November 11, 2023In this interview, Nick McLean and Preston Guyton sit down with Shonna Ruble, a serial entrepreneur and real estate agent licensed in 4 states, owning 4 businesses in Montana. Shonna shares insights into her journey, overcoming fear and ego to delegate tasks effectively. She discusses rebuilding her business post-COVID by returning to the basics and her investment in operating two real estate schools. Shonna emphasizes strict agent standards, her approach to new vs. seasoned agents, and ambitious goal-setting that drives continuous achievement. Tune in for valuable advice and perspectives on team leadership and business success.
Video Contents:
00:00 – Introduction
01:56 – Shonna’s Background
05:22 – Giving Up Control in Your Business
13:10 – Rebuilding Her Business
16:09 – The School
22:40 – Shonna’s Agent Standards & Their Goals
Episode breakdown: delegation, day-one standards and a team that doesn’t buy leads
Shonna Ruble runs the Shonna Key Team in Montana, along with her own brokerage, a property management company and two real estate schools. In this conversation with Nick McLean and Preston Guyton, she explains how she learned to hand off work, what she tells every agent before they sign, and how a 13-agent team generates its own business without buying leads.
Make the first hire and accept 80 percent
For years Shonna believed no one could match her customer service or her marketing, and that she was too busy to slow down and train anyone. When she finally hired help, her service got better, not worse. Clients started telling friends that her team had a transaction coordinator and a listing manager.
Her advice to producers who haven’t made that first hire is blunt. Get over the ego, expect to go through four or five people before the right one sticks, and stop holding staff to a standard of perfection. Keep the work you love. For her that’s marketing.
If they can do it at like 80 percent good, I’m good with that. They don’t have to be at a hundred.
Shonna Ruble
Set the expectations before anyone signs
At one point Shonna came back to an office she dreaded walking into. Admin and agents were working against each other, and standards had slipped. She cut the team back to the three original members and rebuilt on the basics, and by the end of that year they were the number one team in Montana in units and volume.
Now every recruit gets the expectations line by line, with the agreement in front of them to initial. Agents attend scripts at least three times a week, and the team hosts them five days a week. They host two open houses a week and door knock every Friday. Anyone who claims a lead must work it within five minutes, or their leads are turned off for two weeks. She’ll take a chance on any licensed agent, but she tells them plainly that the team isn’t the right fit for everyone. She also removes agents quickly when red flags show up, no matter how much they produce. Suneet makes the same case in team culture is what you tolerate.
I’m going to invest the money into you, but I need you to invest the time. And if that’s something you can’t do, I’m okay with that, but we need to have that conversation right now.
Shonna Ruble
Start training before the license is active
New agents pick their own start date, but they must bring 200 names on that day. Shonna holds herself to it too. When she started her team, she knew only 12 people outside real estate and collected business cards to reach 200. The list gives agents people to work, and it shows her who will follow direction.
While a license is pending, the recruit comes to the office every day to sit in on scripts, watch the bullpen and shadow open houses. Once it’s active, the agent previews 100 homes in the first week and calls a batch of 80 old leads. Fresh leads only switch on after the agent completes 1,000 calls. Shonna said only three agents have taken longer than three weeks to get their first property under contract. Newer agents in the bullpen coach each other on their calls.
Make every listing produce three more deals
The team doesn’t buy leads. Their target is for every listing to produce at least three more transactions, another listing and two buyers. They market each listing hard and someone watches for inquiries around the clock. When one comes in, it goes out to the agents by text, and anyone who can take it has one minute to reply yes. The lead goes to the next yes in the rotation. That agent must actually call, not text, and call back up to three times if there’s no answer.
The business runs close to 50 percent listings and 50 percent buyers. When that mix shifts or a listing doesn’t produce more business, Shonna checks whether the system or the person broke down, and she takes the blame as the leader.
Get the team hunting again
Shonna told her experienced agents that easy years had let them forget how to hunt. In one 30-day challenge, nine agents made 20,000 calls, and the newer agents pushed the veterans to keep up. The team also talks to people in the paint aisle at Home Depot, at U-Haul and at yard sales, asking whether anyone has real estate plans. She said they had more pendings than in any month of the previous two years. She also expects her systems, and some of her people, to change as the team grows.
What got me to 25 deals looks different at 50.
Shonna Ruble
Key takeaways for team leaders
- Make your first hire before you feel ready, and accept work that’s 80 percent as good as yours.
- Walk every recruit through your standards before they sign, so accountability later isn’t a surprise.
- Give new agents a database, inventory knowledge and call reps before you hand them fresh leads.
- Set a response rule for every inquiry and enforce it the same way for everyone.
- Measure how much business each listing produces, and fix the system or the seat when it falls short.
