In December 2023, John Rota already ran a good team. The Muve Team in Edmonton had 20 agents and closed 314 transactions that year, but he wanted to build one of the top real estate organizations in Canada.
Two years later the team had 70 agents and 701 transactions, and it ranked as the #2 eXp team in Canada. How he got there is less flashy than most growth stories, and more useful. He didn’t find a new lead source or a clever hack. He picked three activities and did them every day.
When growth costs more than it pays
John started his team in April 2017, after only six deals in his first year as an agent. He has said he fell into team leadership. A friend on his rugby team needed a new place to land, John had a few extra leads, and the team began. What he didn’t know yet was what agents need once they join.
He learned that agents needed accountability, training, mentoring and constant touch points. He also learned the hard way that headcount and profit are different things. At 15 agents he had one assistant and some part-time admin help. At 18 or 19 he needed another full-time person, plus more systems and more leads, and the extra agents didn’t cover the extra cost.
So just ’cause you get a bit bigger doesn’t mean you’re more profitable.
John Rota
His math showed that to carry a 19-agent cost structure, he really needed 26 agents, and he found that pressure point arriving almost every 15 agents. So the goal wasn’t just to add people. It was to add them steadily enough that the business stayed ahead of its own overhead.
Three hours, every day
When John joined Reside, he committed to a simple leadership formula.
- One hour prospecting with his agents.
- One hour recruiting.
- One hour inspecting the database.
Most team leaders know these three things matter. Few do all three daily for years, and John did. Each hour fed a system on the team.
Prospecting on a set call schedule tied to lead eligibility
John took the Money Time system that Chris Snow developed and made it stricter. Instead of letting agents pick their own slots, he sets a schedule at the start of each month. Agents who qualify for leads have to be in the office for buyer call sessions three times a day. At any moment, two agents are calling the newest leads from the last seven days, then the last 30 days once that list is done.
Agents earn lead eligibility. The team uses the Follow Up Boss scoring system, and John raised the monthly bar over time from 4,000 points to 6,000 and then to 8,000. He takes appointments out of the score so agents get credit for the activities that convert leads. Agents who hit the number can opt into a full or half rotation for the next month.
Accountability through levels and squads
The team runs on five agent levels. Agents become eligible for seller leads at level three. When a level one or two agent gets a seller, they bring their squad leader, a level four or five agent, to the listing appointment.
The squads solved a problem John hit as the team grew. He used to run accountability groups himself, and when the team got bigger they fell by the wayside. Now he manages five to seven squad leaders, and each one manages five to seven agents. Squad leaders act as mentor and accountability coach and host their own accountability meeting every second Tuesday morning. Agents outside a squad can join John’s own group, which he calls the Nomads Squad, on a quarterly opt-in.
Recruiting with one owner and one onboarding rhythm
The daily recruiting hour added 50 agents to the team, and a big part of making it work was getting himself out of the hiring decision. His sales manager, Kylie, runs most of the outbound recruiting. For a while John met every candidate himself to judge whether they’d make it, and his calls were often wrong in both directions.
I was challenged to take myself off of something and fully leave it to somebody and I fully have left her with the decision making of who we bring on.
John Rota
He hired Kylie partly because of her background recruiting for model agencies, and he has invested heavily in her development since. New agents start on one of 10 onboarding dates a year, timed to the Reside bootcamp that Mia hosts. Onboarding runs six weeks, with most of it in the first two.
New agents get on the phone in week one. Leads older than 30 days drop into a shared pool, and new agents call it at 50 dials a day in the first week, then 100 a day for the next four weeks. If they last through that, they become eligible for lead flow the following month. If they won’t make the calls, the team can tell right away, and Kylie usually has that conversation.
Inspecting the database to keep a big team tight
The third hour is the least visible. John reviews the database daily so leads get followed up, opportunities get tracked and standards hold. As the team more than tripled in size, that daily look is what kept the operation from getting loose. He has said his most focused systems work often happens late at night, when the phone is quiet.
Steady growth, not a spike
- 2023: 20 agents, 314 transactions.
- 2024: 40 agents, 568 transactions.
- 2025: 70 agents, 701 transactions.
That’s 50 agents and 387 annual transactions added, plus a ranking as the #2 eXp team in Canada. None of it came from a single breakthrough. Each year built on the last because the daily inputs never stopped.
John is direct about what he thinks holds other team leaders back. Too many treat a team as a way to collect checks from agents. His advice is the opposite.
Put their people first and be willing to sacrifice and help their people when they need it.
John Rota
He’ll still cover a showing when an agent is out of town, and he still prospects alongside them. It’s the same idea as the three hours. The leader models the behavior instead of managing it from a distance.
What other team leaders can take from it
- Pick a short list of leader activities and do them daily. The list matters less than the consistency.
- Tie lead access to measured activity, and raise the bar as the team improves.
- Once you outgrow running accountability yourself, push it down to squad leaders with small groups.
- Give recruiting decisions to a trained owner, and put new agents on the phones in week one.
- Forecast cost at each headcount step so growth adds profit, not just people.
The full numbers are in John Rota’s case study. For more on his lead routing, squads and onboarding in his own words, listen to John’s episode of the Reside Platform podcast.
Reside works with team leaders on building this kind of daily operating rhythm.
