How to Build a Brokerage That Grows Without Burning You Out with Jennifer Gale

Q: Why does my team fall apart the second I step away?

A: If your team runs great while you’re in the room but falls apart the moment you leave, don’t start by looking for a new hire. Imagine blocking two weeks off your calendar — if your honest answer is that everything falls apart by Wednesday, you don’t have a hiring problem. You have a systems problem wearing a people costume. The goal of the system isn’t doing less; it’s finally doing only the parts that only you can do. You didn’t get into this business to become the busiest, most exhausted person on your own team.

Q: Should my next hire be another agent or an operations person?

A: One of the biggest growth killers is hiring another agent to fix what is really an operations problem. It sounds like “we need somebody else to work the database,” “we have so many leads and nobody’s working them,” or “I need another agent because this one dropped the ball.” Before you post the job, ask whether you have a process in place so that agent doesn’t drop the ball in the first place. Get the diagnosis right before you hire — whether you’re a growing team or a solo agent thinking about adding showing help.

Q: How do I figure out what I should stop doing?

A: Block two weeks on your calendar and set a kitchen timer to ring every 30 minutes. Each time it rings, write down what you actually just did. Nobody ever makes it the full two weeks, and that’s the point — the exercise shows you what really fills your days, what fuels you, and what should be built into someone else’s role. Expect to realize you’re worth $200 an hour doing $20-an-hour administrative tasks, then build the new role around what you don’t want to do anymore. Even a few days of tracking teaches you a lot, and if you keep saying “I need to recruit” every week, it will show you exactly where your time is actually going.

Q: Is it really a big deal if I keep doing the small five-minute tasks myself?

A: It feels harmless because it’s just five minutes, one moment, one second. But it adds up: if you’re still doing a five-minute task on every transaction instead of handing it to a transaction coordinator, imagine having 40 transactions. That’s time you could spend on the things only you can do, like recruiting. Track what you’re actually working on for a couple of weeks and you’ll see whether you’re pouring energy into activities that move the needle or busy work somebody else could more than handle. That’s how leaders become their own bottleneck without realizing it.

Q: How do I test whether someone will actually take work off my plate?

A: The visionary takes an idea from a one to a two — that’s the vision. Your force multiplier takes it from there to an eight and executes it without putting the work back on your plate. Test it with something simple like “go clean up our database” and watch what happens. If they take it and run — clearing out unchecked smart lists and old to-dos along the way — you’ve found someone who executes. If it keeps coming back to you, you have your answer: ask yourself honestly whether you have somebody putting work back on your plate or truly taking it off.

Q: Why do I keep holding onto tasks I know I should hand off?

A: A lot of the time it’s fear, and you have to get honest about why. Do you need to feel needed or feel important — is it your ego? “I’ll just answer that myself” is ego talking. You have to grow by letting go — you can’t create opportunity for anyone else or scale the business while you’re holding everything. Letting go also creates opportunity for you: a transaction coordinator who steps into a director-of-operations role frees up their old seat and moves into work with more impact, and might even like it better. The harder question: are you willing to let clients have a bad experience because you’re too afraid to make the hire and let something go?

Q: How can my CRM tell me if agents are slipping before it becomes a problem?

A: Connect an AI tool like Claude to your CRM — it connects to Follow Up Boss and can pull your data, surface history and patterns, and answer prompts like “who do I need to have conversations with this week?” Watch for an agent who hits their standard every week and then goes three weeks completely off their normal numbers; something is going on, even if they haven’t come to you. The numbers are the numbers — they don’t lie — and reaching out shows your agents you’re paying attention. In Follow Up Boss, the agent activity report is the favorite tool: appointments set, leads not acted on, average speed to lead. Compare dials to real two-minute conversations to appointments set and met, and you’ll see whether you have a lead generation problem or a lead conversion problem. If you can see all of this but have no time to act on it, that’s your sign to hire operations help.

Q: How do I build recruiting lists without paying for a tool?

A: Paid tools like Broker Metrics and Cordit let you filter by criteria such as year-to-date volume or years in the business to find your ideal avatar, and they flag who’s possibly ready to make a move — warmer recruiting leads. If you’d rather not pay, mine the realtor Facebook and social media pages in your area, host events agents actually want to attend, and pull agent lists from your MLS. Your transaction coordinator can help too — have them flag co-broke agents you enjoyed working with, then invite that person for coffee. Come from contribution and be authentic; agents are always being recruited, so they know the game, and people want to work with someone who does what they said they would do. And post “Now hiring great agents” on Indeed or Facebook — even a free post will get applicants.

Q: Should my first ops hire be a virtual assistant or a stateside ops specialist?

A: A virtual assistant, typically overseas at around $800 a month, is more task-oriented but can be client-facing if you set the right expectations. An ops specialist or manager, stateside at around $3,200 a month depending on your market, owns outcomes and will likely lead your virtual assistants. Weigh that against the cost of one dropped file, or one agent quitting because they drowned in the administrative work you promised to take off their plate. The real question: are you willing to let clients have a bad experience because you’re too afraid to make this hire?

Q: How do I stop tasks from being duplicated or dropped?

A: Build on three pillars: people, process, and performance. If you’re missing any one of them, the other two won’t hold. Use a RACI chart — who’s responsible, who’s accountable, who’s consulted, and who just needs to be informed. The rule is that every task has exactly one person responsible and one person accountable: zero means it’s a free-for-all and nothing gets done, and more than one means duplicated work and wasted time. For example, one person is responsible for creating a piece of content, their leader is accountable for the deadline, they consult the founder for the go-ahead, and they inform the rest of the team. Assign ownership to every process, because if nobody owns it, it’s not getting done.

Lauren: [00:00:00] you didn’t get into this business to become the busiest, most exhausted person on your own team.

Lauren: The, the system is not about doing less, it’s about finally doing only the parts that you can do. Okay. So here’s a question that I ask every team leader before I ever talk hiring. Block two weeks on your calendar right now in your head. Don’t tell your team. Just imagine that. And if your honest answer is everything falls apart by Wednesday, you do not have a hiring problem. You have a systems problem wearing a people costume, and today we’re gonna take that apart.

Lauren: So welcome back to the Reside Platform Podcast. I am Lauren Holland. 

Brooke: And I am Brooke Leakey. And we are back with you today. We are actually– I’m gonna be, pulling some great strategies and some just great information from [00:01:00] one of Lauren’s most recent live trainings over stop hiring agents, hire ops first.

Lauren: So if you have a team that runs great, you know, when you’re in the room, and then falls apart the second that you’re not, this episode’s gonna be for you. So we’re gonna break down the five ops mistakes, that almost every growing team makes, or even if you’re a solo practice growth, and you’re looking to hire, just some showing agents or some operations, this is gonna be why your next hire probably should not be another agent quite yet, and the actual system of the people, the process, and the performance that gets you out of that bottleneck.

Brooke: I am so excited. Let’s get into it. 

Lauren: Okay. Okay. So I have some notes today because I really wanna make sure that we are on topic. and so today we’re gonna talk about, the five quiet mistakes. So, you know, the, the two that are gonna kill you quietly, we don’t have ownership over the handoff.

Lauren: And, then the I’ll just answer that myself, the small leak that’s gonna add up. [00:02:00] So, Brooke, you and I have been in operations the last 10 plus years. You’ve been an agent actively working. tell me more about the pain points, you know, of, Somebody that’s holding onto something and won’t let go 

Brooke: Absolutely.

Brooke: And this, I think you have to be careful because you can see, okay, I can handle this myself. It’s five minutes, it’s one moment. It’ll take me one second. But that adds up. Like, for example, if you’re still doing like a five-minute task for a transaction and you’re not giving it to a transaction coordinator and you’re like, “No, it just takes me five minutes.”

Brooke: Okay, imagine if you have 40 transactions, you can’t– it, that adds up. so it’s costing you time that you can be better leveraging other places like, you know, for our leaders, if you’re needing to recruit and you keep saying every single week, “I need to recruit,” look at where your time’s spent.

Brooke: Like you just mentioned at the beginning, track what your activity is and what you’re working on for a couple of weeks and just make note of that, and you will find [00:03:00] what that true story is, is am I really pouring in my time and energy into things that are actually going to move the needle in the ways that I need it to, or am I being slowed down with busy work that somebody else can more than handle?

Brooke: so that’s really creating that, that pain of like, it’s, you’re becoming a bottleneck for yourself, and you don’t even realize it sometimes 

Lauren: We get in our own way constantly, and I think that is, in business, personally, we are almost always the stop gate into when something is happening, right?

Lauren: in terms of we wanna be able to do it all, but are we the best person to be doing it all? 

Brooke: Absolutely. I always tell the story about you, Lauren, and I think you mentioned it on a, on a podcast previously about how you were like, every role I’ve gone into or moved up into, you’ve…

Brooke: You have taken that because you looked at the role you were currently in and being like, “Am I the best person for this role anymore?” And you have to be honest with yourself of like, [00:04:00] maybe not. maybe I’m… My skill set is here, or maybe not your skill set, but like more that growth of where you’re leaning in towards and really where you can make the biggest impact is taking you somewhere else, and that’s okay.

Brooke: And I think I see this a lot with operations specifically too. If they’re moving role within their, their operations team, maybe they’re going from like a TC to a director of operations or something along those lines, there’s a lot of fear that happens with that change and feeling like, “I’m not in control over this anymore,” and feeling like, you know, this, this concern of it might being, “Am I not the best person for this?”

Brooke: In, in a scary way, right? Like, am I not enough for this role? And that’s simply not the case. It’s just looking at, okay, where does, as the team as a whole, where do we need to go and where do we wanna go? And then who, h- how are we doing that? Like who’s owning what pieces of it? If that all makes sense. 

Lauren: Yeah, it does.

Lauren: And we can really get into the breakdown of where to start. So like if you’re a team leader [00:05:00] that is listening to this right now, and you might have a couple of agents and you’re like, “No one’s listening to me. I am trying to hold them accountable, but I want this more than them,” I’d say that’s the number one objective that we always hear.

Lauren: Embro, what is the answer to that? 

Brooke: Oh my gosh 

Lauren: It’s an easy one.

Brooke: yeah, exactly. You’re just wanting to keep growing and keeping your eye on the prize really, and it’s really that growth. And if it’s not the growth for you, I know there’s teams where they say, “Okay, I wanna, I’m good at 10 agents. I’m good at 20 agents,” whatever it might be. You still need to contin- like consistently have that pipeline.

Brooke: So even if you’re like, “I’m fine with 10 agents,” okay, well what happens if two of those agents decide to up and leave one day, or one agent decides to retire, or something happens? Like, you still have to all of a sudden go down from 10 to five very quickly, sometimes overnight. I’ve seen it happen within an instant.

Brooke: So, I’ve seen it go down from [00:06:00] 15 to zero so, like you have to consistently, be growing in that way and keeping your agent pipeline still, up, up to speed. 

Lauren: And here’s the thing. We hear John Cheplak talk about this a lot. People are with you for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. And I think it’s really important because I just said, “Hey, recruit,” and this podcast is about stop hiring agents.

Lauren: So it goes hand in hand, and we’re gonna tell you why. You can recruit because KFR, keep freaking recruiting. Recruiting’s gonna solve all of your problems, especially if you’re somebody that wants to be a leader, wants to grow your team. We’re gonna be talking about mindset, like how to stop getting in your own way, and this is how.

Lauren: Stop doing the job, right? You need to… You’re the one that does best leading people or,coaching them in scripting and objection handling and building their pipelines and just you’re… The energy is contagious, so when you are up there, during your morning standups, your huddles, whatever you call them, you’re in office or you’re on a Zoom, everybody has a square, [00:07:00] and you’re all calling together on mute, your energy’s contagious.

Lauren: So no one, your ops person can’t show up like you can to that, but you can’t do that if you are,you know, building out all the systems in the back end. And it might be something that you love, but are you the best person to be doing that job? so for my team leaders out there, even my solo practicing agents, I just said KFR, and I’m also saying stop hiring agents because we need to get the diagnosis right first.

Lauren: And an exercise that Sunny Aggarwal has a lot of our people do, whether you’re somebody that is the face of the business and wants to stay that way because you love helping your people, or you’re somebody that’s like, “Hey, I wanna step out,” let’s get really clear with your calendar. And so in the beginning of this I was saying, “Hey, block out two weeks.”

Lauren: No one ever achieves the two weeks, by the way. And have a kitchen timer and have it ring every 30 minutes. What did you actually just do with that time? I think it’s really important we get clear first of how we’re getting in our own way, what are the [00:08:00] actual activities that we’re doing, what really fuels us and gives us energy, and then we build out that job role by what you do not want to be doing anymore or shouldn’t be doing 

Brooke: Or keep throwing to the side.

Brooke: Like again, maybe like you mentioned, Lauren, maybe you love making the processes, but do you find yourself creating half a process and then being like, “Oh, I got so many other things to do. I’ll get back to this eventually. I’ll get back to this eventually.” And then it’s been months and you never really st- have that process finalized.

Brooke: So, yeah, that’s a great point and is… that’s where you start being able to w- decide what do I wanna leverage. 

Lauren: Yeah. And,I remember, so Hallie Warner, we used to work with her, a few years ago, and something that’s always stuck with me is, she would talk about how her and her founder, so like s- your CEO, if we’re ta- talking about founder and force multiplier here, the visionary, so like team leader, right?

Lauren: Visionary has this idea and says, “Okay, let’s push it forward. Let’s call that a project.” All right. [00:09:00] You’re gonna take that from the ideas on a scale of 10, one to 10, from a one to a two is the vision, and then you’re gonna take that and execute on it and bring it to an eight and not put that work back on your leaders.

Lauren: So that’s really what, for my team leaders listening, i- do you have somebody in place that’s putting the work back onto your plate or truly taking it off of your plate? And that’s what it looks like, and there can be some tests here of, okay, I’m gonna hand you go clean up our database. Just a really simple thing.

Lauren: That’s the vision, right? Okay. What does that look like? You go figure that out now. and that’s actually a really good analysis because you’re building your pipeline and there’s probably a lot of, you know, smart lists that haven’t been checked, to-dos that are out. So like, that’s the accountability measure as well.

Lauren: What are you, Brooke? 

Brooke: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, a- another piece, I know we’re, we’re probably getting to this next, but as far as the other kind of mistakes here, not having that… Being able to track those results. Let’s say you [00:10:00] are noticing the awareness of, okay, this hasn’t been followed up on or this, or we’re missing this piece, where it can really, the ball can be dropped.

Brooke: There’s a difference between awareness and actually implementation or like execution on, on the underneath it really to make sure that it is actually, you are doing something about it. So it’s one thing to notice, okay, this is what’s happening, but what’s the plan from there that you’re going to execute to get that up to speed of where it needs to be?

Brooke: And then how do you keep that moving forward? And again, if you’re listening to this as a team leader, and you’re, or a solo agent and you’re like, I’m, I don’t have that time, that’s a great indicator that it, you might need to hire that operations help. 

Lauren: We’ll come back to that, but you had a really great point and I wish I held onto it.

Lauren: so far we have talked about, who’s your next hire? Okay. Do you have the right structure in place? Like, where are you at? And it’s either you’re starting a team brand new, you’re an existing team looking to possibly burn it all down and [00:11:00] restructure, or things are working really well and you just wanna continue to develop your people.

Lauren: You have that right hire, but you’re ready to take the next step. You’re from, going from 20 million and you’re trying to go to 50 million, right? Those operations are going to look very different from if you’re running seven deals to 17, from 20 to 50. Those are all different ceilings, and it’s doable, but the, where you’re going, we always need to be 10 steps ahead of, okay, do my systems actually support where we’re trying to grow and scale?

Brooke: Yes. And documenting that is huge. Documenting the processes and everything behind that. It’s a big, it’s one of the, the quiet mistakes you had mentioned in your, in your webinar is like, you can say, “Here’s what we’re doing,” but if it lives in your head only, the translation’s gonna get lost somewhere.

Brooke: Especially if you are that busy person that is doing their own production still, and you’re trying to, you’re doing your own transaction management, you’re trying to recruit, you’re trying to do all the things. We know that just li- living in your head, it’s not going to [00:12:00] get communicated in the right way,or correctly or effectively.

Brooke: So once you have that, even if it’s just, even it’s just a brain dump, like just notes that you just put on a piece of paper, that’s fine. You can easily throw it into AI, have it clean it up, actually create a process for you. but again, that’s the, the key is, like, documenting it, writing it down, having that system in place.

Lauren: Yeah. Well, and you, like, human error, I talk about this a lot. Like, I just had two brain plops and whatnot in, the matter of 13 minutes, and it’s because we’re carrying so much and it’s like- That’s why I say follow your dang checklist, because if you’re carrying 70 plus files right now and have muscle memory, you’re not going to remember, hey, did I call that client two days ago?

Lauren: What did they say? hey, did I follow up with that lender? Did we get the clear to close? Like, and team leaders, you shouldn’t be the ones doing that anyways. So I think it’s just making our dang checklist and what are we holding onto and why? Getting really clear with ourselves [00:13:00] on what is holding us back.

Lauren: And a lot of the time it’s a fear, and it could be something deeply rooted in whatever reason, but we really need to, get down to that analysis of why am I holding onto this? Is it because I need to feel needed? Do I need to feel important? Do I need to look X, Y, Z? Is it my ego? And a lot of us don’t really talk about this, right?

Lauren: and so the, like, grow by letting go. We have to truly let go of something to be able to, create other opportunities for somebody else and grow and scale the freaking business, right? 

Brooke: Absolutely. And yeah, and creating out more opportunity for yourself as well. It’s like, like take my example from earlier, like let’s say you’re a transaction coordinator and you’re wanting to move into, there, you know, your, your team’s going a different direction.

Brooke: You’re now needed more as an overall director of operations, or maybe you’re needed as in a certain different area. you’re not only creating that opportunity for somebody else to come in and, and take that role for you and, and run with it, but you’re also, you’re moving forward [00:14:00] into where you’re needed even more and where you have more impact and you can now create something exciting and that would just lead down another avenue, another avenue.

Brooke: Like as the growth’s coming, you’re going to continue to see those different opportunities for where you can step in and you might even like it a lot better. You might even find like that’s a, this is a better fit for me actually. 

Lauren: Well, and you just said impact. It’s ROI, return on impact, right? okay, so the five quiet mistakes that we’ve talked about.

Lauren: So the two that kill you quietly, it’s no one owns the process and it just goes into the space. or I’ll just answer that myself because I’m the best person. That is your ego, y’all. We gotta strip that back a little bit. and then we have the three growth killers. So, the three growth killers are, hiring another agent to fix an operations problem And that means, you know, we need somebody else to work the database.

Lauren: we have so many leads, no one’s working them. Or I need another agent because this one dropped the ball. All right. Do we have a process in place so that this agent does not drop the ball? we, and then that goes into the [00:15:00] no documented process. if you are still writing your own SOPs, no judgment, maybe someone else can write those for you.

Lauren: You know, just do a brain dump, as Brooke was saying, into AI, into Claude, and then have that person go run it and make an SOP, and then actually assign ownership to it. Because if you don’t assign ownership to something, it’s not getting done. And it sounds so simple, but, like, we have to speak these things out loud because it’s not getting done.

Lauren: and then we have, performance tracked with no process underneath it. Brooke, what does that look like to you? Like, if we’re thinking of actual ROI, return on investment, return on impact What are the money-making activities that you think that, a team leader can hand off to an operations person?

Brooke: Yeah. So as far as, like, when I think about, like, performance tracking that, like, they can be handing off would be, transactions, listings, the financials, the, you know, the sources of what’s bringing you the, the biggest ROI. those activities. Like my, my brain, I… Guys, you, if [00:16:00] you know me, I’m, I always think in like Follow Up Boss terms or like CRM terms.

Brooke: so that comes to mind immediately, like w- when I hear, you know, performance tracking with no process underneath it. Like everybody, if you go into any s- regardless of what CRM you have, you can go in there and see the activities, right? But if you don’t have somebody managing that or reviewing it, or keeping track of the patterns and on to what’s going on,and creating a process around that, then there’s no point.

Brooke: Like you’re just, your data’s just being tracked, and there’s nothing you’re doing with it. But if you have somebody, like an operations that’s coming in there and again, reviewing those patterns or, or making sure that the team is following the standards, and then it can escalate the, what you need to know to you, so then you can know how to have those conversations.

Brooke: You know, depending on the ops, you might, that person might be even able to have those conversations, on your behalf one-on-one, saying like, “Hey, we need to get you back on track with the activities we’re supposed to be [00:17:00] doing every day.” you know, that’s just an example as far as like where you can, those, those big pieces of activities that you need to know about, to make sure y- you know how your business is being ran and what your agents are doing.

Brooke: if you do not have the time right now to… You know, maybe you can view it, but if you don’t have the time to actually implement on it or do anything about it, of what you’re seeing, that is a great sign to hire somebody. 

Lauren: Yeah. And you just made me think of something that I didn’t forget this time, so not in the webinar.

Lauren: So, when we’re talking about holding agents accountable or productivity, money-making activities, just for simple terms, how are we tracking that? Because if, you’re not looking at your database for one hour every single day in addition to making your calls for one hour every single day, and that’s not even with recruiting, you are missing something, you are losing money, and you’re might as well burn it on fire, right?

Lauren: or put it on fire. Brooke, let’s kind of dig in a little bit to the operations in the [00:18:00] back end and giving an example of what they could be doing, and you’re the CRM boss, so I would really love your input on, okay, did this person do this or not? How the operations person can handle those conversations, and then how we can use AI to actually pull the data so we’re leveraging and then seeing it visible, so like it’s running for us.

Brooke: Yeah, absolutely. And with, CRM specifically, like, the last piece you mentioned was AI, so I’m just gonna say this right now. This can help you solve a lot of things. for all of you, Claude can pretty much connect to almost everything. I know for a fact it can connect to Follow Up Boss. Lots of our teams have Claude and Follow Up Boss connected to one another.

Brooke: but I am- I’m certain that Claude will connect to any other CRM if you’re listening to this and you have something else. but what it can really do for you is pull that data and automatically show you that history and those patterns, and what do you need to know. And you can prompt it further to say, “Okay, who do I need to have conversations with this week?”

Brooke: Or, “What’s the, the history of…” [00:19:00] And I keep saying pattern, but it is so important to look at to see, okay, are… W- what’s the consistency with these agents? Are… Do you have somebody that is constantly hitting their standard every single week, and then all of a sudden there’s three weeks in a row that they’re completely off of their normal amount?

Brooke: That’s a sign to you that, hey, this person is… Something’s going on, wh- whatever it might be. Personal, maybe they’re- 

Lauren: And life happens We all know that work- life happens 

Brooke: Exactly. So, but it, it, but it shows such, it- it’s such a re- piece of, I don’t wanna say retention strategy, but just shows you’re a person, right?

Brooke: Like, shows that you care if you’re like, “Hey, I’m noticing, you know, out of love that, like, you are usually very on top of it, and I’ve noticed that based on your numbers,” and again, it’s not really about feelings, right? ‘Cause it’s like the numbers are the numbers. They don’t lie. So it’s like logistically, like here’s the pattern.

Brooke: You can just show that and say, “You’ve taken it back by, you know, maybe 20 conversations a week,” or whatever it might be, “Everything g- going okay? Is everything all [00:20:00] right?” because they might not wanna come to you with that information. But, that’s for the piece with the AI that can really help leverage that.

Brooke: you know, with operations specifically as far as like what they can look at and help kind of escalate to you, or different tools within CRM specifically, I’m a big fan of all of the reporting that are in there that you can dive into. With Fall Boss specifically, I know that there’s, an agent activity report.

Brooke: That’s my favorite because you can see literally every activity. You can see how many appointments are set, you can see, leads not acted on, average speed to, to lead, all kinds of data in there. So you can just kind of pick and choose what do you need to know. It’s all great data, but at the very most you’re gonna wanna see what are there, conversation dials versus actually having a two-minute conversation versus, appointments set, met, and so forth down the line so you can really see where is the conversion falling or is it more of a lead generation problem?

Brooke: Is it… I always look at it two ways. Is it a lead gen problem or a lead conversion problem? And that will tell you exactly where it [00:21:00] falls based on those metrics. I also love smart lists as well, and I know that there’s, each CRM has its own kind of variation of a smart list. so for example, Lofty, I know they have segments, which is the same thing.

Brooke: You can kind of create like a pre-filtered list essentially. I would highly recommend if you don’t have it already, you have, create some pre-filtered lists based on recommended best communication practices. So for example, if you have, a lead that’s in the hot stage and your best practice is you want your agent to be calling them every single week, then you need to create a list of filtered out by stage or whatever it might be, is hot.

Brooke: and then the last communication or last call was more than seven days ago, ’cause that’s gonna show you right there h- here’s the, here’s who’s falling through the cracks. You know, that’s a very straightforward list of like, here’s what’s falling through the cracks right now. 

Lauren: I love that. you just hit on so many things and, y’all, you don’t have to necessarily always pay for leads.

Lauren: Like, I, I do recommend it, [00:22:00] but if we have tons of lead- unworked leads in the database that you’ve paid for, let’s discover why. You know? Is it truly the agents? Like, what Brooke just went through was gold. That is free coaching right there. that can be the difference of putting 20 grand back in your bank account, right, for the team, and spending it back into the business, investing it back into the business.

Lauren: and can also identify how an operations person… We’re just, they’re, and y- I’m a broken record with this. They’re the backbone to your team. Like, you’re not, you can’t stand up without your backbone, right? Like, you got to, in order to lead others, you need someone to lead with you. And so this person is, l- leveraging and delegating tasks for you, and we are giving you real-life examples of how to utilize that instead of just, the role evolves.

Lauren: I think this is what I was gonna say, earlier. The role evolves. So it’s not your typical, Like people would use to [00:23:00] just like try to like minimize the role of calling it a different name, like front desk or secretary or whatnot. First of all, they’re all badasses. I don’t know if I can swear on this.

Lauren: Sorry. So like, let’s just like redefine the administrative role as well, because it’s not only t- transaction coordination or listing management or database management. Like these people are going in, right, like making sure the leads are coming into the website, the integrations are all working, you know, maybe writing newsletters and blog posts for you and like, you know, you should be getting an email out every single day, especially if you wanna build your brand, and be recognized in the industry.

Lauren: Get out there, get on more stages, con- come from contribution. You can’t do that without somebody that knows how your systems are working and then watching if they’re breaking or not. It’s not set it and forget it too, because we… This, I’m just gonna use, we’re talking a lot about CRM management here.

Lauren: If you’re using Follow Up Boss and you’re, looking at your action plans and they’re automated and whatnot based off of tags that you’re assigning, to the leads, when’s the last time you actually looked at them? [00:24:00] Does that sound, or like read through them? Does it still sound like you, is this accurate or are you just sending slop to your clients and they’re, or your potential clients and they’re not going to take you seriously?

Lauren: you know, like having someone running through and auditing and going through the pipeline, everything that Brooke has said, helping you pull your recruiting lists, you know, like however, like Broker Metrics. Brooke, what else? Like how, how do we pull recruiting lists? 

Brooke: Yeah. Recruit, yeah, Broker Metrics is a great one.

Brooke: oh, I am fogging on the other one. Oh, shoot. What’s the other one people use? Oh, Cordit. Cordit, yes. Cordit is another good one. both, I think you can filter out by certain criteria, like if you’re wanting to look at who’s done a, who’s done a year-to-date volume of this amount, or who’s h- been in the business for this amount of time.

Brooke: So if you’re looking for like a specific avatar, that’s a really good, to help decipher who that person is. I know those sites also will tell you, like, they’ll give you kind of a meter of like who’s possibly ready to move or who’s possibly gonna make a move versus like [00:25:00] some data that they have. So, it’ll kind of show you those like warmer recruiting leads.

Brooke: but if you’re not looking to pay for something, there is a lot of free type ways that you can do this. You can go into, you know, social media. I’m sure there’s tons in your area. I’m sure there’s a ton. I know there is in mine, and I’m kind of in a smaller spot, but there are tons of different Facebook pages or social media pages dedicated to realtors in your area, or agents or, you know, team leaders or whatever it might be within your area that you can network with.

Brooke: and then like Lauren mentioned, with like doing events, like that’s always great, is to put something out there, that other agents would wanna know. Like how to You know, how to have,how to make a million your first year in real estate or how to do,find- Yeah. Yes, exactly.

Brooke: So a lot of great opportunities to bring them in. You can also go to your, MLS and, and pull up agent lists there. Some MLS, MLSs just depend on what kind of information you’re getting, but do check it out to see what kind of information you can get from [00:26:00] that. and then also this is another place that your operations can help, especially your transaction coordinator.

Brooke: any agent like co- co-broke, any other agent that is on a transaction with you all that you have enjoyed working with, or even if it was a great experience when you showed their listing or, something along those lines, like you, or they showed your listing, like, you know, whatever it might be, they can escalate that person to the team leader and say, “Hey, I, we really enjoyed working with this person,” or, “This person was, seemed fantastic.

Brooke: let’s talk to them.” and they can help bring that escalation up, or even reach out themselves and say, “Hey, do you wanna get a cup of coffee? Like, you were great. I would love to just hear more about what you’re doing.” 

Lauren: I love that. Yeah. It’s just that natural nurturing conversation. And it’s not like you’re gonna recruit them.

Lauren: They’re always being recruited, right? So they know the game. So if you’re just being yourself and coming from contribution and just being authentic. People wanna work with other humans that are authentic, not somebody that just talks the talk. this is the other thing I was gonna say, like, are you making…

Lauren: Are you doing what you said [00:27:00] you were gonna do? I think that shows integrity and character, and people wanna be around, those that uphold the standards from them, the, themselves, if that makes sense. all great points, and, like, Indeed too. you’re making your job post on Indeed, you’re on Facebook, now hiring great agents.

Lauren: Who do you know, like, or ha- like, come talk to me. Easiest post. Suneet will tell you on stage all the time, like, go make that one now hiring great agents, like, he’ll get a ton of candidates coming in. 

Brooke: Yeah, you can even make it free and you’re gonna get some stuff. Like, obviously, the more y- the more money you put into it, the more you’re visible, but even if you put it for free, like, you can, you’re still gonna get applicants out of that.

Brooke: So definitely worth it. 

Lauren: So now we’re gonna shift gears a little bit. We’ve talked about, the mindset shift. We’ve talked about, recruiting still, but getting your ops right. It’s kind of like flying the p- plane as you’re building it. It’s just the way it is, and I think we just need to wipe away a lot of the excuses.

Lauren: If you want it that bad and your pain’s super high because, you know, like, maybe you got a lot of bills [00:28:00] due and, like, you’re worried about that, if the pain’s strong, you’re gonna make something happen. So let’s, and I hope there’s no pain for you, but, like, it’s life, it’s human, so, like, if there isn’t, get your butt in gear too.

Lauren: that’s all we’re saying. so the first hire now,this can be an ops manager, an ops specialist, an ops coordinator, Versus and/or a virtual assistant, you know, a global partner, whatever we wanna call these roles. So typically, a VA is gonna be outside of the country, stands for virtual assistant, and an ops specialist manager is going to be stateside.

Lauren: So the re- really the reas- the way that I describe these things, it’s like a, a virtual assistant is gonna be more task-oriented. they can do more. They can be client-facing as well. We just have to set the right expectations. and then we have an ops specialist ownership of outcomes and is likely going to be leading, that virtual assistant.

Lauren: And I did some of the math last week. so you know, typically, a, a virtual assistant might be around 800 bucks a month, versus, you know, depending on the [00:29:00] markets, guys, don’t hold me to these, the numbers, but like $3,200 a month for a stateside hire, versus the cost of one dropped file or one agent who quits from drowning in their own administrative work.

Lauren: They’re, you’re not upholding what you promised them. So I think that’s like putting money towards that investment, that person. I can’t think of terms today. I don’t know what’s going on with my brain. but like investing in your people, investing in your business, developing them is only gonna make your business even better.

Lauren: so the, other side of this is are, are you willing to let clients have a bad experience? Are you willing to let things terminate all because you are too afraid to make this hire, and all because you are too afraid to let something go? 

Brooke: Such a good point. 

Lauren: Okay. We have– So that’s the first hire.

Lauren: We’re not gonna go too into job descriptions today. Like I said, go block off for two weeks. They’re every 30 minutes, what are you doing? I guarantee you’re gonna be like, “Dang, I [00:30:00] am, worth $200 an hour doing $20 an hour administrative tasks.” and then the ops operating system, we have three pillars that we were talking about: people, process, and performance.

Lauren: if you’re missing any one of these, the other two aren’t going to hold. So really what I mean by that, it’s, I follow the RACI chart. So respon- who’s responsible, who’s being held accountable, who needs to be consulted, and who just needs to be informed. So, basically, we haven’t talked too much about that.

Lauren: It’s a, a term that I– we subconsciously do it, but it’s just a term that I heard and now I’m like, “Okay, we’re gonna put a, a name to it.” so it’s basically the rule here is that every task has exactly one person that’s responsible and one person who is being held accountable to it. if it’s zero, it’s free for all.

Lauren: Like things aren’t gonna get done, okay? And if there’s more than one person, again, things aren’t gonna get done. You’re splitting when, like… Let’s say that Brooke and I get assigned to one thing and we’re [00:31:00] doing duplicated work because there was no clear expectation set It’s just time being wasted. and one of us could be doing something else that, like, drives the same thing forward, so if that makes sense.

Brooke: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When I think about, like, our team, so I’m trying to think, like, a, kind of a example to put out there, of the difference between, like, responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. It would be like if, again, like if you and I had some- something that we were assigned to do or a project, maybe I’m the one that’s responsible for actually creating the content, and then Lauren’s holding me accountable to make sure that we’re hitting that deadline or that it is, it is being done in, in the way that we had talked about.

Brooke: and then maybe we’re consulting, you know, we’re consulting Suneet, for example, just to make sure, hey, is this what had been imagined? Is this okay? give the go-ahead. And then we’re informing the rest of the team of, hey, here’s a new process, or here’s something that we’re doing now just so everyone’s in the loop.

Lauren: That is such a great example, and I really do think it’s valuable sharing, our real-life stories and what [00:32:00] we do in the day-to-day because we live this all the time. We might not be handling transactions anymore, but between Brooke and I, we’ve carried hundreds of files, closed probably an upwards of 1,000-plus deals together.

Lauren: So it’s like we’ve done the work. We’ve been there with you all, and we coach and see so many teams, and really it’s the formatting and the structure of if you’re looking to grow, okay, it means we need to stop doing what we’ve been doing, or, well, keep doing the consistent activities. But now what else do we need to be doing, and is that hiring more agents?

Lauren: Yes. Hiring a strong backbone to the team, also yes. And I guess really the closing here, it’s we- it’s you as the visionary. You have your right hand that’s going to execute with the proper expectations and oversee to make sure the factory, if you will, is all functioning like a well-oiled [00:33:00] machine. you have an extension of you, and then the agents can go do what they’re doing best, and that’s buy- helping people buy, sell, or invest in real estate.

Lauren: What do you think, Brooke? 

Brooke: Yes, absolutely. And it goes back, I just keep thinking as we’re talking about all this, just going back to our point about really being real with yourself and asking like, “Am I the best person for this job?” And i- if you really take one thing that you’re gonna put some action in right this moment, do what we said at the very top and start writing out, you know, what you are doing every day.

Brooke: And, like Lauren mentioned, setting that timer of like, “Okay, what did I really do here?” Even if you can… If you can’t make it two weeks, even if you can do it like a few days, you’re gonna learn a lot. I s- I promise. 

Lauren: Well, yeah, and it’s just so funny ’cause we’re like, “Oh, we’re so busy. We gotta get X, Y, and Z done.”

Lauren: And it’s like, do you really? Because like how many times have we just had a to-do list and then we forget to do one thing, but it was so important, and then like two weeks later it goes by and you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t really…” 

Brooke: I forgot about that. Like, was it important? [00:34:00] Yeah, ex- e- exactly. And I… And guys, like for especially our operators listening, like don’t, don’t get hung up on the small details.

Brooke: Like, just having something consistent, having something done is better than perfect. You’ll have time and leverage, you know, the more the… As you hire and can leverage more off and have that opportunity. Or again, use AI, guys. Like, I’m… We can’t say it enough every time. I feel like we’re on a podcast, we’re like, “Use AI.”

Brooke: but this will, also help you see the gaps and like learn how to be more effective as well, so then you can really put your time and energy into the things that matter most, that it, it does matter if it’s you doing it. It does matter that you are the person recruiting and not AI, and not a, an operations person that doesn’t have a real estate background.

Brooke: Like, that’s where you need to be. 

Lauren: Yeah. And a, a lot of pe- not a lot. N- it’s, some people will be like, “Well, I don’t wanna use AI. It scares me,” et cetera. It is a tool. Like money is a tool, AI is also a tool. [00:35:00] So until something happens, right? You’re gonna be behind if you’re not utilizing it to make yourself more productive.

Lauren: And it can, many things can be automated, so we use our people because, you know, we’re- everyone’s hardwired for human connection. We’re going to use our people still, or work through, to do the things that can’t be automated. You know? Like Brooke and I can’t be automating this conversation and having it with you all right now.

Lauren: So that is not something we can- 

Brooke: Maybe one day. 

Lauren: If you have cool topics like, “Hey, we’re gonna be chatting about this. Give us a fun topic or, like, title,” that’s what we’re talking about with automations and ideas, but, like, we’re still the humans behind the operations making sure it’s happening. it’s not replacing us or if that makes sense.

Brooke: It’s just reducing the human errors that we’re talking about of, like, that’s naturally, naturally coming up. 

Lauren: Okay. So if you all are gonna take one thing from this, it [00:36:00] was, I like the way this went today ’cause it was a little all over the place, but in a sense of- 

Brooke: Yeah, we touched a little bit of everything.

Lauren: Yeah. It comes back together with the sense of consistency. You know, think of that graphic of a water glass. Like, consistency means are you at least touching it every single day? Like, some days it’s gonna be up here, some days it’s gonna be low, in the middle, like up and down, ebbs and flows. The more reps you guys get into what you’re doing, the easier something becomes.

Lauren: every no leads to a yes, so really what I mean by that, it’s like, okay, recruiting, yes, hiring and making sure, and we’re developing our people because if you also stop talking to your people and your agents, there’s gonna be some kind of disconnect. So making sure that you are having a weekly meeting with your ops team.

Lauren: At least once you should be talking to them, even if it’s through text every single day to make sure, or tagging them in your project management board, right? Like you have to have a truth of source where everything lives. so recruiting, hiring Does [00:37:00] your org chart match where you’re going? So like it’s gonna look very different.

Lauren: Like you’re not gonna run a $10 million team with the same amount of people as if you’re gonna be doubling that or tripling that, right? We… People are people. Like we can have a lot of bandwidth. Like Brooke and I do have a lot of capacity and bandwidth, but also like we are two people at the same time.

Brooke: And that’s taken, by the way, we d- we mentioned at the top we’ve been doing this for about over 10 years, which is crazy, but it’s true. We’ve been doing this for over 10 years, so it’s taken a lot of practice and a lot of, a lot of, failing forward, if you will. 

Lauren: So extensions of ourselves, we hire out and create opportunities for our global partners, our virtual partners, our virtual assistants, and they are freaking inc- incredible, helping us set up with those automations.

Lauren: Just helping us with the little things so we can be here with you, so we can be coaching our administrative team. I’m gonna have to ha- hop off in just a minute, we’re extending ourselves [00:38:00] as well. So again, if you’re only taking one thing from this, you didn’t get into this business to become the busiest, most exhausted person on your own team.

Lauren: The, the system is not about doing less, it’s about finally doing only the parts that you can do. So Brooke, any final thoughts before we hop off today? 

Brooke: Yeah, no, I think that’s the, that’s the perfect last piece. If there is anything that we talked about today, like I always encourage, like please reach out.

Brooke: Like that’s why we’re here. Even if you’re not in the Reside world, that’s like even better. We would love to like be able to support and help where we can. So, we’ll make sure that we have our contact information out there, but please reach out and let us know if anything stuck with you today or if there’s anything that you wanna brainstorm a little bit further on as far as what we mentioned.

Lauren: Yeah. We’d love to. All right, y’all, we’ll catch you next time. Thanks. Thanks everyone.