October 16, 2025Suneet sits down with Ross Hardy, leader of the Hardy Team in Spring Hill and Brooksville, Florida, and coach at Reside Platform. Ross shares his journey from skeptic to believer in simple recruiting tactics, reveals how his team dominates with Zillow Flex and YouTube, and offers no-nonsense advice for team leaders looking to scale their businesses.
Chapters:
- 00:00:00 – Welcome and Intro
- 00:04:46 – Top Recruiting Lever: Indeed Ads
- 00:09:37 – First Recruiting Advice for Coaching Clients
- 00:11:14 – The One Minute Email Tip Strategy
- 00:19:09 – Lead Generation: Zillow Flex as Top Source
- 00:22:56 – YouTube Strategy and Getting Started
- 00:24:00 – YouTube Content Strategy: Hyper-Local and Neighborhood Tours
- 00:28:41 – The Builder Story: Impact of YouTube Presence
- 00:32:57 – Scaling YouTube and Building the Ecosystem
- 00:33:22 – Lead Source Recommendations for Team Leaders
- 00:35:45 – Team Leadership Advice: Not Everyone is You
Links and Resources:
- Ross’s YouTube Channel – Life in Spring Hill Florida –
- Ross Hardy on Instagram – (@rosshardy81)
- The Hardy Team: https://www.hardyrealtor.com/
- Reside Platform – https://resideplatform.com/
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Episode breakdown: Indeed, a one-minute email and a YouTube channel
Ross Hardy leads The Hardy Team in Spring Hill and Brooksville, Florida, about 45 minutes north of Tampa, and coaches team leaders at Reside Platform. His team’s goal is to be the number one RE/MAX team in Florida by transactions closed. In this episode he walks through what is working for recruiting and lead generation, most of it simpler than team leaders expect.
Post the Indeed ad and leave it up
Ross admits he dismissed Indeed when Suneet first suggested it, partly because a different hiring platform hadn’t worked for him. He finally posted the ad after being pressed on a coaching call. Nothing came in for four or five days, and then applicants started arriving in a steady flow. Indeed is now the team’s biggest source of recruits.
That flow also changed who the team hires. Early on the goal was experienced agents. The team has shifted toward new agents, because they can be paired with mentors and don’t arrive with bad habits. When Ross coaches other team leaders, getting the Indeed ad up is the first recruiting step.
Send a one-minute tip and call the people who open it
Ross’s second recruiting lever is his personal Facebook and Instagram. When he is consistent he posts three or four times a day, and he notices more agent outreach and more customer referrals. He schedules posts one day ahead, sitting down in the evening to load the next day’s posts in about 20 minutes.
The third piece is a weekly email he calls his one-minute tip. He records a short video in his office on something basic, like open houses, calling leads or time blocking, and posts it as a reel. Then he emails his agent list a breakdown with a link back to the video. The email software shows who opened and clicked, and he reaches out to those agents to ask what they are struggling with and offer to make a video on it. That usually leads to a real conversation, and recruiting calls are easier because the agent already knows his content. He reported open rates around 43% on agent emails and about 70% on client emails.
The tips don’t need to be clever. Ross was the first agent in his market to get Zillow leads and worked them for two years before learning to call more than once. A tip as simple as double-dialing, then calling once a day for seven days, can change a newer agent’s business.
Pay for production help and make YouTube videos consistently
Zillow Flex is the team’s top lead source today, built up over years through Premier Agent. Sphere business comes from the email and social work, and Google Local Services Ads plus the team’s Google profile bring in more. YouTube has been Ross’s project for the past year, and his goal is for it to be the number one source within two years. He describes it as Zillow-quality leads with no referral fee, and his agents say it is their favorite source.
He researched YouTube for about two and a half years before he started, then paid an editing company a year up front. They supply content ideas and some scripting, and handle editing, thumbnails and SEO. Content focuses on hyper-local topics like pros and cons, map tours, best neighborhoods and what a given salary affords in Spring Hill, with some new-build videos mixed in. About half are shot in the office and half on location, using a selfie stick and a pocket camera instead of a videographer.
If you’re not doing it consistently, you’re dead in the water.
Ross Hardy
Patience is part of it. The channel produced no leads for the first six months. In the seven or eight months since, Ross says it has returned about five to six times the investment, with 1,295 subscribers in a town of 8,000. At about 350 subscribers, he learned that a Texas builder’s salesperson, relocated for its first Florida model in Brooksville, had researched the town through his videos. The builder then sent them to its whole client database.
To hold viewers who are months from moving, the team runs local pages such as Discover Spring Hill, with restaurant reviews and weekend events, so there is no doubt who they call.
Mix cheap leads with fast ones
For a team leader starting lead generation, Ross recommends a mix. Pay-per-click leads are the least expensive and fill the database quickly, but they convert at a lower rate and take longer. Balance them with every free referral network you can join and with portal leads that have more immediacy, such as Zillow Premier Agent, Realtor.com or Homes.com.
Accept that no one will do it like you
Ross’s leadership advice starts with handing work off and trusting people to do it 80% as well as you would. He also warns that a bad month as a team leader costs money in a way it doesn’t for an agent. The third lesson was the hardest for him. He once ran a team that went to the bar together at four o’clock every day, and the friendly culture made accountability conversations difficult.
That’s a lot of what being a team leader is doing, doing the right stuff for a really long extended period of time without seeing a result of it.
Ross Hardy
Key takeaways for team leaders
- Put up an Indeed ad and give it more than a few days before judging it.
- Send a short weekly tip email to agents, then call the ones who open and click.
- Teach the basics. What feels obvious to you can change a newer agent’s business.
- If you start YouTube, pay for editing and SEO, publish consistently, and expect about six months before leads arrive.
- Blend inexpensive pay-per-click leads with free referral networks and faster-converting portal leads.
- Keep friendships on the team from getting in the way of accountability conversations.
