 When I tell you that I have literally almost killed myself from working so hard in this business, I mean it because it's not a difficult business, but all you have to do is just put a little bit of effort into it and that's what you get back out of it. So ignoring the parties, ignoring all the weekends and doing the three open houses every Saturday, Sunday, to me that was the hard work. Watching Ricky's podcast, listening, educating myself. If I had a half hour to myself, I would be listening to something. I'd be educating myself. I wouldn't be putting or playing golf or whatever. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Road to 10,000. Me, my guy Juan are back at it. Man, it's been a fun ride so far, huh? We've done about 10 episodes now. We've done 10 episodes. We're getting some major guests for the month of April. We're locking down the heavy hitters now. I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah, me too, man. We got a, we got Bradley and Grant Cardone. That's a cool pair. Yeah, yeah. Some more in the pipeline. Don't want to say too much too soon. Also, I'm going on tour, man. Like I'm literally going to be cleared May 1st to go out and speak again. So I'm putting together some dates coming real soon. I'm working on a Miami date. I'm working on a Nashville date. I'm working on a Charleston date, Charlotte date, an Atlanta date, a Houston date. Got a lot of cool stuff happening. You have a full blown tour over there, man. You're going to wrap on, you're going to wrap on stage as well. No, that's all I do. Like I show up and just wrap. Like it's real estate wraps, but it's not like the quote unquote, like I don't want to say the word like and have people turn me apart. So check this out. A little shout out to Nathan Mills. I think he's based out of Minnesota. He recorded the first real estate rap video. It's called escrow. And the thing is fire. The beats good. The production is made. He's rapping about getting accepted offer. So I got to give him a little shout out. We're going to be promoting his video later this week. Cool. You say the first real estate rap video. The first good one I've seen, you know, I haven't seen that mess. Oh, okay. The first good one. When did he do it? I think he launched it about a week ago, but we're going to be putting it on. How can you sit here and act like he was like a pioneer in the real estate rap world? I mean, well, our new guest is recording music videos, riding it on horses. So I don't know that there's an answer for that. You're like, this guy did the very first real estate rap video last week. Come on, bro. First ever do it. Got to hype him up, man. I'm going to have to start fact checking you. All right. So check this out. For this week's guest, we have a huge rock star out of Long Island, New York. His name is Dan O'Neill. And Dan and his team, correct me if I'm wrong. You guys closed $60 million last year in total volume. Yeah, something like that. 58. And Dan, how long you've been doing this? So my third year anniversary was two weeks ago. So through three years. $60 million in three years. Ricky, I don't think we've had a guest close that much that fast. Have we? Nice. Nice. $60 million in three years. What's your team dynamics? No, no, no. That was last year. Come on. No, no, no. I understand. You've only been in the business three years, though. All right. That's what I'm saying. You've only been in the business three years and you closed $60 million a year. I mean, that's that's what I'm saying. Come on, guys. Get the game here, guys. I appreciate you guys having me on here. Juan, I love you, man. I look up to you and same thing, Ricky. I remember when you came to Long Island two and a half years ago and we watched you. So it's an honor to be here. Super cool. And yeah, excited to do this with you guys. Give me, give me the team dynamics, like how many on your team? What are their roles? Like break it all down for me. Sure. So I first got started. I was by myself. I had some success. I did pretty well. I was getting really, really busy. So I thought it was a good idea to join a team because I needed help. You know, I was doing three open houses every Saturday, Sunday. Like I literally dropped my signs, do the open house. Someone shows up five minutes late at the end of the first one, then I'm 30 minutes late to the second, then I'm going to the third. It was just a nightmare every Saturday, Sunday. So I joined the team thinking that that would help. You know, I could have other people do my open houses while on the team, you know, it was there for about six months. And then finally decided, all right, you know what, I probably did that in reverse. Let me go and start my own team. So after seeing, you know, people like Juan and other people my age succeed. So then I started my own team. I was fortunate enough to have, you know, three or four that joined up with me right away, kind of trusting me blindly. They came on as more so buyers, agents, you know, kind of hybrids. I don't really have any sort of distinct designations for them. They just came on and we kind of winged it. And now the team, I guess a year and a half later, I think we just brought on our 14th agent. What's most exciting about all that is the fact that every single person that has joined up with me, I think except for maybe two people. One of their, the reasons that it didn't work out was because they got too many leads. Swear to God that was there. That was the reason. And the second person only put 10 hours a week in a real estate. So it just didn't work out for but, you know, if there's 16 people that have joined the team so far, 14 of them have succeeded. It's the best feeling in the world. It's cooler to say that than it is to say that I did 60 million last year. That's incredible, Matt. And now you have all these people on your team. What's your role invaded there? You're still producing alongside with them. Are you managing them? Like what's your role as a team leader? It's a mix of everything. We were talking about it before we came on, you know, you kind of jumped out of production and started more so the management side of things. That's kind of the direction I'm going into. I'm starting to now leverage my time a little bit better so that way I can focus on things that I want to focus on. I had a pretty big revelation. I guess that's a word maybe about six months ago. In the same day, I put out a three and a half million dollar listing. The same day, I was spending eight hours chasing a lockbox down because some agent put it in their pocket for a $120,000 co-op. So I'm like, all right, maybe I need to start spending my time a little bit wiser. So, you know, now I'm leveraging the team a little bit more so that way they can focus on those things and I can spend my time and energy on maybe more time-productive things. But to answer your question, it's both. It's production and management. Perfect. And you skilled pretty fast. Like did you start putting ads out there that you were hiring? Did you just attract them through social media? Like what was your way to really bringing these people on board with you? One ad. The only ad I ever put out was for my executive assistant, transaction coordinator. Never once have recruited anybody, never messaged anybody. I don't want to. You guys are going in the direction of road to 10,000. You're building out this global team, right? I don't want that. I don't want to do that. So it's interesting. People reach out to me all the time because they see on social media and they see us doing well. They think we have the secret sauce, which is really just hard work. And so yeah, I mean, I've never once really recruited and I'm very fortunate in that, but it's just not the direction I want to go in. I don't want to have a team of, I mean, you guys know how crazy it is when you're teaching and training. I don't want to have a team of 30 people of which 20 don't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. So your team of 14 are all like heavy producers, you're saying? I would probably say eight of them. Eight of them are doing like really, really, really well. There's two with three that are probably within the first two or three months. And then there's maybe one or two that haven't really hit their groove yet, but you know how the first six months to a year can be in this business. So they're kind of just, they're going through it. But I would say overwhelmingly more than half of them are doing incredibly well. Right. What is the secret to keeping a top producer on your team where you're basically taking part of their money for, I mean, you know, let's face it, they can go do their own business and create their own business. How do you retain a high producer in that old school team model? Yeah. So I see it all the time with teams in my office, teams that we're familiar with where it's like a revolving door, you know, they build somebody up, they do five, six transactions, and then they're out the door. So knock on wood. I've been very fortunate that not one person that has started with me, even though they're doing 250, 350 and GCI has left. And I think it's just because of the culture that I built. It's very similar to like a bad sports team almost, right? Like I'm a huge hockey fan. So I love the Islanders. The Islanders are a super young team, right? They have a great coach and they're all very bought into each other. So, you know, somebody gets hit against the boards, everyone's jumping that guy and they're fighting, right? So everybody has each other's back. And I think it's just the culture that we built. Everybody roots for each other. There's no, you know, undercutting each other. None of that. It's just it's a really good environment. So everyone enjoys it, I hope. So they give up part of their commission for a really good environment, basically. Oh, no, I mean, that's just that was just me answering your question. I mean, you have to figure the reputation that we've built, right? So if one has a listing, I'm able to shoot him a text and maybe that goes a long way in getting an accepted offer, all the off market property that we have, all the knowledge, all the training. I pay for all the different media, all the content. I may have access to 45,000 followers on my personal page. I mean, it's a million different intangibles that go along with it. And at the end of the day, for you, for you to go somewhere and get maybe a 90, 10 or 80, whatever it might be, to lose that five or 10% or whatever the case is, are you really, are you going to feel that if I'm able to get you 10 more deals, 15 more deals, five more deals? Well, if you're doing a million dollars, if you're doing a million dollars a year, I mean, 5%, 50,000, 10%, 100,000. But could I get you 10 more deals where you can make that money 100% any buyer lead that comes through? I can only handle, I can only handle so much though, you know what I mean? Like I can only handle, I can't do 10 more. I'm maxed out. I'm maxed out, making a million. That's all I can make. I can't do anymore. Ruth and get some good training. What's up? I said, do they need to call you and get some better training so they can do more business? Yeah. Oh, no, no, no, I just, I just think it's interesting because like the way I see it, this is the way I see it. It's like the old traditional team model like that you have from to me, to me, this is just my opinion. To me, I look at that and I see, I see a model that really only retains not the highest of producers. Like if you have somebody that's doing a million dollars a year, they're probably not going to stay with you. And so I'm fearing to say that the guys that you have aren't doing a million dollars a year. If you did have a guy doing a million dollars a year, he's not going to stay there. And so for me, it's only retaining people doing a lower, you know, lower production than like top top what I'm saying is like the top top producers, right? Whereas, you know, that kind of retains those middle to lower producers, you know, which is fine because you can because I mean, let's face it, that is out of the 20% agents who sell, I'm sure we're talking about, you know, 90% of those agents probably fall in that category. So if your business model fits the fits the model to cater to those 90% of people who are average agents or maybe even a little bit above average, I'm not saying your average, your agents are average, I'm just saying they can't be like the highest of producers with the most ambition to really take over, you know what I mean? Or they wouldn't be on a team, you know what I mean? But Ricky, what about you look at Ryan Serhant, or I guess it's a bad example because each is his own thing, but like Frederick Ekleney, whatever, even all these people, even you guys, right? You're working for, you're working for somebody. I mean, in theory, right? EXP, you don't own 100% of it. So, you know, you could be doing 10 million at GCI. If you believe in the brand, if you believe in the business, in the culture, and there's enough resources for you, as much as your GCI is, you know, why wouldn't you leave the elements or the Keller Williams or the compasses, you know? They do. They do. They do. And that's why I left Remax, because I was paying them 70 grand. And now I made it. Now I made an extra 300,000 in my first year. You know what I mean? 200 in cash, 100 in stocks. You know what I mean? But Ricky, so here's where I kind of take dance dance. So essentially, if you have a team leader who's giving you the support, the training, they're even providing leads, and they're providing the leverage that you need to go out there and sell more real estate. There's always the analogy that 100% of nothing is still nothing. A lot of these agents, when they join our team, they're doing nothing on the route. And you can give them 150%. Totally agree. Totally agree. What I'm saying is, is that business model, and it's smart because it caters to the 90% of average agents. I'm just saying the 10%, the 1%, the 1% of 1%ers aren't going to be on a team. That's what I'm saying. Right? You know what I mean? And my, in my road to 10,000, I retain the top 1% of 1%ers. You know what I mean? Like, I want the 1% of 1%ers. I don't want to, you know, I want to help. I want to help those average agents. You know, dude, listen, I spend countless hours every week, countless hours with brand new agents that never sold anything, not that are on my team, that are with other agencies that I pour my heart out. I don't try to recruit them. I just try to help them. So trust me when I say I spend, I probably, I'm the most dumb person on this podcast when it comes to how I spend my time. Okay, so don't get it twisted. I'm not saying I'm the genius of all this. I just love to look at the different models and try to dissect, you know, the different situations to really get down and dirty, because I want to build the most efficient business I can build that's going to help the most people. And so that's what it all comes down to in the end. So no, I agree with it. I mean, you're, you're retaining 90% of the not top 1%ers, right? I mean, I've been feared to say that you guys would agree with me that the top 1% of agents aren't going to be on one of you guys's teams. Correct. Okay, that's all I'm saying. Okay, drinking is, uh, it's fresco. They need to, they need to, they need to holler at your boy. So then back to your secret sauce, right? Everyone thinks you have the secret sauce, because you're the hot shot. You got the social media, you're doing this multimillion dollars listings, you're putting 10, 15 deals on the contract. You mentioned it was hard work. Define what hard work is, because I feel when people say hard work, they think they get up early, they stay up, work until 10 o'clock at night. Like what does hard work mean to you? Yeah, I mean, I think it's just being, I was willing to do things that other people weren't. And whether that is waking up at 4am or working until 11 o'clock at night, I mean, we're both younger in the business. So we both have friends that are, you know, they're in Tulum. They're going away every other weekend. They're partying every weekend. They're drinking themselves, you know, three, four nights a week, partying, whatever. And to me, hard work was, was ignoring all of that, you know, channeling out all the noise and just putting my head down and grinding. And whether it was making cold calls five days a week, six days a week, whether it was door knocking, whether it was just working 100 hours in one week and literally just being obsessed with real estate every single week. That to me is what, what I thought hard work was. And when I tell you that I have literally almost killed myself from working so hard in this business, I mean it because it's not a difficult business, but all you have to do is just put a little bit of effort into it. And that's what you get back out of it. So ignoring the parties, ignoring all the weekends and doing the three open houses every Saturday, Sunday. To me, that was the hard work watching Ricky's podcast, listening, educating myself. If I had a half hour to myself, I would be listening to something. I'd be educating myself. I wouldn't be, you know, putting or playing golf or whatever. It was just How old are you, bro? I just turned 27 27. And what did you do before real estate before real estate? I was a restaurant manager. Before before real estate, you're a restaurant manager. Oh, that's that really helped you. I bet you I bet you that really helped you out. I was a I was a server at a seafood restaurant for a little while. And I swear like walking up to the tables, asking them how they're doing, saying a few jokes, getting their drink order, get getting what they want and making them happy. Like I tell a lot of like teenagers and stuff like get a job serving tables. If you want to learn to be a good real estate agent, go get a job serving tables so you can get your license and learn those people skills of talking to people and dealing with problems and people that are unhappy for a moment because their steak was too well done or, you know, it took too long to do this or that you know what I mean dealing with those little issues and stuff. What's up? I might think very well done. Just so you know, I was very well done. Like like burn. What's the deal with that? Are you just like worried about this person thing? We just like to make sure it's properly well. Oh, God, here we go. Dan, listen, this dude is Italian as it gets. Okay. Seriously, like he eats his lasagna well done. So all right, well, cool. Um, I agree with you though. I think coming from the hospitality industry really, you know, kind of allowed me a softball to get into this business. And a lot of the agents on my team, you know, did come from bartending or serving as well. And even some of the top agents on Long Island, you know, that we know, Mike Murphy, Beth Lowe, Charles Weinerub, they all came from the hospitality industry as well. So it was definitely a really, really good precursor to real estate. Yeah, 100% man. Well, I'm just excited to see you and what you're going to do over the next couple of years. Thank you. I mean, you really built something quick. I mean, you should be able to get to up to 100 million, huh? Is that the goal? That's the goal for this year. We are on pace to, to exceed it, believe it or not. It's freaking awesome, man. It's, you know, it's great to see. And I mean, it's the same thing one with you. You know, it's your, your guys, this team is probably the closest in my opinion, you know, or you actually, Juan is always one step ahead of me. Like I'm thinking about going to the Hamptons. Juan's like, I call Juan, he's like, yeah, I'm sitting in West Hampton right now on the beach. I just got a condo beer for the next two months. Like how did this already, you know, or like Miami's like, yeah, I'm down in Miami right now. You know, opening up a team down here. So, you know, Wands are always one step ahead, which I love. So Dan, let me ask you, do you plan out your year in like 12 months first? Like do you have a vision board on your like, I'm going to hit this for the next year? Or do you have something like similar to myself where like, I have a five year plan set where every year people are resetting and kind of saying like, oh, I'm going to hit this this year. I'm just on track for the next five years from something I wrote like three years ago, like where are you out with things on that? Yeah, everything I do is two or three years out. I think it's a little bit, I mean, of course you want to have like your smaller goals, right? Like I want to buy them on my house. I wanted to buy my stepfather Harley. I got that done. I wanted to buy my own personal house. I did that. But most of my work related goals, business goals are two or three years out. So whether it be expansion, whether it be, you know, whatever it is, everything I'm doing is even, even I post something on my story. I'm digging two or three years out. So everything is very similar to you. It's, it's future. What's the long term plan? Like we're talking 10, 20 years from now. Like, why did you get into real estate? There has to be something, I guess fueling you, which is why you work so hard, right? Right. I don't know what that's going to be just yet, but I know that it's surrounded by wanting to help and feeling that burning passion of wanting to help people. So, you know, whether it be coaching, like Ricky, whether it be starting a brokerage with 10,000 agents, like, you know, I don't really know just yet, you know, I'm, I'm kind of still figuring out, you know, I'm maturing. We just turned 27. I mean, more on you gotta be the same age, right? Yeah, I turned 28 in July. So you're, I think a year out of me, right? You're younger. So you're figuring out life. You know, I mean, we're still, we're still, we're still seeing the world. So I don't really know where I'm going to be in 10 years. I just know that I want to continue to be able to help people, whether it be consumer or the agents on my team. I want to be able to continue to be here. I am, bro. Here I am. This is me. This is you in 10 years right here, bro. Here I am. With a fresco bottle like this. Yeah. You better start picking up Kitesurfing, man. Yeah. Listen, that's really, that's what motivates me. Being able to help consumers and also, just like you said, like you spend all this time with people that aren't on your team, you're not even recruiting. I cannot even tell you how many minutes, hours, a week I spend on the phone with somebody from Florida that I'm not recruiting or, you know, talking to somebody in California who just got their license. I'm not recruiting them. You know, it's just, you put all this good energy out into the world and you do good by other people. It comes back to you one way or another, 10 fold. So, you know, helping for the sake of helping, not just for the sake of building business, you know what I mean? Which in turns comes back to building business, right? So it's kind of weird. But, you know, like just doing things without expecting anything in return. That's when your social media starts to really take a turn upward. That's when your business really starts to explode. It's just like you said, good things going into the universe coming back to you. Yeah. I learned it at a really young age. I was fortunate. You know, I didn't really grow up with a whole lot. You know, my mom barely made it by. She was a single mother. My father, you know, taught me at a very young age, philanthropy. You know, we always used to go to the soup kitchens and give back on Sundays. There used to be times where my dad would get a check for a thousand bucks. It was probably the only thousand dollars he had and he would go down to the lighthouse mission, which is a local, you know, down over here on the island and he would go give $500 back. You know, so he instilled that. My parents instilled that into me at a very young age. And it's so true. If you do it without any monetary benefit or whatever it may be, it really does come back to you. If you're putting on this first, man, the universe is going to reward you in hundreds of ways. What would be your advice for new agents who let's just say got their license yesterday, right? They want to go out there, crush it like you did. They want to go out there and have their own team one day. What would you do from day one to succeed as fast as possible? Day one, I would make sure I'm educated so I would know what I'm doing, right? So maybe watch a Ricky Careuth YouTube video or get on there, subscribe. I would outwork everyone else. I would choose a way to differentiate myself from the competition. So ways that you and I have succeeded or maybe a little bit different than others, right? Like maybe it's a newer model with this video stuff. I think we were a little bit ahead of our time. I think the first time I ever met you was the first wide piano event. You had a camera crew with you. That was two and a half years ago. And now look at everybody doing videos. So find a way that you can differentiate yourself from the other 45,000 agents that are, whether it's Long Island, California, whatever it may be, you have to be able to be different. You have to be able to stand out and educating yourself is super important too because then when you start getting the business and people start messaging you and calling you, you have to know what you're doing. And then the last thing is as simply as being a good person, literally that simple. Be a good person to other agents, to other people. When you're literally at stop and shop or food line, whatever we have down in Alabama, right? Be a good person and it'll come back to you tenfold. People will like you. They will want to do business with you and they will want to refer you, whether it's just a conversation at stop and shop or whether you sold a million dollar house. So that would be my advice. Where are you? I am in my basement at my house. No, I mean like what state are you in? I'm in New York. Long Island. Oh, you're in New York. You're in New York. Cool. Cool. What part? Upstate, Manhattan, Long Island. Sub-accounting on Island. Cool. Cool. Sweet. Sweet. Yeah. I guess you were just trying to figure out what we got down here. We don't got much. I mean, there's a couple of little gas stations with some ribs and your food line. You're going to get chicken grits at the gas station? Kinda. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty much. Yeah. My favorite. I grew up roofing houses with dad and we would literally eat at gas stations. It was nuts. It was nuts, but now I've been up to New York a couple of times. I love it up there. It gets too cold, for sure, but hey, I'm coming up. Before this year's out, I'll be up there. I'm going to come up there and do another event and have some fun. See you guys. I miss you guys. I miss you guys. I'm going to insert an I Love New York emoji right on this point of the podcast. Cool, man. Well, look, Bro. It was good to chat with you for a little while and learn a little bit about you and your business and everything. Like I said, I'm just looking forward to watching it continue to grow and all that good stuff. It was a very interesting conference. I really enjoyed it. So thank you. Thank you guys for having me. I appreciate it. Anytime. And then how can people find you? Because like I said, your social media is popping. Like what's your handle? How can people get connected with you? Yeah. I mean, it's D-A-N-O-N-E-I-L underscore at Daniel Neil underscore. I'm on all social medias. You have my contact info there. Thank you for plugging that. I appreciate it. You got to find me somebody in Morrisville, North Carolina speaking of road to 10,000. Ricky's on it. Ricky. What do you need? I need a listing agent in Morrisville, North Carolina. Just just email me Ricky at zero to diamond.com. And I will hook you up with somebody. All right, everyone. So thank you so much for tuning in. My recommendation is you reach out to Dan. Dan has some of the best content and the best tips that you could have as a real estate agent. I've been lucky enough to watch his growth over the last couple of years and he's absolutely skyrocketing out of the real estate stratosphere. Once again, make sure you tune in and subscribe on gold bar and on the zero to diamond channel. And once again, me and Ricky respond to all DMs. So you can reach out to me directly at Latino agent and Ricky, where can they find you? I'm at at Ricky Carruth guys. So just hit me up there. I'm answering all my DMs still somehow some way. And we'll see you guys doing that. That's a little ludicrous to me. It's literally two hours a day. Two hours a day, bro. It's about an hour in the morning and hour in the evening. Now, it's kind of how it's working out. So soon as I start hitting the hit in the road again, I think it's going to get out of control, you know, because I'm going to be, I'm going to have so many new people coming into my ecosystem and, you know, knowing who I am and hit me up. And so I think, but there again, I'm going to be so I was just talking to Eric, the brogagin about this, because I have 78 requests, let's say, right? That, you know, unfortunately, right now, I don't have the time to maybe interact with all of them. And Eric, I mean, obviously with his account, you know, he's got thousands literally sliding down. So we were talking about it. Do you think that it negatively affects your engagement? If you, aside from people just commenting and wanting to interact, but do you think that the algorithm interrupts it? If you don't answer them back? No, it's a good, it's a good question because I've thought about it as well. I don't think it'll negatively in, what do you call it affect you, but the people that message you are usually your greatest fans and they're the ones liking sharing and posting your stuff. So if you don't answer them back, they probably stop doing that. That'll probably kind of affect it indirectly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the, I think the, like, the interaction with your fans is where you win, you know, but as far as the algorithm, I don't think so. I wouldn't too much worry about that. You know, anyway, Eric's crushing it with the algorithm, by the way, I mean, he's doing incredible, incredible. But uh, but yeah, um, now answering those DMs, I think is one of the, like Gary Vee, he answered every single, he responded to every single tweet or whatever, every single something for like, for like, for like, like, oh, seven and 2011 or something like that, every single one of them, you know what I mean? And I'm just like, and these agents are reaching out pouring their hearts out, you know, they're telling me how much things are helping them or they're asking questions they desperately need answers to, you know, and like, I'm not really the only guy that can really sit down and really tell them the real thing, the real deal, you know? So I mean, it's, I made it like part of my job now, you know, just answering those messages and it's just continuing to build a brand. So you guys hit me up there, please hit me up. Don't think I'm getting too many. I can't answer. I want you to message me and um, reach out and say hello or ask questions and all that good stuff. So we'll see you guys on the next episode. Take care.