December 4, 2025Geoff Cavender went from being a top RE/MAX agent doing $46 million with just 6 agents to building a 25-person powerhouse team in Warsaw, Indiana in under 3 years. In this episode, Geoff breaks down his aggressive growth strategy, including how he uses Indeed scholarship ads to recruit brand new agents, why he prefers Google leads over expensive Zillow premier connections, and the exact moment he sold a $3 million home to a Google lead that turned into a $10+ million relationship. He also gets candid about the real challenges of scaling—like losing $50,000 in a single month, managing culture as the team exploded from 3 to 25 agents, and why he still prospects alongside his newest team members every morning. Geoff shares his philosophy on elevating who you surround yourself with, the importance of being “100% where you’re at,” and why joining a team (preferably one with Zillow Flex) is the fastest path for new agents. This is a masterclass in building, leading, and scaling a modern real estate team.
Chapters:
- (00:00:00) – Rise Training & Converting Google Leads
- (00:01:00) – Building the Team: From RE/MAX to EXP
- (00:03:00) – The Challenges of Scaling & Staying Profitable
- (00:05:00) – Recruiting Brand New Agents with Indeed Scholarships
- (00:08:00) – Google Leads vs Zillow: The $6 Lead Strategy
- (00:11:00) – The NFL Owner Google Lead Story
- (00:13:00) – $3M to $7M: Selling the Same Property 6 Times
- (00:15:00) – Growing Too Fast: Maintaining Team Culture
- (00:18:00) – Group Texts & Accountability Systems
- (00:20:00) – Scaling Without Losing Culture
- (00:23:00) – Staying Grounded: Faith, Family & Being 100% Present
- (00:25:00) – Advice for Agents: Join a Team First
Episode breakdown: turning $6 Google leads into luxury deals
Geoff Cavender leads The Cavender Group in Warsaw, Indiana. He ran a six-agent team at RE/MAX that did $46 million in sales, then left with two other agents to build something bigger. Two and a half years later the team has 25 agents and an expansion office. In this episode he explains how he recruits brand new agents, why he trains them before they touch inexpensive Google leads, and what he does when a fast-growing team starts to lose its connection.
Recruit brand new agents with a scholarship ad
Geoff likes recruiting people who are new to the business. They absorb training, follow the culture and don’t arrive with bad habits. He runs the Indeed scholarship approach Reside co-founder Nick McLean teaches, word for word. The ad lays out what an agent can make and what the team offers, and it mentions that the team is a Zillow Flex team.
Applicants get an instant message with a link to a private pre-licensing portal he set up with the CE Shop, which gives them a discount. They are enrolled before they ever speak with him, and because the portal is his own, other managing brokers in the county aren’t notified. Setup took some effort, including a brand new Indeed account. Once it ran, he had about 200 applicants in a month and had to pause it.
Train agents before you hand them cheap leads
The team was all Zillow until it added Google leads through Reside. Many agents dismiss Google leads as top of funnel. Geoff’s view is that agents struggle with them because they don’t know how to handle them. Every new agent goes through Rise, Reside’s six-week program on calling and nurturing leads, taught by Mia Yamashita. His agents don’t convert Google leads as well as Zillow leads, and he says they don’t need to.
When you’re paying $6 a lead to $400 a lead, that conversion doesn’t have to be as high.
Geoff Cavender
Work the lead nobody else called
One Google lead sat in the team’s pond until Geoff saw the notification on his phone. He recognized the name as the owner of an NFL franchise and almost wrote it off as a scam. Then he recognized the address. He tracks every local listing above $5 million, so the inquiry made sense. He pulled the lead from the pond and called for three days, using an off-market listing to get a call back. The buyer closed on one of his listings that wasn’t on the market yet, and Geoff then helped him into a $7 million home. From first inquiry to meeting took less than 10 days.
Another Google lead was about to leave on vacation and wanted to see a home. Geoff showed him a $3 million property that wasn’t listed yet, and he bought it. About six months later a $7 million home came up on the lake, and he bought that too, then had two more lake houses for Geoff to sell.
Tie leads to conversations and prospect beside your agents
The team tracks conversations in Follow Up Boss. If an agent isn’t hitting the required number of conversations, they don’t get leads. Geoff says he tried to avoid that rule but found he had to have it.
He also joins morning prospecting. He isn’t calling leads himself, since he is recruiting, but he stays in the room with the agents. Afterward he coaches with questions about why a lead didn’t convert or why a deal fell apart. When newer agents ask how he makes calls so easily, he tells them he has done it for eight years straight.
Don’t compare your chapter 1 or two to my chapter 50.
Geoff Cavender
Keep questions public and go after the agents who drift
Growing from three agents to 25 in about two years created a gap between the original agents and newer ones. Not everyone knows each other, and the buy-in that came with a small team faded. Geoff’s response has three parts. He gives his top 20% more leadership, including accountability groups, agents who report to them and trainings they run in meetings. He shares the team’s numbers, including the P&L, keeps Follow Up Boss scores and listing counts visible, and celebrates first deals and milestones.
He also pushes deal questions into the team group text instead of private calls to him, because other agents probably have the same issue and the agents who answer learn by doing it. When someone goes quiet in the group chats, he books lunch with them in person. He doesn’t expect a struggling agent to come to him before leaving.
There’s so many more people can win when it’s at a public forum like that.
Geoff Cavender
Key takeaways for team leaders
- A scholarship-style Indeed ad with a private pre-licensing portal can bring in brand new agents before competitors know they exist.
- Put new agents through structured lead training before giving them low-cost Google leads.
- Judge a lead source on cost per lead, not only conversion rate.
- Make lead distribution depend on tracked conversations.
- Sit in on morning prospecting, then coach with questions about what happened.
- Route questions to the group chat, and reach out in person to agents who go quiet.
Links and Resources:
- Team Leader Secrets by Suneet Agarwal
- Website
- Geoff Cavender on LinkedIn
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