← The Millionaire Real Estate Agent | The MREA Podcast
The Millionaire Real Estate Agent | The MREA Podcast
71. Command Your Market Through Seller Workshops & Build a Legacy With Sue Adler
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- [00:05]
A
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Millionaire Real Estate Agent podcast. I'm Jason Abrams and this is the place where we lift the curtain on the world of real estate like never before. Every week I sit down with visionaries, pirates and mavericks. We're here to document, demonstrate, and most importantly, demystify their game changing models and systems. What secrets propel them to the top and how are they living their dreams? This is about passion. It's about strategy. But above all, it's about real, tangible success. So buckle up and let's dive in. This is the Millionaire Real Estate Agent podcast. We are on brave new ground today, friends. We are gonna do a show and it is a first. Here's what we're gonna do. Number one, we have an absolute mega agent with us today. She does annually over $350 million of business. She's been doing it since 1983. She moved to a new town where she didn't know anybody and she has become a house sold name. She is gonna tell us exactly how to do listing seminars as her primary lead generation source. I'm telling you, the way that she does it is genius. She also happened to find a young man named Scott who came into her life and her business, who she mentored into taking over all of the operations. Here's what we're gonna do differently. We're actually gonna be joined by Scott to tell his story after you hear it from Sue. Friends, sit back and buckle up. This is Sue Adler. Sue, how are you?
- [02:03]
B
I am doing awesome, Jason. Thank you so much for having me.
- [02:05]
A
It is an honor to have you. You have one of the biggest businesses of anybody that I know. We're talking about over $350 million in business. It's a staggering number.
- [02:18]
B
Well, I mean, it took years to build up to that. When I started, I ever even thought that we'd be doing this kind of business, it never even crossed. So it's a gradual buildup to it.
- [02:28]
A
Of course, I love that. So let's actually get into it when you started. So I want to go all the way back before the accolades and before all the stage time and before the African safaris, before the 350 million, before the 300 plus home sellers a year. Take me back to before you were a real estate agent. How did you find the greatest industry in the world?
- [02:48]
B
I grew up in the business. So when I was 15 years old, I was helping the quote unquote middle aged ladies through their inspection issues when my parents were out to dinner and I would pick up the phone? Cause that was before answering machines. I've been doing this for 40 years, believe it or not. It's crazy.
- [03:03]
A
1983, your mom and dad were real estate agents?
- [03:06]
B
Yep. They owned the First Century 21 office in Pennsylvania.
- [03:10]
A
Wow.
- [03:11]
B
So I had a gold jacket, by the way.
- [03:13]
A
I too have a gold jacket. So did you know, because it's so rare to hear that I grew up in the business and then wanted to stay in it. Did you dabble in other industries?
- [03:23]
B
I went into real estate until I found my real job. I mean, I didn't realize it was an entrepreneurial business at the time. It was, quote, unquote, very mom and pop. And literally mom and pop for me, our office. I didn't want to go into real estate. My parents made me take the real estate course at Penn State. It was my first job until I found my real job.
- [03:43]
A
So you worked directly with your folks for a period of time.
- [03:45]
B
I did.
- [03:46]
A
Walk me through that because I've seen family business at its finest, but I've also seen it at its worst. How was working with your parents and what did you learn from them?
- [03:56]
B
Well, I learned work ethic from my mom, I would say. And I learned how to be with people from my dad. My dad was sort of like E.F. hutton. You know, he didn't say a whole lot, but when he spoke, people listened. So I learned a lot from him with that. And I learned that I was very good at the business and I was very good with people, and I was very good with sales. And that's really what I learned back in those days.
- [04:22]
A
So that's 1983, that you get into the real estate. Coincidentally, the same year Gary Keller starts Keller Williams, you end up in the industry at the same time.
- [04:31]
B
Yeah.
- [04:32]
A
Do you end up going off on your own and breaking away from your folks, or did that happen organically?
- [04:37]
B
So Gary Siegel, you know Gary Siegel.
- [04:40]
A
Sure.
- [04:40]
B
So my husband at the time and I were looking for a house in the Philadelphia. I was living in the Philadelphia suburbs and Gary was with ReMax. So he basically recruited me to ReMax at the time. And that was very entrepreneurial back in. This was in the 80s at that point. So I left my parents business, which was a big deal at the time. But then Gary and a bunch of his friends, Mike Campo, everybody in our REMAX office decided to leave and go to Keller Williams. They all were opening up a Keller Williams office at the time. And I was in the process of getting a divorce. I met my husband Peter, and I ended up moving to New Jersey not knowing anybody, and started over at that point in time. And then Gary is the one who said, this is a wide open territory. We'll help you open up Keller Williams here and find people who are willing to open up offices all over the place within New Jersey. And basically, that's what we did.
- [05:37]
A
So when you end up in New Jersey and you're a stone's throw from the tunnel, that's one of the most competitive markets in the United States. You get there, and there's already well established real estate agents. I mean, we're talking about some of the most prestigious zip codes. We're talking summit, we're talking short hills. How did you think about breaking into that market? Were you intimidated at all at the beginning? What was your plan?
- [06:00]
B
I wasn't intimidated because I knew the business. I knew how to sell real estate. Somebody said to me when I first got there, oh, nobody sells more than 12 houses a year here. And I said, oh, well, this is going to be easy. So in my mind, I was like, 12 houses? I mean, I could do that easily in a month, right? So my first year, I did 48 million in sales, and I didn't know anybody when I moved there. It's just basically marketing. I did community videos. I found relocation directors and sent the community videos to the relocation directors and said, please send these to your transferees. So within three to five years, I became one of the top three agents in the MLS, and we've been number one in our MLS since 2013.
- [06:41]
A
That's incredible. And now you're number one by a margin. So, I mean, the business has really grown.
- [06:47]
B
Yes, by a big margin. Now it's by over 100 million higher than the number two agent, which is crazy to me.
- [06:53]
A
It's crazy. And you have some incredible people around you. Everyone knows that.
- [06:57]
B
Oh, yes.
- [06:57]
A
But I credit a lot of this success to the way that you do seller seminars. The first time I heard you teach it, I was glued to my seat and my head exploded all over the place. Because on one hand, it's incredibly simple. On the other hand, it's so powerful. And by the way, friends, you don't have to take notes. I'm going to take the notes. So if you're driving right now in the Bentley, don't worry, I'm taking the notes. If you don't get them, sign up for the notes. You can sign up@mreanotes.com the notes come out every Thursday. So tell us exactly how to do seller seminars.
- [07:31]
B
So our business is about giving people the edge. E, D, G, E. So everything that we do in our business is based around that. So the E is empowering our clients through consultation and education so they can make the best decisions for their families. And that's basically the workshops. They fall perfectly into that. The D is delivering on our promises. G is giving back to our communities and giving all of ourselves to our clients. And then the E is earning their confidence and trust. And we do that by delivering on our promises, and then we earn their future referrals that way. So that's basically what we stand for as a team. And which I think is important to say with this. Okay. Because everything that you do in your business needs to be. There's no shiny pennies. I don't just keep adding things onto the business. Scott and I are very purposeful with what we are doing, and it all has to fall into edge. Does this fit into what we do as a team, who we stand for? So the whole seminar basically is the. It's our listing presentation, pretty much, but it's interactive. So what are people's pain points in our market? We have a lot of older people who their kids have graduated, they're in their houses, they want to downsize, they want to get out of New Jersey, taxes are high. So how can we help them when they've been in their homes for 20 years or more, get their houses prepared for the market? All the things that they're overwhelmed with. We're addressing their pain points and helping them go through that. So we're basically their partners in that whole process.
- [09:00]
A
But I want to ask a question. If the basis of the workshop is all of the answering the five or ten questions you get in your listing appointments, why don't people just do that one on one at a listing appointment? Like, why do people come to this workshop?
- [09:17]
B
They typically aren't quite ready yet. You know, it's a big step having people coming to the house. Sometimes it's step one, but other times they're 18 months, two years out. They're not ready for that yet. So we came up with a program called Sold on youn Time. It's basically prep now, sell when you're ready. So we get into a lot of that with the workshop.
- [09:37]
A
As I'm creating the workshop. How long is a workshop? What should I be aiming for?
- [09:42]
B
It's typically an hour and a half.
- [09:43]
A
Okay. You said we cover five basic things. The first thing is decluttering before you sell.
- [09:49]
B
Yep.
- [09:49]
A
This is teaching them how to get their home ready.
- [09:52]
B
Yes, we Teach them how to get their home ready. We have people who will help them declutter that you pay hourly to. And if they say, well, I don't want to spend the money to do that, we talk about, well, the cost of waiting could cost you more than the cost of actually decluttering. You know, spending the money to declutter. And then I talked about how when I sold my house, I hired somebody to do it because I'm busy. When it comes to decluttering, people tend to put that off. It turns from one year to two years to three years. And that tends to be the major reason that people do not move.
- [10:23]
A
Then you said the next bucket was necessary repairs before selling. How do you talk to him about repairs?
- [10:29]
B
So we have our transaction manager there. They talk about what a home inspector would look for. The buyer will tend to ask for the Rolls Royce of repairs. So if we can take care of that beforehand and make the issues go away, it will save them money in the long run. There also could be certain things that the seller can just disclose in as is condition. So this way the buyer isn't discovering it during the inspection. And because they always ask for what they discover, but if it's disclosed as is ahead of time, then the offer process, we ask for that to be put in to the contract. So those are the type of things that'll save the sellers money.
- [11:07]
A
The next bucket is the staging process. And you told me before and after photos go a long way. What do you mean by that?
- [11:13]
B
Oh, boy. I mean, when you see some of the houses where they've been in there for 20 some years and they have look, they had a New York designer come in, but it was for their 1995 kitchen or whatever, you know, and the color scheme was very different. And they had some of the oriental rugs that young buyers today just don't want those. The buyers are the HGTV generation. And we have sellers who, yes, they spent a lot of money on this, but they'll even admit, look, when we're looking online at our condos, we don't want this either.
- [11:46]
A
The next bucket, you said that you talk about the overall process of selling a home.
- [11:51]
B
Yes, we go through the market. What's going on in the market. Okay, we added to it. What's going on with the new real estate changes. And then we talk about pricing strategy and the mistakes. What happens when you overprice a home? So we get into a lot of that type of thing.
- [12:07]
A
And is the workshop in person or is it over zoom?
- [12:11]
B
Both Before COVID was all in the local libraries. During COVID was all through Zoom. And now we do a combination and we do town specific workshops. Those are all at the local libraries or someplace local. But we always, at least once a month, have a Zoom workshop as well. Because that's sort of our catch all. A lot of people want to just do it on Zoom. So we're doing five a month now, four typically in person, and one on Zoom.
- [12:38]
A
Okay. So step one was create the workshop. And we're going to be talking about decluttering before selling. We're going to talk necessary repairs. We're going to talk staging. We're going to talk a generalization about.
- [12:49]
B
The market and marketing. And we show marketing examples. Yep.
- [12:52]
A
And how we're marketing the home. The next step is driving people to the workshop. And what was interesting to me is you said we don't just casually mention it. This is everything we have. What did you mean when you said everything points to this?
- [13:07]
B
It's on the front page, front and center on our website. But that's not how they come. We do a lot of mailings on our team. So when we do the mailings, we send invitations basically to the workshop and we rotate it through. So if we have, I would say, 12 towns that we're working with, we end up doing one per quarter for that specific town. While they're town specific, all we do is change out the materials for that specific town. So the workshop pretty much remains the same.
- [13:38]
A
So when we spoke, you mentioned that there was two distinct buckets. It's sending direct mail and then using social media.
- [13:45]
B
We use social media and then we also do email blasts every week with our new listings. And we have a whole thing on that. The direct mail is either an invitation weekly. We do seller letters and we have a buyer letters. We all include a flyer to the workshop. We bring flyers to open houses for, you know, if a seller walks in and they're curious because they want to see their neighbor's house, the agent will hand them an invitation to the workshop.
- [14:08]
A
How do you think about the number of people you'd like to have? And do you have any math on how many invites you have to put out?
- [14:14]
B
We mail to people who've been in their homes for 10 years or more because, you know, usually if they've just been through the process, they typically don't need all this information. These are for the people who really need this information. Most of them have been in their house for 20 years or more.
- [14:27]
A
What's the sweet spot on Number of people in a seminar.
- [14:31]
B
But we've had workshops with three people and we've had workshops with 50 people. Usually we have more at the beginning of the seasons than we do after. We've done it a few times in the season. I would say on average about, well, sometimes 10, sometimes 20 at the workshop.
- [14:47]
A
I gotta jump in and I have to explain the math to you on this, because when the pre interview with sue, we were talking and I said to her, so how many people come to the seminars? And she kind of smiled at me. And in her own way she said, jason, you're so adorable, but you're thinking about it completely wrong. Let me ask you this, friends. If you had a listing appointment scheduled for tonight, how would you feel about it? And you're like, I'd feel okay, Great. What if you had two? One at 4 o' clock and one at 6 o'? Clock? Now how do you feel about the day? And you're like, I feel really good about that. And then if I said, what if you had three? What if you had one at 3 o', clock, one at 5 o' clock and one at 7 o', clock, and you'd say, oh my gosh, that is a red letter day, Jason, I would be thrilled. Friends, think of it like this. Everybody that attends one of Sue's seminars is literally a listing appointment. If she has five people in the room, it's akin to going on five listing appointments that day. Think of it like that, friends. If I told you you were meeting with five sellers today, your head might explode all over the dashboard of your car. It isn't about how many are there, it's about how powerful you can be with the ones that show up. And when they sign up to come, are you collecting their physical information, their address, their name?
- [16:06]
B
Well, they do that when they register through Eventbrite.
- [16:08]
A
Perfect.
- [16:09]
B
So collect all that then. And that goes into our spreadsheets and our CRM.
- [16:13]
A
At that point, when I followed the link, you were asking for name, phone, email, physical address. And then I thought, this was so smart. Number of bedrooms and bathrooms, how they found out about the workshop and how long they've been in their home.
- [16:26]
B
Well, it gives me a gauge also on how long people have been in their homes. But I asked the question, or whoever's running the workshop will ask the question in the beginning. How long have you been in your home? We sort of make it a game. So we kind of break the ice with all of that.
- [16:38]
A
So I'm creating the workshop. I'm then inviting and driving to it. I'm asking my questions when they RSVP on the eventbrite. Now I'm running my workshop. So I do it. Then I have to follow up. How do you follow up with these people? And how do you get the people who might be NOW business to raise their hand and make sure you capture it?
- [16:57]
B
I mean, the NOW business we're getting right there at the workshop. That's easy. And we're asking a lot of questions. It's interactive. The people who are asking a lot of questions tend to be the people who are the NOW business. And we also ask, ask them at the workshop. Raise your hand if you're planning on moving within the next few months, you know, in the next year. Or we'll just go around and casually ask them if there's not a lot of people. You can really speak one on one to people. I think that's a really important part and that's why we do the breakout sessions. But after the workshops, the next morning, the agent who did the workshop makes all the phone calls to follow up. That is one of the benefits to being a listing agent on the team and, you know, helping them grow their listing business is running these workshops. So we do a lot of training with the listing agents to be able to run the workshops. That's a really important thing for them. They follow up to a certain point, but then the ISAs jump in and do the long term follow up. Both the listing agents and the ISAs just do long term follow ups with it. But they're also the reason we asked for the bedroom and bath count is now they're getting the market snapshot. They're on Fellow. You know, they're signed up with Fellow so they can get the follow ups there. We can see when they're looking at their valuation and we're just in constant communication with them when it comes to getting their home prepped for the market as well. We also look up their zestimate. I don't love Zestimates, but it gives you some kind of idea of what their ballpark, what their value is. Are we talking people who are showing up, who are in a $500,000 home or a $2 million home, so we can gear the seminar towards the people who are in the room with us.
- [18:27]
A
It doesn't surprise you that people come because there's this idea that everybody knows a real estate agent. There's millions of them. So like, why are they coming to your seminar? Were you surprised? Are you ever surprised at how many people come to the seminars?
- [18:40]
B
No, we've been doing it for a long time. I guess I was surprised when we initially started doing them. The first email that I sent out to our database, I think we had 50 people show up at the first one. That's rare. 50 people showing up is really rare. But that does not last. If you think that's going to last all the time, it does not happen. But if you're doing them on a regular basis and you look at it as a listing appointment in front of 10 groups of people, five groups of people, three, two, whatever it is, whoever shows up, that's somebody who's interested, who's raising their hand to sell, whether it's today or down the line.
- [19:15]
A
I want to switch gears. By the way, I think the seminar program is genius. I want to switch gears because you were running an incredible practice and your name became synonymous with sales in a very high end community. And you're one of the few who went out and found and mentored a business partner. And by the way, that freed you up to then travel the world.
- [19:36]
B
Well, I wouldn't say it free me up to travel the world.
- [19:38]
A
But you did. You traveled the world. There was a giraffe in your room in Africa last time I heard. Like you're living a giant life, but that's because you have giant leverage. Were you worried at all about bringing somebody on like that? Were you scared about turning over your name in business? How did you do it?
- [19:53]
B
Well, first of all, Scott started off, I don't know if you knew this, but his parents were one of our clients. He was a senior in high school and I went to sell his parents house. They were then downsizing and moving. I think they're moving to Florida. And I see millionaire real estate agent and shift on Scott's nightstand as I'm walking through the house.
- [20:11]
A
Oh my gosh. By the way, if you're new to the show, the book she just referenced called the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, that was written by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan and Dave Jenks and is the namesake for our show. And you're saying this high school kid had it on his desk?
- [20:24]
B
Yep. Not his desk, his nightstand. Okay, so then I sit down for the appointment and the market at the time was shifting. It was big time shift downwards. And Scott started talking to them about pricing ahead of the market. And I'm listening to him, this high school kid, it was crazy. And then fast forward, he contacted me because he decided he wanted to go into real estate but he didn't know if he Wanted to go into commercial or whatever. And he asked if he could spend his last three months of high school as an intern. So he was an intern for the team. He sat on paint buckets and did the CEO inspections, like. So he started down at the bottom. He knows every aspect of the team, every aspect of the business. Then he went to University of Tampa, and I swear, he must have been answering leads in the middle of his class. But this is what's interesting. Talent just takes the opportunities. They don't ask for it, they don't wait for it. They just take those opportunities. And this is what he was doing. He joined every Facebook group with real estate and would bring things back to me. And he would come back during the summers and work for us during the summers. He was just loving what he was doing. And then he gave me a proposal to be my director of operations when he was graduating. But it's funny, because his proposal, he wanted a percentage of the business, which I thought was so cute from a college kid asking me for a percentage of my business at the time. But I thought, oh, God, this guy, he's got guts to ask me for that. And, like, obviously at the time, that was not a thing. But I hired him to write the operations manual and run the operations.
- [22:05]
A
Talent takes, not weights. That's a big idea because you always have people that say, well, what's my next opportunity?
- [22:11]
B
I know, it drives me crazy. I mean, just do it, take it. Just run with it. I'm not going to stop what I'm doing to help you with this. I'll support you with whatever you want to do, but just take it. There's plenty of room for you to.
- [22:24]
A
Grow a hundred percent. Okay, so we just heard from sue, and sue says, I met Scott. He's 17 years old. He's got mrea on his nightstand. He goes away to college. He becomes brilliant. He comes back, he makes me a proposal, yada, yada, yada. He now runs the business. And I listened to that, friends, just like you did. And I woke up the next morning and said, nope, I gotta know how it happened. So I reached out to Scott. You're about to hear directly from him. Scott, how are you, sir?
- [22:57]
C
Awesome, thank you. How are you, Jason?
- [22:58]
A
I am fantastic. Now, the question we asked sue was, how do you go out and find somebody and bring them in and ultimately step away so that they can run the business? Walk me through how everybody listening can do that. Tell me exactly how it's done.
- [23:15]
C
My story's a little unique, but I think replicatable by everybody out there. And I think where it starts was I was young, ambitious and hungry. And I think that those are great qualifications to finding a starting point of somebody that potentially could do this. Right. I mean, I think we always look at emerging talent versus proven talent. I think in this case it was absolutely emerging talent. I mean, I was 18 years old, I was a senior in high school. And at the time I had the opportunity to do a free senior internship for Sue. And so I was free labor. Right. I think what sue was able to do for me in that moment was start getting me connected at low level opportunities that would either excite me or sort of say, eh, you know, it's work, but not really something I want to do. What is interesting about the story is after the internship ended, sue said, you know, if I paid you, would you stay? And I was doing it for free. And I thought, well, I would do this for free, so sure, yeah, I'll stay and get paid. And yet what maybe sue mentioned or didn't, but she reminds me of is I was always the one looking to take on more. I was the change implementer. I wasn't just sitting there saying, okay, what do I do now? What do I do now? What do I do now? You know, it's like hiring a great executive assistant. Somebody that comes in and says, okay, here's what you need me to do and I can do that and I can do that and hey, let me take that off your plate. And I think finding folks up front that are young, hungry and ambitious, but also have in their disc profile a D that's high enough where they can come to you and say, hey, I'm going to take that off your plate. I'm going to do that. I want to be involved. There's a. I think that that was really critical.
- [24:45]
A
Can I ask you a question on that? Because you didn't come into a struggling enterprise. You came in, sue was crushing it. Then how did you come in? Say, I want to be involved and then start making changes. Because sometimes people are tied to the way they're doing it, not necessarily the way it could be done.
- [25:03]
C
So it was a funny story. So the first summer year I worked for her, I gotten licensed. I was sort of doing odds and ends projects, learning the business. I did a couple rental deals like nothing crazy. I went to school in Tampa, Florida at the University of Tampa. And I worked for a different team down there for about six months. At the time they had a system and I had learned how to use the system when I came back up to New Jersey that summer. Sue had adopted that system or was about to adopt that system. And I said, wait a second. I know everything about that system, and I know how a big team used it and all the pitfalls, and let me help you implement it, because I'll just help you avoid all the pitfalls. So we switched. It was back in the day where you didn't have zaps and all this crazy technology. So we literally had to go one to one lead. Lead came out of a system, and you had to input in the new system, take the notes over. That was my beautiful job. And what I realized was unbelievable to everybody listening to this podcast that the agents weren't making phone calls. All these leads were sitting there, and nobody was getting phone calls.
- [25:59]
A
You're the one that had that problem.
- [26:01]
C
I'm the one, yeah. I'm the only guy out there that's got that problem still to this day. It's unbelievable. But I was lucky enough to have some coaching, and I knew enough to say, all right, I'll just pick up the phone and make the phone calls. And that was kind of, I think, the first step into what has now evolved into what, you know, how this grew was I just took the initiative. I said, well, if I'm going to do this, I might as well make the phone call and see if we can convert some people. All of a sudden, we were converting people, and agents were going on more appointments. And I think sue looked up one day and said, wait a second, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm converting all these leads over, and I'm setting up on E Alerts and all these other things. I might as well make the phone call. Nobody else is calling them. And she's like, keep doing that. That's good. That's good. And basically she said from there, it was like, hey, I always want you to work for me. We're going to figure this out. So I was working for her remotely from Florida, doing a little bit of everything. I had an amazing coach that was way above my level at the time, but I got a lot of time with him. And I remember one thing that he told me. He said, look, you're going to be young, and you're gonna be successful in this business. And the way that you can be successful is you have to do every job yourself at some point in time, because you're gonna start managing people who are two, three times your age, and they're gonna try to pull one over on you and tell you what's possible and what's not possible, you have to know what's possible and not possible. And so that set out this intentional mission on my end to go out and really do a little bit of everything, you know, you name it. I've been an isa. I've been a showing assistant. I've been an agent. I bet, you know, I've done all the jobs, and I think that has really helped me help others because I do know what's possible. I know what can be done in a 24 hour period.
- [27:34]
A
You moved up there and you're now doing your thing and she starts taking you with her on appointments.
- [27:40]
C
Yeah.
- [27:41]
A
From your perspective, what was that like?
- [27:43]
C
Yeah, I tell people I'm a big football fan. I'm originally from Boston, so I'm a Patriots fan. Love me or hate me, it doesn't matter, which makes me a Tom Brady fan. And I always say, like, whether or not you love Tom Brady, hate Tom Brady. If you wanted to be an amazing quarterback and Tom Brady called you up one day and said, come throw the football with me, you would ask no questions, you would show up and you'd learn every single thing and you'd follow him around and you'd figure out all the little idiosyncrasies. Right. And that's the way I look at working with sue was, you know, here I have the best agent in my area, best agent in the country, and I had this opportunity to just be a sponge and learn and make her words my words and then add my personality to it. It was time, though. And I think that's where you had asked the question, which is, okay, how do we do this? It's time. It's time and it's opportunity. Those are the two key things, time and opportunity. I think that a star isn't born overnight. I'm certainly not a star that was born overnight. I've been doing this now 15 years, unbelievably, but I've been doing it 15 years. And I've learned, learned, and I've grown every single year because we spend time with bigger, smarter, better people. Right. And so I think, number one, you have to spend time with the people you want to nurture to get them to take over for you. And number two is you have to give them opportunity to fail. You know, sue was very good at giving me opportunities, letting me run with them to a point where she could have kind of jumped in and taken over, but she let me see the outcome through, for better or for worse. But also was very good at Making sure that I learned from any failures that I had, so we didn't duplicate those things over and over and over again. I think especially in this industry, that can be challenging for folks to sort of let people fail forward. Because obviously it's business, right? I mean, it's new team members you're bringing on. Like, we mess things up as we go. But I think time and opportunity are two key words for anybody looking to bring somebody in and get them to grow the business to the level that they want it to be taken to.
- [29:26]
A
Sue had a business primarily. She was going out on the appointments and lead generating. And you actually craft almost a new division of the company as your opportunity. Walk us through how you thought about it, the discussions that y' all had to have, and what the timing looked like. First of all, what was the opportunity you created?
- [29:45]
C
Let's back up. So when I was a junior, going into my senior year of college, sue always said, when you graduate from college, I'm gonna hire you. So I said, okay, you know, here we are, you know, let's talk about that. And sue was really smart. And she said, great, tell me what you wanna do, right? Take the summer, write me a proposal, tell me what you wanna do. And I said, okay. And I think of myself as a pretty resourceful person, so started reaching out to people I knew. And I said, you know, hey, what do you do? What do you do in the industry? What do you do for your team? What does this look like? And this was 2009, 2010, so team organizations weren't as sophisticated as we were. But I met a couple people who were general managers, director of operations, and I thought, okay, our organization needs that. I realized that we had a great salesperson in Sue. It was a great business mind that had gotten it to this point. And yet to get it to that next level, we had to have systems, we had to have operations, we had to have models, we had to have accountability and coaching and all those things. And Jason, you make a great point. Sue was out in the field all day, taking listing appointments, working with high end buyers, et cetera, et cetera. So she doesn't have the time to sit there and develop all this. And I said, okay, there's an opportunity there to really take the agents we have and level them up, create systems and accountability behind what we're doing. And of course, as the business grows, you get more opportunity, the pipeline gets bigger. And as that happens, you have to have the systems and models to capture and work all that business, or else sort of Like a bucket with a hole in the bottom of it. What comes in just goes out. And you say, well, we seemed really busy, but we didn't actually make any money doing it. Right. We didn't help anybody move their business forward. And so I think that was the opportunity that I was able to create was at the time I called the director of operations and I said, you know, I really want to take everything we do and let's make systems around it and let's have direction, let's have a purpose, and not just sort of show up every day and say, we sell houses. Let's figure it out. You know, it was, all right, what does that look like? Let's really goal set. Let's really create accountability. And then I think, to be fair, sue was really great at saying, that's awesome. Let's do that, and let's get you in the right rooms. Right? And so she was taking me. I was going to mega camp and family reunion and coaching skills camp and getting on coaching calls with her and then got my own coach. And, you know, she invested in me because she saw that I wanted to push the business forward and say, okay, if you're to push the business forward, then we got to be talking the same language, right? We were growing together as business leaders. It was on her. She. She spent a lot of money pouring into me and investing in my growth. And I think organically, we just have that trust relationship together that we're both looking out for the best interest of each other. I think that's another key to this type of partnership, is it's a business relationship. It's also a personal relationship. You know, we just have this implied trust between each other that we both are looking out for each other, and we both are reaching for the same goals and want to support each other in our endeavors.
- [32:22]
A
Gary Keller once told me that if you're going to make a hire at the top of your company, the best one to make is the one that feels the most organic to everybody. So that when you announce them, everyone says, yeah, well, that makes sense. Or, sure, that's exactly how it should be. When was the moment that you looked up and was there a moment when you and sue looked up and both said, okay, Scott's pretty much running this. No one's going to freak out. There's not going to be a mutiny. There's not going to be pitchforks on the front door, and sue can go hang out in Africa for four months.
- [32:52]
C
So I think the thing that enabled that was. And there was A big shift. When I started interviewing and hiring for the company, that's when I earned the respect and the title, right? So when sue was doing all the hiring, it was like, hi, I'm sue, and that's Scott. But, like, when people just met with me. And then it started where I'd bring Sue in halfway through, I bring her in at the end, and she'd say, hi, I'm sue, and oh, this is great. And we'd go along the way. And, you know, it totally transformed the culture because of course, I. You know, part of the story is I inherited a team at the beginning where I was just the intern that, you know, slowly started taking on more stuff, and all of a sudden, now I'm telling you what to do. And that was a more challenging relationship than the people that I had brought in organically that had sought us out, that I was now hiring. And that went for agents, it went for staff, it went for everybody. So it was probably like 2015, 2016, where that really is probably right in that line where that really started to shift. And then we realized, like, okay, that's a defining moment when the person that you want to have leadership starts doing the hiring and the recruiting part of it. That changes everything in the organization.
- [34:00]
A
I think that is brilliant, what you just said. That is genius. Last question for me. When you look up now and you're running this, it's one of the biggest residential real estate businesses in the world, and you're running it. Sue's a high driver. High D. Also, how are you communicating with her in such a way? In a cadence that allows her to feel like she knows what's going on in the business, but allows you the flexibility to run it. Give some advice out there to everybody who has a person that they're trying to keep in the loop.
- [34:32]
C
Set up preset meetings that nobody cancels. I don't care if that has to happen at 7am or 8pm or 2am I don't care. When it is, you gotta have a meeting that you both respect and show up to to have clear lines of communication about big business issues that you want to move the ball forward with. I think that the times where sue and I wouldn't see eye to eye on things or felt like there was a rub in the leadership opportunities, there were always times where we were cheating on that appointment. You know, if we canceled that for three weeks, sort of like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing. And it's not that you don't Trust that you're doing the right thing. You just feel out of the loop or you feel like, you know, hey, that was my thing I was working on. Now you're involved. It had nothing to do with anybody trying to step on anyone's toes or doing anything outside of their opportunity. It was just that there wasn't that communication of, hey, this is what I'm doing, and this is where I'm pushing the ball to. So I think setting up and having a weekly meeting, that truly isn't in business time, where people are going to say, oh, sorry, something came up, I got to cancel it, I got to move it. Because we all know we get busy, we cancel it, we move it, and then it's a month and we still haven't talked. Right. So having something like that and then I think as you develop it, establishing who does what, you know, at this point, sue really, her passion is listing agents and working with our listing agents and getting the listing side of the business to be as productive as possible. I work predominantly with the buyers through our director of sales, Amy. So to me, we kind of have these lines where it's like, hey, Sue's the best listing agent in the world. She absolutely should go and teach these folks how to become the best listing agents in the world. And I can work with the buyer's agents and get them to be super productive and build up brand new agents and all that good stuff, because that's what I'm good at. So I think you kind of figure out your ying and your yang and you figure out where the talents lie, and that's what makes the great partnership work. Like I always think when I look and when I study big businesses, there's always a partnership. Even if you don't know about the other person, there was always somebody else. And that person always had a different skill set, a different knowledge base that they brought to the table, and it was the combination of the two that makes it super successful. Very rarely is there a solo entrepreneur who truly, they are everything. That's just not. We only have so many hours in a day. It's just not possible. We only have one brain.
- [36:46]
A
As Gary says, no one succeeds alone, and nobody fails alone. Scott, thank you for joining us today.
- [36:53]
C
Thanks, Jason.
- [36:57]
A
All right, we're gonna switch gears. I wanna take you all the way back to ancient Athens. If you go back far enough, there's an amazing philosopher named Epic, and he buys this house in ancient Athens, which is this busy city, and he builds this beautiful garden, and it ends up becoming this Place where the greatest thinkers of his day would come and talk about the meaning of life. You can Google it. It's called Epicurus Garden. We'd like to invite you to our garden to talk about life. Will you join us?
- [37:23]
B
Sure.
- [37:24]
A
Okay. So you've been doing this since 83. If you could go back in time and you could have a conversation with a young sue on her first day in the residential real estate business, what would you tell her?
- [37:39]
B
You know, back then, the knowledge that we all have today was not available back then. So we were taught to be salespeople, and we weren't taught to be leaders, and we weren't really taught how to build businesses. We weren't even looking at it as a business back then.
- [37:54]
A
So you would remind the young sue that this is a business and leadership matters.
- [37:58]
B
Leadership matters. And it's a journey. And you're going to fail, which is great because that means you're taking chances. Put yourself out there and to just do your best every day. I mean, get out of your own way as you grow up and you're doing all this and you, you become a real estate agent, building the business part of it. This is where, you know, we all think nobody can do it better than us. And you end up hiring people as leverage. Well, your admin staff, they're the backbone of your organization. They're not leverage. The word leverage actually really bothers me now. I used to view them all as leverage to support me. Now our admin staff is absolutely incredible. And I was the only listing agent on the team. I had one other person who as soon as she left, she was with me for 12 years. But as soon as she left, that opened up all these opportunities for other agents who on the buy side who now wanted to do the list side, who were afraid to raise their hands before. So every time that you are afraid of somebody leaving, this is actually an important lesson. Somebody leaving because, oh my gosh, what am I going to do with that person? They were $100 million producer on my team. Guess what? Now I have eight listing agents and my role. I was able to step out of the listing side, be trainer for my listing agents, get on the phone, help them close their deals, and really be in my sweet spot for them and for our clients and allow them to grow. So I never could have done on the listing side, 150 listing sides on my own. You know, now we're doing that and more and the workshops and everything like that. So same thing with ISAs. We have a team of seven ISAs who are incredible. And that's a growing. You know, we have somebody who's running that and growing it. So every time you think it's not working out with somebody that typically not the right person, and then it opens up the opportunities for other people to step up and. And your business to grow even further. And I think that's the biggest lesson I've learned.
- [39:54]
A
All right, so last question for me. You went through a divorce at one point in your life, and 56% of Americans will, and a large part of our audience does, and then you found love, and you're happily married today. What would you tell me? The key to having the best relationship at home is knowing none of us are complete experts. But what works best for you? What's the hack?
- [40:18]
B
Oh, boy. Well, he doesn't have a temper. That was my first husband had a temper. He allows me just to be who I am. You know, when I went through the divorce, everybody tried to match me up with these high powered guys because that's who they thought I would want to be with. Peter's really chill, and I tend to be very chill personally. You know, it's funny. We built a lake house up in New Hampshire, and somebody who I've become friends with up here said that she met somebody who's a real estate agent in New Jersey who knows me. And Holly, who I met up here, said, oh, sue is so chill. The person down in Jersey is like, what? Sue's like?
- [40:52]
A
No, intense.
- [40:54]
B
So I would say somebody who balances you. He totally balances me. And we love to do the same things. Like, we both love hiking, we love the outdoors, we love traveling, and we're homebodies, but we love being with friends, you know, building the lake house. We're sort of at this stage in our lives now where we did this because we wanted community. So we are having friends come and stay. You know, the team members have come up and stayed with us. So getting to know people on a personal level and you really get to know people when they stay at your house for a few days. It's a lot of fun. So we have a lot in common that way.
- [41:26]
A
That's fantastic, Sue. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I believe that you are not only an inspiration to the industry, but I want you to know, for me personally, the first time I saw you, I was in the audience and I looked up at you and I thought you were the bee's knees. Like, I couldn't even believe what you had done. And today, there's only A handful of agents in the world that have had the success that you have. And you are a pinnacle of grace and success at the same time. And I'm really grateful.
- [41:55]
B
Thank you. No one succeeds alone, so I feel. It makes me feel uncomfortable because I have a great group of people that I work.
- [42:01]
A
I get it. I know it. But I needed you to know. We are grateful for you. Thank you for joining us.
- [42:07]
B
Thank you. Jason.
- [42:10]
A
Genius. How do you wrap up an episode like this? It's really hard because we covered so much ground. But let me just tell you, this seller seminar thing is a no brainer. Give this a go. Number one, you're gonna have to plan, create the workshop. And the truth of it is, it's relatively easy to create because it's just answering the same questions from that your listing presentation does. How do I prepare the home? How do I think about the necessary repairs? How do I stage it to make sure it looks great? And then the overall process of selling and marketing the property. Friends, this isn't something that you're going to have to make up. You actually know the answers. It's about purveying the information in a format that solves the problem for the consumer. Then simply drive people to the workshop. Everything sue and Scott does is focused on getting people into these workshops and seminars. Then simply run it. And whether you're going to do it in person or you're going to do it on zoom. Either way, act like it's the most important part of that day. Make it fun, informational and entertaining. And then finally follow up. You're not going to get 100% of these people to list their homes that day, but 100% of these people will probably list their homes. You're gonna need to follow up to be there at the right time. Then a word on Scott. Friends, I wish I could give you a model to bring someone into your universe that absolutely is going to make it bigger and make everything better. The challenge with that is Scott is a very unique human being. I've spent a lot of time with him. I think he's absolutely brilliant. But don't get me wrong, there's brilliance on both sides. Number one, sue was open in her life to finding people that could enrich him. Many of you may have walked by the nightstand with the book on it. She didn't. For me. Lesson one, keep both eyes open at all times. She then brought this young man in as an intern. Why not? He was working for free. She said the lesson for be willing to bring people in whether they know what they're doing or not, as long as they meet the right personality profile. Next, Scott presents her with an idea. He. He is graduating and he has a plan, and part of it is to own her business, which she said she thought was adorable. The lesson to me, look for people who want big things in life and be the beacon to help them get it. And then finally, Scott slowly starts taking over and doing things. But it truly becomes a leadership role when he starts making the hire. The lesson for me, at some point, you're going to have to let go of the wheel and hope that the person you trained can keep the car on the road. Friends, who's out there that you could bring into your life and change it forever? Go forth and do likewise. There it is. That wraps another episode. Friends, I don't know what you're taking out of this. I really don't. I'll tell you what I want you to be taking out of it, which is these are the people that are having tremendously big lives, and the reason it's happening is because they're setting up the models and systems to do just that. Gary Keller told me that leadership is teaching people how to think, so that they do the things they need to do when they need to do them, so that ultimately they get the things they want when they want to have them. And that's what I want for you. You're all leaders, but it begins with leading ourselves. If you're enjoying this podcast, 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 the Millionaire agent podcast. 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.
- [46:24]
D
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