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Stay Paid Podcast
How to Lead with Purpose and Build a People-First Brand | Craig Witt, CEO of EXIT Realty
00:33:18
What does it take to lead thousands of agents, stay grounded, and build a people-first company? In this Stay Paid interview, Craig Witt, U.S. CEO of EXIT Realty Corp. International, shares his lessons from leading one of the nation’s top real...
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign welcome to Stay Paid, 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. 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 Acree, president of Reminder Media. And our guest today is Craig Witt. Craig is the US CEO of Exit Realty Corp. International, where he leads a powerful network of tens of thousands of agents, consistently closing more than 20 billion in annual sales. Since joining Exit in 2004, he's advanced from franchise owner to regional owner to US CEO having been recognized industry wide and RIS Media Newsmaker, Inman, Power Player and Swan Poles 200 member. Craig, welcome to Stay Paid. Thank you for being here. Hello.
- [00:50]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [00:51]
C
Craig, man, it's awesome to have you on the show. Been looking forward to this. You know, I told you before you came on, I mean, you're been basically like a legend in the space. Top 200 in the industry. Would love to hear your perspective. Just diving right in. You know, you've gone from, you know, franchise owner, regional owner, CEO, like different levels of leadership. Different levels, probably in the economy as you were, you know, scaling your career. Can you dive in and tell us the top what maybe would be called principles or key leadership, things that you take with you from your journey that you're trying to influence the next leaders of Exit in and what you would share with the audience today of what's really propelled you in your career.
- [01:34]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me, guys. It's. It's a lot of fun. I love doing podcasts. It's some. You can be unscripted. You can kind of come off and talk however you want. Yeah.
- [01:44]
C
Be as raw as you want, man.
- [01:45]
B
Right. As raw as you want. Right. Keep the profanity down. No religion, no politics. So I think first and foremost, you know, growing up in a small town in Northern Michigan, you can never forget where you came from. And I think that our past is always present and I think that it influences your future in your life. And we all go through experiences when we're younger. And I think as we mature and grow, we start learning from those experiences and hoping not to duplicate some of the mistakes that we've made. But at the core of it all is who are you as a person? Are you able to stand in front of a mirror and say, I love you and let's go crush it today? And how Do I find people that are like minded, that believe in what I believe and not necessarily my opinion, but what I believe is the mission of our company or the goal that I'm going after and then surrounding yourselves with those, those right people. And I think humility goes a long way. I think that's a learned behavior. I don't think we have that when we're younger, but the older we get, probably the more humble we get. And always remembering that you can't do this on your own. This is not a one man show or a one woman show. This is absolutely a team effort. And the best thing that you can do as a leader is replace yourself with other people that share the vision that you have and they're willing to get up every day and fight for it and defend it?
- [03:02]
C
Yeah, man. So many golden nuggets in there. It's interesting. It is the paradox that's like the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.
- [03:10]
A
Dunning Kroger effect, I believe they call.
- [03:13]
C
Affects me every single day. The natural curiosity I have found to be a trait which is like maybe you call it the brother to humility. It's like you've got to be humble enough to be open minded enough to be curious and be like always learning and always, hey, there's something maybe, I don't know, but there's this natural tension. I don't know if you've found this in your career. And I don't know, I'm curious how you've dealt with it. Half of me is like, Luke, you got to be confident. Because if you're not confident, you don't influence people and you know, they doubt. And if you're not confident, you get paralysis by analysis. But if you're too confident, you're arrogant and you're not humble enough. Yeah. And you're not curious. How do you play that balance to not let every idea influence you. You're managing literally or leading thousands of agents across the country through obviously local leaders and stuff. But how do you balance that where you don't doubt yourself, but you also remain humble and open minded?
- [04:15]
B
Well, I think first and foremost you say, you know, I'm managing, managing thousands of agents. That's true in some way. But really what I'm hoping to do is be a good role model for them, right. To be a good representation of our brand that they look up to, that they admire, that they trust and they respect someone that they believe is stable, that has their best interest in mind, that has things under control. As this chaotic industry that we're in. But I think, too, that, you know, if I go back to. And I always say this when I go back, right, we always kind of reflect on the past because how. Who were you when you were growing up? Who were the influencers in your life that led you down this path of whatever direction or whatever you ended up becoming? And my. My idea in life was always that it's. It takes too long for me to show you how to do it, so I'm going to do it myself, because by the time I teach you how to do it, I could have just got it done. And I think a lot of personality types like mine are that way. You. You make a lot of mistakes doing that, but you cannot learn and grow without making mistakes. You have to have those experiences in order to lead and to grow not just your business, but yourself. So, you know, we make a lot of mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes every day, but I surround myself with people that I can call up and go, I did something I shouldn't have probably done. How do I get myself out of this? Or what would you recommend? Or what's your advice to make this better? And I think that, again, the older we get, the more mature we get. We start seeking counsel more, we probably pull back on doing things ourselves and start leaning into other people that have been there, done that. Said, how would you handle this? And that's the kind of leader that I hope to be. I want. I want our people that we report to, all of our agents and our franchise owners and our regional owners and our staff to look at me and say, this guy's been there, he's done it. He's not the authority, he's not an expert on it, but he's got experience. And I think there's a big difference between saying, like you said, being arrogant and cocky and having that confidence, because you can have an arrogant confidence about you. But what I'm looking for is competence. I want competence, right? I want people that are competent in nature. They've got their. The best interest of the company and their people in mind, and that exudes the confidence. When. When you know your material, when you know your company, when you're confident in who you are, it shows, right? It shows on your face, and it shows in your ability to lead. And it makes people feel more comfortable with you and they're more stable around you, and they feel you've got things under control. That's the kind of leader that I want to be. And then I want Other people to learn by that example, by how I display myself and how I act in public, how I act in private, how I'm out there socially and all those things. My reputation matters to me and what people think of me matters to me. I know not everybody likes me, but that's not going to happen in every scenario. But I want the majority of the good people out there to look at me and say, you know what? I may not agree with him, but I believe in him and he's a good leader and he cares about our people.
- [07:04]
A
When did you make that shift? Because that's one of the things I struggle with the most still is not getting in there and doing it yourself. Like, when did you make that shift and gain the patience almost, but also intensity of. Of affecting change? And is it something you still struggle with or how do you. How do you enforce that daily as a leader?
- [07:24]
B
I do. I do still struggle with it. I have a hard time letting go, you know, I have a hard time not doing. I'm not an overachiever by any means, but I can get a lot done in a really short period of time. And I have a hard time delegating to give those responsibilities to someone else. And I think part of that is because it's an art, right? It's a gift to be able to delegate to other people and put that trust in someone else. You'll never grow if you try to do it by yourself. Right? You have to have other strong people around you doing that. But I also realize that as I pass off some of these things that other people can help me do, help me accomplish, not do for me, but help me and come along side of me and do with me. It frees me up to have more of an open mind so that I can see the bigger picture. That's what I've learned over the last, and I would say not a long time. The last few years, the more I delegate out, the more I can see the bigger picture. It gives me a clearer head to be able to think about the most critical events and the things that I need to think about when I'm not buried in the minutiae of some, what I would consider a minor event or something going on that someone else could be handling. Because not just that I can't handle it, but they're probably better suited for it than I am because of their personality and their ability. So again, I think it goes back to identifying where is my strength, what is everyone else's strength and who can I trust the most with that because again, it goes back on reputation. If I delegate something out to somebody and they do it wrong or they don't do it the way that I would do it. There's two ways to look at it. I can shame them and say, you didn't do it the way I could do it, or they did it the way that they felt was best. Right. In the end result, is it what was in the best interest of the company and of our people? Right. Not how did. How did you do it or how well did you do it? But was the best interest of our people in mind?
- [09:12]
C
So you talk about, you know, obviously being a straight shooter, which I can appreciate and I respect that in people. Right. I think a big struggle that I've seen in teams, I know for, like, Acre Brothers Realty for my brother. And we went through a period of, like, we had agents on the team that weren't performing and we weren't doing anything about it. And then we had top producers on the team that were top producers and they weren't showing up to the meetings that we were saying everybody should show up to. Right. The classic problem, oh, my God, yeah. How do you deal with that? Like, do you just, I guess, throw it to you? Like, how do you deal with people who are top producers? They don't show up the way you want them to because their top producers feel they can do whatever they want. And then the bottom producers who aren't doing what they need to do, do you keep them on the team? Do you kick them off? Like, what's your feeling on that?
- [10:09]
B
That you guys is a whole nother podcast. But I'll give you the abridged version. Okay? Cliff Notes. I don't deal with it very well. When someone says, hey, Craig, there's a meeting at 11 o'. Clock. Like, I was on today at 11 o', clock, if you noticed. Right. So when someone says, here's an event and I'm expecting you to be there, when you're all in, you make it a priority to honor those commitments. Okay. And you're talking about two very different styles of real estate agent. You're talking about top producing, achieving busy real estate leaders, team leaders, agents that are producing at a really high level. And you're talking about agents that are not producing at a level at all. Right. And there's everything in between. But I don't. You treat them differently in terms of where they're at in skill level and their ability and what it's going to take to get them to the next level. But I don't treat them any differently on the expectations that I have for them. A good manager of their calendar and a good manager of their priorities will show up at their meetings. The people that don't show up at meetings, the reason they don't show up is maybe the meeting leader is not, is not inspirational. Maybe they're not educational, maybe they're not interested in what it is. And they've been to enough meetings to know that this isn't growing my business or adding value to me. It's another meeting where it's like, oh, let's get together and do caravan or let's look at what listings just hit the market or let's, you know, shoot the breeze about social media or what's going on on the tv. That's not a meeting. A meeting is educational, inspirational and motivational. How do I get better? How do I treat others better? And how do I get myself straight so that I can go out and do a better job for myself? If you have those three components in a meeting, it'll be well attended. And if you set expectations by every level of agent and administrator in your office, they will attend it. And I also think that you have to have accountability and you have to have repercussions for that. If you don't make my meetings because I have something important to say and it's going to affect you and your business and improve or help you improve, then maybe this isn't the right place for you to work. I don't believe that you should ever be held hostage by a top producing agent. I think that you should respect that agent and you should nurture them and help them as much as you possibly can. But they should not hold you over barrel. They should not take unfair advantage of you. This is a team and we work together. And top agents utilize mostly the same resources and the leadership and the experience and the broker's knowledge and the assistance that they can provide just as much as an agent that's fledgling. And they all need to, they all need to participate and contribute.
- [12:35]
C
Yeah, it's so well said. The extreme ownership of realizing that, hey, you're meeting. If people aren't showing up, there's a reason why first you got to look internally, look at the man in the mirror and go, hey, there's a reason why they're not showing up to this meeting. I love that. Okay, so switching gears a little bit because I want to pick your brain on like brand today and how you stand out. Exit Right is one of the largest brokerages in the nation. But it's a very competitive landscape. We all know the acquisitions that are happening in the space. We know where the market's at. It's tough. It's been tough for at least three years now. How are you thinking about standing out as a brand and how can an agent stand out today? In today's market? When you think about Exit, what are some things that you're leaning into and encouraging agents to lean into to help them stand out in this market and compete in this marketplace, especially with technology and AI and everything coming onto the scene?
- [13:31]
B
That's a really good question because it's really the idea of how do you stay relevant not just as an agent, but as a brand. Right. Look, you've got everything from big corporate, hedge fund, real estate brands that have come together to independence, right? Over 80% of the offices, I think is the statistic, over 80% of the offices out there are actually independently owned. They're not franchise affiliated. So that leaves 20% for the rest of us to kind of fight over. And you've got to have a differentiator. You've got to have something that is a value proposition that's unique unto itself, that's different than everybody else. That's a vertical move to. Agents want to aspire to be part of your brand because they get something better. Not a better split or a lower fee, but they actually get some more value out of the brand that you provide. And look, I'm not old school by any means. I'm a common sense realist. And that's just how I live my life. It walks like a duck. It's probably a duck, right? When I look at brands and when I look at agents and when I look at Exit. Our company was built on purpose. When the founder of our company, Steve Morris, created our company and launched it back in 1996 in Canada and 1998 in the United States. And Florida was our first state. We didn't come into this brand business or into this franchising business in real estate because we needed to duplicate other brands to provide an alternative. We created Exit. He created Exit because we wanted to create a method for our agents to generate and create financial stability, to create wealth in real estate. Instead of being transactional, be relational, transformational, right? Something beyond listings and sales and commissions. And that was the whole idea of single level residual income. Not profit sharing, not multilevel, but true single level residual income where people can actually work together to, to grow and build each other. And as a result of that, earn more than Just their commission in case something goes wrong in life or in case they want to retire someday. Okay. So that was the purpose. And the reason I bring this up is not to give you an education on our brand and who we are, but really it's staying true to who you are as a company, not letting the white noise around you of every other brand that launches around us. Look, when Exit Realty launched back in 98 in Florida, the other brands were freaking out. They couldn't believe that there's this new company in their neighborhood that's competing with them, offering a new value proposition position. And guess what? Every year we have another like minded entrepreneurial spirit that comes out and launches another brand because they feel that's what's best for them and their family. And they either want to disrupt real estate or they want to try and provide something that hasn't been filled before. How do we shame them for doing that? Or how do we pick on them for trying to be entrepreneurial? Right. This is America. This is a human spirit. This is what we want. So I say bring it on. Right? But what I also say is don't diminish the value proposition to the customer along the way. This is not about how rich can agents get. This is about how can we better serve our customer. And when you start seeing brands going in a direction that bigger, bigger, bigger, better, bigger because we want more market share, we want better dividends and better look, how does this help the customer? In the end, the customer already feels like the agent isn't doing enough to serve them, that we're overpayed, that we're not compensated fairly for, or we're compensated unfairly for the little bit of work that we do. We all know how much work it takes to be a real estate agent. Okay, okay. But the consumer doesn't see it through the same lens as we do. We need to constantly be providing value to our customers, showing them that we are their trusted advisor, that they are hiring a professional. And the best way to do that is to affiliate it with a brand that puts people first and teaches them the true basics of real estate, which is human to human, person to person. Leverage technology to assist you in your business. But get at the table and talk to these people and give them the true experience and advice that they need to better make a decision as to how they want to build a family.
- [17:14]
C
Yeah, it's so good.
- [17:15]
A
I had to smile when I read your bio because you joined exit in 2004. We started our magazine in 2004.
- [17:23]
B
Oh, you did.
- [17:24]
A
And we did. And I was the guy who took all the logos and had to set them up on the magazine. And so I remember seeing, like, Exit coming through for the first time, because we had Cobwell Banker, we had ReMax, we had some of these bigger brands, and seeing Exit for the first time and now seeing how huge Exit is now what. What's, like, the biggest thing that you've learned along your journey from, you know, going from franchise to regional to now CEO? Like, what's the biggest thing that you've learned? And also, you know, kind of similar. Like, what have you attributed your success to?
- [17:57]
B
Those are two very different questions. So my success has always been internal. Okay? And I. And I hardly consider myself successful. I think I'm successful in a lot of areas. I think I've done well for myself. But, you know, I used to work in the excavation business. I owned a company years ago that did a lot of site development and dirt work. And I always say I'm a ditch digger first, right? And if I got to go back to doing that, I'll go back to doing that. I don't want to, but I can, because I know how to run a shovel.
- [18:23]
C
Just. Can I pause for a second right there? Not to cut your train of thought, but I just don't want the audience to miss just the foundational principles that you just said. One is, I don't consider myself successful. That is success right there. That healthy paranoia, that wanting to get better every single day. And then, number two, I consider myself a ditch digger, meaning servant leadership in the trench, doing the work. Not glorified, not sexy. I just don't want the audience to miss that. That literally right there, you could just clip that and go. Just apply yourself that way that never overestimate your success. Keep getting better every single day. That is literally so. I just think that's powerful. Anyway, sorry to cut you off, and.
- [19:02]
B
I thank you for interrupting and doing that, because that is such a. It's. It's such an important part of not just who I am, but I think where we need to be as an industry and really as a country, if you start looking at it without getting too. Too into it. But the suit. The suit is a facade. It's what's underneath the suit. It's the human. It's the heart. It's the drive, it's the spirit. It's the relationships that you've got. It's the experience. It's all this culmination of things over the years, and it's the Old adage of knowing the difference between right and wrong. Like what's right? Does this feel right? Am I trusting my gut? Am I doing the right thing? Is anyone going to get harmed from this? So I think when you look at success and think, how do you, how do you view yourself, number one, how do you view others? What's important to you? What do you spend your time on? I think those are all contributing factors. Now, going back to what I think is some of the things that I've seen over the years that have really either challenged me the most or really I shake my head at. Probably the same with you guys being in this since 2004. I came in as a real estate agent back in 2004. I got my license because I was a site, a land developer. My partner and I and his wife were developing property and buying real estate and building spec homes new and all those things. And I couldn't stand real estate agents. I thought they were crooked, I thought they were inexperienced, I thought they didn't know what they were doing. They were making way too much money for the little bit of work that they did. Like all the things that a lot of consumers probably think, I thought. And I said, well, I'm going to get my license. If all these people I know can get their license and pass the exam, then this is a no brainer for me. I can do this, right? And I did. And we started an independent by ourselves. And then we found Exit early on when we started our independent and we franchised right away because again, we saw a vertical move, not a lateral move that was going to compete with everybody else. But being a standout company, we were pioneers with Exit. We were one of the few new companies in the state of Michigan at the time. So we took a chance, right? And the one thing that I've learned, number one, the company has never let me down or let our people down. Now people may say, oh, this Exit doesn't work, or you know, it's been a problem, or they haven't helped me here. But I assure you that we by and large have done more than our jobs to try and service our people and be the best brand that we can be for the investment that they've made in our company. Okay? And I stand by that because we're a great brand. Number two, we can't control the recession and we can't control Covid. These are things that are out of our control. Politics, elections, economy, the price of silver and price of gold and stock market and all these things we have no control over that. But there is one thing we have control over, and that's who we're looking at right now, right? That's what we control. And when I see a fledgling real estate industry where we've got over 1.5 million agents and over 70% of them didn't close a deal last year, that's troubling. Okay? That's a statistic that the consumer hears and goes, well, see, I told you so. Now I'm a statistic because my license isn't holding because I don't sell real estate actively right now. So I'm part of that statistic. But cut it in half. Just cut it in half and say 6, 700,000 agents didn't close a deal last year, right? Or 400,000 close the deal last year. It's ridiculous. So the thing that I've learned the most is that it's a fickle business, okay? Agents want to come into this industry because they want to get rich. They want more free time. They don't want anyone telling them what to do, all these things. And then once they get here, they're like, oh, I need a paycheck. What do I need to do to get a paycheck? Well, I'll go do lead generation because they're just going to feed me business. And I say, no, no, no, no, no. You need to learn how to fish. Like, you need to learn how to go out. You need to treat this business like you are the CEO of your own company and you are going to build a business that you're going to sell someday. That's the mindset I want you to have. Not just being a sales agent. That is not your role. Your role is to being an entrepreneur to build a business. So, you know, the loyalty I can go on and on where agents come and go, you know, the attrition that we see as a brand and all these other companies where they'll leave you for 5% of a commission. It's like, come on, really? Like 5%? Is it really that big of a deal? It's not about the money. It's not. It's about the leadership. It's about the brand. Do they believe in where they work? Are they comfortable? Is it a nice office space? And that's another topic, too I'd love to talk about today is getting agents back in the office so that they can become more productive and get around other agents to encourage them and help them do their business better and learn well.
- [23:14]
C
There's so much truth to, like your environment dictates your success and your environment of who you surround yourself with. And that physical presence of being next to people and next to people who elevate your temperature versus bring you down. And you know, unfortunately there's just a ton of agents out there that are not surrounding themselves with top producing people in an environment that lifts them up. And that's why they are, you know, finding themselves in the situation they're at. And then also there's just a huge misunderstanding of what you're pointing out, which is this is a business. And you know, if you worked for corporate America, you would show up 9 to 5 or 8 to 5, you'd show up, but you're not doing that for yourself. Yeah, yourself is more worthy than corporate America. But you don't show up at 8 and you don't stay till 5 and you don't work all the way through. And you would do that if you had to work for a boss. Why won't you do that if you work for yourself? And that's just a huge hole. And then that gets to the heart of the person, right? And she'll never move, you'll never move people unless you move their hearts. So there's a lot of intellectual knowledge out there. You know, we've espoused a lot today, but the core component is you gotta, you gotta reach people where they're at. You gotta reach people in the heart of why they're doing what they're doing. And I think that's why you've been successful, is that you've had, I can even tell just talking to you, I'm, you know, getting to know you for the first time, just talking and how you're articulating your vision and mission and how you personally hold yourself. You can see it that the intellectual knowledge is there, but it's the connection to the human being that ultimately will make the difference for both your company and you yourself in your life.
- [24:50]
B
I love that. And you said something that really matters to me and I hope it matters to a lot of our viewers today too, and that is meet them where they're at. I think that we tend to forget that people have life outside of real estate or life outside of business. And the influencing factors that attribute to a lot of the challenges in our independent contractor style business is that they have trouble going on at home. Okay? So they either have marital issues, they have partnership issues, they have health issues, they have financial issues, they've got children that are not behaving well, they got friendship issues, social issues, social media is taking over their life and they're doing things and behaving in ways that they typically wouldn't probably behave. And then we have to package all that and then say, okay, now I need you to pretend like you're a real estate agent and I need you to show up to training, come to my meetings. I need you to go out and service customers and I need you to put yourself where they are. And I need you to move into that intellectually and emotionally to help your customer through this challenge that they're going through of either buying or selling their home. Meanwhile, the house is burning down behind them and they're like, oh, I just can't wrap my head around it. Right. And I think that that's, that's number one. So if you go back to saying, meet them where they're at, you've got to get to know the agents in your office. And this is the challenge with active selling real estate brokers and brokers that take an active role in managing and leading their office. Two very different things. Okay. An absentee managing broker who's not there because they're out selling real estate, listing homes and meeting with customers is not leading their people. They're not present, they're not there to help them. Right. And that is when they, the agent says, well, my boss isn't here, why should I be here? I'm gonna go home and put my pajamas on and I'm gonna work from my couch today. Right. Or I'm gonna go golf today, or I'm gonna go out to happy hour with my buddies. They don't treat it like it's a real career. I'm not painting the entire industry this way. I'm saying that by and large, the non producing or below average producing agents, this is a lot of that sentiment. Right. So the top agents are disciplined, they're driven, they read their healthy mind. A lot of them have their affairs in order and sense mostly, and they're managing themselves along the way. But they still, at the end of the day, you guys, even a top producer that's making a lot of money, making nice commissions, paying low fees. If they get hurt tomorrow and they can't work and they find themselves stuck in a hospital bed, who's paying their bills? Yeah, you've got to create wealth in this business. You've got to have additional income coming in to help cover you when you can't work. Because you're not going to work forever. Someday you're going to want to slow down.
- [27:21]
C
Yep, a hundred percent. It's so well said. I'm curious just as we get to the end here. I just wanted to ask you though, when you look at the future of the industry and no one can predict it, but you got a lot of roll up happening. You got, you know, Rocket acquiring Redfin, you, you've got a lot of pressure on the industry right now. Where do you think we're gonna be in your mind? Is the industry gonna shrink a lot and we're gonna go down to. I'm just making this up, but 800,000 licensed agents versus 1.5 million. That would be a similar stat to like the financial advising world. We serve financial advisors as well. There's like 750,000, you know, or 800,000 of them. What's your kind of forecasting of the real estate industry over the next decade?
- [28:10]
B
I'm excited about it and I love the question. First of all, under all is land. We learned that when we took our licensing course. Right. Under all is land they're not making anymore. So real estate will always be prevalent and there will always be people that want to own their own home and move up and move down and they retire, they get married, they get divorced, they go through all these challenges, right? So real estate is an evolving Amit that's constantly on the move. Right? Here's the problem with rollup companies and doing all this. The, the, the individual agent, employee becomes less significant in that scenario, in my opinion. Right. So when big companies come in, the heart of the company goes out. Right? All of a sudden you become a spreadsheet and a statistic. You're no longer a human being. In a lot of cases, it causes a lot of angst with real estate agents. Agents don't like change in the first place. People don't like change primarily. But real estate agents read the headline and they see that this company is acquiring this company and automatically they think, oh, oh my gosh, the real estate industry is coming to an end. Right. It's not. Okay. My, my wish would be that we would reduce our agent count probably in the 500,000 agent mark. My wish is that NAR would get their arms around standardized practices for becoming a real estate professional in the United States. I would like to see one exam with one set of syllabus, one career curriculum that will help put them on a path to success. Maybe some sort of college credit course as part of that, I don't know, human engagement, human involvement, temperament as part of it. I'd like to see that because I think the standards can be raised in our industry. And that's part of the reason that we have challenges that we have. But I'm excited about the future. I really think that there's always a place for every independent and every franchise brand. I believe that because real estate is hyperlocal, it's in your community and it will always be hyperlocal. Okay. Unless you're an investor or dealing with commercial properties or industrial properties, that's different. But when you're talking about real estate, it's meeting moms and dads at the soccer field with your kids and doing deals. That's how this is. They're only going to utilize AI to do their jobs more efficiently, but it won't replace the real estate agent. Okay. There's still a number of things that it takes for an agent to be humanized to help them through the process. So I'm excited about the future. I see our company growing. We see it year after year. More people investing in our franchise model, more agents joining our company, More people really starting to like the idea of earning residual income so that they can have more money with more opportunities and get their wage up. So I say there's room for everybody. Just the advice I'd give to all of my competitors is keep the standards high. Keep the standards high. Help agents earn a better living by giving them the training, the education that they deserve so that we can better serve the customer.
- [30:47]
C
Yeah.
- [30:48]
A
Greg, thank you so much for joining us today. Before we close out, do you want to let people know how to either follow you or learn more about exit?
- [30:55]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Joinexitrealty.com you can go to our website that tells you everything you need to know. You can text Craig to 85377. That's my name, Craig to 85377. That gives you my mobile business card where you can get all my information. And I'm on every social media outlet out there. Just Google Craig Witt and you'll find me. So I appreciate you guys. Let me come on today and interact with you and visit with you. I think it's really healthy for our industry to talk about these topics.
- [31:21]
A
Yeah. Thank you so much and thank you all for listening. You can get all of the links and information that Craig mentioned in the show notes of this episode, as well as all of our episodes of staypaidpodcast.com if you enjoyed this episode, head on over to YouTube.com reminder media. Subscribe to the channel. Give this episode a thumbs up and the best way to support the show is to share this episode with someone that you know. If you want to get hold of me, of me or Luke, you can email us@podcastremindermedia.com and of course you can follow us on social media. We are stay paid podcast for this episode of State Paid. I'm Josh Dyke.
- [31:52]
C
Guys, I'm Luke Acre. Craig, man, thank you so much. Did not disappoint true leader in the industry and just so many golden nuggets. I would encourage people to go back and listen. Here is my action item for everybody listening to this. You know, Craig mentioned something that was extremely powerful, which was, you know, you have to know your purpose as an organization. You have to know your purpose as a company. And that even translates down to not just your company, it translates down to you because your purpose is what ultimately drives your motivation, which drives your execution. And, and I would challenge you get really, really clear on the purpose of why you are doing what you're doing and the impact that you're making. Because when you do that, not only will it help you and your motivation every single day, but then you can go and market that to the world. And that is what's going to influence consumers to actually work with you, is they will actually want to work with businesses of purpose, not businesses of profit. Remember the difference between top producers and mediocre producers in every industry. And top producers take action. Take action on that today.