Million Dollar Team Principle #12: Remove All Unnecessary Steps
If you want to build a million-dollar real estate team, stop thinking like a salesperson and start thinking like a systems engineer.
The best leaders in business—from Andy Grove (INTEL) to Jack Welch (GE)—understood one timeless principle: success is not just about doing more. It’s about removing everything that doesn’t move the needle.
As a team leader, your true title is Chief Removal Officer. Your job is to constantly seek out wasted energy and remove it.
Start in Your Office
Here’s a small but telling example:
If your staff has to walk across the office to scan a document, you’re losing productivity. Place a scanner at their desk.
Ask them to log into their computer while you watch.
- Is it taking too long? Get them a faster computer.
- Are there 15 tabs open that they don’t use? Remove them.
- Are they toggling between windows because their monitor is too small? Upgrade to dual monitors.
Have your agents bring their computers into the office and do the same thing. Have them log into the CRM in front of you. You will find their equipment is bad and outdated.
These seem like minor things, but compound them over time and across your team, and you’re talking hours of wasted energy per week, thousands of dollars in lost productivity.
Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel and author of High Output Management, said:
“Just as you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of office equipment, you shouldn’t let anyone waste your time.”
Apply that principle. Every wasted motion, click, or delay is theft from your goals, from your team’s performance, and from your bottom line.
Look at Your Agents
You want your agents to follow up faster?
Ask for a photo of their home office setup. Odds are, the agents with real, dedicated home offices sell more homes. Why? Because there are fewer barriers between them and the lead.
Leads don’t fall through the cracks because of poor motivation—they fall through because it’s hard to respond.
Occam’s Razor teaches us that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. If your agents aren’t calling leads, it’s because the process isn’t frictionless. Simplify it. Remove every barrier.
UPS Doesn’t Turn Left
UPS is famous for routing deliveries with no left turns—because left turns take longer, create more risk, and cost more fuel. That’s a multi-billion-dollar company removing unnecessary steps for tiny gains that scale.
Why aren’t we doing the same?
Here’s a golden rule:
“The best follow-up is the one that doesn’t require follow-up.” – Nick McLean
If you show a buyer one home, you’ve now committed to at least two more follow-up calls. Show them four at once and you’re done. One showing, one conversation, higher conversion.
Lean manufacturing calls this batching, and it’s one of the most powerful tools to reduce waste.
Remove Set-Up Costs
Every time you switch tasks, make a new call, or shift gears, there’s a setup cost.
In manufacturing, this is the time and expense to stop and start a new machine run. In real estate, it’s the emotional and mental load to gear up for the call.
Want to make your follow-up 10x more efficient?
- Don’t call one lead.
- Call five.
- Block 30 minutes and knock them all out.
The first one takes energy. The second is easier. By the third, you’re in flow. By the fifth, you’re closing.
That’s how you scale.
Jack Welch put it simply:
“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
Learning doesn’t mean piling on more.
It means refining. Sharpening. Removing.
What remains is simple, elegant, powerful action.
CANI Means Subtraction
We often think of CANI (Constant And Neverending Improvement) as addition—more tools, more tech, more features.
But true mastery is subtraction.
Every week, remove a bottleneck.
Every month, shave minutes off a task.
Over time, the compound effect is monumental.
Action Steps for Leaders:
- Ask each team member: What step in your day is wasting time? Then eliminate it.
- Review your agent tech stack and workflow—streamline it to make calling leads effortless.
- Train your agents to batch showings, calls, and tasks to reduce setup cost.
- Challenge your team to upgrade their environment—dual monitors, fast login, quiet spaces.
You don’t need more tools.
You need less friction.
Million dollar teams don’t get there by adding complexity—they win by removing everything that slows them down.
Nick McLean
The Reside Platform. Where leaders go to build teams.
