Jensen. Mr. Jensen loves sports. He takes me into his office, like, look at my awesome sports memorabilia. That's not what I remember. Mr. Jensen works at a standing desk. I could walk back and forth under it without ducking. Like, how is this possible? Right? Like, amazing. Well, so, okay, here's the reality. If I wanted to go become a professional basketball player, the probability of that is really, really low, right? If he wanted to, the probability is significantly higher. So the problem that we have is we often decisions off of possibility, not probability, right? Is it possible I could become a professional basketball player? I mean, I guess so. Is it probable? No. So let me look around and see with who I am and how I'm created, what would be more probable for me, right? I played baseball and tennis. Now I play pickleball. Because it doesn't matter how tall you are. Right? And so the reality is, when we look around in our business, we've got to understand that what's probable for me, understanding our own design and skill set, it does be no good to look around and say, man, I wish I was tall like Mr. Jensen. Guess what? It's not going to change how tall I am. Nothing's going to change, right? So we've got to have humility enough to accept who we are from a tactical perspective. And you mentioned this Josh. Josh earlier. So I do love a time audit, right? We talk about that in the book. Every 30 minutes, stop for three days, write down what did I do. But what I really love is what I have my clients do, which is an energy audit. So then when you're done with that, I want you to put a plus next to something that gave you energy, a minus next to something that drained your energy. And a circle. If it didn't do anything. Right? So, for example, for me, podcasting is a huge plus. I love it. It's so much fun. It doesn't matter how tired I am. I could do it now. Answering emails is a big old negative. I don't want to do that anyways. Right. So when you start to pay attention at just what actually gives you energy, that's a huge clue right there to say, maybe you should do more of this because this is what you naturally enjoy doing. The challenge is to your point. Most of us don't know what it is, and even if we do, we waste so much energy wishing it was something else. Yeah, it's not. Just go be the fish and be really good at swimming. Michael Jordan tried to go be a great baseball player. Guess what happened? He wasn't very good at it. If he stayed in his lane, which he did for many years, he became probably the greatest basketball player of all time, the biggest name in the world. Why? Because he stayed in his lane. And so the reality is, any real success is going to come from knowing which lane you should be in. Right? That's key number one. And then forcibly staying there long enough. It's hard because we want to be like everyone else. Stay in your lane. That's your best chance to actually succeed at a high level.

[Luke Acrey]

Dude, that's so good. It ties into the top five regrets of the dying because I just chat GPT because they talked about I wish I wouldn't lived. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings is one of the ways I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. That was two of the regrets of the five. One was I wish I would have had the courage to express my feelings, which is about authenticity. The other one, I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. And then I was thinking I was chatgpt and this as you were talking Proverbs 22:6 says, Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it. And a lot of people, you know, interpret that rightfully so around, you know, teaching them the ways of the Lord and all that stuff. And that's so true. But there's another principle out of that, which is a lot of scholars will say, train up a child in. In their giftings. Encourage them in their giftings. Because like you're saying, when you know what you're good at, when you know what the Lord has gifted you in and what you naturally go to, you will have success in that versus constantly chasing that comparison. And I would just challenge people. Like, that's so powerful with kids. I think of my kids, you know, Evelyn and William. It's like I want to invest in them and encourage them and what they're good at. So if, you know, if Will is good at sports, I want to encourage that. If he's not the best in sports, you know, I'm going to encourage him to have a fun time, but I'm not going to be some crazy person trying to get him to go down a road that is not his natural giftings. And I think of my parents, right? You talk about homeschooling your kids. My parents homeschooled all of us. There's eight of us, so you got three more to go. Garrett, get busy. Come on, man. You only have five. But this is a guy preaching at you that only has two kids. But the point being is, like, they were really good at sharing with us our actual giftings and what we were good at and encouraging us and what we were good at and not BSing us on things that we weren't good at.

[Garrett Maroon]

It's good.

[Luke Acrey]

And that, you know, stuck with us. And maybe that's one of the reasons why.

[Garrett Maroon]

And when did that.

[Luke Acrey]

All of us are not crazy, right?

[Garrett Maroon]

But like, well, you guys are. Little bit. But like, when did that change, right? At what point did someone above us, you know, our real estate father, who's our coach or whatever, said, we're not going to talk about what you're good at anymore? You just need to go be good at this. Exactly. Like you said, my son's not very good at piano. Now he's trying it. But what if he's just not. He's really good at building things. If I just said, no, no, no, Dylan, I just need you to be good at piano. Be good at piano. Be good at piano. He might become good at piano. It's possible he'd hate playing piano, so it wouldn't even matter, right? It's okay. I'm trying to figure out exactly what you said, what you're good at, and I'm going to encourage that. Why? Is that not what the real estate industry does, too? At what point in our lives did that change? Where it's.

[Luke Acrey]

I think here's what my opinion is. I think it's because there's also a natural tension that human beings are naturally. I believe human beings are naturally lazy. Naturally bend. They bend towards being undisciplined. Bend towards doing bad things for them. They would rather the sugar than the broccoli type idea, you know, and this is not me preaching on anybody. It's literally myself included. I know myself, and I know I naturally choose the things that I probably shouldn't choose. The things of the flesh, in essence. And so I think the natural tension is trying to discern, are you, Garrett, not willing to make the phone calls and door knock because you're lazy, or are you not willing to make the door knocking and the phone calls because you. You aren't good? Like, that's not your natural gifting. And there's probably a too much just blanket lens of there's just so many lazy agents that don't work. And so the coaches are basically screaming at them, well, you got to work. And the most obvious way to show that you work is how many dials did you make? How many doors did you knock? And we need to really develop the metric for how many relationships did you build? How many cups of coffee? I remember when Tim Bush, you know, Tim, I think a little bit, he's down there with Stephen and them. His first 30 days in the business, his main metric was, hey, man, you're involved in your church. You just moved to the area. How many cups of coffee can you have with people? Like, how many?

[Garrett Maroon]

And.

[Luke Acrey]

And he challenged to have one cup of coffee a day, and sometimes it was a lunch and stuff like that. But the point was, how many people can you just talk to and have, you know, do something Relationship with Wise? And I mean, his first year, he closed like, 60 or something like that.

[Garrett Maroon]

That's amazing this first year.

[Luke Acrey]

But it was mainly, you know, relationship. Tim also does a lot of cold calling, too, for Facebook leads. So, you know, we could talk about that another time. But it's that idea of there's this laziness in the industry and everybody's trying to weave through. Are you just lazy and that's why you're not closing deals, or are you actually not leaning into your gift? And I'm not sure how to actually discern that extremely well, honestly.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah, that's a good question. There's definitely a lot of laziness. And the first thing I'd say is to every agent listening who's not lazy, half your competition didn't even show up today. So be encouraged by that. Right. It's a lot easier to win, unfortunately, than it should be. The second aspect of. Yeah, they're so much even in the Christian world. Right. I had a. Well, I wouldn't call Him a friend, but a guy knew in college, right? And he really wanted to be married before he left college. And he'd sit there, he'd never go meet anybody, whatever, and he would just say his name was Jeff. Guys, God's going to bring her to me. She's going to walk through that door and she's going to say, you're supposed to be my husband. And we're just like, brother. I mean, I guess that's possible. The Lord can do anything, but that's not how this is going to work. You got to get out and do the work, right? The same thing in Proverbs it says the labor. Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborer labors in vain. So the Lord has to build the house, but the laborer still has to labor. It is required of you to show up and work. That is a requirement, right? And so that's a good thing for you to get out there and work hard and be disciplined and be skilled in the, in whatever you've been gifted in. That's a good thing. So the challenge of trying to help someone who is lazy or struggling, Excuse me, quite honestly, in that scenario, I'll just say, do you actually. I had an agent who was on my team for a little while, right? Not going to use his name. He was on my team for a little while and I finally let him go. And I just said, man, I can't figure out how to motivate you. No matter what. I've tried. You don't show up and do the work. And so I don't know. And we tried so many things, right? It was, you're going to pay. He didn't have kids, he wasn't married. You're going to pay for your niece to go to college. And that fired him up for like two months, right? And then you're going to have to call her when you stop doing the work and tell her, sorry, you don't get to go to college. Because Uncle Whatever, uncle whatever stopped doing the work. And he was like, that's terrible. I'm like, bro, you're going to run faster away from pain than you are towards pleasure. So I got to do something. Guess what didn't motivate him. So I finally just said, brother, I really, really love you. I don't think this is the industry for you, right? You're super, super skilled. But if you don't have the self starterness, if that's not part of who you are, then let's go do something else. And that's okay. Even in that context, let's not work counter to who you are. Now. The way that you prove that this is for you. Get out there and do the work. Even if everything you do doesn't work, but you actually did something that's a step in the right direction. So it is hard. Right? Because this industry is hard. I think it's just that much more challenging for an agent who doesn't want to do the work when they finally do, they do work that they hate and aren't good at. Right. Because if I'm cold, if I cold called every day, I wouldn't be very good at it, probably. And so I would burn out really quickly and get really. To be like, I don't want to do this anymore. So there is an aspect too, of saying, who am I work in that direction. When I sit down and have coffee with somebody, I'm fired it up. Hey, how do I go do that again? If I had to pick up the phone and be like, I don't want to do that again. So my natural inclination is going to say, I'm just going to check my emails and pretend like I'm busy instead of getting on the phones. Right. So there is an aspect too, of that alignment that's going to help us show up and actually do the work.

[Luke Acrey]

Yeah. It's so true.

[Josh Dyke]

We just. Ethan just shared as a post, what was the. I don't know who did the. Who said the quote, but it was. I've never met someone who doesn't want.

[Luke Acrey]

Oh, Steve Jobs, I think.

[Josh Dyke]

Was it Jobs?

[Luke Acrey]

Okay, yeah, yeah, it was a great quote. I'll see if I can find it. But it was Steve Jobs about someone who doesn't work hard, getting them to work hard or something like that.

[Josh Dyke]

Never been able to get someone who doesn't want to work hard.

[Luke Acrey]

It was. Yeah. I've never found in my whole life that you could convince someone who doesn't want to work hard to work hard. And that was Steve Jobs. But it's kind of what you're saying is there's a lot of people in the industry that shouldn't be in the industry. And this comes full circle to what your book's all about. They have the wrong scorecard. They got into this business with a false alignment of what the business is and what their definition of success, and they're lying to themselves. Because I'm having combos like this with a couple agents even right now where it's like, actually, you might be happier as an accountant, but you have this weird idea that you need to be your own boss and entrepreneur because it's somehow, you know, bad that you are working for somebody else. And it's like, you know, that's the whole culture today. It's like, if you're not the entrepreneur person, then you are less than in the business world versus it's like, yeah, that's totally false and ridiculous.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah, it is.

[Luke Acrey]

But I mean, this is so good, man. Of. Everybody wants balance, really harmony in their life. You know, everybody knows, hey, I got to work hard. But this whole concept of, well, what is your definition of success? Is just so powerful. One thing I'm using, because. Not that this is a spiritual podcast, but I know you're a person of faith. Like, I am. I'm talking to an agent right now where I could not motivate them for anything. Like, anything. It's just like, same with you, man. It's like, man, you get them going for 20 days, you get them going for, like, a couple weeks, and then it would fall off again. And I finally looked at them because they were a person of faith, too, and I told them, hey, you know, there's. I think it's in Colossians. I was trying to look it up, up, but it's like, whatever you do, do it as if you're doing it unto the Lord. Like, whatever work you're doing, it's like, hey, whatever you choose to do, you need to work as if you're. Because you are. And it's like, that's deeper than any type of success you'll get from this. Anything of what it will mean for you, you're doing it because it's actually what you're called. You're supposed to be excellent in what you do. And that actually helped like, that, actually. So, anyways, try that. If it's a personal faith.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah. No, no, you're at Colossians 3. 23. Yeah. Whatever you do, work heartily as unto the Lord, not unto man. Right. There's a bigger purpose going on here, you know, I think. And you. You shared this earlier, right? You talk about the Runway, the idea of agents give up too quickly. Galatians 6. 9 says, and therefore, let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season you will reap if you do not give up. Right? That's the. Encourage the last two years in the market. Give up, Josh.

[Luke Acrey]

We're in the thick of it, bro. We're in the thick of it. We got things crashing down all around, dude.

[Garrett Maroon]

Well, like. And, like, you know, so even in the real Estate market. It's been a fist fight for the last two years. Like, let's just be honest, it has been hard. So for any agent that's still here, well done. You're winning, right? And now it's, let us not give up. Let us not grow weary in doing good. So show up and do the good thing. Do the right work. Right? For in due season doesn't say what season you will reap if you do not give up. The literally, the only requirement of success is the infinite Runway. The unwillingness to stop. Right? That the Charles Kettering, an author, said, the only time you can't afford to fail is the last time you try. Great. I'm going to keep trying. You know, it's. You guys have probably seen Zoolander. This is old school. I don't even know if I can quote it. I. I am a Renaissance man. So anyways, so this is part, right? There's a part where Derek, you know, his. His mentor, I guess, whatever his name is, is like, derek, what do you do when you fall off the horse? And Derek's like, I don't know. And he says, you get back up again. Right? But Derek says, sorry. Oh, it's Maury. Sorry, Maury. I'm not a gymnast. Right. What a great response. But is that reality? Right? Is what happens when you fall off? You just get back on. If you get back on, you'll be fine. You'll eventually learn how to ride a horse. Right? You'll get where you're trying to go. So Zoolander Galatians 6, 9. I stick with Galatians, but Zoolander is good, too.

[Josh Dyke]

It's good back.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah.

[Luke Acrey]

Yeah.

[Josh Dyke]

Garrett, this has been incredible, man.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah, dude.

[Josh Dyke]

Super looking forward to the book coming out. Before we close out, let people know how they can contact you and how they can get a copy.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah. Thank you. So Garrett maroon.com they can go there and then on Instagram, Garrett Maroon, they can reach out. Would love to chat with anybody.

[Josh Dyke]

Easy peasy.

[Luke Acrey]

How do they find the book?

[Garrett Maroon]

Book. So just go to Garrett maroon.com it'll show them they'll be able to buy.

[Luke Acrey]

Okay freebies. Yeah, can they get it at Amazon and stuff like that or.

[Garrett Maroon]

No. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Target, Walmart. Yeah, anywhere.

[Luke Acrey]

Okay.

[Josh Dyke]

Sweet.

[Garrett Maroon]

Yeah, yeah. Thanks, guys.

[Luke Acrey]

Thank you.

[Josh Dyke]

Thank you for coming back on the show and thank you all so much for listening. You can get the links that Garrett mentioned as well as the video in the show notes [e-mail] if you enjoyed this episode and want to show Your support, head on over to YouTube.com remindermedia. Make sure you're subscribed to the channel and give this video a thumbs up.

[Garrett Maroon]

Up.

[Josh Dyke]

Best way to show your support is simply to share this episode with somebody that you know. If you want to get hold of me or Luke, you can email [e-mail] and follow us on Instagram. We are at Staypay Podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Josh Dyke.

[Luke Acrey]

Guys. I'm Luke Acre Garrett. Appreciate your brother. So much gold, so much wisdom, and so young, guys. He's so young and has five kids. Crazy. I'm really. I'm really excited about your book. I hope people go check it out. You know, fun fact. It was funny. We have a lot of stuff going on here at the company with transitions and things happening. And I was talking to my dad literally this week. And for those who don't know, my dad's a pastor or whatever, and he's preaching on that passage on Sunday, which is, do not grow weary in doing good. And he quoted that same verse to me. So maybe that's, you know, obviously my sign, right? But maybe that's somebody else's sign out there today, is, hey, don't grow weary. Keep pressing through. You don't have to treat people poorly. You can just keep fighting the good fight, as they say. Here's my action. I don't know for everybody, because I think it's very, very practical, is, have you defined what your definition of success looks like? That scoreboard that Garrett talks about? Have you actually take some time and be intentional about what that looks like? Because, like all of us, it's not money, it's not accolades. It's not the materialistic things. Those are good things. They provide options and they provide freedom and choice. It's ultimately about what, who do you want to be? What do you want that dash on your tombstone to stand for? Take some time to get intentional about that, because then that will define how you live, and it will give you confidence in the activities that you're doing and where in the path that you're choosing. Remember the difference between top producers and mediocre producers. In every business, it's top producers. Take action. Take action on that today.

[Garrett Maroon]

Sam.