Real Estate Game Changers Show
Real Estate Game Changers Show
Scaling Your Real Estate Success
Brian's a real estate rockstar! He led a team in Indianapolis that crushed over 250 deals a year, and now his expertise empowers investors nationwide. As COO of The Collective Genius, a leading real estate investing community, Brian shares the secrets to scaling your success. Don't miss his insights!
All right, everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Game Changers show. I'm your host, Mike McKay, based in Jacksonville, Florida, and each and every week we do this show with people who are changing the game of real estate all over the country. For anyone in the Jacksonville area who's in sales and is maybe thinking about getting into real estate. We are looking for people to join our acquisitions team. If that sounds like you send me a DM on Instagram and let's talk. Uh, this week on the show, we have Brian Snider. Brian, welcome to the show.
Brian:Yeah. Happy to be here, Mike. Thanks for, uh, thanks for having me. So this is a, that's exciting. So it was our first chance to really connect. I've known of you for a while, but it's great to connect on here and things. So that's great, man.
Mike:Yeah, likewise. Um, so for the people who don't know you, could you share a little bit about how you got into the real estate business and how that's kind of led you to where you are today?
Brian:Yeah, for sure. So I've had about, uh, my real estate experience has been about an eight year journey now. So I'm a former middle school math teacher, um, taught. Middle school math for forever, it feels like and was supposed to be a principal. And once I started doing that and realized that was like the worst job in the world. So I wanted to do something else and I got connected with my buddy, uh, Brett song grass, um, who was running a real estate investing company, just a wholesale company, a wholesale, wholetail company in Indianapolis, Indiana, um, was connected with him and started kind of just working for him. And honestly, it's kind of worked my way up. Bye. Basically work in every position within the business. So I've done everything from marketing to acquisitions, to lead management, to dispo, to COO, and then eventually took over CEO for Brett. And, uh, he kind of moved in the owner's box. And at that point I started doing some, uh, we were working with Gary Harper from a sharper business solutions. So they were our business coach and phenomenal coaches and stuff. And with my teaching background, he kind of asked me. You know, if I wanted to just kind of come on board with them and help them do some coaching and, and helping out other businesses, that's my passion is just helping people in general. So I started doing that with him. And so I was running Brett's company and doing some coaching on the side. At the same time, we were members of, uh, of collective of the collective genius. So I started, uh, also kind of just working with them a little bit more and facilitating some of their events as a lot of my coaching clients were in CG. So I just, I loved helping them and. Want to help out more with that. And, um, at the same time, it's, uh, kind of got to the point where I realized that, Hey, my journey is probably not necessarily the real estate side. I wasn't really passionate about real estate itself. Um, love the vehicle that it is. Love making money, love the problem solving, loved all that part of it. But I really just enjoy growing people and growing businesses. So. That point, uh, CG actually had a position opened, uh, for, uh, for COO. So I, I, Brett and I decided, decided to part ways and kind of left that real estate business and, and went to work with, uh, CG as their COO full time and have absolutely loved it. So right now I'm currently, my wife and I got our own little side of the real estate business going on when it comes to like lending and funding deals here in Indianapolis for flips or for fixing flips and stuff. But, um, the majority of my time right now is working with. Real estate investors from all across the nation when it comes to growing their team, scaling their businesses and things like that, which is absolutely what I love doing.
Mike:Cool. I'm curious. What was the first position that you worked in, in the wholesale company?
Brian:I, uh, started off doing some marketing and running our local meetup. Um, so we, uh, we were buying that. So buying from other wholesalers was our number one Legion or lead channel for, you know, I think it still is actually in Brett's business and things, but we ran a local media that basically taught other wholesalers how to get started and how to wholesale. And realistically, what we were really doing is we were training other, we were training bird dogs to go out and find deals for us. And. They would go out and find the deals and they didn't really have that dispo side of their business built out. So we would, we would buy the, and we were the biggest buyer in Indianapolis at the time anyway. So we would buy most of the deals and do that. So I started off, my first job was doing the marketing and figuring that out. And then like kind of running their meetup. So essentially teaching other people how to wholesale, even though I had no idea what wholesaling was or how to do it or anything I've mentioned, that's like all of us, all the coaches right now.
Mike:Yeah, sure.
Brian:No, I caught on to it pretty quick, but realized it's just like with, I mean, with my teaching background, that's what it was. It wasn't about like, Hey, you don't, I don't want to teach the whole wholesaling process. I'm going to learn one facet of how to wholesale and I'm going to, I'm going to go deep on it. And then, then I would teach it in the meetup along with Brett and the team and things like that. So it worked out really well for us.
Mike:Huh? Yeah, that's, that's kind of interesting. So how would you guys like, um, how would you market that like meet up to fill that room to ultimately create all those, those bird dogs for you guys?
Brian:Yeah, we would, um, you know, really we had a, we got a, we had a pretty good location. It was a cool location, you know, where people kind of wanted to go and things like that. It wasn't like a classroom setting or a boring, you know, seminar room or anything like that. So we've got a cool, a cool spot to have it, but then we would really just kind of put it out on meetup. com and we had a, you know, our Facebook page and we partnered with the local Ria as well. And kind of, you know, so they would, they would put it out there and things and, um, you You know, for the most part, a lot of people will look at us and be like, man, what are you guys doing? You're just, you're training your competition. And I mean, we, we really looked at it as like, it's a way for us to give back a way for us to help out. But like I said, it just created a ton of opportunity and a ton of deals for us and things too. So, um, the way we put it out there, we just, we picked one facet of wholesaling and, and really just kind of dug into that and went deep on that each month. And we'd have, you know, one is the last Wednesday of every month. And we, You know, we would say like, Hey, this week we're going to talk about, you know, lead generation. So how to, you know, if you have a, you know, how to get it, how to develop a list and what you do with that list. And, you know, and realistically, if we, we would do that, this, we would do the same thing next year. We would mean the next year, we would just teach it a different way. It's it's all, there's only like five or six lessons when it comes to wholesaling. It's just teaching them in a different things. And we'd always have special guests on of like, Hey, here's some, here's some title companies that you should be working with. Cause they know what a, what a wholesale deal is and they know how to. They had to do, they know how to do innovation or whatever it is. And, you know, things like that, where, you know, we partner with the right people and we have, we have a really good reputation or we had a really good reputation here in Indianapolis and Brett still does. And so we had some great partners and really just kind of put it out there, but. I think anytime in this business, when it comes to your sellers, your buyers, your lenders, or whoever you're working with, if you approach it from the educational standpoint, and as a go giver, you're, you're going to get it back to you. It's going to come back to you in a way. And that's, you know, that's, that's where my heart is. And that's, that's what I truly believe. And I've seen it happen over and over again. So.
Mike:Did you guys also end up hiring anyone from those events that you? That you did.
Brian:We did actually, uh, our, uh, Brett's his best acquisitions guy. Who's been with us, been with Brett for probably actually he started not soon after I did really, he's, he's, he's been with Brett for about seven years now. And he's probably has bought Brett over. Probably over a thousand deals easily in those seven years and stuff like that. So, um, but yeah, we've, we source great way to source talent, great way to, you know, just find deals and find, find lenders as well. And a little bit of everything.
Mike:Yeah. I, and I know like you mentioned, we're talking a bit offline and you mentioned a little here, one of your passions is kind of growing people and businesses. And obviously, you know, really growing the business is a lot of times hiring the people and growing the people. And interestingly enough, we had the first part of our quarterly meeting earlier and we were talking about how, you know, we want to make it a focus for this quarter to like, just build a system to attract amazing talent. And I'm, I'm curious what. You've done on on that side a little bit of a selfish question, but
Brian:No, that's no, that's all good. I think it's because I think it's something that we, that a lot of. People, especially when you have a smaller business or even a growing business, you don't kind of put the effort into it. It's the reality is, is that I know me, you, anybody that's going to listen to this or anything like that, we're always looking for the next deal. Why not always be looking for the next lender looking, be looking for the next buyer, also be looking for the next team member. Um, I mean, if I go out to eat and I have an amazing experience with a waiter or waitress or something like that, I'm going to get their information because I never know what position I might need in the future. Or if somebody is phenomenal in something, I mean, I, I never really, you know, coaching wise, I never say like, Hey, don't, don't hire position unless you need it. But there have been instances where the right talent has come across my plate and I've like, you know what, I, I want to try to get them in the mix in some way. Maybe it's not full time right now. Let's try it out for a little bit and see what happens. But, um, the reality is, is that we're all one higher away from completely changing our business around. So, and it's. If you get that right person that can come in and, and, and do that, I think it's, I think it's, you know, it's, it's, it's going to make a world of difference in your business and stuff. So I think it's one of those things of, as you were talking about a quarterly meeting, and I'm sure you guys talked about KPIs today and Hey, how many leads do we have coming in? How many deals do we get? It's the same thing as like, you know, as a, as a leader, I would challenge you like. Hey, maybe you need to have a KPI on a weekly basis or a monthly basis where you, how many conversations did you have with potential new hires? Um, and so it's something that I think is, you know, as a, as a CEO or a leader of a business, I think that's something we should always be focused on of, you know, I always, even if I don't have a hire right now, I'm going to always look to build my bench of, you know, if there's always, you know, and, uh, I know kind of, I revert back to this with, when I was with Brett on our acquisition, you know, or on our accountability chart. I would have, you know, there were 11 people in our business and different facets and whether it was a everything from a virtual assistant up to the CEO, I had a transition plan in place for every single person that position. So, hey, if I lost my director of ops, here's what would happen. The next three months, here's who replaced them. Here's some potential targets. I have somebody that could come in and do that job as well and things. So, um, cause if you lose somebody, it can be detrimental to your business, but also, you know, being able to have that venture gain some, or have somebody that could possibly come in and fill it can really. Can really make a difference as well.
Mike:Yeah, were you do outside of the events was obviously brought you like a lot of people were you guys doing anything else kind of? Unique to attract talent.
Brian:Um, I think it's just it's, it's getting out there and talking to people about it, you know, time, whatever. I kind of realized that of like, I, I'm not a big networker. Like if you put me in a big group of people, like I'm going to shy away and kind of be a wallflower a little bit. But if I can go to. An event, like I mentioned before, of like kind of meeting with or working with the local areas. So I'd always volunteer like, Hey, I'd rather I'd rather be on stage. Like, give me, let me do a presentation. Let me do something like that. So anytime I ever had an opportunity to speak beyond a podcast or go to a presentation, I would take it and kind of challenge myself to go do that stuff because I wasn't the best at networking, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I stood on stage and gave a presentation, people are just going to come up and talk to me afterwards. So that was my way to network. That was my way to kind of look like, Hey, I'm the, you know, I'm the expert in this or I know what I'm talking about or whatever it is. And I'd have people always approach me. So it was a good way for me to number one, give back, but also have people that come up and the people that are going to approach me and the people that are going to talk to me after. A presentation or a podcast or an event like that, there's people I probably want to talk to because they're going to be the, they're, they're going to be the people that are going to go after and go get it anyway. So why don't I talk to you? So it was a, it was a great way for us to do. And Brett has the same mindset of like, Hey, let's, you know, we always, if we're looking for somebody, all right, let's go, let's go to the local Rio. Let's, you know, volunteer to do this. Let's, you know, let's sponsor the cocktail hour. Let's, let's do a presentation or see where we can see where we can give back a little bit. And we always, it's a great, great way to source talent. Also, it's always. You know, working with our partners of, uh, talking to title companies, talking to attorneys, talking to people like that. They're talking to anybody that we work with within the real estate space. They're, they're connected with so many people and talking to so many people as well, that they might have, they might know of somebody or things like that. So, I always like to say too, it's re if you're in real estate in some way, everybody, everybody is like, they're like one out of every three people that you talk to is going to be in real estate in some way, or they're going to know somebody in real estate. If you go out and have a drink at a bar and you mentioned real estate, more than likely there's three people with the, at that, at that bar, somebody's gonna be like, Oh yeah, I just, you know, I just got my license last week. I'm looking to do this. So talk about it, put your stuff there and you'll, you'll, you'll find people and there's always, always a great way to spark up a conversation within real estate. Okay.
Mike:Yeah. So obviously one part is hiring the people, but then the other part you mentioned is kind of growing the people. So what were some things that you implemented once you had someone great hired to help them grow and then to help them grow the company?
Brian:Yeah, that's it's a great question. That's super important because I've seen a lot of See, a lot of people, that's where they kind of struggle a little bit. If you have, if you hire great talent, you're going to lose great talent. If you don't have kind of the systems and processes or the playbooks in place for them to come in and be successful. Um, so I always say one of two things of like, when you're hiring somebody, you're going to pay for it in some way. You're either going to pay for it with price. Uh, where maybe you want to hire somebody, if you don't have the processor system in place, you got to hire them at a higher price tag to come in and they have the experience. So you're basically going to hire the experience to come in and kind of build that up for you or not. And if you don't have that, you got to hire, you got to basically pay for it with time. So you got to be able to have the time to put the, you know, to train them and put the time in and, and work with them and stuff. So kind of always for me, I always kind of looked at it as like a, a weekly schedule. Anybody I always hire and still to this day, anybody I hire, like they start off of like, Hey, here's your schedule for the first week. And we're going to work with it here day one. Here's our time blocks. Here's what we're going to do and put this together. Here's, we're going to watch this video. Here's, we're going to do this. And, um, I work with them through that, but. You know, within a real estate company and kind of what I've. My experience and stuff I realized to have, like training wise, if I'm hiring a lead manager, I know it's going to take them 45 days till they're, you know, kind of on their, where they can be on their own and, you know, kind of be their training schedule for an acquisition manager is probably going to take, you know, it's going to take 90 days for them to be kind of autonomous and, you know, out from underneath my wing and they're getting deals on their own and stuff. So being realistic with the timelines when it comes to the training and, and things, um, My training approach is always, we're going to, I'm going, I'm going to show you how to do it and then we're going to do it together. And then you have to show it back to me. And basically you have to kind of pass the test by showing me that you can do it and things like that as well. So I think it's, I think it's always really easily to. Put somebody in place of like, Oh yeah, I'm just gonna, I'm going to tell you this and expect them to get it and then for them to be off on their own. And I know I've made that mistake multiple times and we, I think we all have, or you hire that great salesperson and you're like, Oh, they're man, they're great at sales. They're going to be, you know, they they're catching on pretty quick and you just kind of turn them loose and all of a sudden they're lost and they don't know what they're doing or breaking the process or whatever it may be. So I think just before you. You know, as you're, as you're hiring somebody and bringing on talent, either having the playbook in place before, um, you bring them on or you are developing that playbook along with them. So, you know, you know, and they know what they're doing at any given time.
Mike:How are you deciding, um, when to make that like you mentioned, there's two types of hires, right? You can either kind of pay more and get someone with the experience or, you know, you've got to pay with it with your time. How are you deciding for position? Okay, I'm going to go with the experience or I'm going to go with time.
Brian:I think it's always, I found that this is not a great answer for this question, but I found like the smaller my business is, is a little bit more of, I'm probably going to need to pay for it with my time because. I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. I can, I maybe don't, maybe I don't have the funds or the budget to pay for it at a higher level to hire that experience, but also I don't know what really experience I need. I don't know what that process should really look like because I have a growing business. Um, but the, the, The higher, you know, more than my business is developed, I'm more dialed into what I need and what I have. So at this point, like right now, we're currently looking for a, you know, a director of sales to come in and work with our sales team. Um, and we're, we're hiring for experience. Like, I don't want, I don't want somebody like I want somebody that has done it before at a higher level business. That has, you know, they've been through, you know, they've been through the ringer. They've, they've led a sales team. I want to see what they're, you know, that they've taken a company at this EBITDA that this EBITDA, like I want, like I'm, I'm hiring specifically for experience and stuff like that. So I think it's something that comes with, I think it comes with the level of business you're at and also kind of a little bit of what your capacity is. You know, time wise as well. Some, you know, if you don't have the capacity to, to hire somebody and train them up, they're, they're probably going to fail. So you might need to, you know, pay for, you know, pay for that, pay a little bit more for the experience and stuff. But, um, like I'll say where I see, you know, Another factor I'd say with this and where I see people maybe make a lot of mistakes is where they think that they're, they want to kind of hire for the air pay that pay for the experience. But instead of paying for the experience, they bring on a partner, like, Oh, we're going to partner together. And then it's, that's, that's going to, so that's going to solve everything and stuff like that. Cause they'll, that's, that's where I see it. Get a little, get a little, get a little bit funky. I'd rather say, Hey, why don't you pay for the experience for a year and see how it works out and then decide if that, if that partnership is really what you guys want and stuff. So,
Mike:Yeah. Maybe go on a date or two before you get
Brian:you know, we won't. Yeah.
Mike:Um, you were saying offline, um, that, you know, obviously you guys were buying a lot of deals wholesale, but primarily you were actually closing on everything, but then selling it off market to your buyer's list. Mm-Hmm.
Brian:Yeah. So we would sell, we would, you know, we're wholetailers, you know, for the most part of what we were doing, where we would, um, buy a property, clean it out, and then we would sell it either on, off, off market or on market. So just depending on what our buyers did and one of the reasons that we probably could have wholesale a lot of those to off, you know, to off market buyers, but it allowed us to control it just a little bit more allowed us to, we felt like we were able to, we were able to clean it out and take better pictures. We just felt like it was a better product. Um, we never had to worry about. Something happened at the closing table that day where the seller maybe backs out or gets, you know, Oh, I need a couple extra days or there's a lender involved or anything like that that messed up So we just kind of you know We would just take them down and then we would you know Clean it out and then sell it that way and stuff. Um also allowed us to do some creative things of like Maybe we couldn't get the price for that. We wanted Um cash so we would you know, sell it create, you know with with finding with owner financing on the back end So, you know, we'd sell it with Um, Hey, a certain amount down and then hold the node. And then we could either, you know, sometimes we would just treat that like a wholesale deal almost too, or we would just sell the note on the back end and, you know, make just as much profit. Um, so let's have a couple, a couple, you know, different things too. Also a lot, like by owning it too, it'll, it made Dispo super easy. Cause we would just, we owned it. We just cleaned out, we would just put a lock box on it. Then people could just go walk the property whenever we don't have to worry about doing showings and lining up with the seller. So. Did we maybe have a little bit more money in the deal because we had to use capital to, to take it down sometimes? Yes. But I think we ended up getting it more on the back end, but really it was about control for us and being able to do whatever we wanted with it.
Mike:What, um, like what percentage of when would you sell, like, off market and what percentage of'em would you, would you end up putting on the MLS?
Brian:Well, it's probably, I would say we would usually put just about everything on the MLS, but then we would sell probably what we sold on market versus off market or with an agent or without an agent. I'd say it's about 50 50. So
Mike:Meaning you would like flat fee it, or meaning you would, or.
Brian:no, we would pay like a, just a regular, you know, buyer's agent fee. Um, well now it's, that's completely, that's completely different stuff. And back in the day when you do that, but, uh, no, we just, yeah. So if we were, it was on the market, we would, you know, pay whatever the agent, you know, whatever the agent commission was that we agreed to and put it on there and do that. But if we sold it off market, we would never have that. So
Mike:Were you doing 50 percent of them you were selling off market or, and then 50 percent we're on.
Brian:yeah. Or just to, yeah, to just a buyer without a buyer, without an agent.
Mike:Gotcha. Gotcha. And then like, how did you determine like, if you were going to try to sell it off market versus throwing it up on the MLS?
Brian:Whoever gave us the best deal. So I'll say this. It was usually
Mike:both.
Brian:it'd be on the market, but sometimes we'd have a buyer for it. That wasn't that didn't find it on it. They would just reach out to us on the, off the buyers list or something like that. So they didn't have an agent and they weren't affiliated. And we just, we just saw it that way.
Mike:Got it. So you were doing both at the same time. It wasn't try off market first and then listed or vice versa. Okay. Interesting.
Brian:We had a, we had a, we had a, we did a pretty good job at Dispo where we had a pretty serious VIP list where we would, you know, give them first crack at all of our deals. And if we got the, you know, if we got the deal that we wanted to right away, we would, we wouldn't haggle over like, Hey, send us your, Biggest and best offer or anything. It was kind of more just like, okay, you, you're going to pay what we asked for. Yeah. We'll give you, we'll give you the deal. Um, and stuff. So we give them, like, we give our VIPs, you know, maybe a day to make that decision on if they wanted it or not. And then if we didn't, then we'd put it on the market. So, um,
Mike:What were some challenges that you faced as that business was scaling up?
Brian:I think always, um, I think always with any business, it's, it's the same, it's, you know, it comes down to this, the, you know, making sure you have enough leads. Um, that's always, everybody always wants more leads. That's always a big thing, but I will say that probably in my, you know, coaching a lot of businesses and stuff like that, I would say eight out of 10 times. That people are needing more leads. It's really, it's usually a lead management problem more than a lead problem. We always want more leads. We can never have enough leads. That's everybody and stuff like that, but really kind of the management of your leads and kind of how you're handling your leads is a little bit more important than, you know, kind of the amount of leads you have coming in. So we all have. Deals in our system that are sitting there that could, we can make a, turn a profit on and stuff. That's, you know, same for the best businesses out there. They'll say the same thing. It's election time right now. A ton of people are saying, Hey, we're going to pull back on our marketing and we're going to focus on the deals that are in our system because we know they're there right now. We know there's a lot in there. So, um, you know, kind of working with the leads, the leads management is always one thing. Um, and then I think it's, You know, the other thing is, is really, it's always capital, making sure you have enough capital, making sure, especially if we're taking enough deals down, it's like, okay, do we, you know, do we, we're, you know, using a lot of our own funds. We kind of created a fund too, where we had people, you know, that we had private money that we're working a lot with. It was a higher price property. And it's kind of always that one thing of, I think it's actually, I'll take this back of like really the, one of the biggest issues. And I see a lot of people. Having struggled with this is like when they try to do a deal outside of our outside of your buyer's box, when you're like, kind of know that, Hey, this is, this is our bread and butter. This is 80 percent of our deals, but, you know, Indianapolis, 80 percent of our deals was in between, you know, 100, 000 and, you know, 200, 000 kind of right in that sweet spot right there, but, oh, okay. This 800, 000, you know, cookie, you know, this, this, this big house, that's 800, 000 comes across our plate. Oh, it's a great deal. We can figure it out. We don't know that market. We don't have a buyer for that. We don't know what, you know, we don't understand how capital it takes to do that. So I think sometimes it's always been a growing business is always trying to stretch that buyer's box and trying to figure things out is always a tough thing and stuff. But, um, I'd say in reality is a growing business. What you're always, what is always the biggest Issue. And the biggest trouble, the thing that most people have is it's, it's training your talent and keeping your talent and, you know, leveling up your talent as you come down to. So I think I've realized of with a successful business is what I see. A lot of businesses, when you start off in real estate, you're, you are a marketing and sales business for the most part, and that's what a lot of people kind of think of it, especially starting off, but then you hopefully, eventually most people get to the point where you turn it and it's not no longer a marketing and sales business. It's a people business. So, and what I mean by that is that you're not necessarily as a leader, you're not necessarily focused on, Hey, determining your marketing and determine your leads and you know, how are the sales going and stuff like that. But you are managing the people that are doing those things for you. And once you can kind of dive into that and get that turned around and turn those dials the right way, get the right people in those spots, that's when your business can just take off.
Mike:Yeah, what do you like for you guys? Like, once was there like a, I guess, kind of challenges that came at like a certain amount of volume. Would you say like, okay, once I hit this amount, I hit, I hit this wall or maybe you see a lot of people run into a wall when they hit a certain amount of volume.
Brian:Yeah. I think it's a, you know, one of the things that I see, you know, with it happened with our business and I see with businesses all the time, it's kind of the number of, The number of appointments that an acquisition manager can go on. So I think like really realistically, if you, and I acquisition manager should probably not be going on more than three appointments in a day. So really two is probably the right number for them to go on. So if they're going on 10 to 12 appointments a week, that's a great week for them. That's a week that they can. They can, you know, spend an hour with the seller at their house and get a good, go through a good, have a good walk through and connect with them, build a rapport, also do their follow up and stuff like that. Um, but then you're always, you know, pushing, going back to that, what we're talking about, everybody wants more leads. So then you push on that, that, you know, the levers to get more leads in all of a sudden they're up to like 15, 18 and they're, Conversion rates suffer and things like that. So then it's balancing. Okay. Now we need another, we need another acquisition manager, but we're at capacity. So we'd have the right way to train them and things like that. I think that's always kind of a number. I always look at it as like, if my acquisition managers can, they should be going on, you know, 12 appointments a week. And then that's, that's. If it's sufficient with that on the display side, we kind of felt, you know, kind of did the same thing of like our dispo person, they could handle about 30, you know, basically 30 properties a month if they could sell like right around. And once they got above 30 selling 30 properties a month, that's when they really kind of started to. Not necessarily struggle, but their, you know, their, um, their conversations or maybe their, their follow up with their buyers and stuff like that wasn't going quick enough, or they weren't, they weren't waiting on enough offers on deals and they were kind of taking the first offer they could get and, and things like that. Same thing on the transaction coordinator side. We kind of saw that like once, uh, you know, once we started doing more than like 40 transactions in a month. It's 20 on the buy side, 20 on the sales side. That's when they got a little tapped out and stuff too. So that's where we kind of needed to, you know, bring on another transaction coordinator and things. Yeah.
Mike:Gotcha. That's kind of like hitting capacity for people. And then, you know, they kind of performance drops because, you know, they only got so much they can do realistically.
Brian:Yeah, exactly. So, and I shared before, I'm a former math teacher, so I try to turn everything into a math problem. And that's why I always just approach business in general. Like if I, if I can turn it into a math problem, then I can figure it out. And I just know, then I just, you know, Push or pull, whatever way I need to.
Mike:Gotcha. Um, and then you said earlier, like, um, a lot of the people that you work with. Um, like when you're coaching them, they, they run into a lot of issues on the lead. It's usually not number of leads, but it's like the lead management's their problem. Um, what are the specific challenges that you see the most often with people in their lead management?
Brian:Um, I think it's, uh, one of the things that we always saw was that I think people ask for price too quickly. Um, I would rather kind of hold back on that a little bit and just really, I would, I want to dig into the motivation a little bit more of the reality is, and that's kind of, that was always my approach with it, is like if somebody has a house that they want to sell, I want to, I want an appointment set. Like I want to go take a look at it. I'm not worried about what they're. With our prices, because if I can get, if I can be in person, talk with them, see what's going on with it, it's sometimes the price doesn't make a difference of what it is. Maybe we can work it out. Maybe we can't, but I still want to go meet with them in person and get a feel for what's going on and things. And so I got, so I feel like a lot of times maybe with the lead manager, people are disqualifying a little too quickly. Because they're like, Oh man, they're asking for like, you know, Zillow, you know, the Zestiman is, is, uh, you know, 150, 000 and they're asking one 80. I still, I still want to go see that property. Like I'm, I'm, I'm okay with it. I still want to get in person because we never know what the actual price is. They, they, they're, they're just going what they see on, on Zillow or something like that. They don't actually know what the house, what the house is worth or what their situation is, or, you know, what's going on with it. So I want to go have a conversation with them, talk to them, see what's going on and, um, you know, get a feel for it. And if, if Anything, even if we don't do the deal, I'm okay with it because that's a chance for my acquisition guy to go out there and practice their skills on evaluating a house, figuring out what the target, you know, price point would be having a conversation with somebody, getting to connect with somebody and when, and I mean, all, all in all, it's an, it's an opportunity to help somebody of, you know, We've all been in a situation where sometimes our, our seller, our sellers are all, they're going through something, all of them. I mean, all of'em are, whether it's they've inherited a house and they don't know what to do with it, or they're just, they can, they can't take care of their repairs. They're upside down on their mortgage or whatever it is. They're, they're in, they need somebody to talk to. They need somebody to help'em out, and that's what we're in this, hopefully that's what most of people are in this business for, is to help them help you know, their sellers out of a situation and help their buyers get. Um, new properties and then also, you know, help their lenders out with whatever it is. So, um, uh, when it come back to kind of the lead management side of things, if there's a, you know, I would always look at, like, I always want to know what my lead to appointment ratio was and what that, you know, what that percentage for conversion was. And I'm always going to. Just get, you know, a little bit, 1 percent better, 1 percent better. And you know, if you can go from, if you're getting so many leads in a week and you can set appointments for, you know, 50 percent of those and actually go on those appointments, not give your acquisition managers a chance to cancel them on their own. Like now there's appointments set, you go on it and things like that. You're going to do a lot more deals.
Mike:Is that, is it, was that your rule that they, that they just go, they don't get to call and
Brian:Oh yeah, yeah. If the lead manager sets an appointment, yeah, the acquisition manager has to go on it. So like I said, even if it's, cause if, if you leave it to the acquisition manager, they're going to be like, ah, it's, that's, that's an hour away or that's not, that doesn't look like a deal. No, man, it's, it's, it's, it's go, let's see if we can get it. And you know, that's what we're, that's, that's down to two back to that problem of like, no, if they're going on 10 to 12 appointments a week, they should be able to do that. Like it's don't, don't cancel those appointments because you, you still got to hit. You guys still got to hit your number of going on this 10 to 12 appointments a week.
Mike:Yeah. What is your criteria? I mean, obviously you don't pay that much attention to price, but is there any criteria you have besides that they are considering maybe selling for you to set that appointment?
Brian:Yeah. I think if it's, you know, our big things were just that if it was, if, if they have a, if they have a house that they, that they want to sell, there is some type of a motive motivation. And then it's, it's, it's within our buy box of, I want to, I, you know, I, I want to go see it. So, um, there were a lot of times I would actually, when I, when I was in that role, when I'm looking at like kind of doing that, I'd never, I'd never want to know the price until I'm in the appointment. So that's something I would never ask until I'd actually go on an appointment, have that conversation there. So I don't want to have any preconceived notion. A lot of people are going to disagree with me on that and argue with me on that. I hundred percent agree. That's okay. That's, I understand that and things, but I, that's something that I don't, I'm not worried about right now in the moment. I just want to know, Hey, do you have a house? Is it okay? What's the, you know, what's your situation. And then if you're, if you're open to selling it and it's something that fits inside of our buy box, if I think I have a buyer for it, if I think I can help them out in some way, I want to go see it.
Mike:Yeah. It's funny you say that iClash has a lot of people on that too, which is I have a rule, which is we don't ask price on the phone. They can bring it up and we'll put it in the notes if they bring it up. Sure. But we don't ask, it doesn't matter because like, you know, people will say, well, I want one 80 and, you know, salesperson might say, oh, that's too high. It's like, but if you were selling your house, would you, would you immediately tell someone like the lowest amount or like, would you try to get a little more? I mean, everyone wants a little more. I mean, it's just human nature.
Brian:Right. Right. Yeah, exactly.
Mike:So what, um, so now kind of like talk about, well, I think we were really talking about it more offline, but you mentioned it briefly here. So I think it was early 2023, you said. You kind of made the transition out of the business, um, out of the real estate business and obviously moved over to being the COO of collective genius. You want to talk a little bit about, you know, why you decided to make that move and kind of what thing, what has changed for you since then?
Brian:Yeah. So, um, I need a lot of things have changed for me, a hundred percent and stuff like that. But, uh, for me it was, you know, I kind of mentioned of, I realized that real estate is just a vehicle for me. It wasn't like a passion for me of buying and selling houses. Like if I'd never went on another appointment or sold another house, I would actually be okay with that. Um, what I really enjoy doing is, is growing people, growing businesses. And I like new challenges too. It was something that. Um, kind of Brett and I were in a situation where he was, he was kind of thinking that, you know, wanted to scale the business back a little bit. I'm somebody that wants to keep running as fast as I can when it comes to business and things. So it's kind of time for us to, you know, maybe go our different ways. And we're still great friends and it worked out okay. And he's doing, he's doing great. I'm doing great. Um, so it's all good. But, uh, for me, it was something that I wanted to give back in some way. I like, you know, I like the educate. I said, I'm an educator. That's who I am. That's where I kind of, I know that's where I belong. Um, so I want to be able to help people out of, I know a lot of the guests that you've had on your, on your show or our CG members. And I'm connecting, I think you just had like Cody Dover on and counsel Glenn and, you know, people like that, that, you know, I love, I love, I just counsel and I were texting each other last week on just on something and things. So of being able to help people like that, that's what I really enjoy doing. In my role now, like I've learned so much about, about business that I didn't come from the corporate world or anything like that. And I realizing that like, I have, I have a lot of fun doing that kind of stuff of learning how to grow businesses. And when I look at a lot of people that are NCG or a lot of people in our real estate world in general, a lot of people that you're connected with and you're, I mean, you're probably one of these people too, of like, we're also, we were, we know we're hustlers and we know how we learn how to make some money and then we like, we get good at it. And then all of a sudden we have a team. And we have a business, but we've never had, we've never been trained on how to run a business or, you know, what numbers to look at or how to train people correctly, or, you know, even develop talent or hire people or things like that is, is kind of funny. I was at a seminar, um, last, last year, and there was about 200 people in the room and, uh, Cameron Harold was on stage and, you know, he's a, um, He was the COO of 1 800 GOT JUNK, and so he's been COO of multiple big businesses and stuff. But he asked the people in the room of, Hey, how many of you entrepreneurs, you know, of the 200 people in there, how many of you entrepreneurs have ever been through a training on how to hire somebody? And there were like four people out of the 200 that stood up and things, but that's the reality of us as entrepreneurs and business owners and real estate investors. I'm like, we've never been through that. Um, and it's pretty integral to our businesses. We want to continue to grow and, and scale and things. So I just really enjoy that part of it. Um, so, um, you know, my, my life is very different now, so I'm not really, I'm not looking at deals too much anymore unless my wife and I are lending on it. And I'm actually, she's, she's doing a great job with that. And I'm kind of taught her how to. You know, over, you know, underwrite a deal and things like that. But for me, it's, it's, it's helping people out and growing our business. And I've hired, you know, five people in the last three months on team CG, and we're continuing to grow and get better and be able to give back to our members as much as possible. And our memberships are growing. We've got four different product levels now, and then. Um, partner it up with, with family mastermind too. So we kind of have a fifth one that we're, you know, with, with all of our products and things that we have, we have over 650 members across the nation and doing all remarkable things and stuff. So I get to have an impact and, you know, just like I used to have an impact on my students, I get to have an impact on a lot of our members as well, which I just absolutely love.
Mike:What are some of the things that you've learned since you made that transition that you maybe wish you knew when you were running a real estate business?
Brian:Oh, that's how to, how to how to maybe I just had an interview and how to like, how to like, like actually have a process for interviewing now, which is good. And I get to work with people on that and kind of teach them that. So one of the things that I look at is like, we used to have an interview was like, Oh, I'll go for a cup of coffee or go for a drink with somebody and have a good conversation. Oh, I like them. I'm going to hire them. Um, other than like, Oh, what are your actual skills? And what are you, what have you done? And. You know, using a personality assessment, like the, being able to use the predictive index to know, okay. This person on paper, like, okay, they're probably, they're, they're suited for this role, but they're also probably suited for longevity within this role because it fits into their natural state of who they are. Like, if I'm a buddy that, you know, if I look at a, at a predictive index and I see that there's somebody that if they're super social and that they need to be around people, I can't put them in a box where they're, they're working remotely from home without anybody in office. And they're just on the phone all day long or they're not, they're going to be that for a long time and stuff. So. Being able to do things like that, but even know how to, um, you know, how to write up, how to write up a job description, how to, you know, ask questions during that interview and just things like that, I think is, is I, I really enjoy doing that. I'm still need to get a lot better at that, but that's something I've definitely learned a lot around and it's, it's made a huge difference.
Mike:what would you have changed about your kind of interview? I mean, I obviously have a real interview. Um, but like, besides that, like, what, like, what would you have made your hiring process kind of knowing what you know now? What would you have changed?
Brian:One of the biggest things I've really started doing is, uh, you know, our. Interview process now is usually, usually is a three, you know, three or four interviews, um, where they're meeting with multiple people. You know, the first one is kind of a, get to know you, making sure they understand the role and the expectations. And the second one is usually like a panel interview where I have like, you know, three or four people on the team, um, kind of interviewing them at once and asking different questions, getting a feel from them, but then something I've always started doing too. After that second interview, I give them an assignment. I see, I want to see how they work. I want to see how they think. So I give them, you know, give them something to do. If it's even if it's, if you know, I'm just hiring a lead manager, I just, you know, hired an SDR. That's kind of like, you know, a lead manager and, you know, the business world where, but I, I've given him something to do where he's calling some people. I want to, I want to listen to him. I hear you. He is on the phone. I want to hear how he talks when I hear how he thinks, how he transitions, how he overcomes this objection and stuff like that. So. I could do that in the first 30 days, 60 days within the job. But if I can get that, if I can get a glimpse of that right from the start, I'm going to take that. Um, I just hired in a, you know, kind of a, in a, at an administrative assistant for myself, but I gave her a couple projects of like, Hey, here's something, here's a, here's a brain dump of my thoughts. I want you to take this brain dump and I want you to create a presentation for in Canada. And like, she took that and did it and things. So it's like, Oh, I need to, for, for somebody to be successful working underneath me is my assistant. I need them. I need to be able to do a brain dump. On a video or a Vox or something like that. And then they need to be able to take my thoughts and, and come through with it. If they have a bunch of questions that need me to sit down and work with them through things, that's probably not the right person for me in that situation. Um, so being able to give, I think that's, that's one of the biggest things I've learned is like giving them an assignment to do of some kind, just so I can see their thought process and how they work and how they think and stuff. It's been, that's been huge.
Mike:What's your final round interview look like now for roles?
Brian:Final round interview is with the, uh, it's like, it's with, it's with the owner or the leader of the business where it's just, it's, it's literally about culture. It's like, Hey, you understand that, like, you're going to make sure that you've, you've a hundred percent fit the core values of the business. Um, but you also understand the culture for us. It's like, you know, it's kind of a little bit of a, of a come to Jesus where it's like, Hey, are you. Tell me about, are you, are you a winner or are you not a winner? Do you want to win or how, how bad do you want to win? Kind of things like that. Like we're, we're a fun team. We're not like that. It's kind of sounds like we're cut through it a little bit, but realizing that like, Hey, we're like, we need somebody that's going to come on here. And they're going to, if I, if I give you one, two and three things to do, you're going to do one, two and three, and maybe even a fourth. To make sure like that's the type of person that we're working for look or looking for and that's kind of what we're doing in that last interview to make sure they fit the culture and they're the person that's going to kind of do that a little bit.
Mike:What kind of questions are you asking or how are you structuring that interview to like? You get the truth, right? Cause people can do well on an interview and tell you what you want to hear. But like, how do you make sure that they are going to be the winner? Who's going to do one, two, three, and maybe four.
Brian:Yeah. Um, it's a lot of, you know, I want to hear like specific situations. Tell me about a time when or hey, If I, you know, Hey, here's the situation. You're like, what would you, what would you do here? And, and, and things like that. But, um, what I do really before every interview now is, and I have most of this built out for a lot of positions I've hired. If I need to hire another salesperson, it's kind of already built out for the process, but I'm always looking at like, okay, for, for a particular position, what are the skills that this person needs to be able to do? So example, let's go back to an administrative assistant. If I'm hiring an administrative assistant for my business, they need to be organized. They need to be able to understand directions. Um, they need to be someone that is, you know, great at, great at typing, great at design. They need to be creative and great at design for me. Um, but I'm looking at those types. I'm right now like all the skills that I expect that person to be able to have. And then I come up with a question for each one of those skills. So if they need to be organized, you know, that's one of the things where they need to be organized and like, Hey, tell me about a time, you know, at your last position or, you know, position you had before where you had to take a project and you had to like basically make sure everybody was on the same page. You had to organize the thought or organize everybody's process to make sure that they knew when things were happening and it had deadlines and you know, where they're, they're going to be able to, you know, You know, BS their way around it. They're going to know, like, I'm going to be able to tell whether, and you know, whether they've done it before, if they have something even similar experience or what, what that was like, if they've been able to, did they lead it or did they take the, they take a backseat on that project or wherever you'd be too. So, um, but I just like to write down the skills and then come up with a question for each one of those. That's usually a, how to, or tell me about when or something like that.
Mike:Gotcha. I like that too. I liked the one you said too, about, uh, giving them a scenario and say, how would you handle this? Cause then you can see kind of spot how they, how they think or how quick they think.
Brian:Yeah, exactly. And I mean, that's a, you're hiring a salesperson. I mean, like, Hey, tell me about, like, tell me what you've been selling. And I'm never gonna be the person that's like, Hey, you sell this pin to me or something like that. That's always, it's always like
Mike:It's a ridiculous
Brian:what we're selling before. Like, what were some of the objections that you heard? Like, they're going to like, I hired. I'm not gonna throw anybody under the bus, but I hired somebody before I've just, or I didn't hire somebody. I interviewed somebody before, but they were like, Oh no, I don't know. I never really had any objections. Like, I don't know what kind of early sales role you were really in then and stuff. So it's kind of, it disqualified himself right away because. There's, if you're in a sales role, you're going to, you're going to have some failures. You're not going to make every sale. You're going to be able to tell me about that and tell me how, man, what was that objection that you guys think it got the best of you and you couldn't overcome it or whatever it is. Like every salesperson has that, has those stories.
Mike:I remember I asked a salesperson in an interview one time, I said, uh, tell me about a deal you lost and what you learned from it. He said, I'd never lost a deal. I said, that's just not true. It's like, I've lost a million deals. Like, it doesn't matter how good you are. Like sometimes someone's in a bad mood and you lose a deal. Like that's something to learn there. Like, I don't believe that you were in sales for three years and didn't lose a deal. Like
Brian:right. Yeah. So you want, you want enough appointments. That's what that means or
Mike:Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It's pre qualifying very hard.
Brian:One for one.
Mike:Yeah. What else have you, uh, learned since you've kind of made this transition that, you know, would, would have been amazing to know when you were running the real estate company.
Brian:Yeah. I think it's, um, one of the biggest things and, you know, I've been talking a lot about it lately and it's something that actually we haven't, so we CG premier, we haven't met next week and a lot of this, uh, a lot of our events going to kind of derive around this, but it's, uh, about having a, having a one page plan, uh, sitting down with your leaders and basically derive, you know, coming up with a one page plan for your business of what the, what it looks like for the next year. Um, not just clarity for us as leaders, but clarity for the team members as well. So. Something that I, something that I do with my one page plan. That's a little bit different than a lot of the programs out there. It's like, we have our, we have our core values. We have our, our long term goals and short term goals and things like that. And we have our KPIs on there and things we want to hit next year. And I always come up with like, Hey, what are the, what are the big focuses for the next year? And, you know, we always have like around 10. Big, you know, they're bigger objectives, bigger focuses and things. But something I do with that then is like on our one page plan is I have an implementation schedule to where it's like, okay, we come up with 10 things that we're going to do for next year, you know, by month, we're going to put in there, like when we're going to do them. And then it's like, what all, cause what always happens is we come out of these. You just went through this and you know, things like that too. You come out of this quarterly meeting of like, wait, okay, we've got these five things that we're going to do. That's like, okay, when are we going to do them? You know, it's, it's like, okay, what happened? It needs to happen before, but we, that's what we, we always do is like, all right, let's say that we're going to, let's say next year we're going to hire a lead manager. All right. We need to hire a lead manager in may. So we're that our implementation schedule for may. Then it's like, okay, what are all the things that need to happen before that? Well, okay. I need to, I need to hire a recruiter. I need to write the job description. I need to hire a recruiter. Uh, that's going to take, that's probably need to happen like two months before that. So I need to start that in February. Um, everywhere. I'm going to hire a recruiter. I'm going to write the job description. All right. Then in March, I'm going to interview and things like that. And then, you know, so it's basically like kind of putting things throughout. What that forces us to do is we realize it's like once we start putting them on that implementation schedule is what happens all the time is we see like, oh, shoot, man. And in April and May, we got like six things that are due in April and May. Like, that's not we need to prioritize that. What takes the most priority? Okay. That that. You know, that's, this is more important than we need to actually, we can't, sorry guys, is this, we can't do this in April and May. We need to push this back to like third quarter because we got too much stuff going on right there. Um, but it's, you know, something that we're always able to see what needs to happen like month by month. We're able to see kind of what needs to happen at the end of each month. Um, and then kind of when things need to get done, like kind of when all the deadlines are and then stuff, then we always put on there too, like what's, what's going to be the revenue. Factor afterwards. So, okay. If we're going to hire lead manager in may, then probably, all right, it's going to may, and then we're going to train them up in June. They're going to be kind of in the mix in July. August is really when we should start to see the revenue change from hiring that lead manager. Just because I hire them in May doesn't mean it's going to change my revenue or my bottom line in May. It's probably, it's going to change my bottom line. It's going to drop a little bit because I'm paying that person, but I'm not going to see the fruit on that until August. So now I can forecast going forward of like, okay, what's my August going to look like? What's my September going to look like and things. Um, so that's been a huge tool for So we do that as a team. And then that, that team one page plan is essentially my one page plan. That's me as a COO. That's my job to like, Hey, make sure this gets done. And it's that taken care of. And then what I do with that too, is each one of my team members, they have their own one page plan as well. So my director of marketing, like I have a one page plan. And then when we have our weekly meeting, that's all we do. We talk about, we just talk about that one page plan. All right. What are we on track for? What do we, we just go down for anything that's supposed to happen in September. Where are we at? Is there, is this, is this on, on target, off target that we need to push things back? Do we need to prioritize thing? I know I'm going to come up with some crazy idea next week that we need to put in that, that on that one page or something new. Then it's like, it's in this kind of like, okay, what, if we're going to put this on there, What do we need to pull off? What do we need to push back? Uh, okay. No, no, this is this. We need to keep this here. It's more important, Brian. You gotta, we gotta hold off on that idea. That's gotta wait until next quarter.
Mike:you guys like revisiting that also like quarterly as a team and like, you know, changing what's, what's on that one page plan or,
Brian:Yeah. So yeah, so we'll have a quarterly meeting and going through that and making sure that, you know, things are updated and we're honestly, we're, and we're, we're updating it in real time. Um, how we're going like individually. So my, my CEO and I, we're going through. We're going through our team one page plan every week. That's, uh, that's, that's the, essentially the agenda for our same page, me and my director of marketing. That's our, that's our agenda for our same page meeting every week, me and my events coordinator, same thing. So we're going through all that stuff. So we're updating it kind of in real time, um, within the individuals on the team, but then as a, as a whole team. Now we're going to take a look at the whole page, the whole page. How's it changed? Here's where it was at the beginning of the quarter. Here's how it's done. Here's what, here's some of the changes that we made. Here's some of the things that we need. Hey, we need to discuss this because we need to, we need to vote as a team on what we're doing here. And if we need to do this and stuff, or, Hey, what are we missing? What are we hearing? What are we hearing from our customers? What are we hearing from our team? What do we need to change and things like that? So, um, yeah. But then, I mean, really, and then at the end of the year, we go through a two for a, through a whole two day, you know, our annual planning session is two days long. It's with the whole team and a person, and we're doing all kinds of stuff. And really then after that, it's it. You know, all honesty, it probably takes about six weeks for me and my CEO to like dial in our one page plan of like, how do we really want it? And, you know, it comes to like knowing exactly what's going to be on there and what that implementation schedule looks like and stuff. It's a, it's a pretty long process, but it's a hundred percent worth it because being able to know what we're doing, when we're doing it, like it's going to allow us to be able to forecast and really budget for what we need to next year.
Mike:yeah, what's, uh, kind of the three year vision for collective genius?
Brian:Yeah. So I think it's just, uh, you know, love to add, you know, more products and more people. That's really what comes down to grow, grow in general. So I'd love to essentially kind of grow through really kind of three different things of, Hey, we can grow through more products. We just, this year we added on a product called CG CEO, uh, for people. Like truly in that CEO seat, I know is entrepreneurs. We like to call ourselves CEOs. Sometimes we have a team of three and we're leading a business and doing a couple of deals, but, um, broke a little bit, but we're those people that like, actually they have a, Hey, they, they have, they have a, they have a business. It, it makes this amount of revenue. This, they have this. You know, they're actually, they have a net worth of this X amount of money and, and things like that. And they're truly in that CEO seat where they have a, they have a COO underneath them and they have directors underneath that and their business. They're kind of out of the day to day, their business and things like that, but still want to grow. So, you know, we created that this year and it's, that's, it's a great product. Um, so far I'm doing really, really well. So, you know, creating new products is always something that we want to do. And then we always want to go with as well as, you know, the more. You know, the more people we have, it's, it's something that's really cool to see of we do something at all of our events that call it the go giver belt of had our events of somebody, whoever is the biggest go giver. Maybe they maybe had the best presentation or they just helped out the most people or whatever. We give that big championship belt stuff. I'm out for that. But the cool thing is to see, you know, the new people when new people come into our, um, Yeah. Into our communities and they end up winning a belt at one of their first two, um, events is really cool to see. It's like, it's just like getting a new talent and new, new people and new go givers and things like that in our community is really, really cool. So grow people. And then honestly, when, when we grow, you know, acquisition wise, or even just bringing on, you know, partner and other masterminds as well. So if there's another mastermind out there and they're pretty well and stuff, it's always something that we want to take a look at of, Hey, let's, let's, let's bring you into the mix and work together and stuff as well. So that's kind of, you know, I always want to. Um, grow it, grow it bigger. And I'll be, I'll be completely honest if it's always when I say growing bigger is always is good. But right now we need to get better before we get bigger. So that's kind of our, our thing here is it's, it's, it's optimization before expansion. So it's like, Hey, we got. We hired a lot of people this year. Um, you know, I think we've brought on maybe six or seven new team members this year. So it's, you know, we've, we've gotten bigger, but now it's time to get a little bit better before we continue growing and growing. Cause that's the, you know, it's comes down to making sure our processes are, are in, are dialed in, our systems are dialed in and we're treating our members the right way and they're getting the most out of it and things. That's the number one thing for us.
Mike:And like the, like, I'm not actually like as familiar with the other products that you guys have. Is that like, just based on like, like experience or are there other ones that are like, like title focus, like CEO or something like that, or?
Brian:Yeah, it's a little bit. It's based off experience and based off of kind of a business size a little bit. So we have essentially we have, we have three product or we have, um, you know, I'll talk about kind of our, our, our five products total vote within the CG realm. We have four products right now. We have one that's called CG elevate. Um, that's for people that are doing between, you know, 10 and 30 deals a year. Um, they're a little bit more businesses, a lot of, a lot of solopreneurs in there, or maybe they have, You know, one or two team members or a couple of VAs or something like that. But essentially that group is for people that they, they know how to make some money, but they don't quite have a business yet. They just don't, they're the, they're just on the verge. You know, some of them are still working at W2, maybe they're just, they're doing some deals, but they're, they, they're ready to kind of, you know, turn this corner and I kind of turn it into a business. And then we have the people that are in CG elevate. Or I'm sorry, CG select with their, they're doing it between like 30 and 75 deals a year. Um, you know, I'm only doing them between like, you know, 500 to 2 million in revenue and things like that. So there are people that they, they know how to make money. They have, they, they have a team of like three to five, they, they have a business, but they don't know how to run the business yet. So they don't know actually, Hey, how to like, just what we've been talking about, like how to, how to make those hires and how to. You know, how to run meetings and that type of thing, and, you know, dial in your KPIs and just get, you know, get better that way. It's really kind of in that they're in that they're in that scaling phase of their business and stuff. So, um, then our next group, we have the CG premier group, which there are people that are doing, you know, 75 plus deals a year, they're doing, you know, two, 2 million in revenue. And, you know, it's, that's bright, nice business. We're in that where we're doing 250 deals a year and, you know, multiple, you know, multiple niches are not kind of multiple revenue streams. And, um, you know, not, you know, Do a multiple, have multiple marketing channels and things like that. So, um, that was the original CG. That's kind of what it, where it started and that's been around for a while and stuff. And then now we have CG CEO, which is kind of just a step above that. So the premier members are kind of in that phase of like, Hey, they're, they're growing their business and they're on the verge of like truly becoming CEOs and really being in that leadership seat. And then once they kind of hit that, then they can kind of move into that CEO room and, and things. And then we're also, like I said, we have. You know, partner with family mastermind and Matt Andrews and stuff. So we're, we're connected with them and helping them out, which that's kind of real estate investor adjacent where they're, a lot of them are real estate investors, but they're, you know, they're podcasters, they're educators, they're service providers and, and, and things like that, where they kind of have their own group and, and teach people if they're want to learn more about real estate and do it better, or provide a service for real estate investors, it's kind of their own mastermind for them over there.
Mike:What's the biggest challenge that you see people facing who are trying to move from, I forget what the name of the top level one was, but basically to the CEO seat. Like what's the, what's the challenge that's like holding most of them back?
Brian:Themselves can't get out of their own way. So it's, it's, um, and I mean that in a nice way, cause we're, I mean, we're all there, we all go through it. I've, I know I've, I've been there and stuff before where I think, uh, no one's going to do it as good as me, or I can't quite trust my team to do this or. Oh, everything's going well. I'm going to jump back in and mess things up. And we, we, sometimes we don't realize that we do that. Um, but a lot of times it's just realizing it comes back to, you know, hiring the right, you, if you hire the right people, allow them to do what you hired them to do, and then truly lead them. Um, leadership is really tough. It's, it's, it's a really tough thing to do. And as you, uh, you got, and I mentioned it before, if you get to that point where it's no longer a marketing and sales business, it becomes a people business. Yeah. And you're literally, you're literally in that seat where it's all about just like, you know, growing up, growing opportunities for your business and then putting the right people in the right seats to be able to do the right thing. Um, that's where when somebody can get to that point, um, it's, it's, it changes, changes their lives, changes their business and stuff. But see so many times where people, they, they still falter a little bit of where. Um, and something's messed up with our PPC marketing and they have to jump back in and they change the vendor too quick versus asking the right questions and leading the person to, Hey, let's really figure it out. Let's figure this out. Is it really the PPC provider? Or is it like our, why is our conversion rate, you know, our lead to appointment conversion rate? Lower on here than it is on our direct mail. And, you know, kind of really kind of asking the right questions and leading the, leading the team the right way. So it's, you know, it comes back to what we, you know, what I said before is we're, we're entrepreneurs and we've grown, we've grown this and we're hustlers and we know how to make money, but we've never really, you know, We don't know how to really lead and be trained to lead and kind of be in that. And that's what I love about CG. It's you're putting the, you're putting a situation where you're around people that are going through exactly what you're going through in the moment, or that have already been through it. And I can, I can be like, Brian, quit being a dummy. Just let that, like, let your director of marketing handle that. Like get it, like alone, let them do this thing and stuff. So.
Mike:What, what do you see the people doing who are able to elevate to CEO level? Like obviously they're, they're good leaders, but like what? Like specifically? Are they make some great leaders that allows them to, like, ascend to that level and, like, kind of stay at that level, not kind of get back involved in the day to day. Um,
Brian:I think it's a couple of things is that they, they, they never stop learning how to be a better leader. They're always, they're always reading the books. They're always going to the net, you know, doing the next thing and stuff like that. And not, you can, you can, there is an overkill on that of like, where you don't want to be the person that has like, Oh, I just read this book and Hey, we're going to do this this week. And we're going to do this next week. But they're the people that it's. You know, and I, I, I'll admit, I fell into this trap a long time ago where I realized kind of back in the, you know, back in high school, I was president of my class every year, and then captain of the basketball team and tennis team and stuff like that. And in college, I was president of my fraternity. I was that person always said, Oh, I'm a natural leader. I'm a born leader. That's, that's a bunch of crap like you, like nobody's ever, like you need to, there is some skills that fall into that, but it's still, it's a skill that you need to develop. Like you need to learn how to be a, how to be a leader. What did, I mean, what did, what did John Maxwell do and what does he like, what did, you know, how did he get to be the leader that he is? And what did Liz Wiseman of like her being at a point where she, you know, wrote this book multipliers and what, how did she develop that? And all the reasons behind that, like you're reading these and digging into them and it's just, it's in developing yourself as a leader. And so I think it's really important. Um, the, the other thing that really separates them too, is that they, they invest in their people and in hiring the right people. Um, one of our, one of our members, Phil green said this the other day, and it really stood, it stood out to me. And he mentioned it like, uh, one of the things that he's realized is like the emphasis that he puts on recruiting for his, for his business, uh, they've even talked about like, you know, we talk about our real estate business and things like that, of like, if you. What if you took your best acquisitions person and instead of keeping them in acquisitions, what have you made them a recruiter? What if they went out there and recruited the salespeople for you and stuff like that. That's the greatest sale that you could possibly have of they're bringing on killers because sales sales talent knows how to, they know how to recognize other sales talent and stuff. So I think it's the two things, it's two things that really stand out to me of the people that are kind of. You know, at, in our CEO room or just in businesses in general of like, they, they always develop themselves as leaders and they never stop like kind of recruiting and developing their team and allowing their team to kind of do their thing. They're going to bring the best people underneath them. So the things that are, there's still, it comes back to leadership. They're developing themselves as leaders and they're hiring leaders to do things the right way.
Mike:that's yeah, that's a great point. I like that. You got to make you. I think I, uh, he posted something on Instagram saying that because I saw I remember that quote. I put my best acquisitions guys, my recruiter. I was like, man, that is genius. I
Brian:Hermosi, but, uh, Yeah,
Mike:Whatever.
Brian:we all think
Mike:Everything's stolen from someone else usually at some point or another. So
Brian:all the same stuff we all get it, you know, from other people and stuff, but no, it's all good.
Mike:yeah. Well, we're getting close to the end here and there's always two questions I always like to ask at the end. Um, one will be a little, um, thinking back on your real estate days, but what is the craziest or most uncomfortable situation that you ever experienced in a real estate deal?
Brian:Um, yeah, kind of the craziest, uh, crazy situation. Uh, I think there's always, there's always some, man, there's some good stories. That's one of the things I always wish I would've wrote down like all these stories and stuff. I think we all could probably write a book and stuff, but one of the funniest, one of the funniest ones, I don't know how really outlandish it is or crazy as it is, but one of our acquisition guys, he kept going to this house. I think it was like, he'd been to the, he went, kept going to this appointment. And he'd been there. So the third time, every time you go to this appointment. He would knock on the door and tell lady, all this is, you know, I'm here, I'm here for the appointment to walk your house. So every time she say, I can't come to the door right now, I'm naked. So every single time she was just, she was like three, three, like he literally tried to go to the appointment three times and every time she couldn't come to the door cause she was naked. So we decided that we would go ahead and we would bought her a bathrobe. So the next time he went on the appointment and she said that again, he's like, don't worry, I got you a bathrobe. So it so I can see the house and stuff. So that's it. Little, I think I, I find that as amusing story. Maybe not the craziest story or anything like that, but that one always sticks out to me of just like, there, that's one of the first times like,'cause I was like, I think my, like, that was one of my first weeks in the, in the business where it was just like, man, there, there's this, you never know what you're gonna come across on some of these appointments and things like that. So, um, but no, that was, that was a funny one.
Mike:The bathroom and let him in in the house, or
Brian:It did. It worked out? It
Mike:It did. Okay.
Brian:We got the deal. We got the deal.
Mike:I like it. Um, so the 2nd question I always ask for the newer people listening to the show, um, if you could go back in time and give yourself 1 piece of advice when you were looking for that 1st real estate deal. Knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself?
Brian:Yeah. Um, I think it's, I think it would be some along the lines of just like, I spend more, spend more time with a seller and just like really build their rapport. I think it's just like it, that, that first deal is always a little bit elusive. I think when you're going out there and stuff, it's, it's one of those things of you're always. You always, you think it's a numbers game of just like, I got to go on, I got to go on more appointments. I got to go on this and that. Like I know a hundred percent, like if, if I were to just like spend a little bit more time on that first appointment I went on, I probably would have got that deal. And I would actually like sat down and listen to the seller and, and gone through, you know, understood where they're coming from, have the empathy and reason with them and stuff like that. I think that's what I would come back to. Like, I always. Try to, I was trying to get to the point where you're just like, okay, it's all the house, like here's your situation. Here's the offer, like go on to the next one and stuff. So I just like getting, you know, I think it's, it comes down to if I would, I know if I would have spent a little bit more time and that first appointment I went to, I probably would've got that deal. So that's what I come back to.
Mike:I think that's a, I think that's a great piece of advice. Um, if people, uh, wanted to reach out to you after the show, Brian, um, if they maybe have questions about CG or thinking about joining, I don't know if you're the right person to talk to, but I guess who, how can people go about reaching out to you if they want to,
Brian:Somebody wants to join. I'm more than happy to have that conversation. So
Mike:I didn't know how it works. So if you're your CEO, maybe you have salespeople. I don't know.
Brian:I'll pass them off. And I'll still have that conversation, but, um, no, if they can, they can hit me up at brian at the collective genius. com more than happy to talk to them on there. If they want to email me, there's my teams on top of it, man. So good stuff. So got my email right there. Um, or you can just, you know, reach out to me on social media, Brian Snyder, um, on, on Facebook or the Indy Snyder on Instagram. We're happy to talk with any of your people and help them out All
Mike:Cool. Well, awesome, man. Thanks for being on the show.
Brian:right. Thank you. Appreciate it.