So brokerage owners, if I walked into your office today and I just put my hands out and I said, "How does it feel to be in your office?"

What would I feel?

Would I feel like it's an energetic place, that it's motivational, that I'm inspired by being there?

And even if you're running a cloud-based brokerage, this still applies to you, by the way.

When I talk to your agents, do they say, "Hey, working with this company makes me feel just energetic. I feel excited. I feel like I can tackle the market."

Or if I walk into your offices, does it feel quiet? Are there crickets? Is it like a morgue? Is it not exciting? It's just kind of... look.

What does it feel like?

So here's the real question behind the question:

Can you, as a brokerage owner-leader, influence how it feels in your company?

The answer is, of course, yes.

So how do we do it?

I'm going to give you what I call the Five-One Approach. I call this going big and going small every day.

So going big means we do one thing ...

Hey, brokerage owners and team leaders. I'm sure you've experienced this because I've experienced it a million times:

As a brokerage owner, later as you get a stream of agents coming into your office and they're always asking the same exact question. Like, "Oh, I got to ask you about this." And you're like, I've answered this like ten times this week. Drives you a little crazy, a little bananas.

But you go through and you do it again, and you think about that time suck of answering the same question over and over and over again.

Let me give you a solution for that.

And that is to create your own little mini university, right?

Your mini university just means you're going to create a recorded answer where you answer this frequently asked question, this FAQ question.

And now you push this out to your office and say, "Guys, I'm getting this question a lot. I just want to answer it en masse."

You put it on your Facebook closed group. Maybe if you had a YouTube channel, a private one,...

Hey, brokerage owners & team leaders. Quick question:

What's the number one reason why somebody will join your firm as opposed to all the other firms in the marketplace?

If your first inclination is to say, "It's because we have the best commission plan," you've already lost.

If your whole strategy is based on what you're offering in terms of commissions to agents, you're going to lose because somebody is going to come in right behind you and offer an even lower commission split.

So commission-split warfare is a straight path to going absolutely broke.

This business is not about what agents really want.

If you look at the marketplace landscape in your market right now, I guarantee you the number one offices are not the cheapest offices.

You know who the number one offices are?

It's those offices that are showing agents a path to a higher transaction count (and this is the biggest thing you should focus on).

They're giving them a way to increase the number of transactions they'...

Hey guys, if you are a brokerage owner, I’m going to challenge you to do something which I think would be very valuable for you, and that would be to create a value map of your company focused on the three T’s:

Training, Technology, and Tools.

If you’re going to take out a white sheet of paper, write down every piece of training you offer as a company, every piece of technology you offer as a company, every tool that you offer as a company. Write it down on one sheet.

Maybe it’ll take a couple of sheets.

Then take that list, put it in Canva, and have it create a nice checklist for you.

Bring it to your next office meeting and say this:

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“Hey guys, I created what I call a value map of the company, just showing off all the tools, technology, and training we’ve got.

“I just wanted to have everybody check it out and see if there’s something maybe you haven’t taken advantage of, that maybe you want to plug into in the next 12 months to help you create more transactions.

In fact, I’...

Hey brokers, team leaders, I’ve got a question for you: when was your last wow moment when it comes to marketing for your firm?

When did you roll out a piece of digital marketing — maybe a new sign design, new branding, new flyers, something fresh and exciting technologically? Maybe it’s a new website or a new social media skin. Something that wowed your agents.

If the answer is you can’t remember, or it was sometime last year, I’m going to suggest that you commit to doing this once a quarter.

Once a quarter, you should be rolling out a wow moment for your agents where they’re like, “Whoa, that is cool. That is really exciting.”

This keeps your company fresh. It keeps it exciting. It gives you a retention tool, and it gives you a recruiting tool at the same time.

Then the question becomes: what is it?

We’ve got to go in search of it. We’ve got to look for people outside of our company, ideas, strategies, marketing pieces, branding pieces outside the company, and be in tune and sa...

A quick question for you brokerage owners and team leaders out there: do you eat your own dog food?

What do I mean? I mean this: that you're using the same systems that you're providing your own agents. So if you're giving them a certain CRM, if you're giving them a certain platform to use, if you're giving them a follow-up program, you're telling them to use social media, you're telling them to do video, you're telling them to have a YouTube channel, etc.

You have all these systems at your office. But are you using the systems that you're providing, and do you know them like the back of your hand? Can you train them on these tools? Are you an expert in it because you're eating your own dog food every single day?

When you do this at a high level, agents respect you because they want to be led by somebody that's at the front. They want to be led by someone else using the same systems.

And number two, you're going to be able to help them grow their own businesses.

The worst thing I'...

What do you think agents say is the number one consideration when choosing a real estate brokerage? I bet the default for many of you would be the commission plan. Most assume they’re always going to go right to the commission plan.

What if I told you that’s not true? According to a brand new study of 600 agents, they found that the number one thing driving the conversation about making a switch was technology—who is leading in technology.

So here’s a question for you: what is your tech stack as a real estate brokerage owner or team leader? Does your tech stack put you on a parity basis with the major players in your market, or are you inferior? That’s number one.

And then, do you have some advantages? Do you have things you’re doing a little bit differently?

Maybe you’re starting to use some AI in your business. Maybe you’ve created some lead-flow opportunities. Maybe you’ve created playbooks and plugged technology into them to make that technology really work for your agents.

So...

Why do agents stay at a company rather than leave and go somewhere else? Forty-three percent of agents report the number one reason they're loyal to their current company is not their compensation plan. In fact, only 13% rate their compensation plan as the number one reason they're staying.

Forty-three percent rate the culture at the company—the culture, the vision, and the leadership of the company they're working at—as the number one factor for sticking around and staying loyal. So think about that from your perspective as a brokerage owner or team leader.

What’s your culture like when somebody comes in? How do they feel about working in your environment or office space? Does it feel like a family? Does it feel like you’ve got esprit de corps, you're having fun, you're energized? Is it a fun place to be with a shared vision of what you're trying to build? Or do you not have that?

If you don't have that, you're at risk of losing people to other firms that have a better vision, bett...

If you're a brokerage owner or team leader, I want to talk to you about something that's kind of outside the box—and that is what we call “adoption rates.”

What's adoption? Adoption means you bring in technology, a system, a tool, or maybe a training program into the company, and you watch as only 20% of the people utilize it—and 80% do not.

That's the rule of thumb: The 80/20 rule.

So you start to wonder why the heck you would bring anything into this company? You feel tempted to cut everything: the technology they’re not using, the training, the mentorship program—this, that, and the other.

Well, remember there's also an 80/20 rule in production too:

20% of the people are doing 80% of the production.

So when you cut these things, you might actually be hurting the people who are supporting the company the most.

But I want you to rethink the 80/20 rule for a second.

When we measure whether we should cut, keep, or add something to the company, don’t just look at whether people a...

If you're a broker, owner, or manager running weekly team or office meetings, here’s one key component you might be missing: the “Genesis Conversation.”

The Genesis Conversation happens when someone talks about a new listing, a new escrow, a pending deal, or a closed sale. When they share that win, ask them:

• "Where did that lead come from?"
• "What was the genesis of that client?"
• "How did you find the buyer or seller?"

When you get everyone in the room sensitized on what’s actually working and creating results, something powerful happens:

Your whole team focuses on what creates results.

Most of the time, you’ll find that 70-80% of the business comes from repeat and referral clients. But you’ll also uncover seasonal patterns or specific lead sources that are currently hot—like open houses, sign calls, online marketing, farming, or targeting absentee owners.

It’s a simple but effective way to direct your team's attention to activities that produce results.

And it's a key trai...