November 10, 2023In this episode, dive into Jamie Seneca’s real estate journey, team building, leadership challenges, Reside’s role, future goals, and platform leverage.
VIDEO CONTENTS:
- 0:00 – Introduction
- 01:28 – How Jamie Started Her Real Estate Journey
- 06:17 – How Jamie Started Building a Team
- 14:35 – Leadership and the Challenges it Entails
- 21:55 – How Did Jamie Join Reside
- 24:05 – Goals of the Reset Team in the Future
- 38:10 – How Is Jamie Leveraging Reside
- 40:20 – Wrapping Up
Episode breakdown: how Jamie Seneca is growing Reset Real Estate
Jamie Seneca runs Reset Real Estate in Coral Springs, Florida. She got into the business in 2009, built the Jamie Seneca Team, then dismantled the team name and opened Reset as an independent brokerage in October 2022. In her first podcast appearance, she talked with Reside Platform’s Nick McLean, Preston Guyton and Suneet Agarwal about how she built the team, how she thinks about leadership and what it will take to become number one in her market.
Learn on a strong team before you lead one
Jamie started at 21 with no industry knowledge and tried to do it on her own for six months. Then she joined the top-producing team in her area and stayed about five years before starting her own team. That experience is why Reset operates as a team even though it is set up as a brokerage. She thinks a new agent who wants to scale needs that kind of environment for the support and the training.
Her first clients came from her years bartending and serving tables. Her first million-dollar listing came from that work, and some of those people are still among her biggest supporters. One of the hosts said agents should think about past clients the way a bartender thinks about regulars.
It is so hard to survive in this industry on your own and if you want to scale I think that’s even harder.
Jamie Seneca
Add one role at a time
Jamie said finding the right people is the hardest part of building a team, and she had to go through a few to learn that. Her team grew one piece at a time. While she was in full production, she brought on a buyer’s agent first. That agent became a buyer and listing agent because she didn’t want to stifle their growth. Another agent followed, then an administrative assistant, a VA for social media marketing, an ISA team and two more agents. Suneet lays out the roles he recommends, and the order to hire them, in his guide to real estate team structure.
Her marketing runs on a simple rhythm. The social media plan sets what gets posted and what type of content goes out through the week. The videos themselves come from sitting down with her videographers. They come into the office, have lunch, shoot together, and walk away with a bunch of content for the next month.
Lead by example, then inspect what you expect
Asked about her leadership philosophy, Jamie said what drives her is watching people succeed and coaching them through what feels like failure to them but what she knows is future success, because she has been through it. Her biggest challenge is making sure she emulates exactly what she preaches. She runs a time-blocking calendar on her phone and wakes up at 4:30 every day.
The hosts added two points. Letting go is where many new leaders struggle, so delegate the tasks you no longer need to do and elevate someone else’s role. And an expectation you never check on is like one you never set. If you ask for something and don’t come back around, the team notices, and the behavior isn’t reinforced.
I love seeing other people succeed and I think I learned that when I started my team originally.
Jamie Seneca
Set the growth goal, then plan for fallout
Jamie’s goal for 2024 was to take the team to number one in her marketplace, measured by volume and units. She was number three in Coral Springs for personal production in 2022 and had learned she ranked in the top 150 in Broward County. To get there, she said she’d ideally like at least 15 to 20 agents within a year, based on her projections.
The hosts pushed her to work out how many agents that really takes, because not every agent works out. To finish a year at a target headcount, a team usually has to bring on far more people than the net gain. They suggested a simple spreadsheet model: estimate the average deals a first-year agent does and the average for agents in their second year, then let the math show the production. They also said to revisit the numbers often and adjust them when the market changes.
If we can get to number one it’s not a status thing it’s just a matter of being able to touch that many more people.
Jamie Seneca
Stay in production while the team grows
Jamie loves listing and the creative side of it, and the hosts told her to keep doing it. Some of the teams they’ve seen struggle most are ones where the leader got out of production too soon and let it fall. Some of the most successful team leaders they know still list 50 to 80 houses a year by building it into a daily schedule, such as listing work from 9 to 11 in the morning before running the team.
The listing side is also where leverage is easiest. Admins, listing coordinators, in-house photographers and couriers can carry most of the work while the leader is the face at the appointment. Their rule of thumb was to keep selling until the team makes enough money to cover all your expenses and your lifestyle.
Key takeaways for team leaders
- Learning inside a strong team first gave Jamie the knowledge to build her own, and it shaped how Reset runs.
- Add roles one at a time, and let a good agent grow into a bigger role instead of capping them.
- Batch your content with your videographers so a single session covers the next month.
- Lead by example, and check on every expectation you set.
- When you set a headcount goal, plan to recruit more agents than the net number, and revisit the plan often.
- Don’t leave production until the team covers your expenses and lifestyle.
