Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: You're listening to Selling the Dream. This isn't an interview, and we're not journalists, but each week we'll ask our guests to open up and share their secrets to business success.
Let's have a conversation and have some fun.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Other thing I've heard is that, you know, you've succeeded in building your brand if someone could dress up as you for Halloween, and everybody would know who it was.
Dream the podcast for sales entrepreneurs and leaders. One of the cool things about this podcast is that sometimes we get all three in one guest, and today we absolutely have that. I am joined today with Will Holder of the William Holder Realty Team with Real Pennsylvania. And I am excited because I have so many questions to ask. And hopefully, if you're listening, your curiosity, you know, is the same as mine. So we'll thank you very much for hanging out with us today.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. I appreciate you having me on.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: I say us because normally I'm joined by my co host, Joe Iredell, who's in. Who's in California, but today he is in some sort of an MMA jiu jitsu fight or something. I really don't know.
He's got a fight today, so he couldn't make it, but God willing, he's out there winning that fight. He's not getting his ass whooped. You know, who knows?
So, Will, I would love for you to kind of, you know, you were on a podcast. Realtor How. What's the name of Sam's podcast? I want to give her a plug. You know the name Realtor Mama Podcast.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: I believe that's what it's called.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah, she's the best.
I was listening to her podcast you were on there, and one of the things that really struck me was your. Your origin story, like, where you came from. So if it's cool, I'd love to just kind of just share with us your. Your backstory.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
So I. I moved to America in 2002. I grew up in the Caribbean, a little country called Trinidad.
It's Trinidad Tobago, but I grew up on the island of Trinidad, and it was a great place to grow up. I mean, as far as I knew, you know, what else do you know when you're living there? So I spent my first 14 or 15 years there, and then we chose to migrate to America.
It. You know, growing up, I. I watched my mom work a lot because she was a single mom for the majority of that time and had a lot of family. We were very close.
Kind of built the foundation for how I feel about things. Just in terms of community now from that, I think that's where a lot of the way we run our business, the way I feel about friends and family comes from just my upbringing there in the Caribbean.
But a lot of it was built on seeing my mom work really hard and having to every day and not really complaining, just having to do what she had to do to make it work.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: What did she do for a living?
[00:03:02] Speaker A: So believe it or not, she was a truck driver.
And not in the sense of these giant trucks you see here, but she did that for quite some time.
And it was pretty, you know, looking back on it as an adult, you think, man, like how, you know, how did she pull that off?
And you know, you respect it.
When we moved here, we didn't have much either. And you don't know, you don't know what you don't know, right? And as a 14, 15 year old moving to a new country, you don't know that that many people living in a one bedroom apartment or being on, you know, assistance was a bad, was, was a, was a downside to anything. But.
And now as an adult, I'm like, man, we really made it work somehow.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: You know how many people were in this apartment?
[00:03:56] Speaker A: So there was about eight of us in a one bedroom apartment. Eight. And that.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: All right, so who's, who is it you, your mom?
[00:04:02] Speaker A: It's me, my mom, my sister, my brother, my mom's husband at the time, which was my, my brother's dad, his mom, his sister and her daughter.
And to us, I mean, look, coming from I, where I grew up, we had our own house. My granddad built his house, we lived in it, we all had our own rooms.
Life was good to that. I don't know if at the time I really thought as a negative.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: So you guys lived in a house in Trinidad where there was still eight of you, but you all had your own rooms. Must have been a big, big house.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: It was a nice sized house.
You know, actually, you know, part of me getting into real estate involves that house because my granddad left that for me. And when, when he passed away when I was five years old, my mom over time converted to a three unit building, which is kind of what got me into real estate investing.
But yeah, we had a big house and it was a nice house. It was really well taken care of and cared for. It was our family home. So that's where everyone would come. We lived with our grandparents because my mom was predominantly a single mom. So we would live there, we lived there for growing Up. So, you know, going to a tight space was definitely different for us, you know, like very different. And you know, it caused some risk, especially with my, my older sister and I, because at time you got a, you know, a 14 year old and a 19 year old living together. It's not going to be easy in that type of space. So we had to figure it out
[00:05:34] Speaker B: pretty quick in a three bedroom house. So for, for most of our lives it was me and my brother Matt, Pat and Phil had a room and then we built two bedrooms in the basement when we became teenagers. Not because we wanted to like remodel the basement. If we didn't put separate, like if we didn't have separate bedrooms as teenagers, one of us was not going to make it through our teens. Like it was just a battle until we had our own space, you know.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: For sure. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: So you're, you're in this, you're in this one bedroom. Where, now where did you migrate when you came to America? Where did you land? Where did you.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: So luckily, luckily we landed in Media, Pennsylvania. That's where I'm at right now, you know, and I'm, I do believe your environment matters, right. Like we could have been anywhere and my life might have turned out a lot differently, but I, we went to Media, Pennsylvania, went to Pencrest High School, made a handful of friends that I'm still talk to every day today, right. Like made close relationships there. Good people that I've kept in my life this long. And I think that's a lot of, that's influenced, you know, kind of who I became, right, because found the job, you know, I moved here and immediately the soccer coach is like, you're from the Caribbean, you should come play soccer. Right? And I'm like. And I'm like, well, I don't have, I lost our luggage on the way here. And he's like, I'll buy you cleats, man. Show up, you know. And now wait, did you know how
[00:06:59] Speaker B: like you were a soccer player? He just assumed because of where you're from.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: He just assumed. You just assumed. And me in the Caribbean is a mid tier recess pick, right? Like if they're picking kids at recess to play on teams, I'm maybe getting picked somewhere in the middle. I'm not top, I'm not bottom, and I'm definitely not on the school team, right?
And I show up here and he's like, you know, come on over. And this is 2002 soccer in America. So it was still pretty rudimentary. So I did pretty well, but.
And had a lot of fun with it. Unfortunately, that fund ended quickly because I realized, man, if I want anything here, I got to get a job.
And so I said to my, my mom, I'm like, look, I. Sports is cool, but, you know, if I want to be able to have a car. And I, I wanted my independence pretty quickly because again, we went from a pretty big open, free situation to living in this one bedroom apartment. And I'm like, I need, I can't, I can't do this. I gotta, I gotta get money. I gotta get a car. I have to figure things out. Right? So let me stop you right there.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: We're going to come back to the job. I do this every time, Will. Like, literally, it's become kind of a joke. And I don't mean to. I always forget to do the two truths and a lie when we start, and then I have to abruptly stop everything, go back, do the two truths and a lie. So I'm going to stop here for a minute. We're going to come back to, you're In America, you're 14, 15 years old, 16. You want a car, you want some independence, you want a job? What are your three facts? Three facts. And by the time we're done, I'll try and figure out which one's the lie.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Well, I think I kind of gave one away already, but. So I'll start with that one. I.
I moved to America from Trinidad when I was a teenager, so I gave the. So, you know, that's the truth. I hate chocolate.
And I've been choked unconscious during a Brazilian Jiu jitsu match. Okay, I'm gonna throw that in since you brought that up earlier.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: How funny is that? I wish Joe was here. Choked out. Okay, so moved to America as a team, hate chocolate, and choked out at a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu match. All right, we'll come back to that now.
So. So you're roughly now 16, you're living in Media. Where'd you get the job? Like, what was, what was your first job?
[00:09:12] Speaker A: I, I kind of did a bunch of different things. I found the landscaping job. I started working at this pet store in Media at like. And the guy liked me so much, he was basically paying me to work 40 hours a week as a, as a teenager.
You know, I don't want to put anything on record, but he's paying me to stay home from school some days, you know, and, and I was taking it because $5.15 an hour in 23 was a lot of money. For me, because it was us. I'm coming from, you know, a country where it's a 7 to 1 exchange rate. So I'm thinking I'm making $5, $15 an hour. I'm. I am loaded, right? Like, I'd work 40 hours a week after school and after taxes, have a 200 check and think, this is the best day of my life, right?
And it was, because that's all I knew. And it was great. I mean, I was able to save up. I got a car, I was able to start driving myself to school.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: What kind of car was it?
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Good old Chevy Cavalier.
Picked it up on Providence Road Media. There was a guy selling it, and it was great. They do the, that freedom that gave me as a 16 year old, it was like I, I had wings, you know?
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that is, that is great. So now you're, you're, you're graduating now. Wait, so I'm not mistaken. Where'd you go to college?
[00:10:34] Speaker A: So I actually, I graduated from Pencrest. And at the time, you know, maybe six months after I got here, a year after I got here, my guidance counselor is like, hey, what. What do you want to do in college? And I'm like, well, I just, I just learned the metric system, you know, I don't know what I want to do in college. You guys think I speak Spanish and I'm speaking English just with an accent, you know, So I didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be an architect. So I went to community college for a couple of years while I was working. After high school, I had like two or three different jobs and was going to community college part time, and I ended up getting an associate's degree in business administration.
And then I started going to Penn State online.
But years later, getting into real estate, I decided, I don't think I need this.
So I have an unfinished business administration degree. I have an associate's, but no bachelor.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: I knew there was a Penn State connection. I couldn't remember exactly what the details were, so I graduated Penn State in 22,000. So, yeah. So, you know, and you're right where you are right now, you don't need the degree that. That would have given you, you know?
[00:11:45] Speaker A: You know, it's. It's weird because I think, I think anyone that's like slightly or even largely entrepreneurial, there's like a, a level of ADHD there that, that we all kind of have, and classrooms really never were for me. I, I even in Trinidad. Yeah, I mean, I tested well because I had to. And Trinidad's a lot different. If you don't do well, you know, you pay for it. You know, there's some different types of punishment there for that, but in America it the same. I could kind of BS my way through a lot of these classes, and so I never really thought college was ever going to be for me. But now that I'm like deeply entrenched in business, I've really started to gain an appreciation for knowledge. And I frankly think at some point I will probably go back and finish my degree. Even though it means nothing for me financially.
I've come full circle on the whole schooling thing.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Now what? So, so knowledge. What's your source of knowledge now? What do you listen to? What do you read?
[00:12:50] Speaker A: So I, prior to the podcast era, because I started full time in real estate in 2015, I basically was YouTube, right? Like I didn't really have the money to pay coaches. So everything I could find on YouTube I'd watch and I'd find every informational piece I could about different types of real estate, how to get leads, how to build businesses of these different things, and that merged into podcasts. So I think the majority of my knowledge come from ebooks, podcasts.
You know, I listen to a ton of different podcasts about real estate, about investing, just trying to constantly stay ahead of everything or keep at least current knowledge about what's going on in the industry and where we need to pivot and how we need to grow. So I think the major source of all of my education currently is through podcasts or audiobooks.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Now tell me about how, how did you end up so, so you know, you're finishing out, you know, you decide, okay, college isn't for me. Did you do anything between that and real estate?
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, so I had probably. I. The minute I graduated high school, I wasn't even 18 yet. I, I found someone that would rent me a room, right? So I found a guy in Ridley park that had a two bedroom apartment. He worked at one of the jobs I was at and older. And I said, hey, I know I'm not 18 yet, but would you rent me a room? And he knew me well. He's like, sure. Probably should have been a sign that 25 year old would rent to a 17 year old. Probably not the most responsible human, but you know, it only took me six months to realize he wasn't paying any of the bills and, but you know, it was my out, it was my outlet to get out of the house.
And from during that I obviously I was do working on my, my associate's degree, but I started doing three different jobs at a waiting job. I was still working at the, the, I was still doing landscaping on the side and I was still working at the pet store a bit and just hustling as much as humanly possible, like literally going from job to job, getting changed in my car.
And my, my, my mom at the time had worked for a local credit union, Franklin Mid Federal Credit Union. And she's like, look, why don't you get a job here, you know, as a teller or something while through everything you're doing. So I took her advice. I got the job as a teller there and I liked it. I liked banking. I moved up fairly quickly, like from teller to, you know, member service representative to assistant branch manager and then I got into the loan department with them. So I did everything but mortgages. I did home equity loans, lines of credits, auto loans, personal loans. Did really well doing that. Was able to buy my first house at 23 from my $30,000 a year salary, which, you know, you can't, you can't do anymore.
And through all of that, around 25, 26, I was always, I always was kind of chasing side hustles, right, Because I knew my 9 to 5 wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go. And I always had that mindset, well, I'll stay here forever and by the time I retire, I'll make a hundred grand and I'll be happy.
And it just wasn't working out. I kept seeing my expenses go up and no, it wasn't paying out in my day to day. And my mom had mentioned that the house we had in Trinidad needed a new roof. And I kind of panicked a little bit and I'm thinking, well, how are we going to pay for this?
In my head. And I'm thinking this. And she goes, well, it'll be paid for. I'm like, you're going to pay for it. So well, no, the tenants are paying for it. I go, what do you mean? She's like, well, I turned it into a three unit and there's tenants there and we've been saving the money, so it's going to pay for itself.
And I had to be an I.
Yeah, that was kind of my. Oh, like there's another way to live life, right?
So at that point, I had just bought my first house with my wife. I was probably 23, 24, and we had a friend, a coworker who wanted to rent a room for us. And I'M like, oh, it's paying part of my mortgage is pretty nice.
I read the book Rich dad, Poor dad like most investors do.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: And it's a pretty simple book. It's not some, you know, crazy read. It's just, it keeps it very simple. What, what you should do to try to increase your, your, your income from not just your 9 to 5. Right.
And that took me to. Well, I think I should get my real estate license. So I got my real estate license around 2012 part time. I was still working at the bank. I was still, you know, trying to sell houses to some friends here and there.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Who did you work for in 2012?
[00:17:39] Speaker A: At the time I had so a lady that I worked with at the credit union had a great lady. I still talk to her to this day. Her name's Helena. She's great. She had her license hung at a century 21 in Folsom and that's where I had my initial license hung.
And I was two years in. This is about 2014. I'd sold a couple homes, didn't make a lot of money. I would go into the office after work, always trying to hustle and there'd be nobody there. And I saw, you know, like 100 plus agents on the board and there
[00:18:12] Speaker B: was
[00:18:14] Speaker A: three to 10 maybe doing well, making money. There was a couple teams doing really well.
And I said, I don't think I could do this. I don't think this is the answer for me though.
Luckily at the time, a close friend introduced me to my now business partners and at the time new brokers Brett and Scott. They owned a firm and they owned a ReMax and St. David's and on the Main Line they asked to meet with me one day. I met with them, they showed me their books. You know, their average agents were making 250k a year. And this is 2014 and I'm making maybe 50 grand a year at that point. And I'm thinking, oh, people could actually make a living selling real estate.
And that again to me was like, okay, I need to be here. So switched my license here. Within a year I was full time. I quit my job.
Just kind of fed off the energy, you know, like iron sharpens iron. I need to be around people that were doing this at a high level for me to believe I could do it at a high level.
And that's when the full time real estate gig started. Mid 2015.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Crazy. One of the things you kept saying is the hustle, like you're just trying to hustle, trying to Hustle. You know, when you're young, you know, we look at what are our resources, right? Like, if you don't have any money, you don't have any money. But when you have time and when time is your only resource, you really have two choices.
Do you spend it, do you waste it, or do you invest it? And it's the same question with money, right? Like, do you spend it, do you waste it, or do you invest it? And I love that you know instinctively, you knew early on that time was your only resource, and you invested that time in. Well, I guess at first you were spending your time making money, right? You know, transactional. One hour of work, one hour of pay, whenever work, when I pay. And then we get into real estate. Now you're investing your time now that one hour of work is going to turn into, at some point, multiples in revenue. And that switch went off when you. What was your. So. So this was 2014. You said a full time.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: I went was mid-2015.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah. What did you remember? What you closed?
[00:20:29] Speaker A: What I do.
Yeah. So I.
So I left my job May of 2015, and for the rest of that year, I only closed six transactions.
And that was painful because I was working my. My butt off. I was doing everything like doorknobs.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Investing your time.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Fizbos. But not. Not of it. A lot of it was. Was converting to closings. And I think that's a big misconception. A lot of agents come in, and anyone in any new business thinks they're going to come in and they're going to kill it. Um, unless you have, like, a very rare situation, which, you know, if you do, great for you, but if you don't, and you're like, the rest of us, you got to build a pipeline, and that takes time. And that's what I was doing. Not knowing I was doing it was. I was building a pipeline. So towards the end of 2015, I was having a really hard time because I had a mortgage and we had a wedding coming up, and I'm thinking, man, I need to go drive an Uber or do something on the side. And my wife, who is not a business major at all, she's. She's a, you know, a teacher. You know, she has her master's in teaching. But she said to me, she's like, if you do this, you're not. You're not going to pay attention to real estate. Like, I don't know what it's like, what. Instinctively told her to say that, But I think she knew me pretty well, at that point. And she said, you know, I know you're going to do that and you're going to chase that and I think you just need to focus on this. And she was right. I stuck with it. And 2016, I closed 36 homes.
2017-4020-1844-2019, I hired my first assistant. I closed 69, 2020, I did about 70.
And at the end of 2020, so 2020 was a really, really big shift in my mindset.
I was making a ton of money, which I've never thought I'd ever make in my entire life. Like, a crazy amount of money because I only had one assistant. And at that point I built my business to be pretty strong word of mout, have a lot of expenses.
But I was investing in real estate. I started investing in 2017, 2018, and that was a nightmare because I didn't know what I was doing and I was making every one of the mistakes new investors make. I literally, I can write a book about my first two investments.
And I, you know, I just had my first kid in 2019, my daughter, and I'm in 2020, I'm making all of this money and I'm like the most depressed I've ever been in my entire life. Like, literally hate my life. Like, I, you know, I'm gaining a bunch of weight. I'm not home at all, I'm not exercising.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: You're not taking care of yourself.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Nothing. Like, nothing. What was this?
[00:23:12] Speaker B: What was your, what was your, do you remember what your self talk was at that time?
[00:23:18] Speaker A: I just had to get through it.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: What was your inner monologue at that point?
[00:23:21] Speaker A: I just had to get through it. Like, because I, even though I was making a lot of money, I was putting a lot of it back into these investments that were crushing me.
So for me it was, if I don't do this, I'm going to fail. And I can't fail. I can't fail. You know, everyone thought I was doing well and I was, but I wasn't using the money wisely. I wasn't using the money the way I should have been using. I was focusing on things I shouldn't have been focusing on. Like what?
Honestly? Real estate investments.
And I keep telling people this. I, it, I'm an investor, I love investing in real estate. I, it's, that's my side hustle. If I had solely focused on just selling real estate for the first five years of my life for career versus trying to invest in real estate, I'd probably be leaps and bounds Ahead of where I am today. I let that shiny object distract me so much, both financially and emotionally and in the business sense too, that it took years to recover from the mistakes I made early on.
And because of that, it slowed me down. Now it taught me a lot. And I say I. I paid for it in an education on how not to flip to do real estate investing, but it crushed me. I mean, I went from a pretty happy, like, you know, I was positive, good about everything kind of guy to over a couple of years, just devolving into something that I didn't recognize, I didn't like.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: All right, so now, did your wife show up at that point too? Like. Well, like, she was critic. You know, she was. She was critical. Like, at a really critical moment. She gave you that support. Was she also there when she's like, you know, you gotta snap out of it?
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah, she's always been there. And that's like, you know, I've never.
She's pretty wise. She's wise.
You know, she saw where I was going and she said, look, I think you should probably talk to someone. Which was something I would have never thought to do in my life, which really helped me significantly over a few years.
She said, you know, you could. You could really. I did. I took a lot of that advice and I changed it. And it actually changed me significantly from, you know, I still am the same person. I still believe that I am the one responsible for all of my errors. Right. Like, I don't blame anyone for anything that happens to me or my business or my life. I believe it's on me, and I gotta figure it out.
But I don't let those errors crush me.
I now know that everything is fixable. Like, this too shall pass. And if you're patient and you're willing to work through it, you'll solve every problem.
And that has changed my mindset about everything.
Everything.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: You know, there's an old proverb, I guess, Chinese proverb, that's a story about a. A farmer and his son, I don't know if you ever heard it, where the.
The son loses the horse, the horse runs away, and he goes to his father and he says, father, the horse ran away. This is. This is horrible. How are we going to plow the fields? This is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to us. And the. The father was like, we'll see, we'll see. And then, you know, a week later, the worst comes back. But he brought. Came back with a pack of other horses, and now they have multiple horses and he's like, what a blessing we have all these horses is. And he goes, it's probably. See, this is great. We have so many horses. This is, this is the blessing. He goes, we'll see. Well, he's plowing the fields and now they're making so much crop that they need to go into the market to sell it because they're, they're, they're, they're growing more than they need. And he's on his way to the, to the market and falls off the horse and breaks his leg. And now he can't take the food to the market. He says his father, this is a disaster. I can't, I can't take the food to the market. If we can't take this food to the market, we're not going to be able to sell it. If we can't sell it, we're not going to make any money. This is horrible. And the father says, we'll see. And then war breaks out and every able bodied person gets called to war, but he's not because he can't walk.
And he's like, wow, you know, everybody's off to war and I can't go. And, and, and I, I, I'm sure that I'm like totally butchering it, but it always stuck with me. And when I heard it and, and how you're talking about it, like, yeah, like no matter your situation, whether you think it's terrible or you think it's great, you know, this too shall pass. You know, you're gonna have trials, you're gonna have struggles again. And, and when you're struggling, you're gonna have victories again. And if you kind of just know that and just kind of roll with it, life is a little bit different. It's a, it's not easier in any way. But certainly, you know, like, you just, you kind of like, have faith that, you know, things are just going to get a little bit better at some point.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: I think back to when I was like 22. I applied for a manager position at the bank and I didn't get it. And I was devastated. I'm like, this is the worst. I'm never gonna be able to move up. I'm like, my life's over. You know, and now looking back on that, I'm like, they would have been an idiot to hire me. Like, I was 22 years old. I shouldn't have been managing a bank. Right? Like, that would have been a horrible mistake by them. And maybe I would have figured it out, but I would have Made a ton of mistakes.
And that to me is, you know, it's like you said with that fable. The dad felt that way because he's lived it now. Right. So he's had the experience of this, too. Shall pass or we'll see. You never know if it's going to be good or bad. Let's not overreact now.
That comes with time. Right. And doing things. And not that I'm saying young people can't be successful. I have some really young, hungry people on our team that I think are going to be massively successful. I just think certain life experiences you just have to live through. You can't learn by reading a book or hearing about it because you won't really know how you're. It's like the Mike Tyson saying, everybody's a tough guy until they're punched in the mouth. Right. And it's like, you know how you're going to react when you get punched in the mouth. You don't know until you're actually punched in the mouth. Right.
So that all kind of ties into the same thing. It's time has shown me that this too shall pass.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: And pain, one of my favorite phrases. Pain is a very efficient teacher.
You don't have to be a pain for very long run. All right, I know exactly what I.
So you're growing your business now. 2019.
You. You. Did you hire your assistant in 18 or 19?
[00:30:07] Speaker A: Hired my assistant in actually probably midway to. Through 2018.
Okay.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: And then you had your daughter.
Now you're building a family. You're building a business. At what point did you decide, okay, I really want to build a team?
[00:30:20] Speaker A: I didn't.
I didn't. This was all by mistake. And towards the end of 2020, I was burnt out, man. I did 69 sales the year before. I was gonna do 70 that year, you know, during COVID through all the chaos.
And I just thought, I don't enjoy this anymore.
I wasn't enjoying really life anymore. And I said, well, one of my past clients reached out. Her name was Kim. And another one, Kirk, kind of reached out around the same time and said, hey, Will, we want. We were getting our real estate license. We'd love to be on your team. And I said, like, I don't have a team. What? Yeah, right. What team?
I didn't. I never, like. I love my brokers businesses where they had these, you know, And I think they're very smart, and I think they're one of the versions of a team that works anymore, is a powerhouse team. Like, it's them. They're the rainmaker. They have one or two assistants, and, like, they have a showing agent or maybe two and. Or maybe just a, you know, a buyer's agent. I think that's a really powerful model as a team build, to build a team on. I like their model, so I always thought that's the route I would go.
And, you know, with these two people reaching out, I realized something that I really liked. The reason I love selling real estate is because I liked helping people.
And.
And I like bringing people together. And when these people joined my team, I really enjoyed helping them.
And it, like, kind of reinvigorated me a bit. It gave me, like, a new purpose to what I was building, which is one of the great parts about our industry is there's so many ways you can go with it. You know, you're not stuck in one direction. Like, you can build all these different things in real estate. You can be an investor, you can run title company, you can be a mortgage lender, you can scale a team, you can become a broker. There's so many different things you can build from the base you get from our. Our industry that I. I started, like, enjoying it again. And most of my team has been organic. Most of my team, we're at 30 agents today.
Most of that are either past clients or friends or friends of agents on the team that have called me to be a part of this. And I've taken on and really enjoyed helping them grow. And like now, when I set goals, it's. It's not what can I make. It's like, how much am I going to get this agent to make this year? Right. Like, I have two agents. I want them to clear 500k each this year. Right. Like, that's my. It's one of my.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: That's actually, they're not that. Those are real numbers. You have two agents that you're. You were hoping to get them to 500k a piece.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And I have probably five that are going to be in that 175 to 250 range.
I. I build our numbers based on where I think my agents are going to succeed. And I am. I'm pushing them because they're a lot like me. They're spending most of their time around me. They're getting coached by me. They are plugging into my system and trusting that I'm going to help them so I know where I would want to be if I was them. I am going to push them there. Right.
And that really is what, you know, a lot of people are like, I don't want to build these mass teams. I'm all about it right now because to me, like, the more people I can help like that, it's just like the little dose of endorphins, you know, like, it's just happiness. Like that is the happiness. And it's gotten me back to what got me into really, like in real estate, which was I was helping people buy these houses. Like their first home was their second home. Like helping them invest. Like, you know, that's the joy I get out of. It's helping people and bringing people together. So now I can do that not just from selling real estate, which I still do and I still love.
It's from helping my agents scale these like incredible build businesses. Not just on our team, but, you know, in our downline too. Like I'm coaching them all to scale right now.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: When you, you start growing your team, it sounds like, I mean, we're not talking about a long time, so it must have been somewhat exponential. Like 2, 7, 10, 20, 30.
At what point did you ever think like, wait, I got, I, I gotta work, I gotta do some work on myself so that I can be better, be a better leader, be a better coach, be a better.
Was there a point where you felt like you really needed to invest back in education so that you could be better for your teammates, or was it just super instinctive? Like you never really took a coaching class. You just knew, okay, here's what I would do in this situation.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I, the first three.
So we, we started the team, really, January, 20, um, the agents, the hires, all just kind of happened organically. But I didn't stop learning. Like, I kept listening to books. I, I, I listen to a lot of my books. I'm driving a lot, you know, so I don't have time to sit and read. But if I sit down at 9pm to read a book, I'm going to be asleep in 10 minutes. So, you know, I, I just don't have the, the, you know, I got two young kids now. It's like I can't, I can't. So I will listen to as many podcasts and books I possibly can. And I kept learning from these things to my business.
I was adding, you know, the weekly trainings and I added an opera. Like I was adding the pieces without really being told to do it, just knowing that it had to be done. And a lot of that came at a loss. And I don't think people are really honest about this, but I will be for three years off the team.
My income was paying for the team, right? So what I mean by that is, in a lot of teams, don't do the math, right? They kind of enjoy the vanity of saying, I sold $100 million in real estate without saying, well, as the team leader, I had to sell 60 of it to cover the bills, right? So for a successful team, is that the income you're making per transaction off agents is paying the team expenses, and then after that it's profit and then it starts paying your expenses for three years of the team.
My commission was still going into covering team expenses because I was adding these pieces that maybe I might have been early on, but I knew I had to add, right. Like I knew from listening to other teams, nothing I'm doing is original, right. Like, I am taking pieces of everyone's game and creating my own. That's it. And I think that's what we're all doing. So. So I was putting together my perfect vision of what a team looked like. And that comes at a loss. It came at a loss for me. That meant money from that I was making, was going to spend more and more into building this.
And again, that's one of those things that's like, you gotta be patient. This too shall pass, right? Like, I had to believe this was going to work because I was investing a ton of money into it and time and thankfully it is. But you know, for a lot of, a lot of people, when they, they think, well, it's become an agent, then start a team, pump the brakes. Like, maybe think about if you're just crushing as an individual agent, either stay in that lane or go with like a rockstar type team versus this big team. Because between agent number three and agent number 20, you might not make any money.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: Have you had anybody leave your team?
[00:37:51] Speaker A: At first, I used to take it really personally.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: I was gonna say, you seem like the kind of person that would take that very hard.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah, at first. And I, I still would probably for most of my agents, take it really hard.
But I think like, leadership is, you know, understanding that you can't solve everyone's problems. And for a lot of my life, I thought I. That was my gift, was solving everyone's problems, right?
And that becomes a bottleneck. There's only so many problems you can solve, right. So what I realized is if I give as much as I possibly can, and I give you the coaching and the training and the systems and the leads, and, you know, I'm, I'm I'm there with you, and it's still not enough for you then.
Or maybe and it's still not enough for you then. I can't hold that against myself right now. The people, the majority. So I would say we're at 30 agents right now. We've probably had 38 agents total over the time we've been on the team. Half of them left the industry. Like, half of the eight I don't have actually just left real estate. Right. And one or two of them, like, have their license somewhere and they might not be doing another lefty area. So it's not like. And then one is just here in the office and I'm still coaching him. So, like, it's not like I'm losing my. My major producers, which was really a thing for me. Like when I started the team and these other teams were calling, trying to recruit my agents. I don't do recruiting. I didn't. For the majority, we just. I just hired a part time recruiter two months ago. I didn't do recruiting before this, so I never really understood. I kind of took it, like, they're coming at me, you know, they want my guys. But now I'm like, I'm. I'm kind of proud about it because my agents would tell me like, they tried to get me, but they got nothing, you know, and it's like, well, we're never leav leaving you. I know they'll leave me at some point. Like, life isn't infinite. But the reality is, as long as I keep offering as much as I humanly can and giving them a realistic way to succeed, which our agents are seeing that light, it's going to make it really hard for them to go anywhere else. I want to tie that back to something, if you don't mind.
So around 2022, our brokerage here was a ReMax. Was ReMax Classic. And my brokerage owners at the time, Brett and Scott, were like, well, we, you know, we were at. They were at 15 agents. By the time Covid had dwindled down, they were at eight agents. And they were like, look, as a
[00:40:23] Speaker B: brokerage, you guys were down to eight agents, Correct? Wow.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Yep. And they weren't ever. They didn't build this to like, build some massive machine. They built it to run their businesses and gave agents a place to. To grow. Right. So it was never this gonna. This was never gonna be the core of their business, but they had.
So what they said to me, they're like, look, you're growing your team. Why don't you partner with us and help us grow the brokerage. And I thought, well, that's the next natural step. Maybe I was going to be a broker owner anyway, so why not do that?
I couldn't tell you how much I dislike that.
I don't want to be a broker owner. And I did it for three years with them through and around the end of early 2025, our ReMax contract, they were hitting us up to renew. And I said to those guys, I'm like, man, I don't like this. Like we grew from eight to 30 agents. And I said, I don't, I don't like it. Like I'm, I feel like I'm recruiting 30.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: But most of them were your team?
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Most, A lot of them were my team and we really couldn't.
Like, I didn't feel like the brand. This is no knock on ReMax. ReMax got me 10 years of my career. I made a lot of money, but I don't really feel like they ever gave me anything. Like, I felt like my clients didn't even know I was a ReMax agent. They thought I was William Older Realty. Right?
So I, and I, I was like, why are we doing this? Like, we're still the one responsible for all the risk is the broker owners, right? Like we're the one taking the liability. Why are we going to sign another five year contract?
So I at that point decide, they gave me the key to say, hey, if you find something better, we'll do it. And for me, one of my biggest fears as a team leader, as a broker owner is I'm putting all of this work and all of this care into this person. And if they leave, I literally have nothing to show for it. Right? And that's a reality for most brokerages. That is the reality. If you build up agent to be a massive agent and you're an integral part of their success, they. And they leave. Well, that's it, right? And I didn't want to feel like that about my agents, about my team. I didn't want to feel like that because again, it goes against my core principle, which is I'm doing this to help them. And if them doing well is against my future success, why would I help them? Right?
So I decided we needed to change our model completely. And I went from, you know, a typical brick and mortar. We were thinking about going in the pen. I didn't want to do that again. And we decided to go with real because of the downline model, right? I wanted a model where if I have an agent, that's crushing and they want to start their own team. It's actually more beneficial for me to help, help them do that. Right. Like it's if my agents, I want to be as sticky as possible. Yeah. We have title, we have all these things that our agents are making money on, they're recruiting to their downline. If they go off and they start their own team within real, that as a downline will make me more money from that one person than them just being on my team. Right. And that to me is truly, I have no reason to hold you back. None. Right. It's like I, I here for you, whatever it takes. Right. And that's why we made the switch. And that's really when the kind of reins came off because I wasn't being hit with monthly fees per agent to join.
So I was able to really just let loose on the team. And it hasn't even been a year, it's been 10 months since we've been with Real, but we've added, we've doubled in size as a team. We've double. Our office is about 54 agents versus 30 when we left.
And I'm just really seeing the potential of this if you're plumbed into the right system. Right. I think it's, you're going to be a business owner, you're going to run your business the way you want to run it. But if you have nothing holding you back from building your people, the limits are, aren't there.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: You know, I love that alignment because that's, you know, it's one of the things I attracted me to Princeton, you know, is what we, we were perfectly aligned in our values and in our ideas, our marketing, our vision of what the mortgage project or product should look like, what the experience should be like. And recently we've realigned revenue models to be even more effective because in a lot of revenue models, I'm going to get technical here on the mortgage side. But like the revenue models either favor the borrower, the owner, or the loan officer. Rarely does it favor all three. Sometimes two out of three win and, and one's a big fat loser. And sometimes that's the borrower and, and that is because the company's making too much money or the loan officer is making too much money. Sometimes it's the loan officer because, you know, the revenue that is needed to run their, their businesses is not enough in the rates that you're, that they're providing. So the switch to a line that all three win at the same time. Is, is a big deal. And I think that that's, you know, kind of similar to. So you realize with re.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: I like that. Yeah. And look, I, I did my homework. I wasn't gonna pay all this money for signage and switch everything. I'm not. Somebody likes to jump around. I was with ReMax for 11 years. I, I, I just wanted something that would let, let me continue to build what I was building without the reins. And maybe there's other models for other people out there. This was the one for us that worked great.
And I'm pretty obsessed with building this team. I mean, I, I, I, you know, I understand that it's like this to me, is my, at least my next five years of thought, you know, and all I have is like, how do I add? What new system can we add? What AI can we plug in? What, who do we need to bring on? Like, what can I do to continue to empower my agents so that we just, you know, we just have fun with this? Right? Like, I'm not, it's not. And I know this cliche thing to say, but I told you, I learned this in 2020. It's not about the money. I made a lot of money in 2020. It's not about the money. I literally did nothing for me. And this is a person that never had money in their life saying, money doesn't do anything for you, at least emotionally.
It's really about, like, what I can help other people do and build and grow and how I can help them. And that's like my doses of happiness.
So we're, we're playing that game now.
[00:46:51] Speaker B: You know, they chase significance if you can, if you can be significant. I think that. And, and my buddy had. Fordyce has a great line. I'm not even going to try and recite it because I'll butcher it. But, you know, he does talk about the power of significance.
All right, couple questions. Number one, what's your favorite podcast?
It's okay if it's Selling the Dream. You're allowed to say that this will
[00:47:17] Speaker A: be now I, I, I, I. One for business. I like the founders podcast.
It's this guy. I mean, I've probably said this a few times now, but I, he basically reads like biographies or interviews history, greatest founders and like summarizes in an hour and a half podcast. And it, it's, it's been awesome.
So I love that podcast. And then just for fun, I love part in my take. I love, I love sports, but I love the stupid part of like, I don't like to overthink it.
So just that's my, like, Comic Relief Weekly, and then I have probably 30 others, but I think those are the two that probably get the most play.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: What's your favorite book you listen to for real estate agents?
[00:48:00] Speaker A: For real estate agents, probably.
I mean, I guess, honestly, I think Rich Dad, Poor dad is important for real estate agents because you should, like, be investing. You should be working in what you do. But I think I've, you know, I've listened to a of lot like entertainment while is the. The Child Thief, A Million Little Pieces, the Hot Zone. Those are fun books to read if you're thinking business. The Psychology of Money.
If you're looking to build a team, a million. The. The Million Dollar Team, I think is what it's called. Like, there's. There's so many great books out there that I've listened to. You know, there's one I. That really changed my business called Traction.
[00:48:40] Speaker B: It's a great one.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: If you're not Mike.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That really showed me, like, how to set up the business. Right. Like how I should be thinking about it, how I should structure it. That was a. That was a good one for me too.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: All right, so now we got two truths and a lie. We're going to wrap up with that. I already know one of them, but they were moved to America as a teenager. You hate chocolate. And one time you were choked out in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu match.
I'm gonna say the lie is chocolate. I think you probably love chocolate. And I do think you were also choked out of a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu match. That's my guess. Am I right?
[00:49:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I didn't want to make it too easy, but yeah, I thought that the chocolate one would be too silly, that you'd be like, maybe he does hate chocolate. I love chocolate, but who doesn't, right?
But yeah, unfortunately, your co host, that's not here today. I enjoy Jiu Jitsu. I don't do it nearly as much as I used to, but earlier on I. 10 years ago, 10, 12 years ago, I was. I lost a match and I woke up on the mat.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: Nice. Now, how much of your time training in Jiu Jitsu, what do you feel like that contributed to a lot of your mindset?
Setting goals, doing hard things. You know, doing things where you don't feel like doing them. Do you feel like that contributed to some of your turnaround?
[00:50:06] Speaker A: I wouldn't say it contributed to my business turnaround, because I did. I started jitsu fairly young. I was probably 20, 21, maybe 22 when I took it up. And I went heavy for about five years and then the last 10 years has been more casual, you know, a more drop in kind of guy. I wish I had more time, but I will. And it's one of my, my things I'm gonna do in my 40s is get my black belt. Right.
But so the, the, what it did for me was I was a pretty angsty teenager. I was angry and you know, I had fun, but I would get in a lot of fights and I think jiu jitsu leveled me.
You know, once I started that, I realized literally anybody can kill me.
You know, my, my master was like a 135 pound guy who was, you know, his late 40s at the time. And I'm a 21 year old, healthy strong guy and he would just play with me on the mat and I'm like, anyone can kill me. Like literally anyone.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: Yeah, like wait, maybe I shouldn't be such a wise ass.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: And I think it really grounded me. I, I, I'm, I'm a much better person from it.
I recommend it for everyone and it just gives you that like inner confidence to just be calm. I think that's helped with that.
I don't know what it did. Maybe the calmness helps in business, but I think just from a personal standpoint, that helped me with that.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: Cool. Well, listen man, I had a lot of fun today. Thank you for being so open and answering. Allow me to interrupt to ask the questions that are that are that are that are burning.
And hopefully you had fun and hopefully we'll have you on again soon.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I really appreciate you guys having us on. And you know, if anyone ever wants to pick my brain or, or needs any advice or just wants to chat about real estate, feel free to reach out.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: Cool, man. Appreciate you.
[00:51:55] Speaker A: Well, awesome, Ken, thanks.
