He Made $1M by 25 and Fired Half His Team | Kaleb Monroe’s Real Estate Playbook

It was one where there was a lot of uncertainty. >> What happened? Like you just got your license. Walk me through that. >> You know, I couldn't be the only one selling homes. >> So, when did you start? Did you start an LLC at some point? What happened? >> You started out just solo. My first couple years in real estate from 2020 through 2022 all by myself. >> Your next steps you uh you did 52 transactions

your second year. >> What happens next? So, now you have money in the bank. Now you're like, "Okay, what do we do?" >> This is what I think you should do in addition, not instead. If you want to go to college, cool. I'm not going to be the one to tell you not to do that. Mhm. >> However, I think that you have a gift and I think you could do really well if you were to

try this. This being real estate. >> I feel like a lot of operations is sort of like that, right? It's not income generating activities, but it is necessary to put the dollar in the bank. >> I think and it's funny because as we grow in business, like you start to develop develop all these biases. You develop all these like preconceived notions that something doesn't work or something won't work or something can't work. >> Uh who are

you with now? >> I'm with Real Broker. >> Real Broker. >> Yeah. Welcome to another episode of Pick Up the Phone podcast. I am your host, Jose. I'm the CEO of Vancom. I provide sales, marketing, and artificial intelligence to small business owners. Today's guest is Caleb Monroe. Caleb has done over 100 million in company career sales. He's achieved a 1 million net worth before 25 years old. I think this is a very interesting one that I

want to get into, Caleb, is uh you've built a really strong team culture in your company. >> 100%. Yeah, that's one of my most that's one of the things I'm most proud of I think about any accomplishment I've ever created. >> Really? >> 100%. Yeah. I think uh you create a sticky culture and that's the only way that you're able to build anything. >> Yeah. >> You know, if you build on a foundation of distrust, dishonesty,

anything along those lines, like >> it just crumbles very quickly. But me and my team are like a little family. >> Yeah. You know, >> I see that. Yeah. I see that online and from the content that you share. I think it's really great what what you've created there. So, uh let's get into it, bro. Who is who's Caleb Monroe? >> Yeah. Well, first and foremost, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate that. Um,

absolutely. >> Caleb Monroe's man, just a 25-year-old kid from Southeast Houston that has a lot of big dreams and goals. >> Um, I started out in 2020. >> Mhm. >> Timed it perfectly without really trying it. >> Uh, I was a college student at the time and had my real estate license simultaneously. And while I was in school, things started to pick up kind of quick. If you remember anything about 2020, >> it was a market

that was really weird. It's not a market that picked up extremely fast. It was one where there was a lot of uncertainty and >> my I think I attribute a lot of my success to just me being naive in the moment. >> Yeah. >> I didn't know what worked. >> Yeah. >> Neither of my parents nor siblings nor anybody else that I looked up to personally in life were business people by any stretch of the imagination.

No sales people, no nothing. >> And so what limited sales experience that I had plus just the personable person that I was like I put them together and just threw spaghetti at a wall and see what stuck. You know, I was posting three times a day on Instagram. I was calling absolutely everybody that I knew. >> And just letting them know what I was doing and why I was doing it. And I truly believe me being

naive and not knowing if any of this stuff was even going to go anywhere anyways was what kept me going, >> right? >> Cuz I just didn't know what I didn't know, >> right? >> Uh I started out as a solo agent just like anybody in Clear Lake, actually southeast Houston. >> Is that where you were born? >> I was actually born in like the Galleria area, but uh I grew up my whole life in southeast

side. just like Scarsdale area, Sagemont, if you're familiar with that. And um I started out just solo. My first couple years in real estate from 2020 through 2022 was all by myself. Uh throughout my second year, I started hiring staff, transaction coordinator, an assistant, a marketing director, people that could help me do what I did just way, way better. >> Right. Right. Right. You started scaling in 2022. >> It was in 2022. And then I didn't

actually start bringing on salespeople until the end of that year. And I just transparently grew it the entirely wrong way. >> Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Like we all do. >> Like we all do. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> I think I built it upon like the fact that, you know, we were all I was 20 or 21. I was 21 at the time >> and I had a bunch of other 21, 22, 23 year olds around me

and we all had a great time in the office all day together and especially even better time when we go to happy hour and we're all drinking on Caleb's credit card. You know what I mean? >> And it was fun. I mean, it was great. It's just and a lot of those people I'm still really good friends with to this day, it just wasn't profitable. It didn't make sense, >> right? >> And as much fun as

I was having, you know, I couldn't be the only one selling homes and still paying for the expenses of these other agents on the team. >> Yeah. You can't be footing the bill forever. >> For sure. >> Um so let's let's uh let's start at the beginning, right? So you're a college student. You're um you're going to what? UFH? >> I was at Sanj Community College. Yeah. Absolutely. >> Cool. And then um what happened like you

just got your license? Walk me through that process. >> A little bit further back than that actually. Whenever I was a senior in high school, I was selling Cutco knives. >> Oh, nice. >> Yeah. And I fell in love with sales. You know, they >> door to door. >> Door to door. Yeah. They they indoctrinate you for sure. You know what I mean? It is a through and through like blood and blood out culture. And >>

through that process, I just loved sales. I loved people. I loved talking to people. And I loved closing deals. That's what I that's where I learned to love that. >> Right. It wasn't until maybe about six or seven months into Cutco that I did an appointment for one of my teachers at the time, Steven Sutton, who's also a realtor. [clears throat] >> And right after the appointment was over, before I even got his order or anything,

he's like, "All right, I'm going to buy something, but I just need to know what do you want to do after high school when you graduate." >> Mh. >> And at the time, transparently, I just watched Wolf of Wall Street. I was just, you know, doing all these sales. I was like, "I just want to do marketing. I just want to sell, you know." >> Yeah. >> And he's like, "Okay, are you going to school?" And

I'm like, "Yeah, I'm going to go for a marketing degree." That was my plan at the time. had already enrolled. Classes were starting soon. >> And he's like, >> "This is what I think you should do in addition, not instead. If you want to go to college, cool. I'm not going to be the one to tell you not to do that." >> However, I think that you have a gift and I think you could do really

well if you were to try this. This being real estate, >> right? >> He asked me, "What do you make when you sell one of these knives?" And depending on what it was, a couple hundred bucks, just depending on how big of an order it was, >> right? >> He's like, "This is what I make when I sell one house." Mhm. >> And you show, you know, an 18-year-old kid a $7,500 check from one transaction. >>

I'm like, well, how do I do that? You know, >> he encouraged me throughout the rest of uh my time in high school, throughout the rest of my senior year to be able to go and take my classes pretty much as soon as I graduated. So, I did. >> Finished them fairly quickly. And then my first semester in college started right at the same time as I had my real estate license, which was at the beginning

of 2020. >> And we all know how 2020 went obviously, right? Yeah. Yeah. In >> 2020, the world shut down about 3 months after I got my license. And here I was, a 19-year-old kid, masked and gloved up anywhere I was just to be able to be out in the field showing houses, talking to people, meeting with people. I didn't know what a global pandemic was. I also didn't know how to sell a house. So, I

figured I might as well put myself out there and try it, >> right? >> Um, and it was a very, again, like I said at the beginning, you know, naive is being naive is what helped me get through that, I think. >> Right. Yeah. kind of keep going and not stopping, not quitting. >> For sure. I think and it's funny because as we grow in business, like you start to develop develop all these biases. You develop

all these like preconceived notions that something doesn't work or something won't work or something can't work. When in reality, when you first get into it, you're not really worried about any of that. You're just doing >> Yeah. >> You're taking action. And that action taking is really half the battle. Doesn't matter if it doesn't work or not. You're still moving. >> Right. >> You're going forward, you know? >> Right. Right. Right. I think that I think

you just hit on something really important that a lot of young people need to hear right now because I feel like it is true as you get older and as you get more in in you know in business or I think even just being older in general like there's a period of time as you get older where you're like you see the world in a certain way. Yeah. >> And then you do things in a certain

way expecting a certain result and then you don't get that result and you're frustrated. and you're like, "What the hell's happening?" >> Yeah. >> Right. And I feel like probably one of the biggest strengths that you that like young kids have nowadays is just being able to go out and do [ __ ] and not worry about it. >> Yeah. >> You know, I think that's really important. I think anyone that's watching this needs to just

>> take that and go and take action. >> 100%. Yeah. You can't be scared of of failing, >> right? It's part of success. >> It's a part of success. It's the biggest part of success in my opinion. Everything that I've done and messed up and failed on is what's >> helped me build up to what I am today. I agree. Yeah, absolutely. So, you were you were how old were you when you were doing when you

got your real estate license and you're in college? >> I was 19. >> You were 19 at the time. >> I was 19. Um, so I ended up finishing my >> 2020. >> That was in 2020. Yeah. Beginning of 2020. So, I ended up finishing my semester >> and I remember having like a just heart-to-he heart moment with myself where I was like, "Okay, I'm learning a lot about marketing and sales doing real estate." I also

learned a lot about marketing and sales whenever I was doing Cutco to be fair. M >> so if I'm going to get a college degree, I should probably do it on something that will be beneficial or something in addition, right? Not necessarily just beating the same old thing that I'm learning anyways, if that makes sense, just in a classroom setting, >> right? >> And so I racked my brain for weeks before I finally had decided, you

know what, I should probably sign up for an engineering degree. >> And you're laughing because you know where this is going. You know, I went to my my, you know, counselor's office, told her about it, so on and so forth. And she gives me the schedule for what an engineering degree would look like. I'm like, >> I don't even like math like that, you know, like at least this type of math, you know what I mean?

And >> I ended up making the decision, you know what, college is going to be here if I ever do want to go back. >> Yeah. >> And real estate, I don't know how long this pickup is going to last, so I might as well ride the wave while it's here. >> Yeah. >> And I just decided I finished my semester, you know, turned all my grades, whatever, and then just went full-time in real estate. >>

Yeah. >> That was uh that was in 2020, just toward like summer of 2020. So you were 19 when you quit? >> I was 19 when I quit college. Yeah. >> Nice. Nice. >> Dude, I actually have an engineering degree. >> Do you really? >> Yeah. >> I uh I hate math [laughter] and I love it. I love math. I did math in the third dimension basically. That's what engineering is. It's uh it's fantastic. >> Yeah,

it's very interesting. It's just I know that like if I was justifying basically I was building myself a plan B, >> right? >> And that's never how you should go into anything. If it's not sales, if it's not real estate, it doesn't have to be that. But whatever it is, like >> you should bring your bring your boat. >> You need you need you need to burn the boats. There is no plan B. It's plan A

all the way because otherwise you're just in addition to all these like preconceived biases that you're going to create over time with yourself and just being in business, >> you're already kind of starting on a crutch if you have a plan B at the beginning. >> I agree. Yeah. >> You know, I'm a very big believer that like >> every human being has this fight orflight mechanism like inside of us, right? And it happens whenever we're

being like physically attacked. If we're being attacked, we're going to either fight back or we're going to run away, you know? And it's that same way in business, in finances, in relationships, in everything. You know, I'm not saying go and do something wild and put your relationship or finances in jeopardy. But there's a lot of power in being able to put your back against a wall and knowing that the inevitably only way out of it is

coming out on top. >> Yeah. >> Couldn't have said it better, bro. Absolutely. I love that. >> What happened after you got your uh after you quit? You went full-time into real estate 2020? >> I did. Yeah. >> 19. How many how many transactions did you do your first year? >> At the end of my first year, I did 12 transactions, which is decent for any first year agent. >> It's fantastic. >> Um, it was about

$2 million in volume. I pretty much matched the income that I had made at my prior job selling knives. >> Yeah. >> I want to say it was about 45 to 50,000 or something along those lines. So, I was cool. I was like, cool. That's that's what I wanted. >> What would you say is like the average amount of transactions and money that your average realtor is making right now? right now. >> I mean, even in

2020, whenever. >> I mean, I just think, you know, that's such a skewed metric, right? Because every market's so different. >> But just on a nationwide basis, whatever. >> No, let's talk about Houston. >> Well, on a Houston basis, whenever I was like in the beginning, everything that I would hear was, "Oh, like six six transactions is normal, right? One every other month is like the norm that I kept hearing whenever I was, >> right, >>

um, getting licensed." >> Even from the beginning, you were able to do transaction >> above average, I guess, by standard. Yeah. Right. And honestly, bro, like it was still something I was so dissatisfied with. You know, I came from Keller Williams, which is a very great culture of a company. You know, they are a company that preaches and praises their people. >> Mh. >> And even if I would just sell one house in a month, all

of a sudden, I'm like on the the boards at the office and team meeting. I'm being recognized. I'm giving an award, so on and so forth. And it was weird like being this 19-year-old kid getting celebrated this way and like, man, y'all ain't seen nothing yet. Like that was my internal feeling. That also didn't do anything for me either, right? like it's not like >> that is going to help me excel by just not appreciating the

praises that I'm getting at the time. >> But it was just a meeting with my broker at the time and told him, "Hey, this is what I want to do. I want to make six figures next year. That's my goal, $100,000." >> He's like, "Okay, well, based off your average price point," which at the time was like 172,000. You need to sell 36 homes. >> I said, "Great. I'm going to sell 36 homes my second year

in real estate. I'm going to triple essentially what I did this year." >> Mhm. Well, it was about 2021 was about maybe June or July and I gave my broker a call and I was like, "Hey, I think I messed something up." And he's like, "What do you mean?" And I'm like, "Well, you told me that I had to sell 36 homes in order to make $100,000 this year." At that time, I was probably at about

21 homes or so or 20 homes, something like that. And I'd already crossed that $100,000 threshold for income. >> Mhm. >> So, I was like, I I just don't know. Do I adjust my goals? Do I change them? Do I increase them? What do I do here? >> He's like, "Well, look at your calendar for a second. Do you have any extra time for additional activities? I looked at my calendar and I said, "Absolutely not." It

was full. It was filled to the brim. I had no time for really anything else. >> And he's like, "Well, then just keep riding this wave and see where you land." But the reality is that you're not working for 36 transactions because I had already surpassed what I wanted to make income-wise based off of that 36 transactions. My average price point had gone up. >> So, he was like, "Just keep working the same way that you

know how to do. let's see where you land and let's set more realistic expectations for the following year. >> My second year in real estate, I ended up selling about 52 homes >> for about 12 and a half million in volume. >> So, just blowing my first year out of the water, of course. >> Yeah, absolutely. What do you think attributed to your success in your second year of business? >> It's a compound effect. >> Yeah.

>> You know, in the beginning, I was doing so much all at once. I mean, on Instagram, I was posting three times a day. I was having conversations with at least 20 to 30 people a day and conversations from all different people, right? Sphere of influence, friends, family, cold leads that I was getting from expired listing sources, pre-foreclosure list, literally anybody that I could have a conversation with because I knew that conversation equal dollars in my

bank account. >> Mh. >> I was having a conversation with them. And of course, just like any sales job, not everybody's ready to go right away. But if you follow up, if you plant seeds, and if you continue to water those seeds over time, at some point the plant comes to fruition. And so I think it was a combination of me continuing to have that discipline and those conversations and sometimes I'd have some people that were

like, "Yeah, I'm actually ready to buy or sell a home right now, right?" >> And then all of a sudden within those months, I'd have maybe three or four people from the last year who I followed up with consistently finally come back around and say, "Hey, I'm ready to go now." >> Yeah. >> So it was just a compound effect. And I think a lot of people may have like quit if they were doing the work

I was doing and getting paid what I was being paid. Because of again like 12 transactions, 2 million in volume is a good year for any agent, especially a first year agent, >> but >> but you were doing a lot more work. >> I was doing a lot more work and that's what ended up it was like a domino effect, you know. >> Right. Right. No, that makes sense. So, walk me to through the next steps.

You uh you did 52 transactions your second year. >> What happens next? Now you have money in the bank. Now you're like, "Okay, what do we do? >> I need to reinvest." That was my biggest thing. You know, I think another thing that really attributed to my success was like lowrisk hiring. I had a transaction coordinator that first year in real estate and I heard something uh or my second year in real estate and I heard

something at the beginning of my second year that the average real estate transaction takes about 50 hours. >> Mhm. >> Just through negotiating, through inspection reports, through appraisals, through everything. It takes about that amount of time. So, if you're wanting to do more than just one transaction a month, you need to be able to delegate some of that time because physically you can't spend all 50 hours in the transaction yourself. >> No. >> So, I hired

a transaction coordinator. I say it was low risk because if I didn't get paid, she didn't get paid. Um it was a per transaction fee that I had to pay versus a salary. >> Yeah. >> And as I started to have money in the bank toward like the summertime of my second year, toward the actually the back half of my second year, I started bringing on more staff. I hired a full-time assistant. I hired a marketing

director. I brought on a videographer on retainer and I brought on my first agent all within the span of maybe three months of each other. And it was rapid growth. After that, >> that was in 2021. >> That was in 2021. >> Got it. >> And after that in 2022, I pretty much grew the team way bigger than that. >> Mhm. Toward the end of 2022, we were at about um six agents counting myself, so like

five outside of me and three admin, one part-time, two full-time. >> And it was great. It was a great company culture. We had a lot of fun like I mentioned. And >> were all these people in in in office in house or >> all the agents were? >> I think a part of that company culture that I've tried to create was like >> having all of us together at least lead generation time, you know? >> Yeah.

Yeah. So, every morning, Monday through Friday, 9 to 12, we were all together, everybody. My admin, uh, they were hybrid. Sometimes they'd work from home, sometimes they'd be in office, but the reality is we would all be in the office like calling like crazy. So, the admin that are in there just on their computer are probably working in the front of the office anyways, you know? >> Right. Right. >> Um, >> what were the admins doing?

>> My full-time assistant was just managing me and my calendar and my clientele pretty much. My marketing director and videographer were kind of working handinhand with branding and brand cohesiveness really. like it was going from being Caleb Monroe to the Monroe team. It was that transition that I needed a lot of help with, I think. And so that's what they were working on a lot of in the beginning while we were just finding more business. They

were like, how do we optimize this business that we already have, >> right? >> The salesperson's job is just to go and hunt. You know, you you hire to your weaknesses in my opinion. And I think like the weaknesses that I had at that time was just the administrative stuff, >> the stuff that needed to get done in order for transactions to be closed, but in reality action-wise made you no money, if that makes sense. >>

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like a lot of operations is sort of like like that, right? It's not income generating activities, but it is necessary to put the dollar in the bank. >> 100%. >> Right. If you don't follow the right paperwork, if you don't send something to title, blah blah blah, I mean, you're not going to get paid, right? So it's absolutely necessary. But >> for people like us that were hardwired with like sales, we're like,

"Oh, it's a complete waste of time." >> 100%. Yeah. And and for that reason, you you hire it out. You know, you you delegate it. You get it out of your way. And >> that way, you're able to have a smaller focus. Small focus is always going to get you big results. >> Yeah. >> And so, fast forward through into 2022 um or past 2022, we had a great year. I had sold 52 homes again. I

increased my volume by about $4 million. So, my average price point went up again. And I realized something at the end of that year that I was the team. We had done about 85 transactions total. And remember I had six agents and including myself. So five other agents splitting about 30 transactions, >> right? >> That's not really that sexy whenever you break down that number per agent. You know what I mean? >> And so I had

to make some decisions. I spent pretty much the first half of 2023 having a lot of my mentors come into a team meeting, having Zoom calls with other people who I admired in the industry and asking them to train my team. >> And in those trainings, they would pinpoint who was listening, who was leaning in, who was like didn't care if they were there or not, who was just there for happy hour later on that day,

and who was there to really grow and learn. And everybody's answers were very consistent about the people in the company that were there for the good reasons and that were there just because they wanted to have fun and be part of the Monroe team, right? >> And around May of 2023, I had a a private meeting with my two top producers at the time and I let them know these are the changes that are going to

be made. >> I realize that our splits are not profitable and since they're not profitable, I'm not able to reinvest as much into the business as I want. Therefore, y'all are doing less business because of that. cuz if I invest more into the business, you guys are inevitably going to sell more homes. That's how it should be how it works essentially, >> right? >> And since I was the only one selling homes and our splits were

favorable to the agents, it didn't necessarily come off as the most attractive thing to them considering they were not selling a lot of homes and they were focused on more of how much money can I make per transaction, not how much money can I make overall. And so initially when I say, "Hey, I'm going to reduce your split and make the company more profitable." You got to understand, they're like, "Wait, wait a second. What do you

mean by that? >> Mhm. >> In [clears throat] addition to that, I told him I was letting go of half the team, all the salespeople. My admin was staying the exact same. I told him I was going to stop taking buyers and that you guys were going to get all of my buyer clients >> and that you guys were going to get paid to mentor the two other agents that I was keeping on under you guys.

We left that dinner and everybody was great. Everything was cool. Everybody was happy. They were satisfied. >> About when was that? 20 >> This was 2020 uh 23. >> Got it. >> This was 2023. So, >> we ended up leaving that meeting. Everything was cool. And about 2 days later, I'm packing up because I was going out of town for a friend of mine's birthday for a week. And I'm packing up. It was like NBA playoff

time. So, it's right around the summer time. >> Yeah. >> Two of my agents are at the office or excuse me, at my house watching with me. One of the agents that I was keeping and one of the agents that I was going to let go. >> Yeah. >> Nobody had any any idea about our private meeting yet. Nobody had any idea about my decisions I was making. And I'm packing up in my room. the agent

that I was going to keep, one of my top producers came back and was like, "Hey, I just want to let you know that I'm leaving the team." >> And like stake to the heart immediately. I'm like, "Oh, I thought we were all good." So on and so forth. >> Yeah. >> And I bit my tongue. I didn't say anything about it. I just said, "I wish you luck. >> You know, I always got love for

you. You know, I'm here for you if you need me." So on and so forth. Which still rings true to true to this day. Me and him are still very close and I'm always there for him. >> Yeah. And I realized, okay, well, now I have to make some quicker decisions because initially I was like, I'm going to go to Vegas, have a great time with my friends, come back, fire everybody, and we're going to have

a fresh start, >> right? >> It's going to be great. >> That was not the case anymore, right? >> So, I called my assistant the next morning. I'm like, hey, this is what happened. What do you think I should do? She's like, >> think that if you don't do it today, you're going to be thinking about it the entire time that you're on your trip, so you might as well rip the band-aid. >> And I was

like, no wiser words have been spoken. >> I was not supposed to go in the office that day, but I did. And I pretty much had one-on-one meetings with everybody and still followed suit with what I planned to do, which was let them go. >> The key conversation that I had with all that was my other top producer >> because in that same breath of him telling me, this guy telling me that he was leaving the

team, he's like, "You might want to talk to Saul because he's kind of feeling the same way, >> right?" >> So, I'm like, "Okay, that's the first call I'm going to make right after my assistant." So, I called him. We had a long conversation. Long story short, he stayed and he's still our top producer to this day. >> Nice. Um, so much so that we are growing him to the point we just hired him an assistant

that we're splitting the salary with him for. You know what I mean? So, >> I've always like been flexible about growth. You know, >> I don't necessarily think the true value in a team lead is just giving a better split, but what other things that that team lead can invest in you with that split, >> like a salary for an assistant, for example. >> It's only going to make him more productive. >> Right. >> So, that

was 2023. [laughter] >> Got it. And I'm not familiar at all with like how uh you know I know the amount of money that the realtor gets, right? You guys get 6% of the deal, 3% to the buyers, 3% to the seller. >> But in terms of commission splits or anything like that, I'm not really aware. I've I've never been a realtor, so I don't I'm not um privy to that information, especially like different brokers. I

know every brokerage has like a different split. >> Yeah. >> Uh how did it work with your brokerage at the time? How much money were you getting off the 3% and then how much how were you splitting that pie initially and then kind of what kind of decisions did you make? >> Yeah, so I was at KW which at the time they were on like a 7030 split with like a $16,000 cap. So essentially once I've

paid 30% once I've paid 16K toward that 30% I keep 100% for the rest of the year and 100% of my 3%. >> And so >> Got it. Got it. Got it. So So you're getting Say say it again. 16 >> No. So, so you No, essentially, sorry, I'll just make it simpler. The cap really doesn't matter. It was 7030 of the 3%. So, I was getting 70% of the 3%. >> Until you reached what amount?

>> 16K. >> 16,000. >> Yeah. Paid back to the brokerage in that 30%. >> Okay. Got it. >> After that, then it's 100% of whatever my 3% is until my anniversary essentially. >> So, if I started in February, next February it would restart at that 7030 split until I cap again. >> Okay. Does that cap ever go up? And >> not usually. No. Uh, it's just company dependent. Like Keller Williams, I'd say, has maybe one of

the higher splits and higher caps. There's plenty of companies out there, including the one that I'm at today, >> where [clears throat] we have a$ 8515 split and a $12,000 cap. So, obviously >> much different, you know? >> Right. Right. >> Uh, they also reward us at the company today to like sell even more past the cap to where they essentially are just giving that back in company stock. So, there's plenty of companies out there that

do it many different ways. >> Who uh who are you with now? >> I'm with Real Broker. >> Real Broker. >> Yeah. >> Nice. cloud-based brokerage. Um, fairly new. I actually just got back from our company conference about a week ago and and the stuff they're rolling out, we were talking about AI off camera at first. The stuff they're rolling out with AI, we have like an autopilot assistant pretty much in our app that does a

lot of things for us. >> Really? >> So, it's really cool. Yeah, it's really cool. I'm deep diving into it a lot over the next couple weeks, especially as we get into the new year to really put some stuff into place for the agents. >> Yeah, >> cuz that's my role now, you know? It's like being the business owner, >> right? >> You know. >> Right. So, when did you start? Did you start an LLC at

some point? what happened. >> Yeah, so that was um about that was actually end of 2022 when I started the Monroe Team >> LLC. >> Um and that's kind of how I ran business through and you know every single sale that went through I did it through there and essentially after I let all the team go it I kept it very small. It was literally just me and three other agents and two admin >> for about

two years or about a year and a half. And it wasn't really until beginning of this year that I started to think about hiring again to be honest with you because I had let go of half the team and we did double the amount of production with half the people. >> Mhm. And I think it just attributed to because we were like, don't get me wrong, it was very awkward at first because here I was coming

back from a trip from Vegas where before it was like 10 people in an office every single day laughing, giggling, having a great time, going out to lunch together, so on and so forth to coming back to an office of four people, right? >> Maybe five whenever my admin's working in office that day. And you know, I was the big bad wolf that essentially just got rid of everybody's friends. You know what I mean? So when

I come back in town, it's like I also have to shift with that culture as well and dive a little bit deeper into the agents that I do have. What do they want to create? What are they even in this business for? And just build it the more right way, more intentionally >> versus just you are cool. >> We're cool together. I can tolerate you for a couple hours in an office every single day >> and

then we can go out and have fun for the rest of our our evening or our weekend or whatever. >> Yeah. >> And we'll be fine. >> Right. But it's not very productive. >> Not productive. Not profitable. Not anything remotely smart. >> Yeah. And I think um you know in business as you grow into it also one thing that you start noticing is opportunity cost. >> Yeah. >> Right. By me focusing my time on this specific

task. What am I losing out on right now? >> 100%. >> What am I not doing? What needs to get done >> to move the needle forward faster? Right. >> Yeah. It's one of those things like having an agent on the team, realistically speaking, doesn't necessarily cost you much money. >> It cost you time. >> Cost you so much time. And that is much more valuable than any dollar. >> Way more valuable. Yeah. Um I would

also say whenever you do focus your attention on on those on fruitful tasks then it also becomes you also get a sense of unhappiness unfulfillment where you're just like you're pouring into something or someone and then you're not seeing the results that you would like to see. Then you're like well >> what the hell? >> Yeah. >> This is not working out. >> Yeah. >> 100%. >> So you you're in 2023 now. You're in a small

team now, double your production. So, what did you guys do in 2023? >> 2023, uh, we ended up at just shy of 35 million in volume, >> for about I want to say it was 120 transactions. >> Mhm. >> Maybe 119, something like that. >> Um, and so our per agent productivity and my production had had gone down a little bit as far as like the amount of weight that I was holding for the team, you

know what I mean? like they're the split between what I was doing in comparison to what they were doing was just way more healthy if that makes sense. >> And it gave me the confidence to say, you know what, like I should invest into these people further, you know, and I should >> help them grow even past just being an agent, but I want to help you guys invest in real estate. I want to guys buy

rental properties, flip homes, so on and so forth. Now it's I want to help you guys land developers, work with builder clients, so on and so forth, you know? >> Yeah. And like I mentioned, it was really the beginning of this year that I really opened back up to hiring again. I did it very slow and methodically last year in 2024 >> because coming off 2023 uh where I let go of everybody, I wanted that first

full year of us just being small together to be done correctly, >> right? >> If that makes sense. I wanted us to >> be blood in blood out with the culture. I wanted us to be about each other, not necessarily about anything that was going on on the outside. Interest rates had started to rise a little bit. So it was like we need to really educate ourselves, be the sharpest agents in any room that we go

into because no matter if interest rates, transactions are still going to be done, >> right? >> And if we're griping about why we don't have transactions done, then you're not in the right room. >> You're not focusing on the right tasks, the the tasks that are going to make you more money. >> 100%. Yeah. >> Complaining doesn't get you anything. I think the biggest thing I've tried to like provide to my team is like giving them

that small small small focus that you know there are really so many things that you have to do as a real estate agent, but there's really only a couple things that pay you, >> right? >> You know, and if I can help you guys focus on the things that pay you, you're going to have a much more profitable business. >> So, for everyone that's listening right now, what what would that those tasks be? Those things that

pay you. >> Conversations and appointments. Mhm. >> No matter what business you're in, no matter what line of sales that you're in, no matter if it's real estate, car sales, so on and so forth, conversations and appointments are what make you money, >> right? >> Blake, period. >> Simple. >> Having conversations with people, having real estate conversations with people, of course, >> and asking the right questions, asking for the business. There's too many people that are

shy, you know, and I think like maybe it's just because I sold thousand knife sets. I'm not really shy to ask for the business, right? But I think that's one of the one of the largest crutches for agents today. Asking for the business, would you say? >> Yeah. I think people, >> when you say asking for the business, what do you mean by that? >> Do you want to buy or sell a home? >> Simple. >>

Straight up simple. And I mean, obviously not in so many words. You can get creative, you can be salesy, you can do say it however you want to say it, but right >> at the end of the day, if you're calling people, having a conversation, and not mentioning anywhere in there that you're happy to help them if there absolutely anything in the world that you can do for them in the world of real estate, are they

ever going to remember that you're even in real estate? Wait, so you'd say that this is an actual problem that most people are having? >> I don't think that agents I'd say for me it was such an easy like lowhanging fruit just because like coming from a sales background >> you like have to ask for the order, >> right? >> If I just go to your house, show you all these pretty knives, and then pack them

all up and leave. >> Yeah. >> How am I ever going to expect you to buy something? >> No. Of course. Yeah. You know, how many do you want to buy? >> Exactly. >> Yeah. I just sold you everything. How many do you want to buy? >> Right. It's a simple thing, but I think it's something that is so simple that it gets overlooked, >> right? >> You know, everybody knows a real estate agent, >> right?

>> There's 50,000 plus here in Houston alone, >> you know? So, the reality of you being consistent, following up, and then not asking for the business does just as much damage to you not following up at all. >> That's actually pretty wild, man. Like, I wouldn't have even expected that to be a thing, you know? Like, to me, it's something so basic, right? Like, >> it is. I mean, and because it should be, you know what

I mean? Especially like on the investment side of things, right? You can't go to a homeowner's house, you know, tell them about your construction costs, so on and so forth, why you're offering, what they're what you're offering, and then never bring out a contract, >> right? >> You're not going to buy the house, right? >> You know, you leave that house and your chances of actually buying it go way way way lower as we know. Right.

>> Right. >> Um, so it's a it's a simple thing and I think that's why it gets overlooked. >> Right. Right. >> Yeah. Sometimes like whenever I go on appointments, I bust out the contract and I'm I'm just like I start going over it like immediately whenever I'm like on a wholesale appointment, you know? Yeah. I'm like, "Yeah, so this is this, this, and this, and we're going to close on this date." And they're like, "Whoa,

whoa, whoa, whoa." [laughter] >> Yeah. But it's common practice. It's like you have to act as if. I think that's the other thing. You know, I talked about being naive, but I think it's really more like just acting as if having that confidence that >> the person that you're talking to on the other end of this phone call is going to be your client. >> You should always assume the sale. Correct? >> You should always assume

the sale. If you don't in your mind, you already lost >> 100%. >> Yeah. And then I feel like when you start with the end in mind, any objection just becomes a minor roadblock really, right? >> It's it's just like, oh, you're just don't have enough information for you to >> buy what I'm telling you. >> Yeah. >> And this is what you need based on everything that you just said. >> You need this and so

what is stopping you? Yeah. >> What else? What other piece of information are you lacking so we can move forward? >> Right. 100%. And sometimes it's like the simple things, but if you never ask, you'll never know. >> I do I feel like I do see that a lot also just like in speaking here. I I see a lot of agents that don't really know like they don't even know the fundamentals of sales in terms of

like even asking for a sale. >> Yeah. And I think that's why again that's I think that's just why it gets overlooked. It's simple to us because we've been doing it for a while or because >> it's >> we've failed because of not asking for the sale maybe, you know. Um, but it's just again so simple that it gets overlooked. >> Something so simple. It's funny. >> It's uh you don't even realize those those things sometimes,

right? It's completely overlooked. >> Yeah. >> So, you're um so you grow your team, you're um you double your production, you're in 2023. 2024. >> That was that was 2023. Now, we're we're transitioning into 2024 where I really kept, like I said, I kept the team very intentionally small. I only hired one other person in the fold at that point, which was another admin >> uh to kind of just help with like the overflow of a

lot of things that we had going on because we were growing so much. >> Yeah. >> And like I said, if I can take anything off of my agents plate that's going to help them focus more on having conversations, talking to people, going on appointments, selling homes, that I'm going to do it. That's like the best investment that I can make as a team leader, >> right? >> Um and all throughout 2024, I started to really

go heavier into investments as well. >> 2024. >> Yeah. uh really at the end of 2023, but I would flip houses here and there whenever I I turned 21. I bought my first flip house, you know, and I would flip >> I'd say maybe five to six homes a year. It wasn't anything insane. >> Um but it was enough to like just have these large pops of cash here and there randomly to be able to reinvest

in myself, reinvest in the business, whatever. >> Yeah. And it wasn't until like 2023, 2024 that I actually started holding on to properties and I realized, you know, while the realtor business is making me this thankfully large amount of income, >> I should probably be planting some of this income somewhere, >> right? >> You know, and for me it was real estate, >> right? >> Buying buying rental properties. >> Buying rental properties. Yeah. I tried to

be very >> creative with how I did it, too. Um like I didn't shy away from doing sub two deals. I didn't shy away from offering owner finance. M >> I didn't shy away from anything that I think a lot of people were like, "No, I just need a 70% deal that I can buy with hard money and then sell it or refinance." And of course, I was doing plenty of that as well, >> but at

the same time, I didn't it wasn't like a one-sizefits-all. If I saw that there was potential for a deal to be had, I didn't necessarily want to let it go to waste, >> right? >> For example, there was a house I bought in Sunnyside U that was a sub two deal. >> And had I just made this lady a regular offer, >> she would have been in a rush. She couldn't have found another home how she

did. But instead, I bought it sub two. I rented the property back out to her for a year. She ended up building her credit back up. I refinanced out of the property, pulled about $40,000 out in taxfree cash. She got her DTI back to where it needed to be. She got her credit back to where it needed to be. And then she was able to go qualify and buy another home for herself. >> Yeah, >> that's

a win-win scenario in my opinion. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> I would have never been she would have never been able to do that cuz she wasn't ready to go buy that house just yet. Had I just said, "Hey, I'll buy it for this much >> and we got to close in two weeks. So, you got to be out in two weeks. >> Yeah. Also a very, very risky situation for you. >> 100%. >> You're really lucky

everything went really well. I've heard of countless stories of people doing sub 2 and then the people >> are like, "Well, we didn't sign anything and I didn't really show you my house and you committed fraud, so I'm keeping my house, >> right?" >> And then good luck trying to explain that to a judge. >> 100%. Yeah. It it is a very risky type of investment. >> Yeah. But I think it goes back to starting with

the end in mind and the confidence that you brought to the transaction, being able to sell this lady on the entire vision, right? What's going to happen a year from now and then maybe also you're probably keeping up with her during the whole year, right? Making sure that she's >> fixing her credit, making sure she's doing everything she has to do so she can go and qualify for another house. >> 100%. Yeah. So, >> so I

think it really like the business started to excel a little bit more when we started to be working outside of just the box of being a realtor, you know, standard buyer and seller retail transactions. When we started to be a little bit more creative, think outside the box, do more investment type deals. Yeah. >> Is I think when we really started to like >> hit a J curve. >> Yeah. Where do you think that uh where

do you think that came from? How did you learn all that? >> I think well, so first of all, I learned everything about investments at King James Lending Wednesday meetings. you know what I mean? >> Um, I would go there every single Wednesday morning. I would just sit and learn. And I ended up buying, like I said, my first flip whenever I was 21. >> And it was that same thing that I think I started whenever

I started as a realtor, right? Like just being naive. Obviously, I had more proof of concept and I had a lot more people around me that were doing really good deals, that were doing flips that I could like learn from, take contractors from, so on and so forth, and like just take advice from overall. >> Yeah. >> Um, so it was a lot of that, but I think like it's a lot of trial by fire, too.

You know, it's the same way. I'm not, again, I thankfully never really got into any deal that >> Well, I was going to say I never got into any deal that lost me a lot of money, but I did. >> Yeah. >> Um, just like anybody, but it it was one of those things that like, you know, it's it's a lesson that you'd pay for 10 times over again. >> Yeah. Absolutely. If you haven't lost money

in real estate, you haven't been doing real estate long enough. >> 100%. Done enough deals. >> You haven't done enough deals. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. >> So, you started doing sub two, owner finance, all of these. Um, >> walk me through some of your investment properties. Like, what kind of properties do you own? What do you do with them? Are they all just rentals? >> Yeah. So, currently now I'm up to about 34 doors. Um, it's a

lot of now smaller multif family properties. I have maybe three single family homes and the rest of them are >> duplex, triplex. The biggest thing I own is a 9 unit. >> And um >> yeah, I mean I I just hold on to them and for me they act as like little savings accounts, you know, >> because I'm 25 years old. I I know that if I pay on these things for another 25 years, I'll have

a paid off mortgage, right? Yeah. and I'll have a paid off asset that I can cash out from, sell, cash flow freely every single month from as long as my tenants are paying on time. >> Yeah. >> It's essentially like a little retirement plan. You know, as realtors, of course, we don't have 401ks or anything along those lines, but I might as well invest into the thing that I'm selling. >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> You got to

put your money where your mouth is. Right. >> Right. Yeah. I think people listened a little bit more intently whenever it was like, "Hey, I'm also doing this, too." You know, >> I I just bought another house and blah blah blah. This is why you should do it, too. >> Of course. >> Yeah. So, you're shifting now into working more with developers, >> correct? >> How's that going? >> It's going great, man. Um, I mentioned like

small focus, big results, and I think it's just doing more with less. You know, I feel like I speak the language, especially I think I kind of caught this bug doing my own investments, flipping, and so on and so forth. Going through all those numbers. I said earlier whenever I was talking about the engineering degree that I don't like math or that type of math, but now I love it. But this type of math, you know

what I mean? The more financing type of math, >> financing math is fantastic. And that's I think why I've loved working with builders so much because I speak their language. You know, I can put the puzzle together for them when it comes to like here's the lot, here's how many houses we can fit. Me and my team see houses every single day so we can help you with the design and we can also help you finance

it because we can raise the money for you, you know? >> Yeah. >> And the only reason that I've had confidence way honestly to get to this point is just my team too. like it kind of goes back to them because I was telling you guys before we got on, >> there's a lot of simple things that I do now that I could have done a while back and kick myself in the butt for not doing

them a while back considering how much time they're saving me now. >> Yeah. >> Something as simple as someone calls me and wants me to sell their house. Great. I go over. In the past, it was just me that went over to that house. I was the one selling. I was the one closing the deal. I was the one getting the contract signed. And then after all that stuff, I was also scheduling staging, scheduling photos, scheduling

videos, keeping up with them, making sure they're doing the repairs we ask for them along with many, many, many other things. >> Mhm. >> Now, I bring one of my admin on the appointments with me. All I do is go sell, >> right? >> That's all I have to do. And there are times, transparently, where I might have such a full day that we leave that house and I forget what the wall colors are, to be

honest with you. >> And it's not that I don't care. Of course, I'm going to be back at the house anyway shooting a video with the photographer, so on and so forth. But >> you're not focusing on the small tasks that don't need to be focused on right now. Correct. Right. >> I've done my job, right? >> My job was to get the listing >> until it's time to sell the listing. When it's time to sell,

you tag me back in, but before then, >> these things are things that could be taken care of, >> right? >> Um, and the fact that I'm now officially not really taking many other buyers. You know, in the past, I tried it, but then whenever half the team got cut, I was like, well, I don't know if I can trust these agents to do the business yet, so I got to keep on taking buyers, you know?

>> Right. Um, and so today like I have a lot more confidence in the team at hand to be able to handle a lot of those buyers, not let them fall through the cracks where it allows me to really go and dive into these development projects and have weekly calls with my builders, make sure they know where we are with their projects and things like that and really keep a pulse on the market. I think it's

the biggest thing too >> as a team lead >> and a broker or company owner. Like it's up to you to keep the pulse on what's happening and what's going on and keeping your people informed, >> right? and your people being informed are what's going to help them really excel, >> right? So, whenever it comes down to uh you landing these developer buyers, where are you finding them? How are you building the relationships? I know you

spoke about speaking the lingo, right? >> Yeah. >> Having the pieces, but >> what is your plan to scale that? >> I think it's two things that I've done so far. Um and then I'll tell you about plan to scale it. The two things I've done so far is just sharing my journey on social media. you know, anytime that I post that I bought a new property, for example, like like you mentioned a second ago, I'm

practicing what I preach, right? >> Yeah. >> And the fact that I'm kind of like showcasing a lot of these development projects as if they're my own. And of course, disclosing like this is for my client. This is for my client. I'm not trying to be a poser online, right? But >> ultimately, I'm just showing the process, showing how involved I am, literally from the dirt to the point where these houses are all beautiful and staged.

>> Yeah. >> Um, and the second thing is just helping people believe in it. You know, we have so many clients that have flipped plenty of homes. So much so that they probably have the capital, the experience, the knowledge to be able to build a home >> and building a home is probably going to be a lot more profitable for you, find the right deal, >> right? >> So, it's like I guess sharing the vision and

helping them dream a little bit, you know? >> Yeah. >> The plan to scale it honestly, bro, is just being the best. And I know that sounds like >> canned and maybe a little cliche, but the reality is like success beget success in the builder industry is what I've noticed. >> Builders watch and they also talk. And if I can just show that my clients products are marketed better than anybody else nearby us. >> Mhm. >>

That they're sold before anybody else nearby us and that they're like carried all the way through with the utmost care from dirt to development to like closing. If I can showcase that on a massive scale, whether that be through email campaigns, hosting networking events, broker opens, whether it be on my social media and all the videos that I do, it's just showing and proving. And I think that that attracts all the business that I'll need. >>

Yeah, I like that. So, you're saying you're going to more than anything just showcase everything that you're already doing basically. >> Yeah. You know, I think back to I had a conversation with another top producing agent like three years ago and I told her, "You should be doing a lot more content." And when I say content, I don't just mean like posting pretty pictures of houses, but you should go online and make a video of you

talking about this is exactly step by step how to buy a house. >> Yeah. >> From point A to point Z, this is exactly what you do. >> Right. >> And you need to shift your focus from thinking that's just going to help buyers learn how to do it without me into buyers saying, "Wow, thank you so much for teaching me everything that I need to know. Now, can you help me do it?" >> Right? >>

Because that's what the more likely option is going to be, >> right? And I think it's the same thing on a much more massive and educated scale with developers, builders, investors. >> Yeah, I agree. Um I think there's like this I I feel like that's almost like a very limited mindset, right? Like a scarcity mindset where it's like, oh, why would I want to share the value that I have to offer or the knowledge that I've

accumulated because then they can go and do it without me. Well, what you don't understand is people don't want to have don't want to invest the time into those exact things, >> right? >> You know what I mean? I we spoke a little bit about even like a like a VA, right? >> It's a lot of work doing all that BS. It's even a lot of work for me. Like I have people that do it. So

>> yeah, bro. I mean leveraging anything that you can out with a VA with I mean Vancom Services for sure. >> Like the fact that you guys are able to train them on so many different aspects like it's not a one-sizefits-all. It's not like I can just come to you guys and say, "Hey, I need a cold caller or I need a a transaction coordinator." It can be one and the same. It could be two separate

people. I think [snorts] that's what's so cool about it, too, you know? >> Yeah. And primarily when it comes to when it comes to placing people, you know, I feel like whenever like realtors, I think >> you really need to find just one kind of person, right? You need to find a shark. >> Where are the sharks at? >> Yeah. >> And let me put this shark into this role and they're going to succeed. >> Yeah.

When it comes to roast within a company, it's all about really understanding that row and the specific task they're going to be doing. For sure. Right. You can't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. >> Yeah. >> Right. That'd be that'd be silly. So, let's get someone that is going to be really good at crushing it in this specific role and then let's place them and let them go. Take the leash off. Boom.

You're going to have success. >> You said something there. I don't want to fall on deaf ears for anybody listening and that's take the leash off. like allow them to do what they do. >> Yeah. >> You know, as a company owner, it can be very easy to fall into that control freak mindset where it's like even though I've empowered you to do these things, I still need to micromanage you. That defeats the purpose of empowering

anybody. >> For anyone that's listening that may be a manager also, I mean, one of the biggest I feel like productivity killers is micromanaging. >> Yeah. >> People want to do their job. People want to be successful. You just need to show them what success is. >> This is what success looks like. These are the numbers that you need to hit. These if you want to have X results, these are the precursors to that, right? Uh

these are the there's lagging and indicating and and uh what is it called? Lagging and indicating numbers, right? So there's certain numbers that you need to hit up front so you can have x amount of results. If you want to have x amount of dollars in the bank, you need to have you need to make x amount of calls or x amount of appointments. To your point, >> what you track, you can scale. >> That's right.

Where focus goes, energy flows, bro. >> 100%. So you're you're now scaling, you're going with more developers and builders. Um you're also talking about maybe raising private capital for the some of these deals, right? >> Correct. Yeah. I think one thing I've been exposed to this year, what we talked about a little bit before before we started was the fact that like all these investment deals and things that I've done over time have been solely myself.

Like I've been I've had a handful of partners in my career. [clears throat and cough] >> I still work with some of them, some of them I don't. >> Mh. >> And I think like it's limited me to what is really possible. Yeah, >> you know, and I don't know if it was just because I wanted it all for myself. I wanted all the control because it was like an ego thing potentially, but bringing other people

in and helping them achieve their goals, you know, it helps you achieve yours 10fold, you know? >> Yeah. >> I feel like whenever you do also bring private capital in, like you just respect the money a lot more. >> Oh, 100%. >> Yeah. Whenever it's my money on the line, I'm just like, it's fine. I I'll get to it when I can. And then when it's someone else's money, I'm like, I need to make sure I

deliver a result, right? And so, >> and that feeling has you so militant and just like you're an executioner, you know what I mean? And you're just so sharp. And >> I think uh above all, >> that may be the state that I think I perform the best in whenever I'm just executing, you know? And I think like most high achievers, sales people, business owners, like >> when you're in that state of like there's a little

bit of extra pressure, there's a little bit of added, you know, >> oh, game on >> think. Yeah. you it's just game on. >> Yeah. You feel like you're it's almost like a state of flow. Right. For sure. >> Right. I uh I haven't done >> very many more like sales calls uh for >> for real estate sales um because I've been focusing primarily on VCOM, but uh I remember whenever I was on sales calls, I

I would close my eyes and like it was almost like I felt like in a state of flow. And it's >> as close I would say to like when >> you know Kobe Bryant, they would ask him like, you know, how was it during the game? He's like, I have no idea. Yeah, I don't remember anything. >> Yeah, [laughter] >> it's true. >> It's just like you you're just in a state of flow, in a state

of being present, >> uh where everything's just kind of magically happening for you. You know, >> presence, man. That's the biggest thing. You know, I think um and this is just like a little bit off the question of private equity, but or private capital, but >> you know, remaining present is the only way that you're going to be able to grow. >> If you're just consistently thinking about the past, you're going to live in the past.

If you're thinking about the future, you're never going to be happy about what you have right now, >> right? And >> not only that, but it'll create anxiety too if you're thinking about the future. >> 100%. Yeah. And I mean, I've experienced just I'm sure as as you have and any other business owner out there, you know, and so remaining present and just appreciating where you are, I think is what gets you to find more things

to appreciate. >> Yeah. >> Um and so this journey of like working with these bigger deals, bigger projects, trying to put these like bigger puzzles together has been so rewarding because >> I think it's a culmination of a lot of the things that I've just been able to build. >> And it's an uncomfortable thing, you know? >> Yeah. Whenever I'm the main person supposed to be selling every single house that we come across and now all

of a sudden I'm not, I'm like, okay, well, what is my role supposed to be? You know, I have all this extra time on my hands because I'm not necessarily having to schedule all the stuff for the listings anymore. I'm not driving an hour and three hours a day showing houses to buyers anymore. >> What do I do with my time? >> Right? >> And I think it's a lot of like this just bigger projects, raising

the money, finding these bigger assets to be able to buy. um or just bigger developments to be able to do. You know, Houston is such an a growing city >> that I think you're leaving money on the table if your name is not involved in one of these bigger developments. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Well, I I'm sure you're definitely going to land something pretty big. Have you already worked with with uh builders and developers or >>

Yeah, 100%. So, we have >> a couple developments that are live right now uh for Town Home Community and Acres Homes. We have two duplexes that are going live >> next week. Actually, they just got staged yesterday. So, we'll be having an event there. >> New construction. >> New construction. Yeah. All new construction. >> So, how'd you meet the guy for for these deals? For example, >> uh the one in Acres Homes, actually, funny enough, one

of my best Cutco customers ever. >> Mhm. >> Um I did not know that they did real estate when I first got into real estate. >> Oh, yeah. >> But I would call them nonetheless cuz I would call everybody in my sphere of influence when I first got started. >> And lo and behold, they had a house that they had built in Dayton that wasn't selling. And they're like, "We want you to take a crack at

it. This is our builder. You can get introduced to him." And then me and Mike, Mike is his name, uh, Velco Builders is have just gotten so close and like I think have such a respect for each other and what we're trying to build >> that it's like he's introduced me to so many other investors that are wanting him to build and I've tried to bring in other capital for him to be able to just go

build his own product, his own, you know, name. >> Yeah. Um, and then Carlos with Kaen Holmes, one of my really great friends. We're in the same office, see each other dang near every day, is the one that's building those duplexes. And then >> Carlos Perea. Okay. >> Kayen Holmes. Yeah. >> Mhm. >> There's um there's a lot of developments that we have on the horizon. Those are like our two active ones right now and the

two ones I think I'm most excited about. >> Very cool. >> Yeah, >> that's very cool. Um, what kind of marketing are you doing right now? How are you getting your leads? You know what's funny is that about 75% of our business every single year is sphere of influence and referral based. And I think like >> 75% >> 75%. It's a lot when you're talking about the amount of volume that we're blessed to be able to

do. >> That's a lot. >> And >> 75%. >> When we think about that, it's like I've been able to thankfully keep my costs low when it comes to like lead acquisition and so on and so forth. But it's also helped me invest in other areas. For example, >> when you first start in your sphere of influence and you don't have any money to invest into it, like all you're doing is calling your friends and family

and saying, "Hey, how's it going?" Right. >> And essentially we still do that today. That's still the foundation. >> But now we have a few events a year, right? I mean, you've been to a couple of our events and we try to create like a really, really good environment to where we just have a lot of cool people in the room together. >> Yeah. >> It's a party. It's a fun time, you know? [clears throat] >>

And I think that that's still like working the sphere because it's all about staying top of mind. You know, even social media, we do a lot of social media. I mean, know talked about this as well, right? Like the social media aspect is I think a lot of people think I have to get brand new leads from social media. >> Like that's what I'm posting these videos for to go viral, to get a bunch of DMs.

>> No, >> bro. For me, my social media is just my calling card. And don't get me wrong, I have a great following. I get good views. But >> what what do you mean calling card? >> My social media is for my friends and family to tout about me to their friends and family. M >> it's like I just bought a house and this guy like negotiated, you know, five grand in closing cost for me, whatever

it might be. Oh, this is his Instagram. >> And then they're just scrolling through and they're seeing me be in the field every single day doing these things every single day. >> And so my social media has simply always been like a business card. >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? It's it's the thing that keeps my people warm. It keeps them top of mind. Whenever I call my people now and have a quick phone

call with them, they're like, "Oh, I just saw the video that you posted or I just saw the house you saw. look really badass, you know? >> Yeah. >> And so, like, that's I think, you know, it's still the foundation to this day. >> We've tried to invest in like lead sources before and things like that. And some have hit, some haven't. I I think what's tried and true and what we always like end up falling

back on is that sphere of influence business. You know, relationships go such a long way. >> So, sphere of influence. So, when you're talking about sphere of influence, you're talking about that people within your sphere refer you to the business itself. Correct? Is that what you're saying? >> Yeah. >> Got it. >> So, when I say that 75% it's quite literally like either our friends and family >> or their friends and family. >> I see. >>

That's connected through an iMessage group chat that I get a random text one day and it's like, "Hey, here's my aunt's number. She wants to sell her house. She knows you're going to be calling." >> Yeah. >> You know, and that's a beautiful thing, man. And it's the same thing that I've taught. [clears throat] It's like the foundation I teach all of my agents, too. You know what I mean? So, like >> for anybody out there

listening and thinking like about teams and so on and so forth, there's two types of teams that are out there and they're starkly different. >> Yeah. There's ones that give you tons of fish and they take a lot of that fish because of that, right? Like they might have a super super high split >> because they're paying a really really high amount on a monthly basis for leads, >> right? >> Understandable. And if that's the model

that you want to go to, you will sell a lot of houses doing it. >> Mhm. >> And then there's I think our model where I don't give you fish, I just teach you how to fish. Like I teach you how to hunt, you know, and on top of that, >> oh, I'm not taking buyers, so here's a lead every other week or whatever. So I'm keeping you floating. I'm keeping you good. I'm keeping your bills

paid, but I want you to go hunt. I want you to go find that business. It's how I built my business. So, it's the only thing I know how to teach, you know? >> Yeah, of course. So, any realtor that may be looking for a team? I mean, would are you open to bringing on any more agents or >> I am. Yeah. And it wasn't, like I said, until the beginning of this year that I really

was, but I realized like, man, we have a unique opportunity to really be among the best in the business in our city, in our state. And I think we can only do it. I was talking to my ops manager actually the other day about this and I was like, you know, our people work very hard. >> Our agents are extremely hardworking. They sell lots of homes. They impact a lot of people's lives. And I can only

demand so much out of them. >> And so I know if we want to do double the amount of business, for example, and I'm I'm already maximizing my people, then I have to double my people, >> right? >> You know, it's it's a simple thing. One of my clients worded it to me this way. He's like, "You should hire more agents because your upside potential on all of them 100%." >> Doesn't really cost you anything to

have them and you have a passion for teaching and coaching. You're doing people a disservice if you're not doing that, >> right? >> Whether that be on my team and then there's like, you know, been some talks between me and like a couple of partners to be able to help me start like an educational course, like, you know, courses to be able to really just educate people on base level stuff, stuff that gets overlooked like we

were talking about a few minutes ago. Yeah. And I think if you one thing that I've realized also when it comes to like all these like courses and everything, you know, like all the education that's out there, I feel like >> there there needs to be some sort of free valley for people, right? And so like whenever you offer maybe courses or anything like that for free, you know, you immediately become the authority figure and you're

able to make a lot more impact than that person, right? >> Yeah. >> Now, there's also, you know, there's caveat to that. If you give people something for free, then they don't value it. Yeah. Right. that didn't didn't cost them anything. So then they're not going to watch it. They're not going to invest time into actually learning what you're saying. They're not going to listen to the words that are coming out of your mouth. So >>

there there's there needs to be some sort of like balance there, right, between maybe free content and then maybe some sort of pay content like, hey, this is the advanced scores. >> And it's not so much for me. It's not I don't care about that maybe 100 bucks or 300 bucks, whatever it is. I mean, it's it's pretty insignificant. But more importantly, it allows the person to become a lot more invested in their own success. >>

Yeah. Those who pay pay attention. >> When I paid $25,000 to join a mastermind in in uh Florida, I was paying attention to everything that guy was saying for sure. >> Phone on DND. >> Oh yeah. Like >> in lap ready to go. >> Not only that, but everyone else in the room was just like paying attention. You know, we're locked in and we're we're going to implement everything this guy's saying. And imagine the room that

you're in too. You know what I mean? Like >> some of my best friends have been I think Andrea Cruz. >> I met Andrea Cruz through that mastermind. Uh you know, all my friends Cody Purle uh I met other other guys like uh what's this guy's name? >> A couple great guys, man. But it's been it's been a minute. You know, that was like in 20 2019, something like that. That's something I think for things like

that um get so overlooked is like it's not just about the content that you're going to learn, but about like who you're going to be around while you're learning it. >> Yeah. >> All these other people have 25 grand to spend on this mastermind. Like they probably know something I don't know. >> Oh, I need to pay attention. >> You know what I mean? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I met this guy at one of these masterminds

who did um like check this out. He has uh he has an email newsletter for a Republican uh for Republicans, right? So his base is Republicans, people that are interested in getting a newsletter on Republican information. >> Well, this guy sells like ads on one email like five grand. And he sends these out every day. >> Wow. >> Multiple times a day. Like so each each person that's sponsoring cuz I think like his email base is

like in the millions. like just insane. >> So, they're getting a lot of exposure, >> a ton of exposure. So, the person that's paying for the marketing, you know, for the the spot or the ad on the email is getting a ton of value, a ton of views, ton of conversions, I'm sure. >> But it's insane. I mean, you know, you would have never thought and like you can't have you ever what's most amount of emails

you try to send through like Mailchimp or something >> like maybe 15,000 20,000. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like there's like a limit even like per month, right? You can't even do like 100,000 I think. >> Yeah. It's something. Yeah. So like this guy selling millions a day created like the whole back infrastructure like things you would have never even >> thought about >> thought about at all. >> Yeah. That's insane. >> It's nuts. It's nuts.

>> That's insane. >> Another another good one that uh that rings bell is there's this guy that does a he can do an ad um based on a certain geographical area. He can create it's called geo fencing. >> So let's say there's like a a concert. >> Yeah. >> Right. He can he can do a geoence on all the people that just attended a Taylor Swift concert and then run ads directly to them based on all

the people that were in that stadium. >> Yeah. >> It's nuts. >> That's insane. I mean, like I think the world of marketing is so much further than like >> I need to make this house look very pretty. >> You know what I mean? It's like how do I, you know, >> get this house in front of as many people as possible? >> Exactly. >> You know, >> it's a numbers game. >> It is a numbers

game 100%. So, in your world whenever it comes to selling real estate, what would you be what would you say is a secret to selling real estate for you? >> That's a good question, man. I think it it's all built on trust, you know, and it's like that's the foundation of everything. And it it does sound fairly cliche, but it's like again one of those simple things that get overlooked, you know, >> building trust with buyers

or buyers agents that come and see your property. You mean or >> like clients, buyers and sellers, you know? >> Let's say you have a house in the market. How do you sell it? >> A lot. Uh, so for example, for us, there's like a whole week's worth of process that we put through before the house even touches the market, for example. >> So, like just running you through it on a Monday, the house will typically

go on the market as coming soon. >> That's like whenever everybody's able to see that there's a house coming on the market, it's just not available active for showings just yet. >> Got it. >> Tuesday, we start running some localized ads. Uh, we had someone that was doing actually geo fencing for us at one point that would do it just within like neighborhoods nearby the houses that we were doing it. Now they're more just through through

our uh our Google website that we have or not our Google website but our Google pay-per-click ads that links people directly to our home search website. >> Those people get directly added to our CRM. We know exactly what house they were looking at. So we end up calling them for that. Of course, qualifying them, making sure that they're ready to go and taking them out to the house for a pre-market showing if they're interested and qualified.

>> Yeah. >> Wednesday, we go a little bit more hyper local. will go more into the neighborhood with just like physical calls or doornocking depending on the neighborhood letting them know, hey, there's a home coming up for sale in your neighborhood. >> About 80% of homes that are sold are purchased by someone that knows somebody in a 2-m radius. >> So, we're taking that statistic to heart. >> How many? >> 80% of homes that are sold,

>> Yeah. >> are purchased by people that know somebody in a two-m radius. So, we take that same two-m radius and scrub the data, have conversations with them, host open houses, and invite all those people within that two-mi radius. And then Thursday is when the house officially goes live. >> Friday at some point prior to then, Friday is when we'll release the video tour that we would have shot prior to then um through Instagram, Facebook, YouTube,

wherever it is that we're posting it up on. Saturday, Sunday, we host a grand opening open house. depending on the listing size or if it's a development, we'll have a broker open where it's like a large event, taco trucks, food trucks, so on and so forth. >> Yeah. >> Otherwise, if it's just a standard, you know, standard home in a subdivision, we'll have an open house where we have tons of signs out there, invite all the

neighbors and try to have a really good turnout. >> In a perfect market, we're sold by the next week. >> Yeah. >> We're not in a perfect market, unfortunately. No. >> So, it's just a lot of recycling that, you know, and kind of AB testing a lot of different ads, AB testing a lot of events. >> Mhm. >> You know, different things like that because at the end of the day, the most eyes on the property

wins. Yeah, it's a really weird market we're in right now. It's like I and I really think that this market really is just normal. >> It's just that we just got really spoiled by having one of the hottest markets in the country and we're like >> best word to use. >> Yeah. Oh, I'm going to list the property in the market and it's going to sell. I don't have to do anything >> in 3 seconds. >>

Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] >> If that. >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> Yeah. You listen, you have five offers immediately and >> you know, we just don't have that market anymore and so everyone everyone's freaking out and they're like, "Oh my god, like this market's terrible." Blah blah blah. Well, no. I think this is just more of a normal market. You know, >> you know what it is? It's it's creating very honest agents. >> It's very It's creating very

honest agents. I think that like people have to price their homes correctly. They can't just go with what their seller says. >> Mhm. >> And there's lots of agents that are okay with going what their seller says, but then they're spending a lot of money on marketing for a house that they know will never sell. >> Well, not only that, man, but if you just go with what the seller says, I mean, you're overpriced and that

house is going to sit on the market for 200 days. >> Yeah. And you're the professional in the room. I think this is the thing that most agents miss. Like if people are inquiring about selling their house and they're taking an hour out of their day to meet with you at that house Yeah. >> and ask your opinion on things, you're supposed to give your opinion. >> Yeah. >> And if that means you don't get the

listing, don't take the listing. No, >> you don't have to work with everybody. And that might sound >> harsh in a market like today where it is slower or normalized, but at the end of the day, like you're going to spin your wheels and spend a lot of money. >> Yeah. >> By, like you said, having a house that's s on the market for 200 days. I think that's one of the benefits that I think that

I had when working in in wholesaling. [clears throat] You know, one of the sales tactics that I used to use a lot and it which is extremely effective is called going negative. So quite often whenever I talk to uh sellers, I'd say, you know, maybe they said something like um you know, I want x amount of this for my property, blah blah blah. One of the things that I would say it's uh I'd say is it

seems like you really don't want to sell your house. >> It's a really good way to say it. It seems what you're what I'm hearing is that you're not really interested in in really selling your property, Mr. Seller. Is that right? >> Yeah. >> And so it like shocks them, right? Because then it's like, wait, no, I do want to sell. Well, two things will happen. >> Either one, yes, they'll agree with you and they'll say,

yeah, you know what? I'm not really to sell. Which is great because now you don't have to waste your time or maybe like an hour wasting your time with someone that's not really interested in selling. Or B, they they uh correct you and they say, "No, no, no, no, no. I do want to sell. Well, then you could have an honest conversation and have a more realistic price that you need to be at for them to

actually sell the property, >> right? >> Yeah, >> that's such a that's a that's a gem. I'm going to take that. >> That's that's beautiful. >> Yeah, that's um that's that's that's good. >> I like that a lot actually. Yeah, >> seems like you really don't want to sell your house and just and just sit there and just don't say anything else after that. >> You know what's funny? I think another thing I've seen now bringing

like my admin cuz my admin that comes on the listing appointments with me, she is a producing agent on the team as well. >> And >> I've like I don't realize I guess whenever I'm like being confrontational >> with the client, but like at the end of the day, like I mentioned, you guys are hiring me to give you my professional opinion about what we need to do to get the home sold. >> Yeah. >> I'm

going to respect what you have to say. It's your home at the end of the day. >> Yeah. >> But I'm also going to demand that same sort of respect toward the opinions I have about it. >> Yeah. Absolutely. And like I may see that as not a big deal, no no issue. We're just having a fun conversation. We get to the car with with a signed listing agreement in hand. And my admin's like, >> "Man,

you're you just argued with them." And I was like, I mean, I didn't see it as an argument. I saw it as them asking my opinion, me giving it to them, them disagreeing with me, and then coming to Jesus and realizing I was right. [laughter] >> That's a great thing. >> You know, that's a great thing. And we still got the listing agreement signed, right? And now a seller that respects our opinion and probably a house

that will sell twice as fast. >> Absolutely. With a more realistic price hopefully. >> 100%. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, >> man. That's awesome, dude. So, um, in terms of raising private capital, I know we kind of got a little sidetracked there. What is what is your plan for doing that? Um, what kind of >> what's your what's give me your breakdown on how you see that happening? >> Yeah, sure. I mean, there's a lot of opportunities,

unique opportunities that I think have been like coming up lately. um not so much even just on like the development side, but even on the commercial side. And I haven't dived I haven't dove deep enough into the commercial side to fully understand it and like transparently confidently raise the capital. >> And when I say commercial, I don't mean like multi family. Multi family, I could do that all day long, right? But when I say commercial, I

mean like >> warehouses, strip centers, things along those lines. And when I say I haven't dove deep into it, like I need to know what's working before I analyze the deals, locate them, and then raise the money for it, >> right? And transparently, I don't know what's working in commercial right now. But that's why I've been doing it so much with the developments because it's like I know what works there. I know what sells with the

developments. Multif family. I know how to, you know, force the value increase on multif family. Therefore, I feel confident in raising the money for those types of things. >> And so, I think like my plan of action is just like educating myself a lot more on these deals that I'm actually seeing. And just like anything, I think when you have the deal, the money will find you. >> Yeah. You know, and if I can kind of

structure these deals in a way to where it's profitable for everybody, then the money's going to find me along the way. >> Yeah. >> You know, >> you just need to be able to I think Boris, you know, Boris, right? So, Boris, I think, is probably one of the best in being creatives with deals. >> 100%. >> Um, and being able to see the lost opportunity in properties. >> Yeah. you know. Um, and so like I

think maybe maybe about 3 days ago I got a call and it was a um it was a commercial real estate company here in town and they have a warehouse space 88 uh it's like a storage unit I think. No, no, no. It's it's a industrial uh industrial I don't think it's shallow bay. I think it's just regular industrial warehouses. The 88 spaces. >> Okay. >> And so each one has a tenant, right? So, like they

have maybe like a like a mechanic or maybe a drop shipping company, e-commerce, anything like that, right? >> So, they call me and they have I think they're like 70% full and they're like, "Hey, listen. We want to hire a virtual assistant from you so that we can call businesses in the area uh and we can lease up this property." Yeah. >> Right. And so like looking at uh looking at ways to fill up the space

is really the way that they're adding value to be able to raise the NOI, raise a net operating income of the property and be able to sell it for um >> hopefully a lower cap rate. It's like in it's like in channel view area kind of deal. So it's kind of like a weird spot. >> Yeah. >> I'm not sure why I started talking to you about this probably. [laughter] >> Well, you were talking about Boris

and being creative and >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, I think when it comes down to uh all the creativity to your point about, you know, learning about commercial real estate from what I've seen from my friends, you know, especially Boris, like this guy is incredible. Um I mean, you know, finding that lost opportunity, maybe creating um create adding more square footage, um increasing rents by doing something to the building specifically. Sure. >> Um I've also

seen, for example, like Jake Stein, he uh >> really great dude, >> really amazing guy, man. Incredible. He uh he went in and he's like fixing up this the the place I went to is a little industrial park that he has right here on uh on I45 in like Cross Timbers area. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um cool spot, man. And you know, just doing small basic things, just like upkeeping the property. You would think like this

is the kind of like the basic necessities, but I mean a lot of the previous owners do not care about these industrial spaces and they look like garbage. And so what do you attract? You attract bad tenants. you attracted garbage income and you know then the property is not going to be worth very much. >> It's funny that's the same thing with residential, right? >> It's the same thing. >> It's just a larger scale. >> Yeah.

>> And Jake is somebody that like actually has taught me that as well. He's he's him and I have gotten close over this year I think of like that's, you know, when I say I'm having this smaller focus, it's really more about just working with less clients, you know, and Jake's one of those clients that >> I hold near and dear that I want to be able to get him deals. And also on the flip side

of that, he's teaching me this creativity through getting him these deals. >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? like that dude is on another level. He's so smart. >> Yeah. And what's really interesting about it is that, you know, by >> he's offering you all this knowledge and in return, you know, you're going to bring him deals and it's just a beautiful win-win situation. >> For sure. >> Right. And I think a lot of people

kind of miss out on that. If you are just surrounded by the right people, you're going to get that value and then you you just offer value back in return and it's a win-win. >> 100%, man. Yeah. It's it's it's huge to think about. I mean, I was talking about this to someone yesterday actually that moving to where I live now, which is downtown from like southeast Houston out of my parents house, like an uncomfortable thing.

Sure. But the amount of people that I've met and like the amount of people that they've introduced me to has been insane, you know, and just being in that new environment surrounded by the right energy is just it does so much for you. >> Where do you live now? >> Downtown, like center of downtown. Yeah. At High-Rise. >> Nice. >> And I mean, like I found a Bible study group there. Like I I found, you know,

some of my new clients there. I found some of the people that I'm raising money from for some of these bigger deals there. You know what I mean? And like not that they live there, but just through people that I've met there that introduced me. Like your network is your net worth. And like staying in the same bedroom that I stayed for the last 23 years of my life was not going to increase my network or

network. >> No, not at all. [laughter] >> No, not at all. Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it now, man. I I looked at a lot of places in downtown. I I couldn't find like any open spaces that had like like um like a lot of greenery except for anything that's like close to Discovery Green. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um try like Achie Park. >> Achie Park. Achie Park. I like that place. Yeah. >> Yeah. There's uh

they just finished um Hanover Buffalo Bayou right next door to Hanover. They finished it already. >> Yep. They started leasing them already. >> Really? >> Yeah, man. That that that place is nice. And they probably since how early it is probably has like a lot of good specials, too. >> Yeah. I'll have to go and check it out. It's nice. That's a really nice area. A lot of greenery. >> 100%. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Buffalo right

there. >> Yeah. >> Look at us selling selling handover. [laughter] >> Go hand over. Call us. >> Call Caleb. He's got He can get you leased up right there. >> 100%. >> Matt, so um what's next for you, bro? Where you where you taking it? 2025 is almost over. 2026, what's happening? >> I want to be number one, man. I want to be the best midsize team in Houston. Yeah, >> one of my biggest goals is

to be on Houston Business Journal's best places to work list. >> And I think that like furthering the culture that I've created is one of the best ways that I could be able to do that. >> And man, it's getting all my people to different levels. Uh, two years ago, my two top producers made six figures for the first time, and they haven't looked back since. Yeah. Now, it's just about getting the rest of them to

six figures, multiple six figures, >> and really like investing with them. A good friend of mine told me once, the way that you keep people in business with you forever is you buy businesses and buildings with them, >> right? >> And like I thought that that was such a profound thing. And I think I take a very vested interest in a lot of my team members interests. You know, >> a lot of them want to build,

a lot of them want to do these commercial deals. And it's cool that I also am on that same wavelength so I can easily be able to help him get into it, you know? >> Yeah. >> Same thing with flips and so on and so forth. But I mean to make a long story short, man, I want to be the best. >> Yeah. Love that, dude. Also, you know, to your point, like I've seen that with

uh John Ricky. He was in here. He he owns like 700 units, something ridiculous. Uh and he started buying when he was I think probably around your age, maybe a little bit older. But, uh, he owns all those buildings with people and made all those people millions of dollars and now he's friends with all of those and they're, you know, like friends that he's going to probably take to the grave through business, right? Making money together.

>> 100%. >> Yeah. >> It's so interesting, man. I mean, like I remember growing up, my parents telling me all the time, especially my dad, like, you know, all your friends that you have right now, like, enjoy them, but they're not going to be your friends forever. >> Yeah. >> And it's just so weird like how >> Was that true? >> Oh, 100%. Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I have lifelong friends that like I've known since

I was little in high school, whatever. But like >> the grand majority of them have like fellen off fallen off and like I'm very okay with that because it creates more room for better and like more fruitful relationships. >> Yeah, absolutely. I agree. >> Uh Caleb, what does success mean to you? >> Success means looking at the people that I love and knowing that they don't have a worry in the world. That's what success looks like

to me. knowing that I can be a provider for them >> and for myself and not have a worry myself at all. >> Yeah. >> Success really never has been about like a specific number. I used to say whenever I was little that >> you're officially rich when you can buy something without having to think about it. >> Yeah. >> And I think that like that's a cool metric to measure like finances on, but like true

success is like in how people are talking about you when you're not around. >> Yeah. >> You know? M and I think like that reputation that I can continue to build upon is what I'm really looking to do. >> I like that. Good. Also think like being rich is almost like knowing you can buy it and then just not giving a crap about it because you're not looking to impress anyone. >> 100%. >> You know, I

feel like a lot of people get into it and they want to buy all these things, >> right? >> But it's for the wrong reasons. It's just to impress someone or like who are you looking to impress, right? >> I think what's next, too, is just listening to myself, bro. Like I think we live in such a noisy industry >> and >> on top of that like I think it's I've had great successes by listening to

tons of people throughout my career I've also had lots of heartache listening to a lot of people in my career and what's always rang true is no matter if I win or lose based off a decision I made for myself >> I was happier about the decision because it was me that made it. >> Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And I feel like you're not able to really scale new paths if you're not listening to yourselves, right? You

know, like if you're listening to someone's opinion, you're just going down the path that they went on, >> right? >> You know, and so if if that opinion is not coming from a person where you want to be at, then disregard that opinion entirely, >> 100%. >> Or maybe not entirely, but you know, >> well, even if the person is quote unquote where you want to be at, you know, >> their story and journey is not

your story and journey. >> Yep. you know, take bits and pieces, but take it with a grain of salt. Don't necessarily try to reimplement absolutely everything that they did. >> Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. When it comes to your um this is something that maybe we didn't really touch base entirely on, but your team culture, I know you mentioned it like at the very beginning, right? >> You built a really strong team culture. What do you think attributed

to that? What is the secret sauce to building a great team culture? >> It was a lot of putting them first before I had to put myself first. Mhm. >> You know, and I think like any good company will listen to its employees or listen to its salespeople or its higherups or whoever and know their opinions matter. And although you might not be able to implement every single thing that they want you to implement right away,

>> taking consideration of it and sitting with them and figuring out how to build it, I think goes a long way. Every week I have a one-on-one with at least one of my team members um or every day, excuse me, I have a one-on-one with at least one of my team members. And then they're all centered around what do you have going on? How's life? what's what's going on with you, >> right? >> And you know,

I know each and every single one of their goals and why they want to achieve those goals. >> And ultimately, if I can keep reminding them about that and encouraging them in that remembrance of it, they're going to stick with me for a lifetime. >> Yeah. >> Um that's that's the type of sticky culture that I think we've created. It goes above and beyond just selling homes and real estate. It's more about what's the money going

to do for you and why is that so important, >> right? >> You know, and uh they're all starkly different reasons. It's like I think everybody on the team is so different in their own unique way. >> Yeah. >> And it's so cool that a lot of their goals are still aligned with each other but just for different reasons, >> right? >> You know, >> understanding their why. >> Understanding the why. That's like Simon Synynic, Start

with Why is one of my favorite books of all time because of that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think um there's another book it's called the dream manager and it it talks about outlining their goal and then finding giving them a way to see how their goal fits within your big goal. >> Right. >> Right. And so that by you following the goal in this company is going to help you achieve the goal that you

have personally. Right. >> Right. You do that and it's like a fire just gets lit under >> instantly. >> Yeah. It's amazing. >> Yeah. Yeah, man. >> Show people you care, too. You know, like a lot of people, you know, like a lot there's a lot of organizations nowadays, you know, it's it's so big. It's so there's so much noise. Uh people don't want to feel like they're just a number in the company, right? >> Yeah.

I think that's huge, too, right? Because when we interview agents, for example, I don't really bring everybody in, you know, like I may have a sit down with them myself. If not, they'll have a sit down with like my operations manager and one of my agents. >> And then I bring them to a team meeting or a team event. And I just see how they interact with the rest of the team. And if it's not a

hell yes, it's a hell no. >> Yep. >> You know, if >> Oh, 1,000%. >> If one person in my organization is like, >> yeah, he or she is great, but I'm like, all right, all you got to say. >> Yeah. >> Because at the end of the day, like there's plenty of people out there and there's plenty of people that can win in our culture, and there's plenty of people that aren't a fit, and that's

fine. >> Yeah. >> Um I love them from a distance, you know? >> Yeah. Better to have just top producers in your organization than, you know, just regular people, >> right? Right. >> Especially if you're trying to be number one, man. >> 100%. Little room for failure. >> Little room for failure for sure. A lot of room for growth. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Well, if someone wants to join your team or if they want to reach

out to you, how can they reach out to you, Caleb? >> Man, Instagram is always the best. Um, I manage my own Instagram. I respond to all my own DMs and things like that. K A L E B R M O N R O E. It's just Caleb R Monroe on Instagram. >> Shoot me a DM and I would love to connect and just see if there's any value that I could provide to you and if

there's any similar interest that would be beneficial for us to explore. Is that the same for um maybe working with like developers or builders? Maybe there's a builder watching and might want to work with you. >> 100%. Yeah. Because like I said earlier, my Instagram is kind of like my calling card, you know, and like if you're curious about how we market products and how we actually push things out, you're not going to be able to

see it any better than there. >> Yeah. Uh do you have a website also? >> I do. Uh the kmteam.com. >> Okay. >> Um t- km.com. Um we have a couple websites. That's what I would say is probably like the most beneficial one to go out and look at. >> Yeah. >> Or actually there's one more, texaslistings.co. >> That's probably a little bit more of a easier userfriendly website to be able to navigate. >> Texas Listings.co.

>> Are all these websites done through like your brokerage that you have? >> Um, no. Actually, I uh the first one that I mentioned, I paid agent image was like a website developer company a long time ago when I was first getting into it to like build it out for me. >> And uh the texas listings.co code was built out through Sierra Interactive. >> Cool. What kind of technology? I know we didn't touch base uh really

a lot on this, but I'm curious. What kind of technology does your brokerage give you? >> Man, uh at Real, dude, they have so much available. So, we just got back from this conference like I was talking about and two of the biggest takeaways that I saw was Leo, which is like our AI autopilot assistant that's within our app. >> I mean, in the beginning, it would tell you things like, "Oh, what's my annual production this

year? Help me build a for sale sign." And it would do all that stuff like just like any great AI would. Right. >> Yeah. >> Now they're taking it a step further by helping you have like a full-on buyer and seller companion. >> So Leo now will hold your initial buyer consultation for you >> and it's essentially like an AI phone call, but in that phone call they your clients should understand this is just like data

collecting. And we saw like a live roleplay of it where the guy was like, "We have a growing family. You know, two kids, they're four and five. We have one on the way." And you saw Leo auto adjust the search for like size of a home. He didn't say we need one more bedroom, but he said we have a baby on the way, >> which Leo's like, "Oh, well that must mean you need a nursery or

you need an extra bedroom or you need an extra space or you need good school districts." Like it automatically just based off what this guy was saying >> was like filtering the stuff out. I thought that was insane. >> Yeah. >> Second thing was on the seller side of things, they would give us QR codes for all of our listings to where someone that's walking by and has curiosity about it can scan it. Mhm. >> Leo

pulls up a page on that person's phone and is talking to them about the data of the house. There's this this many bedrooms, this many bathrooms. Is this what you're looking for? Are you looking in this area? It the the client will talk back to their phone and Leo collects all this data, puts it in our CRM for us, and sets up a call for us to follow up with them. >> All completely automatic. >> All

completely autopilot. You don't even know this is happening while it's happening. >> It's crazy. >> That's nuts. >> The other big thing, and this has nothing to do with the AI thing, but >> um real capital is something that they're starting to roll out in different states. It's not in Texas yet, but it should be in 2026 from my understanding. Where basically they're giving you an unsecured line of credit based off of your production, >> based

off of your revenue share, based off of your sales. >> This is a line of credit that we're giving you to be able to go and utilize. >> That's fantastic, bro. >> And I think of it as like, of course, me, I go to I want to invest in real estate or I want to build or I want if I have a listing that needs a bunch of work and this client doesn't have the money to

do that work, well, here you go. I don't want to use my own cash. I'll use this line of credit, pay it back when the listing was sold. >> Right, >> man. Like Real is such an innovative company, you know, and it's >> it's unfortunate because I've never really been the type of guy even at KW where like I dive into the resources that I provide. I just work. I just go and go and go. And

>> I'm grateful to have the people in place that I do now, like my team, Alana, my director of ops, who like is passionate about learning the stuff. Adrian, my sales coach on the team that's like actually passionate about pouring into our agents. But I take them to the conference with us. They internalize what they take away. I internalize what I take away. and we're able to mastermind around it, >> right? >> Um, man, it's it's

a great company. >> That sounds pretty fantastic. I mean, being able to have a line of credit, being able to do flips and stuff like that be great. >> Yeah%. >> Are they going to charge something some sort of points or something? >> It didn't sound like it, honestly. I mean, and that's where I'm going to get a little bit more clarity on it. Again, they haven't rolled out in Texas just yet. >> Yeah. >> Um,

the other thing also, when you use that QR code, they're actually going to pay you each time somebody scans it. >> What do you mean? So, let's just say I have a listing and it's on like on a main road, right? And I have a bunch of people that are passing by and they want information about the house. They scan that QR code. Every time somebody scans the QR code, they're essentially incentivizing the agents to be

able to utilize it cuz just like any AI, the more data it collects, the smarter it gets, the sharper it is, the better it is. >> So, the company will pay you for having the QR code on. >> Correct. >> Wow. >> Minimal amount, but I mean >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> money nonetheless. >> But at least it'll pay you, right? >> 100%. >> Other companies probably wouldn't have even done that. So, >> yeah. What what

CRM do you use? >> Follow Boss. >> Yeah, >> I've used Follow Boss for the last few years and I love it, man. It's it's userfriendly. It's simple. >> Is it easy to set up all the automations yourself? >> Yes. And I think that there's so much still with Follow-up Boss that we haven't tapped into yet. >> Yeah. >> Um that I think we could be tapping into like a lot of email campaigns, things like that.

>> Email automations, you mean? Or >> email automations and like action plans in general, you know, like >> we don't want to reinvent the wheel when it comes to like how we follow up with people, right? And I think it's just more so like maybe encouraging my agents to use it a little bit more >> because you know they might have a lead that falls through the cracks that has been in sorry that's been in their

reminders on follow boss for the last few weeks. You know what I mean? They could have called them a few weeks ago if they would have just logged in and checked you know. >> Right. Right. Some sort of like notification or something. >> Right. >> Yeah. What have my CRM if a lead sitting in a pipeline for more than a day? It'll text people automatically. >> Oh nice. >> Like like text you you know. >> Yeah.

That way it's you get both a notification on your app and on an actual text. >> It reminds you to go reach out. >> Yeah, go reach out. >> That's awesome. Yeah. >> To to my sales people. Yeah. >> This uh this AI autopilot I think is going to help us out a lot with that because we've had like I don't know if you're familiar with Wilopo before. >> What is it? >> Wilopo. >> Oh, >>

essentially Wilopo is like a home search website that does the same thing that I was just telling you about a second ago. >> It's very expensive. We were paying like five grand a month for it. Um Jeez. >> Yeah. And now this LEO thing is in house with our brokerage. >> Yeah. >> So like it's going to be a a game changer I think. >> So the the AI is basically going to take the conversation, do

um search and then provide a number of listings to the buyer. >> Correct. Essentially they'll provide a number of listings to them and ask them what they think about them and then automatically get like a filtered list sent to us. >> So let's say they give them 15 houses, they filter it down to five, they send those five to us. We have a conversation with the buyer, schedule when they want to see them, so on and

so forth. >> Oh, that's great. >> Yeah, dude. It's it's it's pretty insane. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, typically I mean, buyers would it how do buyers normally look at properties maybe through Zillow or something? >> Yeah, pretty much. HAR, Zillow, and uh you know, we'll typically have them like send homes as they see them to us. You know, if they see something that's valuable that they really want to take a look at, they

send them our way. >> Nice. Got a whole automated system already, too. >> 100%. >> Awesome, bro. Well, thanks a lot for doing this, man. I had a lot of fun. Uh, is there anything else you'd like to share with everyone? >> Um, no. Uh, not not specifically that I don't think I have shared here. If there is any like one thing I would leave is that like, you know, we have a lot of momentum in

front of us >> and I don't want that to be confused for hype. Mhm. >> You know, the train that we've ran on this year with moving to the city, working with all these developers, and really building up these great projects, it's going to be no mistake to where why 2026 is as successful as it is. >> Yeah. Sort of like your second year in business, right? >> Yeah. It's like a rebirth. A >> little rebirth

on that. Yeah. >> Yeah. 100%. >> It's phoenix. 26 will be your phoenix year. >> 100%. Yeah. It's And don't get me wrong, like it's been a beautiful year. I've grown so much. The company's grown so much. It's just next year is the second curve of the J curve. >> Yeah, I love that. Well, I'm really excited to see it, man. I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to see more of your success, more of

your growth, and um you know, maybe by the end of 2026, we can do this podcast again, talk about it. >> 100%, brother. Let's do that. Let's any day of the week. >> Let's see how it went. >> Thank you, brother. I appreciate you having me. >> Absolutely, man. Taste rum.