130. Serve First, Sell More With Michael and James Hern

Summary

The Millionaire Real Estate Agent Podcast

Episode 130: Serve First, Sell More with Michael and James Hearn

Host: Jason Abrams
Guests: James Hearn & Michael Hearn
Date: April 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on building a thriving real estate business by putting service before sales, building a strong team culture, and focusing on long-term relationships rather than transactional gains. Brothers James and Michael Hearn, who lead a high-performing Kansas City real estate team, reveal the culture, systems, and beliefs that have driven their business past 250 units and $85 million in annual sales. They unpack their formula for success, their practical daily routines, and the deeper purpose underpinning their approach.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Foundations: Upbringing and Work Ethic

• Background: Both brothers grew up working on a cattle farm and for their father’s large commercial construction company.
  • James: “It really taught us how to work, how to work together, how to work smarter. Because it’s just tough.” (02:32)
  • Michael: Was more drawn to the hands-on work and still has a farm today.
• Core Value: Early discipline and tenacity shaped their work ethic and chemistry as business partners.

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2. Entering Real Estate and Lessons from Family

• James's Path: Flipped houses, then built homes, then became a realtor.
• Michael's Path: Moved from commercial into residential, started as an agent days after 9/11.
• Their Father’s Influence:
  • “Our dad was one of those guys that…he’d be at his office at 3:30, 4:00 in the morning. He was a workaholic.” (06:25)
  • Their dad ran both ranching and construction—"he lived multiple lifetimes, and still alive today." (07:09)

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3. The Hearn Formula: The Four Pillars

Serve First

• Core Mantra: “Think about the other person first. We’re not always going to get it right, but we’re always going to make it right.” (00:00)
• Select agents aligned with their value of service—not just sales numbers.
• James: “If we can have a bigger purpose around what we’re doing…it’s to help others. It’s to provide things for people that can’t provide for themselves.” (07:58)

Do the Basics Better

• Lead Generation is Fundamental:
  • “It’s about your sphere…. Get more out of your database, get more out of your day.” (13:22)
• Michael’s Routine: Speak to 5 people a day from his sphere, plus prospecting via calls, email, video, etc.
• Simple but consistent actions are the backbone of their business.

Build People

• Personalized Development:
  • “There’s a plan for everybody. If you want to build a life that gives you a $50,000 income, we got a plan for that. If you want $250,000…or a team making millions—there’s a plan for that as well.” (09:09, 20:48)
• Measure fit carefully, only accepting as many agents as they can truly serve and develop.
• James: “We want to leave them better than we found them.” (22:15)

Consistency

• Consistency across life and business: “Whether it’s your finances, your marriage, your weight…we have to have consistency. In our business, we have to consistently be talking to people, consistently serving people.” (30:44)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• James Hearn: “We're not always going to get it right, but we're always going to make it right.” (00:00)
• Michael Hearn: “We want to be people's Angie's List. How can we serve you?” (00:06)
• James Hearn: “You can only wear so many Rolexes. You can only drive so many cars... What else can we do that truly helps others?” (11:31)
• Michael Hearn on Basics: “Do the basics, and do the basics better than anyone else... Don't make it any harder than what it already is.” (12:03)
• On Difficult Conversations:
  • “We used to call the mo sandwich…love, difficult conversation, love at the end. Big hug at the end.” (29:31)
• On Brotherhood: “You can’t unbrother your brother, so he’s going to be there forever.” (33:46)
• Michael Hearn on Conflict: “Having a short memory and at the same time, having a long memory…short memory for the road bumps…longest memory for all the things we’ve been through.” (35:22)

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Practical Playbook & Agent Systems

The Serve First Recruitment Process

• Questions to Prospective Agents:
  • “Tell me what's important to you? What's important to your family? What would a year/five years from now look like for you?” (09:39)
  • “If I could put a dollar on that success, what would that be?” (23:29)
• Back into the unit and activity plan that fulfills each agent’s income and purpose.

Daily Activities for Agents

• Contact Sphere: Minimum 5 contacts a day for seasoned agents (more for newer); outreach can be calls, texts, video, email.
• Sample Scripting:
  • Database Contact: “Hey, do you have any questions about real estate? Is there anything going on in your life right now that—how can we serve you?” (13:51)
  • Expireds (recent): “Are you aware your home’s no longer on the market? … Are you going to be relisting?” (16:51)
  • Long Expireds: “I know your home was listed back in November. Where were you going to move to?” (17:58)
  • Online Buyer Leads: “I see you’re looking at [address]; would you love to see that property today?” (18:37)

Accountability Structure

• Weekly Team Meetings: Tuesdays at 8:30 a.m. (26:34)
  • Format: “Tell me something good,” new listings, buyer needs, market minutes, roleplay, teaching component (26:45).
• Regular Trainings: Rotating topics—currently, Listing Mastery and Luxury Mastery. Mix insider/outsider trainers for fresh perspectives (28:04).
• One-on-One Coaching: James meets individually with agents for pipeline reviews, goal check-ins, and personal support (28:54).
• Expectations: Plug into meetings/events, lean into systems, and show up consistently (25:57).

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Team Dynamics and Leadership

• Defined Lanes: James manages recruiting & coaching; Michael focuses on lead generation & opportunity creation (31:59).
• Culture of Trust: “Gary [Keller] told us years ago, build a moat around your business. Our moat is trust.” (32:44)
• Handling Disagreements: Resolve quickly; “Usually by the next meal, everything’s fine…you can’t unbrother your brother.” (33:46)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening Philosophy (“Serve First”): 00:00 – 00:09
• Farm Upbringing & Lessons: 01:35 – 04:16
• Advice for Tough Markets: 04:55 – 05:10
• Team Culture & Recruitment: 07:58 – 09:39
• How to Contact Sphere/Database: 13:22 – 14:57
• Prospecting Scripts (Expireds, Internet Leads): 16:23 – 19:23
• The Four Pillars Outlined: 19:47 – 30:44
• Meetings and Accountability: 26:31 – 29:13
• Leadership, Trust, and Roles: 31:59 – 33:24
• Resolving Disagreements as Brothers: 33:24 – 35:46

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Final Takeaways

• Service Over Sales: Their entire model starts with serving the client and agent first.
• Build for the Long Haul: Success means matching people to the right opportunities and sticking to consistent, simple daily habits.
• Define and Defend Team Culture: Cultural fit and trust are paramount to long-term business health.
• Empower Individual Visions: The “plan for everybody” caters to each agent’s unique “why,” income goals, and aspirations.
• Trust and Defined Leadership: Sibling partnership thrives on trust, complementary skills, and mutual support.

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Summary:
James and Michael Hearn’s approach—serve first, do the basics better, build people, and stay consistent—has fostered one of the Midwest's top real estate teams. Their dedication to culture, trust, and individualized growth offers a blueprint for agents at any stage. The biggest lesson: care deeply, act consistently, and know exactly who you are—then build a business that proves it, day after day.

Transcript

[James Hearn]

Think about the other person first. We're not always going to get it right, but we're always going to make it right.

[Michael Hearn]

We want to be people's Angie's List. How can we serve you?

[James Hearn]

If you want to build a life that gives you a $50,000 income, we got a plan for that. If you want $250,000 income, we've got a plan for that. If you want to have your own team 10 years from now making millions of dollars, there's a plan for that as well, and we can show you the path.

[Jason]

Jason, I want to make a lot of money selling real estate. Again, I hear it all the time. People reach out. I'm herealjason Abrams on Instagram, and I get all these dms. I want to make a lot of money selling real estate. How do you do it, gang? This is how you do it. You're going to hear today from two brothers. Now, these guys are incredible, and they do over 250 units every year for over $85 million, hailing from the Kansas City metro area. So a lot of real estate. And they have a formula. They have a formula for how to get in production through culture and make an awful lot of money listing and selling real estate. They're gonna unpack their conversation frameworks. They're gonna unpack their models and systems. They're gonna tell you exactly how to be successful in real estate. Sit back and buckle up. This is James and Michael Hearn, and I am joined today by James and Michael Hearn. James, how are you?

[James Hearn]

S. Jason, how are you?

[Jason]

I am fantastic. You know, I start the show the same way every time I ask everybody, how did you find your way into the greatest industry in the world?

[James Hearn]

Honestly, Michael and I grew up on a farm, cattle ranch, with our dad, who owned a commercial construction company. We grew up, dad had about 500 employees, so he was used to bossing people around. He didn't have a problem bossing us around either. In the end, I think he knew that putting us out on the farm was going to keep us out of trouble. What we didn't know that it was gonna train us how to work and work well together. We each kind of had our own paths doing the same thing, but we were able to.

[Jason]

I gotta stop you because I've never grown up or really spent much time on a farm. Gary Keller, who, by the way, if you read the mrea, you know that him and Jay Papasan, together with Dave Jenks, may he rest in peace, wrote the mrea. The closest I've Gotten to a farm is his house where he has two incredible chickens, by the way. And these are the greatest chickens in the world. So I gotta ask, what is it like growing up on a farm for those of us that haven't. In my head, I'm imagining it's 3am and you're eating biscuits. What's it really like, though?

[James Hearn]

Dairy farm. Yes, Jason, that would be the case. Cattle farm, not so much. But you are doing chores first thing in the morning. You're cleaning barns, you're feeding cattle, you're breaking ice. That's cold. You're in Texas, we're in Missouri. So a little bit of difference there, but it certainly. You got to work. It's tough. And I will tell you, I was the oldest by a couple years, and I could not get away from there fast enough. I did not want to farm at all. Now Michael has a farm and lots of cattle, hundreds of heads of cattle right now. So he likes that kind of stuff. But what that did was it really taught us how to work, how to work together, how to work smarter. Because it's just tough. It's hot belaboring work. And so we started there. I, myself and Michael share just briefly his. But what happened with me is I started telling dad because he owned a commercial construction company, can't we build a few houses? Because Our projects take 2, 3 years to complete, building huge universities, hospitals, banks, jails, things like that. And he wasn't interested in that. So I started looking for what is now known as flipping opportunities and started flipping some houses. Didn't call it that then, but I really liked it. And then when you get really good at that, you're like, this is too dirty. I should be building houses, right? So started building some houses. And then that realtor makes a lot of money off of me. Maybe I should become a realtor. So that kind of slid me right into that spot and a little stop off in the mortgage world along the way to kind of learn those ropes. But that's how I got into it. That's how I came.

[Jason]

How long have you been in the industry?

[James Hearn]

I've been in the industry. Come May or June, it'll be 32 years.

[Jason]

Man, you've really seen it change. You've seen good markets, bad markets, recessions, crashes, oil embargoes. You've seen it all.

[James Hearn]

Yeah, well, don't make me sound quite that old.

[Jason]

But you are that old, my friend.

[James Hearn]

I am. It is. It's true. That's happened.

[Jason]

Okay, well, then before I move over to Michael, I gotta ask you, because we're in a moment right now where a generation of real estate professionals is experiencing a tough market. And for a lot of them, it's the first time. Quickly, what advice do you give that group, having seen them all come and go?

[James Hearn]

Well, I would give the advice that he and I talk about all the time. Keep your head down, keep working, ignore the media, because whatever they're telling you is they've got some reason they're telling you that and it's not to benefit you. So we literally just keep working.

[Jason]

I love that gang. We are not the media, we are the people's podcast. So that is fantastic. Now, Michael, I'm really hoping you're the younger brother.

[Michael Hearn]

I am.

[Jason]

Okay. Because I was going to get worried about you. So you're the younger brother. How do you end up in the biz?

[Michael Hearn]

So I. When our dad, he sold his construction company, I'd gotten some sales and wound up had some neighbors that wanted to buy some four plexes, some eight plexes. And I thought, man, this would be great. And then I found out it was more about dollars and cents and not about emotional buying and figured I could starve to death pretty quick. So I moved over to the residential side and I was getting my license. I was actually in real estate school September 11, 2001. I got my license September 17, 2001. So timing wise, it might not have been the best. But at the same time though, the

[Jason]

market took off and so you're now firmly planted. Can I take a step sideways? Can I ask you a question about your dad? Would it offend you if I did that? Is that okay?

[Michael Hearn]

Sure.

[Jason]

Dad sounds like an amazing guy and I'm hearing about him for the first time. But from cattle ranch to just a titan. That sounds like of construction. He just sounds like one of those unique humans that left an incredible mark on both of you. Tell me a little bit about dad.

[Michael Hearn]

So our dad was one of those guys that if he knew you were out a little too late the night before and probably doing maybe some things you probably shouldn't have been doing, which that was me, not James. Dad made sure he had multiple jobs for you to do early. Early. And our dad was one of those guys that. And he's retired, but one of those guys that, you know, he'd be at his office at 3:30, 4:00 in the morning. Wow, he was a workaholic.

[Jason]

Was he a renaissance man though? Because when you say cattle, to me, that sounds like one heck of a discipline but then you say building jails, and that sounds like another one. It sounds like he lived multiple lifetimes and still alive today. James, is that right?

[James Hearn]

It is, it is. And they were lived simultaneously as well, because he did them both at the same time. But he also would get on a plane and fly to whatever city they were doing that stuff in. And we'd be having to take care of everything back home. So again, kind of throwing us into it, you. You sink or swim.

[Jason]

All right, well, let's get into this, because you guys are running a giant business. I mean, over 250 units, 85 million plus in a market where that means a ton, because your average sales price isn't as high. It's not like we're talking about L. A. You guys are absolutely crushing it. And you have a model that gets agents into productivity and production incredibly quickly. It's sort of the culture of productivity and production in your world. So unpack this for me. Tell me exactly your success formula to help people live their biggest lives.

[James Hearn]

Sure, sure. Be happy to. Well, we start with kind of attraction wise with our team. Culture is very, very important to us. We're looking for people because we are brothers. We kind of look for people that can kind of fall into that groove and feel like they're going to, I guess, compliment us, not clash with us. So we're looking for people with the same belief system, the same work ethics, those kind of things, which is pretty good opportunity in our business to find folks like that. I guess the formula that we would start with, the kind of success formula for us would be our team mantra is to serve first. And so we're really looking for people and enabling people in our world to think about the other person first. A lot of people in our industry are about themselves. They're about how much money they can make. We all want to make money. We give up time from our families. We want to be somewhere where we're getting rewarded for that. But if we can have a bigger purpose around what we're doing. And so we look for those purposes. And to be honest, Jason, we look for people that want to fulfill a purpose, that are looking to have a bigger why, to steal some of our stuff. Right, Big whys. But what is the purpose in our life? Why do we want to make all this money? Why do we want to be what we want to be? And it's to help others. It's to provide things for people that can't provide for themselves. So that's where we're at.

[Jason]

Okay, so kind of walk me through that. Because, by the way, I love that my challenge is I fall in love with everybody that I meet. I just have that heart. What are some of the questions you're asking or the processes you have to not find these people, but weed out the ones that don't fit?

[James Hearn]

Well, once they're in our world that we're looking to invite them to join us, we're literally setting down to find out what's important to them. There are things, I mean, 100% transparency. We're both Christians, so that's our belief system. So we're kind of looking for folks that fall in that category that we know we're not going to have problems if we're discussing things and they find that offensive. So we kind of talk about, tell me what's important to you. Tell me what's important to your family. What would you like a year from now to look like? What would you like five years from now to look like if you had a crystal ball and could look that far in advance? And then we want to work backwards to figure out what their goals are and figure out if their big why is something that they can attain through us. Because we want to leave everyone better than we found them. And if that is, we're turning them back into the wild instead of becoming a part of our group. We want to do that. But it's also if they want to join our group and play along with us for two, three, five years and then go do their own thing. We want to be able to build them up to be the best person they can possibly be. So when they look back on us, they say, these guys are great. They helped us get here.

[Jason]

I love that. You know what I heard is, number one, you first have to understand what's important to you because you've chosen to walk with Christ, and that's important to both of you. And so if you don't know what's important to you, it's difficult to find out, even if you know what's important to somebody else. If there's alignment there. Is that right?

[James Hearn]

It is. Yep.

[Jason]

I love that. All right, so, number one, you got to figure out what's important to you. Number two, you then have to ask enough questions to find out what's important to them. And then, number three, you have to decide whether or not your model is a vehicle to help them make enough money to hit their why? Because, James, I hear you talking about helping people, but at the end of the day, money still matters, doesn't it?

[James Hearn]

It Does. It's hard to help someone if you don't have any money. We can all pat each other on the back. We can sit around, sing Kumbaya. But if we don't have the ability to write a check or send someone on a mission trip or buy a person a vehicle that needs a vehicle, what are we doing if that's what's important to us? You can only wear so many Rolexes. You can only drive so many cars at a time and live in so many houses at a time. Right. What else can we do that truly helps others?

[Jason]

I love that. All right, so number one serve first. What's next?

[James Hearn]

Well, I'll let Michael cover the second one here.

[Michael Hearn]

So the second one, it's just do the basics, and do the basics better than anyone else. And so, you know, it comes down to, you know, Gary Keller. His mantra of leadership, you know, is teaching people how to think. And so with doing the basics better, what we're teaching our people is it's about lead generation. It's about your sphere. And James and I, like a lot of our goal is as rainmakers, is bringing opportunity to them. So we're wanting to teach our agents, and we also want to take care of our clients coming back to the serve first and doing the basics where we're working on serving them daily. And do we always do that right?

[James Hearn]

No, we don't.

[Michael Hearn]

But we're trying to do the best we can to get them opportunities and to, you know, just. And again, do it at a very basic level. Don't make it any harder than what it already is. It's not that tough.

[Jason]

Well, let's unpack that in detail. By the way, gang, you don't have to be taking notes. I know right now a bunch of you are trying to take notes. Don't worry about it. I'm taking the notes. If you don't get them, go to mreanotes.com, mreanotes.com, enter your email. The notes come out every Thursday, and trust me, you're going to want them when Michael unpacks this idea. So talk to me about the basics. Tell me exactly what the basics are if I want to get more out of my database.

[Michael Hearn]

Super simple. Get more out of your database, get more out of your day. It's like basically our goals. I can tell you what mine is. An example is I'm talking to five of my sphere a day. Just five.

[Jason]

I know that sounds simple, but you realize that you're doing something that the vast majority of Real estate agents don't do so purposefully. Talking to five people out of your sphere. What are you talking about when you call them? What do you say? How do you pick the five people?

[Michael Hearn]

So the five people it could be, basically, I'm just going through my database, taking five people, maybe going through my phone, follow up, boss, whatever it is. And I'm either talking to them on the phone, I'm either shooting them an email or video, text. And then what I'm doing after I'm done with those folks, then I'm actually going into lead generation, where I'm looking for whether it's expireds, whether it's Internet leads we had come through the system, you name it. But I want to make sure I get 5 of my database people that we've either sold a home to, maybe someone we go to church with, our kids know, just to where I'm finding out for them. Back to your question. I'm finding out from them, like, hey, do you have any questions about real estate? Hey, is there anything going on in your life right now that how can we serve you? Because the way we want to do this is we want it to be. We want to be people. Angie's List to where if they've got a. They're wanting to run a marathon or they've got a kid looking for a job, whatever it may be, we want to, through our network, we want to be able to bring them some answers to their problem.

[Jason]

I love that. Okay, so, James, is that the same the way you think your database?

[James Hearn]

It is. And here's what I'm going to say about that. Michael's telling you his daily formula. It could be different for you if your goal's different, if you're newer in the business. You said five's kind of tough for people. Some people need to be doing 25 every single day, talking to 25 people. So that's where building that plan ahead of time comes into play here. And it's literally just doing the simple basics every single day, which is really. This is a contact sport. This is a contact sport. We have to talk to people. Michael's the king at it. He is the best connector I have ever seen in my entire life. And he really only does need to talk to five people a day to build a huge, huge business. It's crazy. And there are very few people that can do that. But as you said, there's very few people that even talk to five people. But many have a plan that is not as easy because he stayed in contact with them, you don't have to talk to them as often. Right. They know you're going to talk to them at least four times a year. You're going to see them at events and things like that. So that's what I would say. We each kind of stay in different lanes as respect. I'm more recruiting people, he's more on that side. But we're both very active in listing and selling, so.

[Jason]

All right, Michael, speed round. I want to go through this. So when you call one of the five people in the database, literally, how do you start the phone call? What do you say?

[Michael Hearn]

It could be as simple as I'm calling you, Jason. Right? It could be as simple as maybe I saw something on Facebook or maybe it was we were at a ball game together or just some commonality. Or maybe I haven't spoke to you in a while and I'm just calling you, seeing what's going on. You know, how's life?

[Jason]

Love it. All right, expireds. What do you say?

[Michael Hearn]

I just want to find out. Hey, you know, it depends on the type of expired. If it's a fresh expired or if it's an older one.

[Jason]

Let's do both. If it's a fresh one, what do you say?

[Michael Hearn]

I'm basically. Hey, Jason, are you aware your home's no longer on the market?

[Jason]

I'm aware.

[Michael Hearn]

Okay. Hey, that's awesome. Hey, Jason, by the way, you know, are you going to be relisting your home?

[Jason]

Well, we haven't decided yet.

[Michael Hearn]

You haven't decided yet. Okay, great. Well, listen, Jason, if I could come to your home tomorrow and just share with you how we could be able to market your home in today's market and actually get your home sold. Is that something you'd be open to

[Jason]

if you just have a buyer? Just bring the buyer. How about that?

[Michael Hearn]

Totally understand that, Jason. You know, I'd love to see your property. Get a better idea. Let me ask you this, Jason. When your home was on the market, you know, what kind of showings were you getting?

[Jason]

I didn't get very many.

[Michael Hearn]

Okay. What kind of feedback did you get?

[Jason]

I couldn't even reach the agent once they listed it. I don't even know what feedback means.

[Michael Hearn]

Totally understand. Well, hey, listen, Jason, what I'd love to do won't take 30 minutes of your time, swing by, take a look at your property, just get a really good feel of what you have to offer and kind of. I'll also bring. I see you were listed at X amount of dollars. I want to kind of Share with you what the market's showing where your home is right now. And Jason, I'd love to just provide you some information. You may find it of interest, you may not.

[Jason]

Pure gold. Okay. Now one that's been expired for a year. What do you say?

[Michael Hearn]

Hey, Jason, I know your home was listed back in November. Just wanted to see, you know. Hey, by the way, where. Where were you going to move to?

[Jason]

Florida? I was. It's somewhere warm.

[Michael Hearn]

Awesome. Yeah, I'd love to be in Florida as well. Hey, listen, are you still thinking about going there?

[Jason]

Yeah. I don't know when we weren't able to sell the house, but sure, eventually.

[Michael Hearn]

Awesome. Well, listen, if I were to swing by your house, take 30 minutes of your time and share with you how we could sell your home in today's market, would that be something of interest?

[Jason]

Beautiful. Got it. Okay. Then you mentioned Internet leads. So when you get an Internet lead and you're calling them, what do you say?

[Michael Hearn]

Depends on the type of lead.

[Jason]

Buy your lead off of a property from a large aggregator that rhymes with billow.

[Michael Hearn]

Okay, gotcha. Hey, Jason. Hey, my name is Michael Hearn. Hey, you were on one of our sites. I would say the name and you were looking at XYZ property. Hey, would you love to see that property today?

[Jason]

Yes.

[Michael Hearn]

Hey, awesome. Hey, Jason, what's your schedule like today?

[Jason]

I'm pretty flexible. I'd like to go as soon as I can.

[Michael Hearn]

Okay, great. How long have you been looking for houses, Jason?

[Jason]

A month.

[Michael Hearn]

A month. Great. Are you pre approved with a lender?

[Jason]

Not yet.

[Michael Hearn]

Oh, hey, listen, Jason. Hey, in today's market, man, listen, if you find something, let me ask you, are you renting currently or do you own a home?

[Jason]

No, renting.

[Michael Hearn]

Okay, great. When's your lease up, man?

[Jason]

I got to stop this. Because you're so good at this, you managed to keep the conversation flowing. And you, you have an endless number of questions that all end up in the same place, which is, let's meet today or tomorrow.

[Michael Hearn]

I don't know that I'm that great. But at the same time, though, it's just. You're right. It's asking questions. It's communication. That's all it is.

[Jason]

I'm allowed to say, you're great. I'm the host. It's my show. You're great at this, I can tell you. And by the way, I can tell that you do it often because you go into it immediately. So I love that. So I'm assuming that one of the things that you guys do so well is help your agents speak the language of consulting.

[Michael Hearn]

We work at that. Absolutely love it.

[Jason]

Okay, so I'm going to stay linear. I love what you just did. So serve first, then do the basics better. What's next?

[James Hearn]

Build people. Looking to build people. I'm going to tell you about a mistake we made years ago about someone that was on our team, and it kind of taught us a lesson of more questions to be asking when they're joining your team. I had a gentleman who was a retired military guy, so he had income coming in, very good agent. And one day he came to me and said, hey, I don't want to be a millionaire, so I'm going to quit your team and I'm going to go to this other company. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about being a millionaire? You know, I'm not telling you you have to be a millionaire, but obviously we teach the mrea. And so you hear the word millionaire a lot. So the assumption was he thinks you want him to be a millionaire.

[Jason]

He missed the COVID where it says, it's not about the money, it's about being the best you can be.

[James Hearn]

That's right. He didn't read the fine print. But my point was simple. The dude wanted to make about $50,000 a year because that's all he needed. And Michael and I happened to be going to lunch with our lender that day. And I'm telling him, I'm dumbfounded by this. You know, that this guy said this, and I said, he only wants to make $50,000, and the lender says, a month, because that's how we think. And I said, no, a year. And it taught me, ask better questions, because there's a plan for everybody. So if you want to build a life that gives you a $50,000 income, we got a plan for that. If you want $250,000 income, we've got a plan for that. If you want to have your own team 10 years from now making millions of dollars, there's a plan for that as well. And we can show you the path. And Keller Williams does a great job of giving us that path to share with them. And if somebody ever stumps us, we literally walk into our team leader's office and go, hey, here's what we got going. How can we help this person? Right? Because opportunity's the name of the game.

[Jason]

I love that, man. And I know because you and I are friends, you focus sort of on the growth, on the recruiting side in the business, and you turn away a Lot of people. But you do it in an incredibly respectful way so that they're better off having went through your process. Why do you tend to turn away more people than you accept?

[James Hearn]

Simply because we want to leave them better than we found them. We want them to look back and say, those folks did what was best for me, not what was best for them. I believe there are a lot of companies, a lot of teams that would hire somebody to get a deal or two out of them, knowing they're going to burn out, knowing they're not going to work out, but hey, we'll make some money off of them. That's not us. We want to know what's best for them. And if it doesn't fit into our plan right then. Because if that person wanting to make a certain level of income or sell a certain type of house or timeframe or culture wasn't right, we want to let them be able to succeed somewhere that is good for them and they're a fit and will just excel. So we're looking to how can we build them in a way that will be better for them, better for their family, better for their future.

[Jason]

Can you walk me through when you're meeting with these agents that you're bringing onto the team, how do you address the money issue? Meaning how do you figure out how much money they need to make? Then how do you turn that dollar amount into any sort of framework and goal that they have? And then what are the commitments that you're asking them to make to you?

[James Hearn]

It's a little harder than you would think sometimes to get a number out of people, but it's really. I asked them to dream a little bit and tell me what success looks like for them, because that word means something different to everybody. And then if I could put a dollar on that success, what would that be for you and your family? What would that be and what would you do with that money? Because if you tell me you want to make $100,000, but you want to buy a million dollar house that year, I'm probably going to tell you that we got to change our goal here. We got to figure something else out. And when I have those. But helping them know and understand what's achievable and then backing into it. So if they tell me what they want, we can back into. Okay, that would take this under our pay scale, that would take this many units.

[Jason]

Let's play the game. And I'm just going to pick the number that I think 99.9% of agents that Join teams. What's that number, sir?

[James Hearn]

It's $100,000.

[Jason]

It's been $100,000 since I started in 1999. It's the. The same 100,000 today. So if I said to you, 100,000, how would you work with me on that?

[James Hearn]

Well, I would. I would break down because some of them are coming. We. We look for agents that have been in production, so we're looking at what their average sales are, figuring out how many units that would be and factoring that into how that looks on our team. So how much they would get paid on that unit. And then telling them. So you would have this many units you would need to close. And here's the opportunities you have here. We have new construction. We have a lot of existing inventory in new construction for open houses. We have a lot of listings, period, that you have open house opportunities, showing them all the ways that they have opportunity that other people don't have inventory right now, you don't have that opportunity. So they've got opportunities there, showing them leads and how they come into our world. Because as Michael was sharing, you know, different aggregators that we have, we also have thousands upon thousands of past clients over the last however many years. More than 5,000, I believe. Past clients, Michael and I can't service them. Right. We need help servicing those. So there's opportunity there. So you simply back into whatever those numbers are for that individual. Each case is going to be different and help them know and understand that.

[Jason]

And are you asking for any commitments from them? Because it sounds like you're committing resources and leads and training and consulting. What are you asking back from them?

[James Hearn]

We are asking them to lean in. We have listened to Gary Keller very well, and we've built the systems, the training, the model. We follow all of that. And we want them to plug in. We want them to show up to team meetings, show up to team trainings. We want them to be a part of our events because we put on major events throughout the year that give them opportunities to mix with their clients, mix with their potential clients, folks that they're wanting to work with or they're wooing to give them basically another opportunity to do business with them.

[Jason]

Okay, I want to pull these apart. Team meetings. How often?

[James Hearn]

Team meetings every week? Every Tuesday.

[Jason]

Every Tuesday. What time?

[James Hearn]

8:30.

[Jason]

Okay, take me there right now. 8:30 in the morning on Tuesday. What are we covering in order and how long is it?

[James Hearn]

Our meeting will go between an hour and an hour and a half, typically hour, 15 minutes. We're starting the day with, hey, the good old tell me something good. What happened? Great. This week. Then we're going into what new listings we have, what new buyer searches we have going on. What are you looking for? Then we're rolling into some type of teaching component we like to call the market minutes. So we're like, what's going on in the market? What's stumping you guys? What are the things you're hearing? So we can on the spot, Michael, myself, anybody on the team, we can role play through those things. We can maybe come up with a conversation around that to help them get through that. And what we find is there are many that are duplicated things happening. The same thing's happening here as over there. So we really need to deal with that being ahead of it before anybody else knows what's going on.

[Jason]

Then what?

[James Hearn]

And then sharing whatever the teaching component is for the day, which sometimes that's a guest speaker, sometimes it's someone zooming in, sometimes it's us just going over, hey, here's the model we're going to follow. We love video in our world. So we're talking a lot of video and training on a lot of video things of that nature to get them in production and get them profitable.

[Jason]

I love it. And then you said you also do trainings. What are your trainings? Focus on how often are they trainings

[James Hearn]

could be honestly all kinds of things. But right now we're doing a listing mastery training where we're going over how best to handle objections that we're getting at the table, how to present things to get the most out of them and get the most listings possible. We've got a luxury mastery that we're working on as well to kind of raise their average sales price and just ways that they can do that. So those type of things. Then we'll bring in some outsiders because we all get the Charlie Brown wah, wah, wah, teacher thing going on after a while so that they hear somebody else's voice, but it's always saying the same thing. They just need to hear it a different way sometimes for it to ring true.

[Jason]

I love that. Now, which one of y' all is coaching the agents and holding them accountable?

[James Hearn]

We both coach them, but I meet with them individually and go over their goals, go over their pipeline reports, coach them on any issues that they have going on. And sometimes, you know, Jason, that ends up being some personal stuff going on too that we have to work around. There's a lot of mental stuff going on around our industry right now.

[Jason]

So how did you show up? Because we all have these great plans. We bring in these agents, everybody's a 10 on commitment on interview day, and 60 days later, we find out what your real commitment level is. What do those conversations look like when it's not a 10 when it turns out it's a five in practice and a 10 in theory?

[James Hearn]

Number one, I come at them with what we used to call the mo sandwich. Right? We come at them with that. Love that. Hey, Jason, you're doing a great job. You know, you've been really good at reaching out to people on the phones over the past week. I've noticed some improvement there. You're really doing well. The issue is I kind of then have to deliver the truth. The issue is those are not transferring into appointments. They aren't turning into appointments. So we may have a commitment issue. Maybe there aren't enough numbers being dialed, you know, so let's talk about that. Let's see if we can work together. We'll analyze your numbers and figure out are we just not doing enough or are we just not saying the right things? It's usually a skill based thing, but it can be an effort based thing. They can know what to do and just not do it. So figuring out, analyzing, writing, the prescription for that, getting them back into production.

[Jason]

I love it. Yeah. That sandwich, that love, difficult conversation, love at the end. Now let's go. Big hug at the end is an incredible model. Yeah, a big hug at the end. All right. I love it. So I'm serving first. I'm doing the basics better. I'm building people. I just went through the training, how

[Michael Hearn]

you actually do it.

[Jason]

Is there anything else, you know, staying

[Michael Hearn]

consistent, whether it's, you know, we can think about consistency in your life, whether it's your finances, whether it's your, your marriage, your relationship, whether it's your weight. We have to have consistency. We can bring it back to that. Right. And so in our business, we have to consistently be talking to people, consistently serving people. So we have to put some numbers to that to see on a consistent daily basis to make sure that we're actually hitting our goals. And that where, you know, James is talking about how, you know, when he's coaching the folks. When we were growing up with our construction company, James was the suit and I was the blue collar guy. So it was like I was the guy who wore the gloves and I was out in the back loading the semis and running the crews. And he was meeting with the, the other, the other owners of the companies and so it's kind of like, you know, but he did it consistently and I did mine consistently. And so it's like with us from a leadership standpoint, consistently I'm looking to how can I bring opportunity to our team members? And consistently he is with our agents, he's consistently trying to find ways to pour into them and offer them value. From a leadership standpoint,

[Jason]

I gotta think that this is one of the keys to this loving, incredible relationship that the two of you guys have, both with your agents and each other, which is you're, you're running in very defined lanes and you don't really worry whether the other guy's gonna do his job. Y' all show up right?

[Michael Hearn]

Because I don't worry about my brother because he's my brother. He's not going anywhere. And I know he's working because we have the same common goal. And our whole life it's been, I've been the fire starter and he's the guy that puts the fire out. But with that being said, we have this trust and we know that it's getting, you know, we're on the same team, we have the same mission, we have the same vision, we know where we're going.

[James Hearn]

Gary told us years ago, you know, build a mode around your business. And our mode is trust. And we have that between us and we're looking for that with each and every team member, each and every staff member. I mean, we have long term folks that are with us and they're with us for a reason. We always tell them we're not always going to get it right, but we're always going to make it right. Just meaning we're human, we're going to make mistakes, but when we figure out we have, we're going to make it right and we're going to undo whatever that was, fix whatever that was, or reshape whatever needs to be reshapen at that point.

[Jason]

I think that's the greatest quote of the day. I got one final question for you because I understand the power of the relationship, but I also know that for brothers that love as big as y' all do, you can also fight like cats and dogs. And I'm sure you've went to scuffles in the back 40 before. How do you deal with it when there's adversity? How do you deal with it when there's disagreement? How does it show up on easy.

[James Hearn]

A better question for our staff who probably would give us a different answer than we would. But I will tell you that we do Occasionally bump heads and it's over in minutes. And we. The job is the job is the job. We have to get it done. We have to take care of each other. There aren't too many brothers. I travel all over the country. There aren't too many people that tell me, how do you work with your brother? I'm like, it's easy, you know, we, we. But you do separate the house. You do different things. We both list and sell, but we do different. We have different priorities of what we're doing inside the business. So by doing so, you're kind of. He reports to me, I report to him on what we're doing. We trade those things. If we get into it over something, usually by the next meal, that's breakfast time. By lunch, everything's fine. We're back at it, making things happen. You can't unbrother your brother, so he's going to be there forever. I know some people can't work with family. We love it. We go on vacation together. Our families go on vacation together. So it's a great life. My sons came into the business, my adult sons. My oldest has been with us for 10 years. My youngest, probably 86, licensed agent. Michael's son just joined us. So we've got a lot of that going on as well. They're not doing that if they don't like what they see. If we fought all the time, they wouldn't want any part of that. They think it's fun. They see a lot of good coming out of it.

[Jason]

No, I say, Michael, last word on that topic.

[Michael Hearn]

Having a short memory and at the same time, having a long memory. And I mean that by the short memory of, hey, we got whatever we didn't agree upon, we worked it out, we're moving on. And then the longest memory part of it is it's like, you know, you think of all the things we've been through and how we've gotten through them. It's just a bump in the road. What's next,

[Jason]

guys? I love your mission. I love your heart. I love the way that you think about culture above all else. And I love that you know so squarely who you are. And your mission seems to be helping others understand who you. Who they are and then get the most out of their lives. That's a very, very special. Thank you, gentlemen. Thanks for joining us today. How good are those guys? We don't always get it right, but we're always gonna make it right. I mean, that's like the line of the day. Did you Hear the way that they think about the world, go all the way back in their life. Clearly these guys came up a little differently than a lot of us. I mean, but do you get the idea of they're gonna work hard and they're gonna play hard. The thing that captures you is number one, they know exactly who they are, they know what's important to them. And in order to know what's important and how you can be part of someone else's life, you have to know who you are. They are so based in self identity. You don't hear any ego when they talk. As a matter of fact, their ego shows up in propelling the life to hit the self identity that they have. They're right spiritually and they're right with their family. They're right with each other and they want to be right with their clients and their agents. They do the basics better. When you ask James to go at how he recruits, he can tell you the exact conversation. He knows exactly what he's going to say. And he's a practitioner. You see the same thing show up with Michael. When you talk to Michael, what do you say to expireds? What do you say to long expireds? What do you say to aggregator leads? He's not guessing, he's not thinking about it. He's not pulling out a notebook. He's living it. You can tell he's doing it every single day. When you overkill over time with the things that make you successful, you're going to find success. And then I think about the fact that they've not only defined the lanes that they're going to be in, but they trust completely that the other is going to do their job. And yeah, he said it. There are days when they don't get along long, but those days are over in a couple of hours. You see, when I listen to them talk, I think about the same relationship that we want to have with the people closest to us. A long memory of all the things that brought us here today. Even if that includes some pain and a short memory for the road bumps that will happen along the way. Where are these guys headed? Friends? They are headed anywhere they want to go. You get the feeling that they're just getting started. And you know what, if you're a real estate agent, they thinking about, is this a team? I want to join. Look up and realize that the team is the family and that the next generation is rushing to join. And that should tell you all you need. You want to be in business with people that care about you. Those guys care and I think ultimately that's the secret to their success. Care deeply and then make sure everyone knows you do. Go forth and do likewise. If you're enjoying this podcast, I I want you to click the subscribe button anywhere that you get your podcasts. We want to be the voice in your head every single week and every week we're dropping new content. We also send out a newsletter at the conclusion of every show to make sure that you get the highest points in the models and systems that were discussed. So if you want to sign up, I need your name and your email address. Head over to themillionaire agent podcast.com millionaire agent podcast.com enter your name and your email address and every week that newsletter will be in your box. Friends, you just went on a journey. I hope that what happens between now and the next time we meet is absolutely wonderful for you. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.

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