She Ditched Traditional Recruiting and Built This Instead with Lisa Gengelbach

Q: What breaks first when a real estate company starts scaling?

A: Lisa says the backend breaks when you recruit without thinking about operations: you need your processes dialed in and your support for agents ready before the growth hits. When she joined in 2020, the company was learning as it went — the owner’s style was to just do it and figure it out later, while Lisa pushed to get things in order first. The first fixes were building real transaction processes and support so agents could actually run deals, then getting the CRM right with follow-up, workflows, and cadence plans.

Q: Why is growth an operations problem, not just a sales problem?

A: It depends on the agent, Lisa says — for some it truly is a sales issue, but for others the real problem is time. If an agent is buried in admin work, the fix is support staff that opens up their day for conversations, follow-up, and client face time, which then produces the sales. That’s operations, not sales training. Her bigger point is that coaching everyone the same way instead of digging into their individual roadblocks is where a lot of leaders go wrong, and meeting agents where they actually are is what moves them forward and keeps them.

Q: What did Lisa get wrong by coaching agents to her goals instead of theirs?

A: In one-on-ones, an agent would tell her they just wanted to close one home a month or take their family on vacation, and all Lisa could think was that they had the skill set to do 40. So she coached to what she thought they should be doing instead of listening to what they actually wanted. She’s honest that this was her mistake, and she’s learned you retain and move agents through far better when you coach them to their own definition of success. Now her one-on-ones are easier, and she actually sees agents creating habits and growing their businesses.

Q: What was broken in their onboarding process?

A: The foundational training and the 30, 60, and 90-day benchmarks were solid, but after that Lisa let agents book one-on-ones whenever they wanted — come to me if you need something. Agents would drift, and she’d only help if they reached out or she ran into them. The fix: she now goes to them, with weekly one-on-ones at the start that move to bi-weekly and then monthly, and she has agents a decade into the business still doing one-on-ones. Her analogy: it’s no different than an agent who stops following up with past clients after closing — she had closed them on onboarding and then skipped the follow-up.

Q: What does an effective one-on-one with an agent look like?

A: Lisa starts with what the agent wants, and she wants multiple goals: the near-term goal that gets them to the next level and the long-term goal, because the long-term goal won’t just happen — there are mini milestones to win along the way. Then they set action plans against those mini milestones. She also goes into their call data: their AI call-monitoring tool surfaces insights on objection handling, so if an agent is making tons of calls but not converting to appointments, that’s exactly what the one-on-one digs into. And it always depends on the agent.

Q: Why does Lisa avoid the word accountability?

A: Because it scares people off, especially new agents, who hear it and think micromanagement. Her reframe is that accountability isn’t someone telling you what to do — it’s someone helping you grow, scale, and hit the goals you set for yourself. She also flips the direction: the accountability that was missing was on her side, not the agents’. They don’t always want to come ask for help later, so the leader has to go to them, look at their numbers, and ask what’s missing.

Q: What does their tech stack look like, and how does it connect?

A: The agent-facing tools are Follow Up Boss with Rooster, Shiloh for AI call monitoring, Trello, SkySlope for transactions, and Maxa for marketing, while ops-only tools like ClickUp, GoHighLevel, and Corded stay behind the curtain. The ClickUp build is the backbone: one space runs recruiting and onboarding through stages, and when a recruit reaches a certain status it triggers the transaction department to assign a TC. New listings and pendings entered in SkySlope feed into ClickUp, notify the TC team, and when a file hits the closing stage it flows to marketing. So a person can move from first contact all the way to a closed deal through connected systems.

Q: What’s the honest roadblock in their systems right now?

A: The TCs have to work in two systems — SkySlope for the actual files and ClickUp for the automations — and when they only work in SkySlope, the ClickUp automations and the marketing handoff break. Lisa is candid that it’s not always great, and she doesn’t have the answer yet; SkySlope has an API, but it doesn’t feed in as easily as you’d hope. Connecting it is her next project.

Q: What’s worked for recruiting, and what hasn’t?

A: Evansville, with roughly 1,000 agents in its MLS, grew well — but what grew it was culture, not campaigns. Agents get their marketing done for them, real support, and a rare setup of individual agents who genuinely collaborate: Lisa watched a brand-new agent get help with her first real listing presentation from another agent in the office. People coming from larger brands told her nobody ever talked to them there and the office felt competitive. The challenge now is Louisville, about an hour away with roughly 5,000 agents in the MLS — a bigger pond where they’re not yet known, which makes recruiting and retention much harder.

Q: What advice does Lisa have for agents and team leaders?

A: For agents, it’s the basics: create habits, build processes, have conversations, and actually run the follow-up cadence — that’s what closes deals, and if your business is stagnant, strip it back to the fundamentals and rebuild. She also wants agents to stop believing the brand brings the business: a brokerage might supply leads, but your reputation, work ethic, and customer service are what bring business and keep it coming. For team leaders, it’s the same lesson from every angle: meet the agent where they’re at, because every agent is in a different place and wants different things — and coaching to that is what produces growth you can actually see.

Lisa: [00:00:00] it is not normally the brand or your brokerage that is supplying leads, but because you’re with this name, it’s not bringing you the business.

Lisa: Your reputation, your work ethic, your customer service as an agent is what’s going to bring you the business and keep it coming.

Suneet: What’s up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Reside Platform Podcast, and I’m really looking forward to today’s episode, so I’m glad all of you are tuning in. one of the highlights about my career and job is I get to talk to cool people from all parts of the industry with different backgrounds, and there’s a lot of people that I respect a lot that I get to talk to, and today is one of them We have Lisa 

Lisa: I can fix just what you say.

Suneet: I have never [00:01:00] said that once. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Suneet: Right? Although it’s been true many, many times. However, for this one, guys, this is Lisa Jinglebaugh, and you’re gonna see why I, why I gave her that special intro real soon. So Lisa, welcome to the show. Thanks. Glad we were able to finally get it aligned. Why don’t you tell everybody who you are and where you’re from, in your own words?

Lisa: yeah, Lisa Jinglebaugh, and I am currently residing in Indiana. I work for Key Associates Signature Realty. title is, vice president of operations. I don’t go by titles, we just get a job done, right? but anyway, originally though I came from Illinois. I actually grew up near Chicago, 60 miles south of Chicago.

Lisa: and a couple things just in my background kind of so you know, as we talk, we might talk about different aspects of business in general, operations, sales, just different [00:02:00] things. so I’ve actually, owned my own restaurant in the past. opened it from ground up, designed it, did the business, proposals, all of that.

Lisa: And then, I worked in the hotel industry, hospitality, so food and beverage in general there, and I did everything from sales to, operations and facility management, for large hotels, and many of them, all over. And then, slowed down is what I would normally say. and got into real estate, and now I’m doing operations in real estate, and we’ve got,just around 80 agents for this company now.

Lisa: we’re across two states, and what is it? Five different locations. When I started, I started this in 2020, February of 2020 is when I actually got licensed, and, came on board with the owner of the company, to help grow this company and make sure that, you know, it was scaling and everything.

Lisa: And, there were eight agents and the owner, and she had just opened her second, [00:03:00] physical location. So we’ve grown quite a bit. 

Suneet: Wow. From, yeah, from eight to 80 on- while you’ve been, on watch there? that’s awesome. And guys, this is something else, and this is what is so unique about this episode, is you heard what Lisa said.

Suneet: She came from different industries- She got licensed in 2020, right? Right now it’s 2026. Lisa, how many homes have you sold yourself? 

Lisa: I was just gonna say, let’s talk about sales actually. I personally, the only contracts I have ever written and closed were on my own personal deals, meaning I bought and sold my own houses.

Lisa: But other than that, I’ve never done real estate sales. 

Suneet: Exactly. And didn’t you meet Cara through, like, a real estate transaction? Tell us the story about that. 

Lisa: [00:04:00] So we… I, again, I’m from Illinois. my husband actually lives, and I, I’m gonna say this, it’ll get a little, happy face or something from somebody.

Lisa: my husband, grew up near this area. I’m located in Santa Claus, Indiana now. 

Suneet: There it is. Yep. Santa Claus, Indiana. 

Lisa: So anyway, but yeah, I came from a bigger town and when we were moving here because we wanted to… And not even moving here, a second home to begin with. We were buying a second home here within a little gated community, and Cara was my realtor.

Lisa: that’s how I met her, and then we ended up buying another home from her and then building a house and there’s, multiple things that’s happened since then, but. 

Suneet: Yeah. So what was that conversation like with you and Cara from client and having that friendly relationship? ‘Cause Cara’s so f- such a friendly person, I’m sure you guys kicked it off, right?

Suneet: Same with you. how did that happen? What’s that s- what’s that story? 

Lisa: So it depends on if you talk to me or Cara, but since you’re talking to me, I’m gonna give you my side of it, [00:05:00] okay? So, Cara was actually showing us a home, my husband, myself, and I actually had my parents with me, at that time.

Lisa: And, Cara was outside, and at the end of it she said, she said, “You would be good at this. You should come and help me.” Cara will tell you I begged her to come and work for her, which is kind of true, too, okay? she had a, she had a job out there,that she was posting, and I applied for the job because I wasn’t working.

Lisa: I had been off work for a couple… I had quit working. I don’t say retire. I had quit working when we moved here for a couple of years. And anyway, so I applied for the job and just like anybody should, honestly, Cara used her in-house people to cover it. So she didn’t hire me at the time ’cause I wasn’t licensed or anything.

Lisa: But then, the person that was in the role, would tell you. She’s still an agent for us. She would tell you that is not what she wanted to do. It wasn’t her wheelhouse. she just… You know, that wasn’t what she wanted. So, anyway, came about that way. 

Suneet: Yeah. That is awesome. And then in that time [00:06:00] from being new to real estate as, on, on the professional side, right?

Suneet: Although you had a bunch of business experience, and I never knew about that you had a restaurant. I’m gonna ask you about that next time we talk. but, ’cause I’m super curious. Was the rest- Well, I’m just gonna ask now. What kind of restaurant w- did you, did you start? 

Lisa: It was actually a really small community, in Cisne Park, Illinois.

Lisa: town of I think it was- It’s- … like 800 people. Farm community. Yeah. My parents actually live there, so, anyway… and I live, a- about 12 miles from there, so I wasn’t even from that town. Didn’t grow up there. Didn’t… So it’s, it’s not easy. Right. I get into that, right? but anyway, my parents live there and, so that was kind of my in.

Lisa: and yeah, opened up a restaurant there and, and ran it for a few years, and then ended up selling it and,continuing on my way. Moving 

Suneet: on. 

Lisa: Awesome. It was just a di- I 

Suneet: didn’t know that about 

Lisa: you … small diner. 

Suneet: A diner, great. Yeah. I freaking love a small diner- Yeah … in a small town. Absolutely. 

Lisa: so- Homemade soups, you know?[00:07:00] 

Suneet: Oh, sounds… You’re, you’re- Homemade soup, homemade pie. Oh, yeah … making me hungry. Yes. Homemade pie. Right. Yes. It’s too early for me to think about sweets right now, but, but it is Friday, so I’ll get myself a slice this evening. So real estate. Perfect. The team went- 

Lisa: Yep … 

Suneet: from eight agents in two offices, one which was brand new- 

Lisa: Right

Suneet: to 80 across five offices in two states, and that’s in six years. 

Lisa: Yes … 

Suneet: right? 10X growth for the agent count in six years. 

Suneet: And over 100% growth also in the offices. 

Lisa: Oh, 

Suneet: yeah. For sure. So from, yeah, so from a ops standpoint, what broke first when a business, a real estate business, started to scale past those early numbers?

Lisa: So what, where we were at and didn’t really think through it, and most people I don’t think [00:08:00] do, right? You want to, and this is gonna be something that you guy- you guys preach. I hear this from John, I hear it from you, just recruit. Well, that’s great, but, the first thing to break when you’re just recruiting and not thinking about the backend of stuff or the operations side is you gotta have your processes in, in order.

Lisa: You gotta have your, it, it really dialed in. You’ve got to have your, your support for those agents ready to go. and, truthfully, we didn’t have all that in the beginning, right? We learned as we went, which is Cara, that’s how she runs. Let’s just do this and we’ll figure it out later.

Lisa: I’m not quite that way, so I try to get things in order 

Suneet: Yes. Awesome So when those breaking points showed up What was the first, like, what, what was the first thing in those systems and pro- who were those first hires? What were those first systems that you implemented to help with that? 

Lisa: So we started growing transactions actually, and making sure that we had processes in place to actually run transactions for the agents.

Lisa: [00:09:00] we looked at our, you know, CRM systems to make sure that they had, the right follow-up and the right workflows and the right cadence plans. And,in, in the beginning there was a lot to, to put in place. It wasn’t just, one system. You had to look at multiple aspects of it and make sure that you had everything covered, right?

Lisa: So everything from making sure that the agents have a way to move forward and follow up and, just have a database for, to use. I, it’s crazy to me how many agents I talk to that have never even used a database. It blew my mind. Blew my mind. So anyway, making- 

Suneet: They go off memory or they go off their email inbox.

Lisa: It’s true. It’s true. which I guess if it works for them, but I, that’s just, that blows my mind. 

Suneet: Yeah. I mean, there’s so much, opportunity in just simply having a database, and if you use any of these tools that we all use, Follow Up Boss, even something [00:10:00] simple like GoHighLevel or any of the other answers out there, it just gives you so much visibility into everything and data on the buying cycles, and that’s definitely a big benefit if it’s used.

Suneet: Way better than a piece of paper, way better than your memory, that’s for damn sure, and way better than, your email inbox. You know, when my first big sales job… Well, not big sales job, but I, I was a loan officer in an independent office And the, yeah, and the owners, the owner spent over the years over a million bucks a month on outbound mail, right?

Suneet: And the mail was our entire lead gen. However, the way that the letter was written, and I don’t think people are allowed to send these kind of letters anymore because nobody does, but this is pre-subprime crash, right? Is [00:11:00] the letters encouraged phone calls. So our phones would ring after a mail drop, nationwide mail drop, off the hook.

Suneet: And it was just how fast can we get it? And like nobody trained us. This is so embarrassing to say to like use a CRM, write down people’s names. I had one of those free calendars on my desk from a title company, and that was my CRM And if I couldn’t get somebody’s Social Security number and birthday on the first call for a credit application, I might never call them again

Suneet: How much money did I leave on the table, right? How much money did I leave on the table? A lot, right? So I know, that when I first got a CRM, I was, “Oh my God.” And you know what happened? I started using it. It was a homemade CRM, probably made in some code. I started using it, [00:12:00] my income 10X. It was super simple, right?

Suneet: So for everyone listening who thinks you’re too smart for a CRM, even in your recruiting

Suneet: You’re not, right? The processes could only get better, bigger, okay? And better. All right. There’s my tirade, Lisa. Okay So a lot of team leaders, when they think about growth, they think it’s all about sales, right? I’ve heard you say that it’s also an ops problem. 

Lisa: it depends on the agent. I mean, it, it very well could be a sales problem, but you have to really look at, look at everybody you have, right?

Lisa: So I might have one agent that’s just, it, it is a sales issue, but there’s also another agent that it might be that I need to look at what they’re doing, individually. Are they spending too much time on admin? And we can get a support staff to help do that, to open up time for them to get more conversations in,and do more follow-up and actually [00:13:00] get in front of the clients, right?

Lisa: which does in turn open up the sales for them. But the initial problem, where it comes from is, I need to fix what you’re doing. I’ve gotta open up that time for you. Well, that’s not sales, that’s operations. It’s the support that’s in there. So it really depends on, on individual agents. You know, honestly, Suneet, I think that’s where a lot of people go wrong, and it’s where I was going wrong for a long time, is when you’re coaching, when you’re, And you know this, you coach. But when you’re coaching, when you’re doing one-on-ones, when you’re doing all of that kind of thing, if you’re just spilling the same… And it’s true, you’re gonna tell people the same thing over and over again because this is what the industry is. But if you’re not truly diving into what their challenges are and meeting them where they’re at, y- you’re not gonna help them grow, right?

Lisa: Just because you’re telling them the same thing you told the person before ’em doesn’t mean that you’re fixing the issues and the challenges and the roadblocks that they’ve got today, [00:14:00] right? So, and I didn’t do that. I’m g- I- if I’m, I, really honest, I didn’t do it. I would have these one-on-ones, and I would talk to people, and I would be…

Lisa: Oh, here’s what drove me cra- and, and I get it now, but I would have these conversations and I would have an agent tell me, and this is not what you asked me, but, I would have an agent tell me, “You know what, what are your goals, Suneet?” And he’d say, “Oh, you know what? I just, as long as I can close one home a month, I’m gonna be good.”

Lisa: Right? Or, “I just wanna be able to take my family on vacation,” whatever it is. And I’m looking at that agent, and all that’s in my mind is, “Oh my gosh, you’ve got the skill set. You’ve got, you’ve got the drive. you can do this.” And instead of just paying attention to what they want, they really only want one deal a month, or that’s all they can handle, I’m thinking to myself, “Oh no, they could do 40.

Lisa: They could do, you know, 40 here. They could…” And so I’m coaching to what I think they should be doing or, or was, instead of truly [00:15:00] listening and paying attention to where they are and what they want- And, honestly, you’re way more successful moving agents through and retaining them if that’s how you coach them.

Suneet: Absolutely. I remember when I discovered that myself. I thought everybody should sell two houses a month, right? And I thought, and it drove me crazy, “Why doesn’t this person want that? Why doesn’t person want that?” And then through being coached by John, and then having hundreds of agents, I learned it real soon from working with John, like first couple months.

Suneet: And I think, that made my success easier. Now, and I don’t know if you heard Robert Palmer say this, but he has a framework called the IDOS, individual definition of success, right? And it’s the same thing, [00:16:00] right? Like, if you’re trying to push everybody into what your version of success is, you’re always gonna be disappointed.

Suneet: But if you uncover what the person wants, discover what the person wants, and get their individual definition of success, then your job as a leader or a coach is to coach them to that, Lisa, my first contract said, “If you don’t do two deals a month, you’re off the team.” One month into having that contract, I called my coach who w- and it wasn’t John yet.

Suneet: I was like, “Dude, I gotta get rid of half the agents.” 

Lisa: Wow. Wow. Yeah. 

Suneet: So yes. That’s so good. I’m so happy that you brought that up ’cause it’s so valid. And it’s so valid, that individual definition of success, across working with anybody, Okay. Somebody figure out what the person needs, what the person wants, and coach them to there.

Suneet: And if in a, on a, on another subsequent conversation that changes, coach them to there. That’s what [00:17:00] the job is. Good. so let’s talk

Suneet: onboarding, ’cause I know you’ve been working hard on that Right 

Lisa: we’re, yeah, gotta have a process. Gotta have a process in place when you’ve got eight agents maybe, right? 

Suneet: Yeah. So where’s the process at now? 

Lisa: Actually, I feel like,recently, it’s… I think we’re really dialed in in onboarding.

Lisa: I think that the way that we have it set up now, I think that it’s, it’s moving them forward, it’s training them, it’s making sure that we’re, looking at what their needs are and what their growth is and, and coaching them to their stuff. But then where we were missing a piece that was broken before, was that we actually didn’t have, or I didn’t have it in place where, once they were all fully trained, the initial basic foundational training and all of that kind of stuff, and they were in production, right?

Lisa: You’ve got your, your, “Here’s what you should h- [00:18:00] do and your benchmarks. 30 days, here’s where you should be. 60 days, here where, here’s where you should be. 90 days.” But then it was “Okay, now this is your…” Because we are individual agents, it’s not a team, right? So I can’t… I mean, I can, because we’re holding their license, but I’m not really telling them, “Hey, this is what you have to do,” right?

Lisa: Because it’s their own business is how we run things. So after that, after those benchmarks and things like that, after that initial timeframe, we kind of said, “Okay, go ahead, you can book one-on-ones with me. I’ll do weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, right? Depending on what you want for your business. And then,if you don’t book them, okay, that’s fine.”

Lisa: I… at that point, “Come to me if you need something, okay?” and I think that moving forward, making sure that… And I didn’t follow up, I didn’t do, you know, it was just kind of if I ran into them here and there, or if they sent me a text or jumped on, I do an Ask Lisa session every day, Monday through Friday, so they can ask [00:19:00] questions and stuff just virtually.

Lisa: If they came to me, I’d help them, but otherwise, you know, they were kind of doing their own thing. That piece is, I think, what was broken in our process, right? Because if you’re not really working with these agents as they come on and helping them grow and build their pipelines and explain how they keep that and, everything and truly, and I don’t like the word accountability.

Lisa: I- it’s tr- it is accountability, but if it would be accountability on my side, not theirs, right? They don’t always wanna come to you and ask a question later. So for me to go to them and say, “Look, Suneet-” we haven’t closed anything in, in the last 30 days. Benchmark says you should be here.

Lisa: What is it? What’s missing? What can I help you with? Let’s look at your numbers. Let’s look at how many dials… Sorry. How many dials you made. Let’s look at how many, conversations you’ve had, And I wouldn’t do [00:20:00] that. I would let them come to me. Well, now I have this follow-up process with new agents as they’re onboarding, and I’m actually going to them.

Lisa: You need to have these one-on-ones with me. It’s gonna be weekly in the beginning. We’re gonna move it to bi-weekly, and then we’ll do monthly later. And then as you continue to grow and you’re, you’re meeting your own success, then we can, we can stop it or you can continue it, right? I have agents that’s been in this business now for a decade that are still doing one-on-ones with me, right?

Lisa: so it’s helping them grow as we move forward. But it’s no different, I’m gonna tell you this, it’s no different than when you’re training an agent and you tell them, “You have to have the initial conversation. You have to do your follow-ups, cadence plan, all of that,” right? And then you close the deal.

Lisa: You have to still do the follow-ups, right? You have to reach out to those past clients. I wasn’t doing that last reach out. I closed them. I had them onboarded. I had them going, [00:21:00] but I wasn’t doing the follow-up to make sure that they came back and they were successful. 

Suneet: Oh, so then what is the structure? I love everything you just said, and I love seeing that journey and what you learned.

Suneet: what is the structure of an effective one-on-one? 

Lisa: So it depends on the agent. What I start off with, first of all, is I talk to them about what they want. All right? What are your goals? I wanna know multiple goals, though. I wanna know what your goal is right now to help you, get to the next level, get to the next step.

Lisa: I wanna then know what your long-term goal is as well, right? because your long-term goal isn’t gonna just happen eventually. There’s going to be these mini milestones or mini battles that we’re going to have to win and get past as we go through that, right? So to get to the top of the steps, we’ve gotta take all these other steps first.

Lisa: So having the discussion, what do you want this to look like for you, for your business? [00:22:00] Okay? and really setting action plans for them to meet those, I call ’em mini milestones, right? but again, it’s not up to me. I would, for the longest time, I was listening to them and I was saying, “Okay, well, let’s get you to four transactions,” and they’re only worried about one, right?

Lisa: Going through, listening to their calls,if it’s somebody that wants to really grow, making sure… We have a- all this technology that we use. We have a huge tech stack, sometimes too big, to be honest with you. 

Suneet: We’re gonna talk about that next, so, but yes. 

Lisa: Going into Shiloh, looking at the, the, the AI version, it’s, it’s monitoring their calls. It’s giving insights as to how they can do better, objection handling. So if they’re having a ton of calls, but they’re not actually converting and getting appointments, we have to go in and look at that. That’s what those individual one-on-ones are dealing with, right?

Lisa: So it, it depends on the agent, though. 

Suneet: Yes, absolutely [00:23:00] Let me ask you a question. Why did you say you don’t like the word accountability, Lisa? 

Lisa: It’s, it… I do. I’m just, it’s scary. Most people, as soon as they hear accountability, especially if you’re talking to a new agent, they’re like, “I’m done.” they’re like, “I don’t want somebody telling me what to do.

Lisa: I don’t wanna be micromanaged.” and if, if you don’t look at the, you have to look at accountability in a totally different way, right? accountability isn’t somebody micromanaging you. It’s them helping you grow and scale and meet the goals that you set for yourself. 

Suneet: Yes. Yes. Yes. 

Lisa: but I say that because I don’t like to use the word because it scares others off.

Lisa: That’s why. 

Suneet: Totally. And you nailed it. you tell somebody accountability, they’re all,I thought I was just gonna get to drive a white Beamer and have two champagnes at lunch as a realtor. Like, accountability?” Good. that’s,that’s so accurate. Good. So systems and technology. [00:24:00] I know you guys got a long list.

Suneet: What is the stack that the team is using right now? 

Lisa: Oh, wow. so we’ve got, we’ve got Follow Up Boss. we use Rooster as an integration into Follow Up Boss. for a short time we had Broker Blocks in there as well. we use Fellow. We use Felix with Fellow. we’ve got, Shiloh monitoring calls.

Lisa: we’ve used Sk- that’s like just around the CRM and calls, right? Then we, and we’ve got, we use Skyslope and Skyslope Books, for transaction management. we’ve got, I’ve got like a task management system I use for the overall operational aspect, just to kinda keep everything integrated with it.

Suneet: Y- you know you’re talking my language when you say task, task management. What’s the system you guys have again? 

Lisa: We use ClickUp. It’s kinda like a Monday dot- A 

Suneet: lot of my friends prefer ClickUp, and I know I’ve told you this, to Monday, but I’m not changing. But I’m happy that you guys have [00:25:00] something. Good.

Suneet: Okay. So please continue 

Lisa: I don’t,I’m trying to think. There’s, y- we use Gmail and everything with it, so, G Suite, G- G Workspace, whatever it’s called, there’s all of that in, in there. We’ve got Trello. I use Highnote, for presentations for onboarding. let’s see. let me… Oh, Maxa is our, we use Maxa.

Suneet: Maxa’s solid. Shout out to James Wong, yeah. 

Lisa: we do have GoHighLevel. We’ve got Corded. We’ve got,a lot of people haven’t heard of this, but we even use, it’s not really a, a tech aspect of it, but we also use Lollo, which is, something that the agents can use to send out,a monthly gift to their clients.

Lisa: Basically, y- it’s, it’s great for follow-up, and keeping in touch in front of your clients without having to make all those phone calls, right? Past clients. gosh, I, yeah, I’m not sure. That’s, off the top of my head, that’s the majority of it, I think. 

Suneet: What’s your IDX [00:26:00] website that you have? 

Lisa: Oh, Sierra.

Suneet: Sierra? Okay. So yeah, you from the VP of Ops and kind of overseeing most of the business, you have it all, of course. You’ve probably signed up for half of it on for, Cara, right? So then you have that experience. But the agents, of course, are just using, what, Follow Up Boss, Sierra, maybe Highnote.

Lisa: Actually, the, so what they’re using the majority of is Follow Up Boss, Rooster, Shiloh, Trello, Skyslope, Maxa. there’s a lot of stuff. So they’re not involved in ClickUp. That’s kind of the operational aspect of it. GoHighLevel, they’re not touching. Corded, they’re not touching. That’s all kind of your other recruiting type stuff and lead funnel stuff.

Lisa: but Highnote is truly not… It’s something they could absolutely use, but, yeah, not something that they’re using. Yeah. 

Suneet: Yeah. ClickUp, so you have it built out, and task management, and I love task management, which I already said. [00:27:00] I might say it again during this call, so, What all do you have in ClickUp?

Suneet: What all are you tracking in there? 

Lisa: so we do more of the, it truly takes somebody from here we’re re- we’re trying to recruit these guys. I’ve got them in there, and we’ve got different stages throughout the recruiting and onboarding process. It’s all one space, recruiting and onboarding.

Lisa: And then you’ve got recruits and agents, right? Yes. Okay. and so there’s stuff broke out in there, and then depending on where it’s at in that level, it’ll actually feed that space when they get to a certain point, in the different statuses that you move them through. It’ll actually then connect to my transaction department and it’ll say, “Hey, I need a TC assigned to this one.”

Lisa: And, and then obviously, transactions, as we’re working in transactions, when a new agent puts a new transaction into Skyslope, our management, our, transaction management system, it feeds into ClickUp, notifies my transaction team, “Hey, there’s a new [00:28:00] listing. Hey, there’s a new, pending.”

Lisa: They start working it through there. There’s automations and all of that that happen. And then when it gets to that closing stage, ready to archive for transactions, we actually let it connect with marketing and, you know, it’s a, you know, “Hey, Mar- we got a closed one,” and then marketing uses Maxa and they all kind of, flow together.

Lisa: So we have it really dialed in to where it starts with truly recruiting and feeds all the way through to closed deals. 

Suneet: Yes. I love it 

Lisa: Yeah 

Suneet: I don’t know how many- It’s not always great … It’s not always what? 

Lisa: It’s not always great, right? if I’m being really honest, I think it’s wonderful from the operations standpoint, right?

Lisa: When I’m just looking at it and I like the way everything’s connected and the automations. But truth be told, right now there’s a little bit of a, roadblock in the transaction [00:29:00] aspect of it. And the reason I say that is because my TCs have to actually work in two systems, right? They’re in SkySlope working the files and, and, noting everything and attaching documents and checklists and whatever.

Lisa: And then we’ve got ClickUp over here that’s doing the automation, sending out the emails, doing everything. But they have to move it through the system for it to do that, and many times the TC is truly just working in SkySlope and doing everything, and they’re not moving it through the system. if you’re not moving it through the system, one, that’s okay, I get it.

Lisa: You can go ahead and send an email yourself, so you don’t need that. But it breaks everything because now it’s not feeding marketing either, right? I’m looking at that right now and I, I don’t have an answer to that just yet, but that’ll be my next 

Suneet: Does SkySlope have an API? 

Lisa: not… Yes. Yes. But it doesn’t, work as easy as you would think it does It doesn’t just feed [00:30:00] right in.

Lisa: So like even right now I’m trying, and you and I have talked in the past about Claude and how you can set up these skills and things like that. Skyslope is the one thing I don’t have connected yet. 

Lisa: Yeah. Well, 

Suneet: we should open it up real soon, lady, and have a look at it. 

Lisa: Yes, that’s true. ‘

Suneet: Cause now you got me thinking.

Suneet: I shouldn’t have asked that- No, that’s true … ’cause now, well, now I’m trying to like figure it out while we’re on this call. 

Lisa: That’s what I’m- Yes … that’s actually my challenge right now that I’m looking at, is that Skyslope aspect of it. 

Suneet: Did you ever… Okay, everybody watching and listening, here’s some AI training.

Suneet: Did, did you ever get a Perplexity computer account? 

Lisa: No. 

Suneet: Did Kara? 

Lisa: I don’t know the answer to that. ‘

Suneet: Cause- 

Lisa: I feel like she played with that a little bit, but, I- I 

Suneet: feel like she did too … 

Lisa: yeah, I don’t know the answer to that. Yeah. 

Suneet: Sometimes it’s easier with Perplexity computer to create the [00:31:00] API and the workflow, and then sometimes- 

Lisa: Yeah

Suneet: and then move it- Right to Claude … into Claude. Yes. But also today’s the 10th. You have one more day of Claude Fable for free. True. So I wonder, have you asked Fable to work on it? 

Lisa: I have not. I have not. Yeah. 

Suneet: I w- give that a shot and let me know. 

Lisa: I will. 

Suneet: And if it doesn’t work, I’ll totally geek out on it and figure it out myself.

Lisa: All right. 

Suneet: Yes. Good. Okay. Okay, so that’s the end of the AI training on this, Perfect … on this one. Good. All right. next up, let’s talk about recruiting and retention Tell me about your guys’ recruiting and the perspective on that. 

Lisa: So, 

Suneet: And process 

Lisa: So it’s kind of… Honestly, recruiting’s been a challenge.

Lisa: Even though we’ve grown and we’ve done really well, the recruiting aspect of it is actually been more difficult. [00:32:00] We were able to grow in Indiana and move over and, and, build in a specific market, the Evansville, Indiana area, and that’s been great. But the goal for us is actually, Evansville has, I don’t know, 1,000 agents. I don’t know what the, the full MLS is, but roughly 1,000 people in that MLS. And if, if we move over, which is still only,from Santa Claus to Evansville, it’s one, one hour roughly, okay? and you’ve got 1,000 agents in that market, in that MLS. And if I go an hour the other way, I’m gonna hit Louisville, Kentucky, right?

Lisa: And we do have agents. So if I go an hour that way, you got, like, 5,000 people in that MLS. So you’ve got a bigger, a bigger area that you can grow and scale, but we’re not known in that area, right? So it’s been a challenge, the recruiting aspect of it there. I would love to be able to grow there. but that’s been a huge challenge, to grow and retain there.

Suneet: Sure. How about what’s, [00:33:00] what’s worked in Evansville? To grow there from eight to 80 

Lisa: It’s actually the agents that know each other, right? And they, it’s what they want. the culture that we have, I think, being able to, to have all your, have all your marketing done for you. Yeah, have all your marketing done for you, have the support, and then be able to have agents that are truly individual agents, but working and collaborating as a team.

Lisa: That’s just not normal, right? I’ve had people come to me from larger, branded companies, right? And they’ll say that, while they were doing good, in that area, they, nobody ever talked to them in the office, or it was kind of like it was a more of a competitive environment, right? they were looking over at their neighbor, and that was their competition.

Lisa: the fact is it’s no different in our offices, right? That is your competition, but it doesn’t [00:34:00] feel that way when you’re in the office. I, you know, Suneet, yesterday I was talking to some agents and stuff, and I had, a newer agent that had come on board, and she had, and I wasn’t available. I was in meetings and doing stuff, and, I- Kara had her own thing going.

Lisa: But, that agent had went to another agent in the office and said, “Hey,” ’cause she’s never done listing, like true, like this is her first listing presentation she’s doing with a client. She’s been through the training. she’s done it with a, you know, role play, all of that stuff, but she’s meeting with a client this time.

Lisa: She got it. She’s like excited. one of her other agents actually helped her, right? And I think that is not what, it’s not what normally happens in a larger brokerage. So, our culture is what brought those, I think, those agents to us in that area. 

Suneet: Love it. Yeah, love it. H- okay, couple final questions What advice do you have for the real estate agent, [00:35:00] regardless of experience listening to this episode?

Lisa: this might not be popular opinion,but everybody talks about, these are the things you have to do, and, and everybody’s looking at the next best tech. I am too, right? What can I do moving forward? And any agent that just wants to build their business, you have to create habits.

Lisa: You have to have processes, right? And your processes have to show that you’re doing the follow-up. So you, really, it’s having conversations. What are you gonna do to have the conversations? And then the cadence plan, depending on where somebody’s at, the cadence plan to follow up with them and actually follow up.

Lisa: That’s all you have to do. You can have a ton of things, different tech stacks, different, different systems, different, processes added into there, but it all comes back to the basics. Those things are what you have to do. Make the habit and do these things, and you will close deals, right? I think [00:36:00] it’s great that you can do more, and you can absolutely build your business and add to that, and many agents do that, right?

Lisa: But if you’re just wanting to get started and you’re… or you’re at a, a standstill, your business is stagnant, take it back to the basics and then build it back up. 

Suneet: Yes, the fundamentals. Conversations create closings, right? The fortune is in the follow-up. Both of those sayings, both of those sayings have been around longer than I’ve been in sales, right?

Suneet: Look at Glengarry Glen Ross, like that’s from the early ’80s. They were saying the same stuff. The leads aren’t weak, right? Okay, good. 

Lisa: Let me, I’m gonna add one more thing. I’m gonna add one more thing. If it’s a great, if it’s a truly newer agent that’s in the market or in the business, right, a lot of times they always think, and I’m not knocking big brands by all means, because some of them have great training and [00:37:00] systems and all of that, but it is not normally the brand or your brokerage that is bringing you the bi- I mean, they might be supplying leads, but because you’re with this name, it’s not bringing you the business.

Lisa: Your reputation, your work ethic, your customer service as an agent is what’s going to bring you the business and keep it coming. 

Suneet: Absolutely. Absolutely What advice do you have… I’m moving my camera ’cause it got a little moved over. what advice do you have for the team leader or brokerage owner listening to this?

Lisa: Meet the agent where they’re at. Every single agent you’re gonna have is, Every single agent that you have is different. They’re at a different place in their, y- yeah. and they want different things. And I didn’t do that, Sunny. and I am telling you, I just, it… Knowing it now, my one-on-ones are so much easier.

Lisa: [00:38:00] honestly. It’s, y- you see the growth. You see them actually creating the habits and building their businesses. yeah. Meet them where they’re at. 

Suneet: Love it. Love it. Good. Okay. And the final question: if all the great listeners and viewers of this episode wanna send you guys some referrals in Louisville or in Evansville, or even in Santa Claus, how do they do that?

Lisa: I would just, I mean, info@keyassociates.com. It’ll get to me, and then we’ll, we’ll throw it out. info@keyassociates.com. 

Suneet: You guys, if I had a referral in their area, they would be the only people I would send it to. Lisa is an incredible business operator. Cara is just a force of nature, and the, these two ladies and, and their team have built something really awesome.

Suneet: So make sure to send them a r- referral. All right, Lisa. thank you so much for coming on. Was that cool? 

Lisa: It was fun. It was fun. 

Suneet: [00:39:00] Yeah? Having a good time? Good. Yeah. Me too. And everybody listening, like, look, did you hear all the, all the gold that she dropped? That’s why she got that kind of intro, ’cause it’s not somebody who’s been in real estate forever that’s coming into this.

Suneet: It’s somebody with the business acumen across different industries that’s been able to apply it to the business and be successful. So when you’re hiring, be open-minded All right, folks. Well,I hope you got something out of this episode. Make sure to send your referrals to Lisa and click like, subscribe, share with a friend on any platform that you’re on, and make sure to tune in on the next episode of the Reside Platform Podcast.

Suneet: See you later