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- [00:00]
Vince Lece
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Josh Dyke
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. But that can only happen if you're willing to take action today. My name is Josh Dyke, Chief Marketing officer at Reminder Media, joined as always by Luke Acrey, president of Reminder Media. And our special guest today is Vince Lece. Vince serves as president of the Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Network, where he's built a reputation as an innovative leader who empowers brokerages and agents to thrive in a rapidly changing industry. He's also the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Ambassador Real Estate, known for its mega office model, and recognized by Entrepreneur magazine as one of America's top company cultures. Vince, welcome to Stay Paid. Thanks for being here.
- [00:47]
Vince Lece
Thank you very much. I appreciate it, having you.
- [00:49]
Luke Acrey
Yeah, man, it's great, Great to have you here, Vince. I've been excited to have you on the show. You're a legend in the space. Obviously, a. What do they call it? Like, a Power 200 player, I think is what they call it out there. And I'm so interested to pick your brain.
- [01:05]
Vince Lece
I'm an old man that's just been around a long time.
- [01:08]
Luke Acrey
I didn't want to say it. You said it. I didn't want to say it. Here's my question for you, right? Because you're leading just so many agents. You're leading an incredible brand. What's the hardest lesson you've learned as a leader that you wish someone would have warned you about?
- [01:24]
Vince Lece
You know, there's probably a lot of lessons, but I'm adhd and I'm not very patient. And I've learned as a leader. I have to have some patience, to be honest with you, because when I'm. When I'm not patient, then I don't make good decisions. You know, I don't get people to buy into what I'm doing. You know, you don't get this we're a tribe and we're all together type of mindset. So really, I just. I probably early on, I wish somebody would have said, hey, you're not a very patient person. You're gonna have to be patient in a leadership role to make sure you're bringing people together, because that's what. Right. When you run an organization, that's what it's all about, right? It's creating energy and a great culture and educating all these other things. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it's bringing people together. To work together as a team. Right. And not individually by their self. And So I definitely 100% needed a lesson on patience and I still have to quite honestly work on that on a regular basis even today.
- [02:19]
Luke Acrey
Do you ever question, do you ever question though that because you weren't patient, that's why you are successful? Like I find there's that, those tension things that, it's like the thing that people complain about sometimes about me is also the reason why I've made the success. But are you saying you've made it in spite of not being patient? Like you would have even been further along if you were more patient? You think as you look back.
- [02:43]
Vince Lece
So I, I think there's a couple things. One is I, you need to be more patient when you don't have all the facts and knowledge. Right. The longer I've done something, the more I can make a quick decision. And I, and I, and I am a person to make quick decisions. I'll tell a very quick story if I can. I was at Google for an innovate. Prudential had me before we went to Berkshire Hathaway, God, 12, 13, 14, 15 years ago now put an innovation group together and I went to Google twice. And the second time I went to Google they had four of us from Prudential there and we all signed confidentiality agreements and Caldwell Banker and Keller Williams and everybody had some people there that signed confidentiality agreements. And this guy got up that was one of the heads of Google and said, hey, you know, everyone thinks we hate Apple. We don't hate Apple. We have the utmost respect for Apple. My first thing that popped in my head is competition is truly a good thing. Which is another lesson I've learned. Competition allows you to not become complacent and to continue to focus on what do you, what's, what's others doing that may be better than you that you need to look at right. And, and learn from competition. So competition I think drives you. So I like that. But they said there's two fundamental differences between us and Apple. First of all, Apple would never do what we're doing here today. You know, confidential agreement, signed or not, Apple doesn't do anything. You know, they don't bring in outsiders. They do things on the inside and then they roll it out and, and they just move forward. They're not asking people for their opinions. But he said, the second thing is we roll things out all the time at that time, I don't remember they're rolling out Google huddle and some other things which quite honestly is really 18s or Zoom call is all it really is. I didn't know what it was 15 years ago though, they said we roll out things knowing they may not be perfect, some may not work at all. And that will continue. The ones that are working, we'll continue to tweak those and change those. And Apple doesn't rule out things until they believe they're perfect and said, fundamentally we're different. So I went back to my organization at that time, ambassador in Omaha, and I said, fundamentally we are going to be Google. We're going to make more bad decisions than all of our competition combined, but we're going to make more good decisions than all of our competition combined because we're not going to sit on the sideline for the fear of failure. Because I see so often this business, people say, I can't do it till it's perfect. I can't do it till I got this done. I can't. I'm like, yeah, do it. Continue to improve it, continue to move forward. And the second part of that is Google's like, there's a two way door, right? That if you're doing something, you get in and it's not right. Realize that, right? So you, you have to have knowledge that. My whole key to the patient saying is the more knowledge you have, the better your ability is to make faster decisions, right? Get the facts, get knowledge, make decisions and go. But continue to pay attention to those things. If you made a bad decision, get out, don't get too far in. And if you got something going well, continue to tweak it and learn what others are doing and make it better. Improving that process. So philosophically, I've always ran on what I now call that Google model. We're gonna, we're gonna make decisions, we're gonna do things, we're not gonna sit on the silence for the fear of failure. And that works well for my lack of patience to do that. But I had to learn, I had to make sure that I had the facts. I wasn't making, you know, an off the cuff decision without having any facts in front of me because then that's when I make bad decisions. So if I have enough knowledge, enough facts, I have no problem making fast decisions and running with those and honoring what our decisions are. And we make bad decisions, get out of those and we make good decisions, continue to tweak those and prove them. Because we're never starting out where it's perfect. It always has to constantly be changing and getting better with Whatever we're doing, does that make sense?
- [06:14]
Josh Dyke
No, it makes total sense. And it really speaks to like that clarity for, for the culture itself within the company. You've obviously, you know, really figured out award winning cultures at scale. What's something that you've learned about building a culture or what's something that you believe about culture that maybe others might.
- [06:32]
Vince Lece
Disagree with, you know? Well, I believe culture first of all is built best when you're face to face. And so we live in a world today that there's probably a fair amount of people that disagree with, you know, know, coming into the office all the time. But I will tell you why Covid has helped us have teams in zoom and communicate, you know, electronically more frequently and better than we ever have before. It still does not replace getting face to face. And so for, to me, the heart of building a great culture is on Monday we're going to have a Thanksgiving pot roast for our entire organization, right? We just did a grill out, a grill off where we had, you know, 15 people doing ribs and all these different things. And we're saying we're bringing bounce houses in and like bring your kids and bring your, your family. And we just had a couple weeks ago, right before thanks for Halloween, a trunk or treat where we had cars brought up and people brought in their families and we did chili and soups and dogs, to me is culture is first and foremost build built on physically putting people together, you, you nurture stronger and better relationships. When we're together in the same space talking to each other, the energy, the excitement, enthusiasm, the learning, the collaborating, the networking is all that much better. And so, yeah, so, you know, not everybody agrees that people should be in the office on a regular basis. I believe they should be. And, and when people work virtually, there's exceptions to every rule, by the way. Okay? But for the vast majority of people, when they work virtually, especially in the real estate business as independent contractors that are 100% commissioned, there's too many distractions, right? The dog's barking now they're taking the dog on a walk or they're going out, they're mowing the yard, they're doing the dishes, they're taking a nap, they're watching a show, right? Put yourself in the right environment, you have a better culture in the office, you're now talking to other productive agents. Something that may spark a conversation. Walking down the hallway, talking to people is may put a buyer or seller together, may help you with the transaction, right? None of those conversations are taking place when you're apart from each other. So in my mind, cultures are best built. And I just had this conversation. I've been out in Irvine the last three days at our headquarters for Berkshire Hathaway Home Services with a couple of the departments. I'm like, guys, the more we're together, the better the collaborating, the more the idea sharing and the better decisions we're going to make because we're going to brainstorm, we're going to understand each other better and we're going to be, you know, at the end of the day, it will reflect in a better culture, we will enjoy working here more and we're going to be more successful and productive because of it. And I think that's another thing. You lose productivity when you're not.
- [09:11]
Luke Acrey
Yeah. Well, it's interesting because like Reminder Media, we took virtual in the pandemic and then decided, oh, let's go all in and hire talent. You know, we're based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, but let's hire talent all across the nation. There's an opportunity for us. We don't know where the world's going, but we're going to seize this moment of and make it into a positive. And it worked. It was great. Like, we, we started hiring, now we're in like 27 states. But going back, you know, if I could go back in office today and pull everybody back, I would because I actually agree with you. I think the thing I underestimate it, that I think is an affirmation or confirmation of what you're saying is I underestimate it that you can do great work virtually and you can communicate well virtually, but what you struggle to do is build relationship. And relationship is the central point.
- [10:03]
Vince Lece
Exactly.
- [10:03]
Luke Acrey
That really dictates trust. Right. And to have a great team, you need great trust and great chemistry. And like I just picked up when you talked about the, the thing friends giving that you're going to have the trunk or treat the stuff like that. It's just a way for you to get to know them personally, which is relational. And it's like once you know somebody relationally, like, you know that, hey, I know your wife, I know your kids and I know your hobbies. I know you go to church, whatever it is. It's just so hard to do that virtually. Not because it can't be done, but you lack the opportunities that naturally flow like the water cooler opportunities to just talk about relationships or the potlucks because you're in 27 different states. So honestly, it's like we are a virtual type company. But if I could bring everybody back in an instance, I would. Strategically, it's a little bit tricky, so we're looking at that. But it's an affirmation to you there, like, yeah, you're spot on.
- [10:57]
Vince Lece
And I think we, look, we live in a new world today. Right. I still think brick and mortar is the most powerful part of building those relationships. Because what happens is what I'm talking to other companies and other businesses, there's less loyalty because there's less relationships. They don't know them on a personal level.
- [11:12]
Luke Acrey
Yeah, they're mercenaries. They're not missionaries.
- [11:17]
Vince Lece
The trust is not there. I think companies that are true, 100% virtual offices, there's not going to be any, you know, us. It's, it's, it doesn't feel like a team. It doesn't feel like us together. It's kind of like a bunch of individuals that are, that are plucked together, but it's not, it's not a true team, I don't think, in the sense of what it could be when you're in the same space. And when I went back to Google, the one thing is, and I don't.
- [11:38]
Luke Acrey
Know how it becomes very transactional.
- [11:40]
Vince Lece
It's very transactional, but. And Google had all these open spaces. What I saw there, which is really nice to me, interesting to me, is like, they were collaboration areas where these people were all coming together, you know, to learn from each other. Because there's never the best decision. Isn't just one person thinking by themselves the best decision? I, as a leader, I always tell people, challenge me, you know, if I have a thought and you think it's wrong, tell me why you think it's wrong. Right. The more I want us to have debates when we're talking about things. The more that you're talking about things, the more you're debating things, you know, the better you understand that that person, not just from a business standpoint, but a personal standpoint, probably the more honest you're going to be, the more trust you're going to have, and I think the more likely you're going to be to come to a great conclusion because you've really tried to vet all of the options on the table and you've gave everybody the freedom. See, a great culture is everybody is allowed to speak and allowed to be heard. It doesn't mean as a leader, you have to agree with everything. Right? There's sometimes you're not going to thank God, I'll listen to you. But at the end of the day, I'm going to do what I think is best for our organization, right?
- [12:45]
Luke Acrey
Yep, 100%. You know, the industry's changing, right? It's like, you know, obviously you have these virtual brands that are out there. You have everything that you've probably talked about it till you're blue in the face at this point with commission lawsuits and, you know, changes in the marketplace of the redfins being bought by Rocket and all that stuff. I'm curious, what was the moment in your career where you felt the most pressure and doubt, and how did you lead through that? Lead through that doubt and uncertainty?
- [13:15]
Vince Lece
The biggest doubt, I don't know is, you know, my mother started this company. She passed away. She had cancer for seven years. Passed away in 2001, and I took it over. Right before that, we were just a small company with under 100 agents. And I guess my doubt, my biggest doubt was really my doubt of myself is like, I had to build. I think to be a good leader, you got to build knowledge, but you got to build confidence in yourself. You got to believe in yourself at the end of the time, right? So I tried. I started studying, like, human behavior, and I'm like, you know what? We're have these younger generations of people coming into the marketplaces, and at that very time, Mike Ferry. I went to Mike Ferry conference.
- [13:49]
Luke Acrey
Yeah, I love Mike Ferry.
- [13:50]
Vince Lece
And nobody really had teams back in the 90s, right? And I'm like, you know what? I think this is going to be a generational change. If you start looking at the younger generation as baby boomers, me against the world, you know, the heck with everybody else kind of mindset, right? And now it started comes now. Now you go to school and, like, everyone gets a ribbon. Everyone gets a pat on the back.
- [14:06]
Josh Dyke
And.
- [14:07]
Vince Lece
But. But what I found is, like, people really do want to be part of something bigger than their self, right? That because I'm part of this, I'm part of something special that's bigger than if I just do it on my own. I'm like, this team concept really works. But to me, my doubts were right. When I started taking this company over, quite honestly, I'm like, okay, I got to learn. And the thing I really started trying to understand was human behavior. And so at that point in time, like this next generation, it's like, get rid of the suit and tie, right? It's not a power play in our business. Our agents can walk out the door any single time they want. They're all 100% commission. There's nothing really holding them to us. So when I would interview for years agents, I didn't sit behind a desk. I sat at a conference room. It is us. It's a team. It's a partnership. We're doing this together. It's not I'm boss, you're, you're under me. And so I had to go through a learning curve of understanding human behavior. What was important to others, you know, how are you open to them? You know, how do you make them feel comfortable in talking and communicating with you and others in the organization? But my biggest moments of doubt was like, okay, I got was when I took this thing over, it's like I don't really have the knowledge base. I don't know where I'm going. And so you've got, you've always got to educate yourself and continue to learn and continue to grow if you're going to be successful, at least from my perspective.
- [15:24]
Luke Acrey
Yeah, so true.
- [15:26]
Josh Dyke
Yeah. Talking about, you know, the talent and the agents that you've worked with. And I love the take on learning human behavior to really understand because that is. That is obviously so much of it, especially when working with people. And then in an industry where you're servicing and working with other people. When you look at the agents throughout your career, the thousands of agents you've worked with, what's the real difference between the ones that rise to the top and the ones that don't make it?
- [15:54]
Luke Acrey
Because there's a lot not making it, Vince. There's a lot out there not making it.
- [15:59]
Vince Lece
Most. Most. Most. Right. You got 90% of the people not making it. You got 10% of them really doing well. And so for the last eight years here in Omaha, and now I'm starting to take it nationally, we're going to do it more than once a year. I did an event in Omaha called Explosion. I invited only top agents to this. And then we would put panels together and typically try to hit the top 25 in each one of their categories within the Berkshire Hathaway Network. Top 25 individuals, you know, that's the majority of the panelists I'd have on there, but it's really only top, top producers there. And the number one thing that I've came away with absolutely is like, they're not smarter. They're. What they are is they are disciplined. They are so disciplined to the point that they consistently do revenue generating, prospecting, business growth activities on a regular basis. They're disciplined enough to consistently do those things. And by consistently doing the things that they know, they tweak them. But it is the discipline of the consistent consistency they have. And it doesn't even matter what they're doing as long as they know they're doing something. That because there's lots of activities we can do from a prospecting business, right. We can go do for sale by owners or we can do door knocking, or we can do open houses, or we can do online. But if you're consistently doing something and tweaking what you're doing, you're going to always have a pool of business. And when you lose a deal, it's a lot less painful. When you have 10, 15 deals going at a time versus having only one deal going at a time, you lose it. So to me, the most successful agents, without question have more discipline and they have learned how to, to be systematic and consistently do the things that they know they need to do to build and nurture relationships. And by the way, when we talk about relationships, I believe the thing that's not changed in the last 40 to 50 years and I believe it'll be this way 20 to 30 years from now. In our business is first and foremost we are in the relationship building business. Yes, we talk so much about social media, video, right. Podcast, AI, innovation, all of those things are important. And I'm not saying they're not. They, you need to embrace them. But they're, they're there to enhance the relationship building business we're in. They're not there to replace the relationship building business we're in. Still do client appreciation parties still get face to face. Right. That's meaningful. Use these other things to effectively communicate more effectively, with more clarity, with more frequently to stay in touch with people. Right. There's a lot of value to all of these things. But I think when you become dependent just on them and you now stop building and nurturing relationships, I think you're going to hurt yourself at the end of the day because we're selling such a huge asset, right? The biggest asset to the vast majority of people. And when people, when people have a great relationship with you, there's four critical traits. They like you, they believe you. They have confidence in you, they trust you. You need to build that relationship. And that comes face to face more than anything else.
- [18:53]
Luke Acrey
Yeah. So good. It kind of even goes into my next question I want to ask you because you are sitting on top of such a huge brand and seeing so many different things in the industry and thousands of agents and when you look out five to 10 years ahead, obviously you believe it's going to maintain a relationship based business. What do you think is going to separate the real estate companies that survive versus the ones that disappear? Because there's a lot of talk about consolidation right now and that it's only just beginning and the industry is going to compress.
- [19:25]
Vince Lece
Well, the truth is real estate brokerages, most of them, are not making much money, if any money, right. That it has been compressed. And so because of that, you're seeing, you're seeing Compass right now in the process of potentially buying anywhere, which is a whole lot of different brands, right? You know, the ones that can survive, which may sound contradictory, what I just said, but I don't think it is because I think they coexist and live together, is, are the ones that are going to understand how do we add value to our brokers and our agents, right? Because some of these are national brands and they're only agents and they are the broker in the franchise business. We have brokers to serve and we have agents to serve and their clients are buyers and sellers. But you're going to have to figure out how to continue to continue to change. If you continue to do same things the same way over and over, you're going to get left behind because I believe we're changing a pace we've never seen before. You're going to have to embrace innovation, AI social media and all these type of things, but you're going to have to put a value prop together. And it's not just one spoke, it's not just social media. It's like, how do we have coaching, right? I always tell people there's a difference between coaching and training. I love when I first started recruiting, everybody that I would recruit, I would say, who have you talked to? Like, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, now they've all talked about training, right? I says, who do you think has the best training? They're like, oh, I think this company has the best training. I'm like, I said, what, what do they talk about? Well, in every case they were talking about, well, for a new agent, here's how I write a purchase agreement, here's how I write a list agreement, here's how I do an agency agreement, here's how I do a net sheet, here's how I do all these nuts and bolts that you could be the best world at and not sell a single house, right? I'm like I said, we are a coaching organization. And so to, to my point of what's going to make right, social media, innovation, AI tech, we have to continue to change and improve those things to Give tools to our agents to be. But we also need to be the organizations that are going to live are going to be coaching organizations. They're going to have an events to coach. They're going to have systems to coach. Coaching is ongoing, right. Tom Brady. I'm a Kansas City Chiefs fan, so I'm Patrick Mahomes. I'm hoping someday is the goat.
- [21:29]
Luke Acrey
Oh boy, man.
- [21:29]
Vince Lece
Tom Brady was not the strongest or the fastest, right? He was not the strongest or the fastest, but what did he man, he studied and he learned and he figured out how to read the defense in the systems, right? He continued to learn as defenses changed. He continued. So coaching to me is substantially more important than training. Right? We can get bigger and faster and stronger. Okay. But, but we got to continue to learn what every the competition is doing. What, what is working, what's not working, what's changing, how do we embrace change? So I think you've got to be an organization that understands coaching is absolutely essential to your success. And then you have to tie in technology, innovation and those things and figure out how do we use those tools to help us build stronger relationships to add more meaningful and increase and more value for our clients. And coaching is what helps you take those tools and those systems and all those things you have and help agents understand how do we utilize that to be better as we move forward to. To give value to our clients and agree, absolutely have a burden and responsibility on our shoulders to show value. Right. If we're going to continue to get the dollars that we get. And not everybody should be paid the same, by the way. Right. Not every agent gives the same value as you said earlier. There's a lot of agents not making a good living. What's. Because they're probably not giving as good as customer service as they should. Right. We have a responsibility to give great customer service and a real estate transaction. My payment should be an enjoyable, fun, you know, transaction. It should not be this crazy, psychotically stressed out transaction that it happens to be too often.
- [23:06]
Luke Acrey
Agree? Yeah, man, 100% agree. And I also think it plays into this idea of consolidation and compression. It's that the consumer is expecting more from their agent because consumers in general, because the world is more connected now and people are more educated and more aware than ever and can get access to things. You as the agent. Like, we had a great interview with one of your great leaders, Ray Mesa. And Ray is down in Florida, I believe, you know, running the brokerage down there. And he was talking about how they, they are bringing, you know, Title and mortgage and all these things into the transaction. Because the consumer doesn't want to have to go to four different people. They want to be able to go to just one source. And that's compression. It's like, it's compression of the, the value prop to the person. It's like, hey, you can no longer just say, I'm going to help you sell your home, I'm going to help you buy a home. You, you gotta say, hey, I'm gonna bring you the opportunity to be able to take care of your title and your mortgage and all the inspection and all the things that are involved. That's really how agents need to think about, hey, guys. Things are shifting because consumers want more. And they, and Jeff Bezos says this really well, what's not gonna change in 10 years is convenience. People are still gonna want it the most convenience, the fastest, the lowest price, the best service. All those things are principles.
- [24:27]
Vince Lece
And people will write, if it's an easy, simple, stress free, enjoyable transaction, people will pay for ease. Right? People will pay more to make it an enjoyable transaction and relieve that stress from them in that thing. The other thing that I will tell you that is going to help people survive is when I started with Berkshire Hathaway, I said, I'm not going to do this unless we have a millennial think tank. This is back in 2011 or 12. We have to continue to bring younger people into our organizations. That is our lifeline and that is our future. Right. Sometime in the real estate industry, we've got a lot of brokerages that are, that are aging themselves out of business. They need to figure out how they to attract.
- [25:04]
Luke Acrey
Average age is like 56.
- [25:05]
Vince Lece
I think if they're going to be. Yeah, it's, it's somewhere in the upper 50s. Yeah, I've seen it anywhere from 56, 57, one time is even 59. So you've got to start bringing, you've got to bring younger people and we can learn from them and they can learn from us. And again, that is, that is our lifeline. If you're going to be in the business 10, 20 years from now, it's not with a bunch of 56 year olds. They're going to be out of the business for the most part. Right?
- [25:30]
Luke Acrey
Well, you never know, man. AI is changing the health game. They say we're going to live a hundred plus years now. You know, with AI revolutionizing health. You never know, man.
- [25:40]
Vince Lece
You don't, you don't.
- [25:41]
Luke Acrey
That is Peter Diamandis. Peter Diamandis, he's the Moonshots podcast guy. I mean, he truly believes it's a great podcast for anybody who wants to be on the edge of, like, AI and health and stuff like that. But Moonshots, he talks about how they. They believe they're very close to doubling the lifespan of human beings because of the breakthroughs in AI. I want to double back, though, on one of the things you said with coaching, because, you know, it's funny, you know, I've been in this industry a long time. Not as long as you, but, you know, I've dealt with a lot of agents and everybody sees the issue. The issue is agents that fail are not disciplined and not showing up and doing the right activities day in and day out because they treat it as a hobby, not a business. And I think you are spot on that as a brokerage, as a. As a business. If you want to survive, you've got to make it about education, you got to make it about coaching. I'm just curious, are you thinking coaching in terms of telling people what they need to do? Are you going to lean more into accountability? Because the issue really is not the knowledge. The issue is the execution. So are you leaning in with coaching to go, hey, we're going to hold you accountable. We're going to have a cadence. I think it was Ray, you know, stealing his line cadence of accountability, you know, for our agents that come in. Because isn't that the real problem? The real problem is not. Not the knowledge. The real problem is like holding agents accountable or inspiring them to accountability.
- [27:03]
Vince Lece
Most agents know what. They know enough of what to do that they can make a better living than they are. And so the truth is, why does the fairies and the fenies and why these guys all filthy rich? It's because as brokers, we've not done a good enough job of coaching our agents, quite honestly. Right?
- [27:19]
Luke Acrey
Yeah, it's true.
- [27:20]
Vince Lece
And, and, and so the answer is accountability. And boy, people don't like the word accountability.
- [27:27]
Luke Acrey
Oh, they hate it, man. They hate it.
- [27:28]
Vince Lece
Accountability is part of that. So in. In our, in my organization in Omaha real quick is, you know, I would. We have, I think right now at 15 or 16 masterminds that have approximately 18 to 20 people in those. And you can figure 75% of those people show up every time. So, you know, 12 to 15 people show up every, every mastermind. But part of that is like keeping them. And so every month we meet. And part of that is what's one thing you're focused on? Right? The Darren Hardy approach. I like Darren Daly, Darren Hardy, you know.
- [28:00]
Luke Acrey
Yeah, he's great.
- [28:01]
Vince Lece
Zillions of billionaires and, and understands how to be a super cheater versus overachiever. But it's like staying focused on the few. And so like if you coaching is accountability would be great if you could hold everyone accountable, but you're not gonna be able to hold most people accountable. So my mind is the more people I get in masterminds and get them to continue stay focused on. Here's the one thing, right. Continue to be mindful of them of here's the one thing I need to do. Here's the two, two or three things I need to do to help me stay focused, give them ideas. Because sometimes we've done things we forgot about. We did. And so it's refresh ideas to give them little ideas to continue to tweak what they're doing. But it's mainly to yeah, have, have accountability say hey, here's what you need to continue stay focused on. We do goal setting once a year. You know, on occasion we'll do dream boards. There's science that shows when you have goals and you read them daily, when you have a dream board and you look at it right there, you're going to be more likely to accomplish your goals when you do those things. So it's about implementing through, through coaching programs which could be, you know, we just did a six week program. We don't believe the beginning year is January 1st, we believe it's October 1st. So we do our goal setting in October. The actions we do today is not going to determine how much business we have this week. The actions we do today is going to determine how much business we have 30, 60, 90 days down the road. Right. So it's all about putting an array of systems in place, one on one. Coaching masterminds, you know, group settings where people are coming in and accountability is clearly a part of that. Tweaking their business as part of that, you know, do you believe in cutting the bottom 10% top of mind, the things you need to do and like.
- [29:35]
Luke Acrey
The Jack Welch mentality. Do you believe in the cutting the bottom 10% type mentality? The numbers irrelevant but the Jack Welch style of leadership.
- [29:45]
Vince Lece
Right, and yeah, I know, yeah. The GE philosophy, his, all of his people were employees first of all. So we're in a little bit different model in the independent contract world. So. Right. So the thing is if they're taking up your time and your space, that clearly makes sense to me because there's, there's a cost of something in there, if they're hanging a license and they don't bother you, they're not causing you trouble, you know, you know, we want, we tell people unapologetically we are here to help you be great. You know, that's our primary goal. Our primary goal is not to focus on the agent that wants to be a part time agent and do two or three deals a year as an organization. That's.
- [30:20]
Josh Dyke
Yep.
- [30:20]
Vince Lece
That's not who we want to be, quite honestly. So there's. The answer is when I coach teams, I do tell them that what you allow as your minimum standard, you know, it's very hard then to go to all the other people say no, you got to do this and this and this and the teams. And the reason teams are so successful because if a 25 to 30 year old comes into the organization in any of our organizations, the average age I just saw two weeks ago, I've not read this article. Someone told me that the average age of first time homebuyer is now 40 years old in this.
- [30:50]
Luke Acrey
Yeah, I heard that.
- [30:51]
Vince Lece
Which is a major, major problem. Right. It's hu issue. Part of its lifestyle changes is that we want to do vacations and cars and events more, but part of it's an affordability issue. But you come in the business at 25, 26, none of your friends are buying houses. So you need to be on a team because that's important to you in many cases because as managers of a brokerage, we don't have enough time to spend with them daily to hold them accountable, to put systems in place to help them get there. The likelihood of an agent being in the business three to five years down the road as a brand new agent is much more likely, especially if they're young because they probably don't have that discipline yet. Put them on a team, they're going to be more likely to be successful than if they're an individual. Unless you have a really strong mentoring program. The problem with mentoring programs that I found is we have a group mentoring program. We stopped doing one on one mentoring. The best mentors you would think are the most productive agents because they know the best, they have the best habits, but and with the best of intentions. Many times they say I'll be a mentor, but they just don't have the time. And so it doesn't work out. So what happens is if we end up putting men, we end up having the mentors be the average of the road producers who, guess what, they're not the most productive people. And now you're putting someone with somebody that does not have good habits. They're not prospecting, they're not doing the daily activities that they need to be doing to be successful. So you're putting the new agent with a mentor that's average. And so now you're. Now you're coaching them up to be average. And so that's the reason I. 15, 20 years ago, I'm like, we're not doing that mentoring program. We're going to only do things that excel people to excellence.
- [32:30]
Luke Acrey
That's so good. Yeah. Because more is caught than ever taught in life. And so if you put somebody with a mediocre producer by association, they will become at best, a subpar mediocre producer because they won't even hit the level of their mentor, probably.
- [32:45]
Vince Lece
Exactly. I mean, so that's the problem, you know, if you say, oh, make phone calls or do this or do that, and that person's not doing it, they're gonna like, well, why am I doing that?
- [32:56]
Luke Acrey
Yeah, correct. Exactly.
- [32:58]
Josh Dyke
Vince. Awesome, man. This has been great. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and, and everything that you've learned throughout the years. Before we close out here, let people know how they can connect with you.
- [33:10]
Vince Lece
I would say, you know, I would say if you send me an email, I'm probably not going to ever respond.
- [33:16]
Josh Dyke
They don't have to connect with you either.
- [33:20]
Vince Lece
Yeah, I'm scared. I'm scared to get my text out because I can't get through my text messages right now, but I will respond to a text message. So. But I mean, reach out to my assistant, Aaron, or myself. And we're always here to help people, honestly. And that's the reason I do this is at the end of the day, right, you kind of. We all want our legacy, hopefully we want our legacy to be as. Have we enriched the lives of other people. Right. If we made a meaningful difference in people's lives, that, that they're better off having known us than not having known us. And so that's really my goal in life is, is to enrich the lives of others and to try to help and, and do that. So I am always here to help people, which is really the only reason I took this job of running the network at this ripe age in life.
- [34:01]
Josh Dyke
That's awesome. Love that. Thank you again so much. And thank you.
- [34:04]
Vince Lece
I appreciate you guys.
- [34:06]
Josh Dyke
Appreciate you. You can get the show notes of this episode over@staypaidpodcast.com if you like this episode and want to show your support, go to our YouTube page. Slash reminder media and give this video a thumbs up as well as make sure you're subscribed to the channel. And if you want to help out the show, the best way is to share this episode with somebody that you know. You can get a hold of me or luke@podcastremindermedia.com and of course you can connect with us on social. We are at Stay Paid podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Josh Dyke.
- [34:33]
Luke Acrey
Guys. I'm Luke Acre, events man. Amazing. Did not disappoint. Incredible words, wisdom. Looking forward to getting to know you more and joining you guys at one of your events. You know, I want to encourage people, you got to take action, right? You can't just be a hero, you got to be a doer. And so you heard it here that at the end of the day, what separates the top producers is really two things, discipline and relationships. And I would challenge you, you know, to apply that into your business this week and go, okay, how am I building relationships with the people who know like and trust me that will give me those referrals and what is my discipline in order to execute on that? And for most of you, you probably don't have a calendar event that tells you you gotta reach out now to build a relationship. You have a perfect opportunity around the holidays to be able to reach out to people with a simple text message and say, hey, thinking about you. We should get together soon for a cup of coffee and catch up. Send that to the people in your sphere that know like and trust you. That's a relationship driven activity and it takes discipline to do it. Remember the difference between top producers, mediocre producers. In every industry, it's top producers. Take action. Take action on that today.
- [36:01]
Vince Lece
Sam.