October 29, 2025In this episode of the Reside Platform Podcast, Suneet sits down with John Rota, leader of Edmonton’s #1 real estate team by transaction volume. John shares his journey from selling just 6 deals in his first year to building a powerhouse team of 48 agents projected to close over 600 transactions this year. John dives deep into the systems and strategies that fuel his success, including his heavy reliance on Google Ads for lead generation, his implementation of the “Money Time” framework for buyer lead accountability, and his innovative squad leader structure that scales mentorship across his growing team.
Chapters:
- (00:00:00) Introduction
- (00:03:00) Lead Generation Strategy: Why Google Ads Over Facebook
- (00:06:00) The Money Time System: Accountability for Lead Follow-Up
- (00:10:00) The Squad Leader Framework: Scaling Mentorship
- (00:12:00) Growing to 600+ Transactions While Maintaining Quality
- (00:13:00) Hiring Kylie: Finding the Right Sales Manager
- (00:15:00) Training New Agents: Bootcamp + Reside Platform Integration
- (00:19:00) Personal Habits and Work-Life Balance with a Young Child
- (00:21:00) Common Mistakes Team Leaders Make
- (00:23:00) Advice for Team Leaders: Forecasting Growth and Profitability
- (00:25:00) Team Leader Split Philosophy: Everyone Pays the Same
Links and Resources:
- Move Team (MUVE Team)
- John Rota on Facebook
- Reside Platform
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Episode breakdown: the lead and accountability system behind 600 transactions
John Rota closed six deals in his first year in real estate, and he wasn’t full-time yet. He started his team in Edmonton in April 2017, about two years after getting licensed. At recording the team had 48 agents and had already passed 548 closings for the year, ahead of the 568 it closed the year before. John expected to land around 625. The conversation covers how his team gets leads, decides who gets them and keeps that many agents accountable.
Buy buyer leads, build seller leads in-house
Nearly all of the team’s online business comes from Google Ads, plus some SEO. John tried running his own buyer ads, including on Facebook, and found the leads were lower quality. Now he lets Sierra and YPO run buyer pay-per-click, and he says cost per lead on the buyer side sits around the low $8 range, sometimes into the low $9s.
Seller ads stay in-house because the team has its own value proposition and the vendors have nothing built for it. That traffic brings in sellers who aren’t repeat or referral business. John estimates the team runs about 50/50 buyers and sellers, maybe 55/45 toward buyers because newer agents lean that way. Handing off buyer ads frees him to focus on conversion.
Getting a lead is one thing, but actually working the lead is totally different.
John Rota
Make agents earn lead flow every month
John adapted the Money Time system from Chris Snow and made it stricter. Chris lets agents pick their own slots. John sets the schedule at the start of each month, and only agents who qualified based on the prior month’s activity are on it. Qualified agents come into the office for call sessions on buyer leads three times a day. Two agents are on Money Time at any given moment, working through leads from the last seven days first, then the last 30.
Qualification runs on the Follow Up Boss scoring system. The team raised the bar over time from 4,000 points to 6,000 and now 8,000 in a month, with appointments taken out of the score because John didn’t see value in pushing agents on that field. Agents who qualify choose a full rotation, a half rotation or to opt out. Of 48 agents, about 24 or 25 were eligible for buyer leads that month. Seller leads open up at level three of the team’s five agent levels, and nine agents were eligible.
Scale mentorship with squads of five to seven
John manages five to seven squad leaders, and each squad leader manages five to seven agents. A squad leader is a direct report, mentor and accountability coach. If a level one or two agent gets a listing lead, they usually bring their squad leader, a level four or five agent, to the appointment. The newer agent still works the lead but has help through it.
Accountability groups had faded as the team grew, because John was running two sets himself. Five to seven people turned out to be the right size for a group, so the squad model brought them back. Squad leaders now host their own meetings every second Tuesday morning. John runs one more for agents who aren’t on a squad, and they can opt in each quarter after the team’s quarterly go-to-the-board meeting.
Put new agents on the phone in week one
The team runs ten onboarding dates a year, timed to the Reside bootcamp. Training lasts six weeks, with most of it in the first two. The marketing person spends a day with new hires, John covers accountability and what the job really looks like, and sales manager Kylie handles systems and Follow Up Boss.
New agents start calling the first week. Any lead in the system more than 30 days drops into a pond John says holds around 60,000 contacts. The target is 50 dials a day in week one, then 100 a day for the next four weeks. Agents who keep up are eligible for lead flow by the following month. Agents who don’t make the calls get a direct conversation, usually with Kylie.
Hand off hiring and forecast the next cost jump
Kylie also does most of the outbound recruiting, and John was challenged to take himself out of the hiring decision completely. He found his own 30-minute read on candidates didn’t predict who would make it. He hired her through Indeed partly because her background included recruiting for modeling agencies, and he has invested in her development since.
His biggest warning is about profit. Costs stay lean early, then jump with each new layer of admin, systems and leads. At 15 agents John had one assistant plus part-time help. At 18 or 19 he needed another full-time person, and the extra agents didn’t cover it. He realized he needed 26 agents to support the overhead of 19. He also stopped using his own deals to prop up the team’s numbers.
So just ’cause you get a bit bigger doesn’t mean you’re more profitable.
John Rota
On leadership, John says many team leaders put themselves ahead of their agents and expect to collect checks while away. He still takes a showing for an agent when he has the time.
But I think where they make mistakes is they think that it’s them first and not agent first.
John Rota
Key takeaways for team leaders
- Outsource the ad channels a specialist runs well, and keep the ones tied to your own value proposition.
- Tie lead eligibility to last month’s activity, using a score your CRM already tracks.
- Keep accountability groups to five to seven people, and let squad leaders run them.
- Get new agents dialing in week one, with a daily number that ramps from 50 to 100.
- Take yourself out of decisions a trained manager can make better.
- Forecast the agent count you need to cover the next hire before you make it.
