 If you're looking to build a real estate team, I have the man on here today. He has literally coached agents into building billion dollar teams that do a billion dollars in production. So spend some time with them today. Hopefully you get a lot out of this if you're in that world where you want to build your team, you want to build your organization. This is a guide to our forum. We get a little bit into a story here. He was actually the president of maps coaching with Heather Williams worked side by side with Gary Keller. So asked him a little bit about that. We get into his story and, you know, some of the intricate details of building a successful team. So I hope you enjoy this show. Let me know in the comments, click subscribe, hit the like button, all that good stuff. And let's get right into it. But just hang in there and keep paying these payments a little bit. Everything will kind of blow over and we'll get back. And you kind of probably kept paying the notes and everything and it just kept on getting worse and worse and worse, never getting better until you're kind of out of money and blah, blah, blah. Is that kind of how it went? And yet again, when you're in the lowest of lows, that's when you have the most opportunity for growth. And just kind of wipe your slate clean in terms of, you know, the financial debt and problems and everything. And just say, you know what? I'm going to start over. I'm going to, you know, go be a real estate agent or serve tables or roof houses or whatever. And kind of just start at the bottom and work my way up again. Like I said, mortgage companies, title companies, home inspections, due diligence, contractors, photos, building your own brochures and all of those things that take up time. Yes, they need to be done, but they don't move the needle for their production, their debt income, their bank account balance, their net worth. None of that stuff matters. When the book Today Matters, John Maxwell said the archer who misses the target turns and looks for fault within himself, meaning it's never the bullseye's fault if you miss the turn. Even step out of even being the team leader, like put a team together and walk away. I mean, that's what I tried to do, right? What's up, buddy? Hey, what's going on, Ricky? How are you, man? I'm okay. Thanks. How about yourself? Oh, beautiful. Man. It's another day. Yeah. Yeah. So what are we going to talk about today? Bro, let's dive into everything, man. I never really heard a lot of the backstory with the maps, Gary relationship and some of your stuff. And then bring a lot of value to the audience and everything. So what are you working on right now? What's your big thing right this second? Just working on really building revenue share and then just adding value to every one of our coaching clients. All of our clients are just winning, man. They're winning in a powerful way. And I love them to see that when they're winning way. So if you want a little of the backstory, I'll give you the whole story if you want it, Ricky. It started in real estate sales 32 years ago. I was 20 years old. Okay. Yeah. Now hold on a second. 32 years ago? 32 years ago. I was 20 years old. I'm just doing the math here. Yeah. 52 over a half century, dude. So I'm getting up there. I don't know about that. And trust me, I feel it. But I feel less, my mother and I started a real estate sales team together. And she was much older than I was, Ricky. And she said, I'm going to work the listing side of the business and you're going to take the buyer side of the business, which I was happy to do at that time. It made total sense to me. Yet after about a year of selling real estate, I was able to build the right models, systems, tools, technology, have the right people in place to, as a buyer's agent, close over 100 buyer side transactions per year. So this was in two, this was a 93 ish. Yeah. 92, 93. Yeah. And so able to build that, that production, but wasn't any like I mean, like, were you still looking at the book for MLS? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, it was, it was, geez, but we had the MLS book, yes. And there was also the dot metrics system, and maybe that's not even the right words anymore. Yeah. It's been so long since I thought, I thought about it. We'd be able to print off, you know, an MLS search, but there was no pictures. It was, it was the old printers that went, gee, gee, gee, right. And it had the lined paper on the sides with the little holes in it. And so I'd do my MLS search. I'd print off those papers, and then I would go to the paper cutter and I would cut them up, you know, and I would run out and show the properties. Yet, again, no pictures, no videos, no virtual tours, no drone footage, that's for sure. And yet, I was able to figure out how to get the transaction volume up to over a hundred buyer sides per year and dienoms listing over a hundred properties per year. So we collaboratively, we built it to about 250 transactions per year. And, you know, as a buyer's agent for 10 years before ultimately taking over the team, yet in that process, I learned a lot about, you know, model systems, technology, and hiring the right people. One of the books that I read was the E-Met by Michael Gerber. I read that when I was 22 years old, and it changed my world. I'm telling you, I spent $10,000 in my own money to fly out to California to get my E-Met certification. Man, I came back to the office on fire, and we're going to systemize everything. Diane and I ended up writing 19 systems, books, manuals that, you know, a team could just simply purchase and install to build a millionaire real estate agent team. So, you know, ultimately went to the listing side of the business, took over the team, now built the team to the seventh level, like you, Ricky, where you're still in production, yet you don't have to go on listing payments by representations. You've got people in place to make that happen. And your dad is a big part of that, right? Yeah, he's doing all of it right off, which is awesome. And so that's where I found myself, where I didn't necessarily need to be there, yet we'd, we'd leveraged appropriately to create income without having to be present. Now, when I was about 24 years old, I was picked up by companies like isucceed.com, iReel, Howard Britain seminars, and I found myself on the road a lot teaching agents like you do, teaching agents, how to increase their production. Man, I found so much fulfillment in that yet at this point in my life, it was, really, it was just, there was no purpose behind it. There was no lie. It was the relentless pursuit of more. And how old were you? 24, 25 years old, right at that point. You got down at 20 when you were 20. And then by year five, you were traveling and speaking and what? We're still in real estate yet, you know, by the time it was about, I guess, 28, my wife and I decided to have our first child. And I said, I don't want to travel anymore. I don't want to speak anymore. I want to be home to raise this little baby. And at age 28, I was on the road, probably 200 days per year, doing about 150 talks per year, and just leveraged the team and just having fun with it, right? And yet wouldn't want to do that anymore. So at 28, I looked at my resources. I said, well, Sean, what do you really know? And I'm not the smartest man on the face to point out that's for sure to Ricky yet. What I know is real estate. And I started thinking about different line extensions that I could add to the real estate sales team. So at 28 years old, I decided I was going to start a mortgage company, which I did advocate mortgage. I started a title company. I started a land development company. And finally a home building company by the time it was 30, I had six income streams on one transaction. And what around what? Let's see. This was, this would have been like 2002-ish, 2000-ish. 2000-ish right in that time frame. And the tech bubble had just burst. And the market was down a little bit yet. What brokers did you guys start at? Or what brokers were? So you were at Remax. And by the time you started all these different companies within the industry, were you still at Remax at that time? Now, we were independent. After eight years at Remax, I was actually kicked out. Ricky was asked to leave Remax because I was building a team and they were not team centric. They wanted nothing to do with the team. So my broker came in crazy. Yeah, he said, you can build a team, Sean. You just can't do it at Remax. Wow. We went independent for about two years and 10 months. It wasn't too long after that. Like their whole thing is go build a team. Right, right, right. They just, they didn't get the value from a team. They saw it more as a challenge than an opportunity, which was unfortunate. They were just not team centric back in those days. Wow. Because we're building a team, because we wanted our off-site satellite office. They just really didn't want anything to do with us. So we just made the decision to go independent because we did want to build a team. Was it EX, was it, was it, was it Remax Corporate or was it the local franchise C? It was Remax Corporate. Wow. Local franchise C was great guy. I mean, we golfed together, we went to lunch together, we had happy hour together. He's a great guy, a friend. And he says, I just finished a meeting at Corporate. And if you want to build a team, you just can't do it at Remax. So we made the decision. We went independent for two years and 10 months. And man, I wouldn't wish that on my best friend out there or anybody or my worst enemy, I should say. Because at the end of the day, it's just not as profitable as you imagine it's going to be. You open the bag to a whole bunch of new problems, challenges, issues of technology, to training, to hiring, to firing, FF&E. I mean, it becomes really expensive. So it was not nearly as profitable as we thought it would be. Two years, 10 months later, decided, well, let's join counter Williams. Now, at that time, I was working the Mortage Company, the title company, land development, home building company. And again, it was six income streams on one transaction, Ricky. It was, I had to represent the development company when we acquired the land. So they paid me commission there. Then I'd worked with the county or the municipality to get entitlements. Once entitlements were in place, resounding and they're getting the plats approved and signed off on them, everything ready to go. Then I'd pull in a curb gutter, water sewer, asphalt, all that stuff. And then I'd sell the lots to the building company. And so we peeled off some profit there. Then we'd build the home. Then we'd collect supervision fee that exceeded our expenses. It was part of our budget. So there's more profit there. Then whether it's pre-sold or not, the real estate company would list the property. The mortgage company would provide the financing. We offered discount points and all kinds of things. They would be crazy not to use our mortgage company. Then of course, the mortgage company made sure it. So six income streams on one transaction. Now, everything that I did was in the luxury market. So it was above a million dollars in Denver, Colorado. At that time, our average sales price was probably around 200,000. And everything we built was above a million dollars. Many of them custom, some of them speculation. Very few of them speculate. And yet I built it to 16 land developments, well over 100 homes under construction at any given time. We were the hands down award winner at the parade of homes in Denver, Colorado. In fact, funny story, we had built a 16,000 square foot home and to be part of the parade. And we got it to the point of interior trim and they were staining the interior trim. And I'm sure you've heard the term spontaneous combustion, right? Where they had taken some of the rags and they put them in a trash can inside the home in the middle of this 16,000 square foot beautiful home already through drywall, interior trim being completed, flooring was just starting, and spontaneous combustion and the whole thing burned to the ground. I mean, it was all over the news. There were flames shooting 60 feet in the air and almost caught the neighbor on fire. Thank God it did not. It crystallized the foundation. I mean, it was a mess. And Denver, Colorado is kind of a big deal. They generally have at least 300,000 people go up through these parades of Almondson. And it's a great marketing tool for builders, real estate agents alike. So 300,000, 300,000 people going through the trees. It's a big, big deal. And so, ow. So we decided that it's not what happens to us. It's how we respond to the mix of the difference in the world, right? And we made a decision. We went to the city council members. We asked, could we get permits to be able to work 24-7 on this property? I mean, it's a subdivision where nobody's there. We're not going to disturb anybody. They gave us permission. We had three crews in every category working around the clock 24-7. And we rebuilt the 16,000s worth at home in 67 days. And we won every award that they had for the braid of homes. There are 14 of them. Nice. We're one of them. So it was kind of a fun challenge. And it gave us a huge launch into the market, right? Which allowed us to really capture massive market share. In fact, Ricky, we had about 60% market share of any home being constructed of $1,000,000 in Denver at that time. So we're going to get into dollars. Hand over. Are you still in Denver now? I'm not. I'm in Austin, Texas. Austin. Yeah, I love Austin. That's right. So nevertheless, Austin is the only market right now that's not up on the year price-wise, I think. Or one of two markets that's not positive on the year price-wise, which they're down 0.3% or something. So it's nothing crazy. But I think they're one of the ones that have gotten hit worse through this crash. And another down like 0.5% or something. Well, and they were the fastest appreciating, too. So that's yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Right. A little bit of a bubble here in Austin. But yeah, and as we did really, really well from about 2002, about 2008. Yeah. You know, 2008, right? Yeah. What an incident, right? And man, I just needed two more years of good market. And I would have been set for the rest of my life because all of these line developments were coming to fruition. All of that back in profit was ready to be collected. Then 2008 comes along. And I had buyers walk away from a quarter million dollar earnest money deposits, literally, because they could on the street and buy a short sale. You know, for 700,000 to the 1.3, I had them under contract for. So it was a challenging market. No doubt about that. And I just really lost everything in that process. And it was really kind of a challenging time of my life. It was, it was two and a half years of torture. Man, it was short sale after short sale. It was deeds of the little foreclosure. It was, it was a tough, tough time, man. It was cold, dark, depressing, adding up a life insurance. All these wondering, would my kids and wife be okay if I weren't here? I mean, it was a really bad, bad time. And yet I did a lot of soil surging at that time. And what I found, Ricky, is that when we're our lowest of lows, we have the most opportunity for growth. And I discovered my wife. Finally, everything else was just the relentless pursuit of more. There was no purpose behind it. Really, it was just my ego. It was more, more, more, more. And when your ego gets out of control, I'll tell you the world will figure out a way to humble you. I promise you. And I was humbled. And I found that why. And the why was, you know, I looked back at my life. I just said, where did I find, where I added the most value to people? Where did I find the most fulfillment when I felt really good? And it was, it was when I was out speaking and training and touring and coaching. And so I made the decision to go full on into coaching. Now I couldn't just jump from, you know, almost going bankrupt to him, a world-renowned coach. It doesn't work that way. So what I did is I just, I thought, of course, some of the smartest people I know, I reached out to Gary Keller. In fact, fortuitously, Gary reached out to me. And he said, are you open-minded to new opportunities? And so I don't listen to smart guys. And Gary, I think you're a pretty smart guy. What would you like to talk about? Well, I jumped out of a plane, flew from Denver to Austin, went to Gary's office, and we talked about KWU Maps coaching. Now, I couldn't just jump ship. I couldn't like pull my kids out of school. I couldn't leave my wife's grandmother who was in stage four of cancer. I couldn't just jump like that. So I ended up commuting. I'd leave every Sunday night, and I would work Monday through Friday at KWU. And I had come home Friday night, and I did that for almost two years because, you know, I couldn't tell my wife's grandmother. She was like a mother to her that we were moving to Austin. Just couldn't do it. Yeah, yeah. Once she ultimately did pass on, and God bless her, she was a wonderful woman. Yeah, once she did pass on, we made the decision to move the family down to Austin. Man, I have not touched a snow shovel or an ice scraper. She's coming up on 12 years now. Love that. I love Austin. I love the climate. I love lakes. I love everything about this. And it's just so fun. So I started, you know, KWU Maps coaching, and, you know, Diana was a big part of that. My mother and I have worked together for, we worked together for probably 28, 29 years. So you moved to, you were independent. You moved to Keller before the crash. When the crash happened, you know, when you kind of were losing everything, you know, you say you needed two more years would have been set for life. Were you just taking like the money and like reinvesting it? And you were just over leveraged and that kind of thing. And then you probably thought like me, because same thing happened to me on a smaller scale. You probably thought like, if I just hang in there and keep paying these payments a little bit, everything will kind of blow over and we'll get back. And you kept kind of probably kept paying the notes and everything. And it just kept on getting worse and worse and worse, never getting better until you're kind of out of money and blah, blah, blah. Is that kind of how it went? That's spot on. Yeah. And you've lived it, you know it, right? Where when you've built something that you're really proud of, you're going to do whatever it takes to save it. So I took all the savings, everything that I had, and I kept paying the construction. It's see the one thing that is constant in life is interest on debt. It's not going to go away. And I kept paying the payments, I kept paying the property taxes and to the point that it was just like, hey, you can't do this any longer. Then it became about, you know, how do we negotiate this, how do we get out of from underneath this debt? And just, I don't need the profit anymore. I don't need the profit. What I need is out from under the debt that it's deep. Right. I'm sure it's short sales. It's everything that you could imagine. I had, you know, papers being delivered to the house by couriers and being served at least every other day. It was a terrible time in our lives and it was really, really challenging. And yet again, when you're in the lowest of lows, that's when you had the most opportunity for growth. I think I really figured out what it is I wanted to be but I finally grow up, right? Like a moment you thought about ending it all. Is that what I heard you say? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was, it was a challenging time. Ricky, I'll tell you what, when you're under that much financial pressure and that much stress and anxiety and worry, it was just, it was a really tough time. There's no doubt about that. Could you, you know, could you, could you kind of just say, you know what, I'm not even gonna think about that anymore and just kind of wipe your slate clean in terms of, you know, the financial debt and problems and everything and just say, you know what, I'm gonna start over. I'm gonna, you know, go be a real estate agent or serve tables or roof houses or whatever and kind of just start at the bottom and work my way up again. Whatever happens with all this debt and this financial, you know, these problems will kind of work their self out. I go bankrupt or whatever happens happens. Could you, like, what was the, I guess what I'm trying to get to here is like trying to understand like the thought process there where the financial stress got that bad. Well, I'll tell you what, I don't know, it's a little bit of a blur to me at this moment yet. What I did was I really started to refocus on what I could do rather than what I can't do. I mean, I have a fucking, what I call victim hood. I am a victim and there's three easy ways to become a victim. They blame other people and trust me, I was blaming everyone. Buyers walking away for a quarter of a million dollar earnest money deposits. Are you kidding me? It's their fault. It's not mine. I was not finding my actions. Every action I took, well, I did this because, you know, I didn't realize the market was going to shift so bad, right? And by the way, I was complaining a lot, complaining about this, complaining about that. Yeah. And the button line is what we focus on expands. And I was focused on long things when I finally took personal responsibility for every decision that I'd made then and only then could it turn around. Yeah. And so it started on a short day. I shut down the mortgage company, the title company. In hindsight, I should not have shut down the mortgage company. I should have run work right toward that industry rather than away from it. Yet if I reached the title, land development, the company was totally defunct, so was the home building company. So we had to kind of burn that down, I guess. And what I did is I focused on what I could do, which was get back into real estate sales. And so I started building the team back up. Everybody literally had quit because there was bullet in the streets in Denver, Colorado at that time. So I got into the recruiting effort, the retention effort, the revenue effort to increase the bridge of production, started building the team back up. And then that's when I connected with Gary Ketter. And in going toward my purpose of helping others, and she had a very high level, I was able to then move down to Austin, ultimately, to help build KW Maps Coaching and we built that to be the largest coaching and training company real estate has ever seen. Yet without that vision, without that purpose, it would have never happened. But you kind of skipped over an important thing, and that is why in the world would Gary call you to ask you to start this coaching program with them? Did you have a relationship with them prior to that? How did he know about you? Like how did that happen? It was based on the level of production, one of the top producing teams within Keller Williams, and also our coaching and training background. It just made sense. Dave Jenks at that time, he's the co-author of the millionaire real estate agent was running KW Maps Coaching. The models weren't working. It was kind of defunct. Imagine a coaching company where you've got a question and you're going to call the coaching company and they're going to charge you, bill you, based on how many minutes your question took to answer, and that's what they were doing. It just didn't work. There was no system to it. There was no real structure. So anyhow, negotiated a really good position with KW Maps. He hired me as VP of growth, and then within these nine months, 283% growth, they promoted me to president of KW Maps Coaching. And then Gary presents me with a different opportunity. He said, Sean, I want you to take all of our proprietary models, systems, training tools, technology, to all other industries outside of real estate. And so I took on that role as president of Maps business training and went on to consult with organizations like McDonald's and Pempsonic, edX, Sportclips, eMobile. Yeah, Ford, GMC, Pepsi. Just to name a few, at about 5,000 other companies you've never heard of before, yet through that process, I learned a lot about organizational structure, compensation models, how to really build a team. And yet Ricky, I couldn't find any real passion behind that side of the business. I really couldn't because like when consulting with McDonald's, and while that sounds kind of attractive like, hey, I consult for McDonald's. That's kind of a Fortune 100 company. It sounds all a little glamorous, right? It wasn't, not at all. I was having lunch with the president of the Global Services Division for McDonald's when I was up in Chicago, giving them a two and a half day workshop. And he said, Sean, I love your models, your systems, your tools. It all makes sense to me. However, you just need to be patient. I said, well, what do you mean? I said, Sean, it's going to take a minimum of five years to have any kind of a cultural shift or impact at McDonald's. Five years? I don't want to wait around five years to see a result. I just feel like I'm a guy collecting a paycheck. I'm not impacting anybody's life. I mean, these people, they're on salaries and they're in this linear progression of financial achievement and then growth where, you know, if they're a really good employee, they're going to get a 2% raise every year, right? They might get a bonus or two. Yet, yeah, I have no incentive to really change or to do anything great because this is all they're just looking for that 2% bump that they're probably going to get no matter what really happens. So it really turned into a job, Ricky. Like a job I didn't like. You were trying to motivate the unmotivated. That's right, right. So let's see where I can take an agent on the other hand. And within nine days, I can double their production. I can quadruple their production inside of six months so that I can see immediate impact on their financial trajectory and their life. And I'll tell you, all of my clients are winning. I think of like Mark Spain who I started coaching with years and years ago where East Coast and maybe a couple hundred transactions per year. I mean, last year they did 8,800 transactions. I think Chris Waters last year, 5,600 transactions. I look at my next rising star, Todd Denman, who came to me at $15 million in total sales volume. And this year should hit just another $300 million in sales volume with anticipation within the next three years to be over a billion per year in total sales volume. I love helping people with organizational structure, those that have the desire to not only increase personal production, yet leverage appropriately through models, systems, technology, and people to really build a business in real estate. See, there's three phases, right? There's the I do it phase, where you're doing it by yourself, we all start there. Then we step into the we do it phase. Once you figure out how to generate some leads, and you're looking for that leverage, where you're tired of doing the transactional work, negotiating inspection issues to diligence, book contractors, mortgage companies, title companies, you get tired of that. So you want to leverage that stuff off. And while it is important that stuff needs to be done, it doesn't need to be done by the agent. So I'm talking about Parade's principle here, right? The 80-20 rule, where 20% of your actions in real estate sales are going to yield a minimum of 80% of your results. And yet most agent and 98% of their time in the 80% work, and 2% of the 20% work. And 20% of work is just five things, right? It's practice, it's lead generation, lead follow-up, going on appointments, negotiating contracts. And it's notable to figure out how to give most of their time to those five things that are going to double their production this year, next year, or the year after. And I don't care the market, yet a lot of people get stuck in that 80% stuff. Like I said, mortgage companies, title companies, home inspections, due diligence, contractors, photos, building their own brochures, and all of those things that take up time. Yes, they need to be done, if they don't move the needle for their production, their net income, their bank account balance, their net worth, none of that stuff matters. So we step into the we do it phase, so we can leverage off the 80% stuff. To ultimately step over that line to get into the they do it phase, where you really own a business in real estate sales. And until you're in the they do it phase, you don't own a business, not a real estate sales, you own a job with a lot of anxiety, less worry, anxiety. And so to get to the they do it phase, that's most people approach me to become their coach when they've reached what I call their natural ceiling of achievement. And that natural ceiling of achievement, Ricky, for most agents, happens between like 30 and 50 transactions per year, where they can't look at another year, they can't see it again. As a single agent most of the time, right? Yeah, or maybe they've got an assistant or a TC or somebody that they can leverage some of that stuff off to, but they come to you when they they, maybe it's been a year or two or three where they're stuck at that plateau, right? That natural ceiling achievement between 30 and 50 transactions per year and they want more and they just don't know how to get there. See, they can't work with another buyer, they can't take out of the listing because they can't create another hour in the day. And by the way, when that they had to work that extra hour that they've created in the day, they probably wouldn't want it anyway, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. They're looking for ways to leverage. And that's where where I come in, that's where my strong suit is in working with people to leverage to go from the we do it phase to the they do it phase. I'm not great at working with brand new agents, even though I do have coaches here at ICON coaching who are, we've developed several group and programs like accelerated breakthrough that allow them to very quickly go from where they're at today to where they want to be tomorrow, like accelerated breakthroughs, 16 weeks of coaching and training where we've taken every aspect of selling real estate to allow the agent to really implement deploy these strategies and tactics that are the blocking and tackling of the industry. But plus we do cover some high level topics. I've had people that have sold real estate for 35 years taking accelerated breakthrough and they're like, oh my God, I learned so much. So it's not just for brand new agents or newer agents, it's for anybody and everybody yet. And I'll tell you what, that 16 weeks of coaching and training is a life changer. Yeah, yeah. And I'll link all that stuff in the description. Nice. Thank you, Ricky. Yeah, absolutely. So what's that? We just want to help agents achieve. And when they're winning, men were winning. And I'll let that. Yeah. No, absolutely. So a team leader, like to be a team leader, to be a great team leader, to be a successful team leader, it's literally a full-time job to be a team leader, to build that organization, to structure it properly, to build it out, right? It's a full-time job. Like, on average, how long do you think it takes of, okay, you went from a single agent to now you're building a team? Or for the moment that you decide to become a team leader and build this team, how long on average would you say it takes from being that team leader in that position to having a business that you could sell or walk away from, like it's running with or without you at that point? Like, how many years does it normally take to kind of get to that point? Right, right. Well, it's a smart question, Ricky, and yet it's not a cookie-cutter answer because it really depends on the work ethic of the individual. See, one thing I've learned is the difference between extraordinary success and below-average results is speed of implementation. Speed of implementation. See, the people that I work with that have achieved the highest levels of success for a key, here's the secret. They fail faster than everyone else. And that sounds weird. Yet they fail forward and their mindset failure doesn't exist. Like in the book Today Matters, John Maxwell said the archer who misses the target turns and looks for fault within him or herself, meaning it's never the bullseye's fault if you miss the turning. And so it's really about speed of implementation. So to give you the best answer I can, I've helped people get there literally from a new agent to business owner inside of six months. I think of Rob Stein. Rob is just, he's a master implementer. And every idea I would give him, every organizational structure, every compensation model, every marketing idea, he was just a master implementer. He just went crazy. He would implement everything I would tell him to implement. And he approached me as a brand new agent, by the way, literally a brand new agent. So John, I want to hire you as my coach. Now as a brand new agent, I'm thinking this guy can't afford me. He literally can't afford what I do. And yet he'd built another business where he was earning about a quarter million dollars per year residually and passively. He's a songwriter and he gets residual income. So he could afford it. He jumped into accelerated breakthrough and then immediately just said, I've got small work with Skype one-on-one. Within six months, he had his first $100,000 commission in a month. Within six months as a brand new agent. So yeah, I would say, like I mentioned Todd Denman. He stepped out of production after about two years and three months. No longer goes on the presentations or buyer appointments. Stepped completely out of production. Leveraged appropriately through model systems, technology and of course people to help make that happen. So he's now a business owner. So I would say it's anywhere from six months to three years. If I gave you a year. And that's not the answer yet. It's not a cookie cutter. It depends on the individual. Well, I think most people, and maybe you'll agree with this or not, but the way I see it, you know how 90% of agents fail. I think out of the agents that succeed, 90% of those who try to build a team fail. Would you say that's true? 90% of agents who try to build a team fail. It's a hundred. Right. Yeah. And I think that the ones that fail kind of had a misconception of what it is. They're here as a single agent with a full-time job. Now they're like, oh, well team leader, I'm going to make more money. So number one, you know, as soon as you become a team leader, you don't necessarily make more money right then. It takes time to build that business up to where it's profitable like any other business. So that's that first sense of misconception. But the second part is, is then it realized like they're a full-time agent now. And then now they're, now they've got another full-time job as a team leader. And they don't think like now they have two full-time jobs and they didn't realize that this was going to be a full-time job. They also thought it was going to be profitable. So now they're sitting here pulling their hair out because they have two full-time jobs and they can only handle one really. And they don't know which direction to go in. They don't know what they're doing to try to build the team and they're losing money. Yeah. Right. That's exactly right. Ricky, and most of them, they figured out a way to develop leads and they can't follow up with all the leads. So of course the natural thought is, well, let me hire some agents to the team to service the leads. Right? Right. Number one, they don't have a system. They don't have a structure to train these people appropriately. They're not setting them up for success. So at Icon, we've developed a 30, 60, 90 day action plan for agents who join the team. By the way, you shouldn't just hire an agent. Like, well, I don't want to work the buyer side of the business anymore. I only want to work listing. So I'm going to hire a buyer agent. That's a huge mistake. It's a huge mistake. And they hire this person. They say, well, I like you. You got a great personality. You look good. You're going to be my buyer's agent. Now here's a bunch of leads. Now go conquer the world and the person fails. They fail miserably because they're not set up for success. So I think mistake number one when building a team is that they hire a buyer agent. That's not the appropriate thing to do. The first step would be to hire the individual as an ISA, Inside Sales Associate. Now they're licensed. We're to the business maybe. Hire them as an ISA because 95% of their success in real estate sales is going to be based on their ability to get on the phone to establish rapport and set appointments. If you can't do that in real estate, you're going to be part of the 90% who fail. So hire them as an ISA, provide a compensation model that allows them to pay their bills and I wouldn't tie that to a time frame. Meaning you're going to be an ISA for 90 days, then you're going to be a showing partner for 90 days. No, I would tie it to a benchmark. Meaning as an ISA, once you've set 25 appointments or once we've gotten a minimum of 10 buyer agency contracts and 10 listing contracts signed based on your efforts, then you'll be promoted. So you tie it to a result rather than a time frame. The reason for that is because you don't want to promote somebody who's not worthy of the promotion and you don't want to hold a person back. It was a person of talent. See a great ISA is going to get you four listing appointments a week. They're going to set at least five, six, seven buyer appointments a week. So a great talented person, they'll be able to go through that part of the gauntlet within 30 days. So they're going to be an ISA for 30 days. Yet what you're doing is you're gifting them with phone skills. So you're training them on strips, dialogues, objection handlers. And again, a person of talent, a person of solid work ethic is going to get through that part of the system really quickly. What we want is an ascension ladder within the real estate sales team. See, if you don't have an ascension ladder, a bigger vision for their correct position will then, that's not all inspiring. They're going to reach a certain level of success. They get drunk on the wine of that success and then what do they want to do, Ricky? They just want to leave. They leave the team and you've now trained your competition, right? So start ISA and then they do a lateral move over to a showing partner. And there's a different compensation model and plan for that role at a different 30, 60, 90 for that as well. And yet once they get, say, 10 buyers under contract, they're then promoted from showing partner slash ISA to buyer agent slash ISA. And then once they hit a certain benchmark as a buyer agent, well, then they can then start taking their own listings, right? So there's always a next step. And then once they're doing a list side, then you promote them from agent on the team to VP of sales, where they're going to go out and recruit agents to join the team with you and for you, they're going to train those agents, hold them accountable. And then from VP of sales, there's an opportunity for director of sales. So we've got this ascension ladder and each step up brings them more income. And compensation is one of the most underutilized tools in an agent's tool belt to build a team. Now, you said most people don't build a team correctly and that's 100% true. I get many people who come to me who have tried to build a team or they built a team that is not profitable and they're like, Shawn, fix this with me. Like when I think of that, I think of a guy out of the Dallas, Fort Worth area that I coach, her name's Kelly. Now Kelly is one of these just very charismatic individuals. She's just a natural salesperson. She's a great realtor. Now, I was doing an event in 2017. It was January of 2017. A title company had put on this event. They pulled in all the top producers from the DFW area. There's probably about 75 agents in that room. And I was doing a four hour workshop on how to build a team. And so Kelly comes in 15 minutes before, gives me this like white knuckle, kind of a knuckle cracking, kind of a handshake, right? And she says, Shawn, I can't sit here for four hours. Can you quick give me the cliff notes? Kelly. So I got to know her a little bit during that 15 minutes before I was going on stage. And I learned that number one, Kelly was the top producer in DFW. They closed out in 172 million in 2016. I learned that she had 16 sales associates on her team. She had four support staff. So 20 people on her team in total. She won award after award after award. And I also learned that Kelly was completely miserable with her business. Just hated it. She had eight-year-olds. She missed all of the soccer practices in most of his games, okay? And hadn't taken a vacation for like three years. She was a workaholic. She just wouldn't set me fine for hours a week. And I'm not kidding, Ricky. I mean, she had taken me off for months, months. Now, what I also learned is that all 20 people on her team were reported to her directly. So I want you to imagine her organizational chart. It was very wide, very wide. And hello, right? Every single person went directly to Kelly for leadership and management advice. So I encouraged Kelly. I just said, listen, whatever you got going on today, just for the next four hours, I need you to postpone it, reschedule it, cancel it, do whatever you need to do. And Kelly took that advice. She actually sat down. She stayed there for four hours. She took great notes. And immediately after hiring me as her coach, now what we ended up doing over the course of the next 90 days is we restructured her organization. We brought her from 20 key direct reports down to four. And by the way, there's this term span of control. It's a military term. It's the number of people that you can effectively manage that can effectively report to you. And the military will tell you it's three to five people. Now, Kelly had 20. No wonder she didn't. Right? I can only imagine that when she stepped into her office, it felt like 25 umbilical cords attached to her belly button and sucked the life energy out of her, right? So she was literally killing herself. So she took great notes, hired me as your coach over four months. Actually, over about a three month period, we got her from 20 key direct reports down to four. Now, that year in 2017, she took three week-long vacations, didn't babysit her phone the whole time, actually started enjoying life. Got her down to about 50 hours per week, and that was by her choice. And in 2016, they closed out 172 million. In 2017, over 240 million. So working smarter, not her. Yeah, the organization by applying the right compensation models to motivate individuals. There are many teams that I work with that we work on a net profit's interest profit share system with the agents who help make that happen. It's a retention tool. And it's also something that motivates and inspires people to act like owners, meaning between zero and say, 500,000 in net net income after all commissions and everything else. I'm gonna share 20% of every net dollar above that, back to the organization to go help make that happen. And then it becomes, how do I distribute that pool of money appropriately? And by the way, this is a one-time distribution of net profit above 500,000 in our example. And you must be employed with the team at the time of distribution. So distribution occurred the previous year, around April 15th of the following year. So if they have a bad week in July, Ricky, they're not gonna want to quit because they've already got six months, seven months of contribution toward that net profit's interest profit share pool. So they don't want to leave. Yeah. And I've got all the models, the systems, the spreadsheets to walk you guys through. If that's something you choose to implement and deploy, it makes all the difference in the world. It forces people to act like owners, because again, it's based on net profit number one, and they then act like owners, meaning they're gonna keep expenses as low as possible to focus on getting the net profit as high as possible. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's just interesting that 90% of agents fail, 90% of the 10% that make it, that try to do teams fail. And I think some people that try to do teams, not only do they have a misconception of, okay, this isn't gonna take a bunch of my time, I'm gonna make more money, both of which are false. But I think a lot of people try to do teams in an attempt to get out of production pretty immediately. Yeah. And or even step out of even being the team leader, like put a team together and walk away. I mean, that's what I try to do, right? And that's why, you know, when I try to do this, I fail on my face with it, because I like waited too long. And then I was to the point where I'm gonna go do other things. Let me put a team in place to handle everything. What doesn't work like that? You have to stay in there with the team, you know, building the team up, making sure it's all running properly, which just takes a long time, you know, six to three years, six months to three years of you really being in there with them. Yeah. It'll be a job like this Sharpie I've got right here. If I were to hand you this Sharpie, right? I say, Ricky, take this and you go to take it out of my hand. Man, I'm gonna give you a tug of war. You know, I'm not gonna just throw it at you, in other words, right? No, you're gonna try and pull it out of my hand and pull it out of my hand. No, I'm gonna hang on. I'm gonna hang on and hang on until which time I feel letting go. Can't just throw it. Yeah. And a lot of people try to throw them the job. It doesn't work that way. Like I would, yeah, I got built profitable real estate team inside of six months by investing just 2200 per month and 30 minutes per week. And that was about eight months ago. And Ricky, I'll tell you what, it's profitable. And I invest nerdy amounts a week just coaching team members up. And yeah, it's all leverage to people. It truly is. I think of, you know, my former partner, Gary Keller. And I mean, his life is less complicated than yours in mine. I'll tell you that a lot less complicated because he's got, what, 160,000 agents in his organization. And he manages three people. And when they're viewing what they need to do and they're getting the results they need to get, when he meets with them, he talks to them about whatever they want to talk about. If they're not getting the results that he wants, well, then he's going to talk to him about what he wants to talk about. And so it's a very leveraged life. And in the US today, Ricky, we live a highly leveraged life. I think it would agree with me. Like it doesn't be ever listening to this podcast or watching this. Let me ask her, are you wearing a shirt? I hope you are. Did you make that shirt? Of course not. No, you paid a company who paid somebody to make that shirt. And it's just, it's applying that kind of thinking to your business modeling. And when you're a model, well, then it's always going to be profitable. Yeah. No, it's interesting. It's just nothing I've been able to ever personally put together, you kind of know, because we worked together on it. The first time I tried to do a team, I went through about 12 agents in a year and a half. The good ones came and left. The bad ones sucked the energy out of me. And I couldn't focus on my business. I was one of those that didn't realize being a team leader is a full-time job. And I was still trying to run my business as a single agent and keep those deals going and keep that money coming in. And finally, I was like, you know what? I had one agent left. I was like, I'm just going to release you and I'm just going to focus on my business. And that's when I built it up to, you know, the hundred deals a year, a million bucks a year. And I was just like, well, if I'm going to be a team leader, I'm going to be working full-time anyway, 50 hours a week for a while to get it to a certain place. I'll just work 50 hours, make a million bucks, keep it, and then take that money and do other things or build other businesses and stuff. I think everybody's different. I would say, wouldn't you agree that, like, being a team leader isn't for everybody? It is definitely not for everybody. That's for sure. And it's a wide chasm and a big bridge that must be built over focusing on your personal production to then focusing on the production of others. It's a different way of thinking. It's a different way of approaching the business and completely different. I mean, you're almost a completely different, it's a completely different animal altogether. It's almost like you can't really even be both people, you know? No, you really can't. And part of the issue is that many agents who approach me and we focus on building a team, we have to work really hard on getting the right mindset. See, because that mindset that they currently got has been so ingrained of, man, I eat when I kill. I am focused on personal production, personal production, personal production. And then now I'm going to say production of others. It's a different mindset. Yeah. A completely different mindset. It's also a different mindset to jump from the we do it phase to the they do it phase. Now, where do you've been able to do that? Because you've got a great relationship with your father and your father's got a really solid work ethic and you were able to hand off the business, right? For the most part. And I'm sure you just have, what, 10, 20, 30 minutes a week, maybe more, I don't know. Have a what, that key person. And then that difference, okay, for the people that I've coached that have built sustainable teams, it's all in the people. It's in those three key directory courts. They are the ones that are going to make all the difference. Now, a lot of people, they're so quick to hire because they're in pain. You know, I just don't have enough hours. I can't get everything done. I need to hire somebody. Oh, hey, you got a real estate license. Join my team. Now, I say, slow down the hiring process because when you make that key hire, one of your three key directory courts, they are the ones that are going to set the trajectory of your organization. Anything before that. Okay. Now, with most of the team leaders that I consult and coach with that have built successful and sustainable teams, all they do is focus on their, their security influence. And that's all they do. Yet they've got, you know, they've got a director of sales in place who's focused on four key categories. Number one is recruiting. And I call this the four Rs, by the way. Number one is recruiting. Number two is retention. Number three is revenue and per age of production. And number four is reproduction. To get those agents to help attract other agents to join the team. Or if they happen to be with EXP, to get those agents to focus on attracting agents to join the EXP brand, no matter where they're at in 24 different countries. The four categories of the director of sales. Then they've got a, what other people might call the COO, a chief operating officer, I call the CIO, a chief implementation officer. And the difference between extraordinary success and below average results is simply speed of implementation. And then they'll have a marketing director, somebody who's really focused on making it rain. And they're leveraging through platforms and systems like YLogo, Street Text, Sink or Chime or, you know, so many different, there's a thousand different platforms, right? And then when it comes to lead generation. And then also having a key hire would be like a lead ISA. So inside sales associate, somebody who's out on recruiting, other ISAs to join the team, retaining them, holding them out, branding them, all of those things. So four key direct reports. And man, you can build a large and sustainable organization. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the people at the end of the day, right, Ricky? Yeah. Yeah, it's the people and it's the, are you built for that? Are you built to build organization, to run an organization? Or are you built to be part of the organization? Or are you built to be a single agent and be a solopreneur like I am? But it just comes down to your desire to be a leader. And if you want to lead others, and it is based on your desire. Everybody's a great leader in their own right. It's just, do you have the desire to really pour into people and get them to produce the results that you want? Really up to you at the end of the day. I think it's kind of like real estate in general. You know, there's all the cold calling avenues. There's social media. There's the paid leads. You know, there's so many different ways. You know, then there's all the marketing ways and CRMs are so many different ways to build your business. Yeah. I think there's a million different ways as well to structure your life. Like I've made it work being a single agent, passing it off to one agent to step out and still retain some of the income. Build these other businesses. I have no employees. You know, I have like 10 different streams of income, coming from different companies and building brand and posting content and doing all these things. I don't have a single employee. And I think that's a little no doubt. What's that? Yeah, it's just, I think there's a bunch of different ways to do it. You got to figure out what works for you. I really go all in. There's no, Gary Keller doesn't have like social media. Is he on, he's not on social media anywhere, is he? Not that I know of. Not that I know of either. I think he might have a Facebook page. But I mean, that's the one thing and all that is still running. So he's active on social. But the thing is a lot of agents say, man, I need to be an expert social media in order to be successful in real estate sales. And the bottom line is you don't. Like you said, there's a thousand different ways to be successful in real estate. Like you've attended a conference and they got five rock star agents up there sitting on stools and there's a moderator asking them questions. And each one of them are, you know, over 100 million in sales volume per year. And I'll tell you what, out of each and every one of them, none of them do it the same way. You can make a decision, though, in your career as you guys to, are you going to be a prospecting-based business that's enhanced by marketing? Or are you going to be a marketing-based business that's enhanced by prospecting? Okay. We come with different price tags, right? Based business is enhanced by prospecting is easier in terms of, you know, the rejection that you're going to receive and the time that you have to spend in lead generation. That's easier, yet it's a lot more expensive. And a prospecting-based business that's enhanced by marketing is more profitable. So you can do less prospecting-based business and net the same amount as somebody who's in a marketing-based business that's enhanced by prospecting. And sure, they're doing more chills yet. It's not about what you make, it's about what you keep. Now, there seems to be kind of a natural transition for the people that I've coached with, okay? They're first a prospecting-based business that's enhanced by a little bit of marketing. Now, they get to a certain point of production and that income and they built the coffer a little bit and then they start kind of shifting into this marketing-based business that's enhanced by prospecting. And it's kind of a natural turn. And it happens over some of about 10 years. The cycle is what I've seen. So, like I look at Mark Spain now, I mean, he's got a million dollar a month budget to market his organization. I mean, he's got the, what do you call those, sink billboards and the board here over the place. I mean, in Atlanta alone, something like 150 billboards. Yeah, he started with one radio station. Now he's on eight different radio stations. Every time we go to Atlanta, I turn on the morning news as a presentation. And man, I see Mark Spain's face right there. So, he's now fully a marketing-based business that's enhanced by prospecting. Yeah. When he started, he started as an on-site sales person in a new home construction. Can that make you feel like business? Do you think that agents now, more than ever, like have to be on social media? Do you feel like moving forward, there'll be a point where if an agent's not on social media, then they're not going to be successful. Or do you think it'll always be, you can pick and choose how you want to build your business. And even though some of your competition is going to be on social media, and the clients are like, oh, I like this guy, I see all of his videos. I'm going to go with him. Do you think it ever comes to a point where if you're not doing social media, you're just literally going to lose? I think you're right, Ricky. Yes, I think that ultimately we'll get there. I don't think it's there yet. However, those of you that are smart are really investing your time, your energy, your education into how to work social media platforms like Ricky does to be that content marketeer. Content is going to be king. It's always going to be king. Now, with that said, this always has been, it always will be, and it is today, a relationship-driven business. And if you're working your sphere of influence appropriately, you're always going to be successful. When I say appropriately, I mean systematically. Now, when we did the research around the millionaire real estate agent, the rewrite of that, we discovered that the ratio of return for sphere of influence versus number of deals is a 12 to 2 return. 12 to 2. So for every 12 people in your sphere of influence, you're going to do two transactions per year. So if you had 250 people in your sphere of influence and you're communicating with them systematically, there's 42 deals to be done. The reason we break it down to a 12 to 2 versus a 6 to 1 is because one of those deals is going to be a referral from somebody in the SOI. Whether it be somebody who's actually in the sphere of influence who wants to buy, sell, or invest with you. So 12 to 2 return. So even an agent who's not proficient at social media, even an agent who's not doing content creation, if they communicate with their sphere of influence appropriately, aggressively, then they're going to get that 12 to 2 ratio. With that said, though, if you want to expand beyond, because that number is finite. I mean, you're limited based on the number of people that are in your sphere of influence and the number of deals. And if you want to exceed beyond that, well, you're going to have to figure out how to become that thought leader, how to be that person of influence, because there's a lot of people out there. Quite frankly, if you walk down the street and you bump into strangers, you just say, hey, can you give me the first and last name of a real estate agent? You'd be shocked at how many of them could not give you the first and last name of a real estate agent. Right. Could, by the way, they'll only give you one name. Meaning, can you give me two names of a real estate agent? So the bottom line is, content creation, mastering social media, getting in front of people to create awareness about who you are and what you do is critically important. See, we want to, with our sphere of influence, we want to dominate that little sliver that they have in their mind for the name of a real estate agent. You've kind of owned at least 51% of that. When they think real estate, they must think you. And if you're ignoring them, they're not going to think you. And they're going to see one of Ricky's videos. They're going to be like, I'm going to go, it's Ricky Carruth. So communicate with them aggressively. And by the way, if you choose to be that thought leader, well, then it's about content creation. And it kind of be content like drugs and alcohol. The more somebody ingests tobacco, the more addicted they become to it, right? And so the more value you bring with your content, the more they ingest that content, the more addicted they become to you. So yeah, Ricky, I know you train people on how to create content and how to build a massive following and all of that. And so yeah, I think it's a great way to move beyond that natural scene of achievement to generate more and more and more leads. But again, that was in different ways to be successful. What we do is our clients to figure out well, here's all the things you could do. Now, what should you do based on behavior, based on your desire, based on the things that you like or dislike? So you can be more, do more and have more. And that's what we're doing. Yeah. What do you think about AI? Oh, man, it's frightening. That's a good thing. Do you think we're going to kill you? Do you think it's going to kill us? I'm sure it's head coping on that. I think that, and by the way, I've been doing this for 32 years. And 32 years ago, they were saying the real estate agent is going to be out of business next year. I mean, it's always. And yet I don't want to be the travel agent from a decade ago. Who said it's going to happen? Exactly. We're travelocity, cheat tickets, other competitors came in and wiped out that entire industry. And it took out 95% of the travel agents. They just, they were left without job. So I want to remain relevant. I don't know that AI is going to be able to give them that key relationship that they need in the largest investment of their life. I think that they know that they like, that they trust. Somebody who's going to guide their steps through, again, the largest investment of their life. Now, one of my key concerns is that as technology improves and as new models are coming to market, that the amount of commission that an agent is earning is going to be diminished. And that's my major concern. So I think the model of the future is going to be a team model where you're having agents that are doing 500, 1,000, 2,000 transactions per year, collecting less for transaction. So they're building model systems, technology, getting right people in place to make that happen. I don't know that these commission rates are going to hold forever. I think it's going to diminish as technology improves. That's just my major concern about it. I don't think the real estate agent's gone away. It could be wrong. I just think the per transaction income is going to diminish a little bit. Well, that's kind of like me. Technology, like if it wasn't for technology, then there's no way I would have been able to do 100 deals a year as a solo agent, right? No way. I mean, with even just Zillow, I mean, Zillow made it to where I didn't have to search properties for buyers. Zillow was another thing that was going to take us out, but it actually enhanced my business where I got to sell more and less time because I didn't have to really search anymore. They just told me what they wanted to see based on what they saw on Zillow and it cut out the whole searching process for me. MLS, the MLS made it to where I could just list something and boom, 1,000 agents are trying to sell it that day. Just all these little things that kind of came into play. And I feel like AI is going to be another one of those things that make it easier for us to sell more and less time, communicate quicker at scale, just do things faster, which will help us sell more and less time, which like you say, might water down the commission. I mean, like the advancement of technology up to this point haven't really watered down the commission yet, but it's something that I agree could happen in the future. And that kind of plays into something I just thought of, and that's these lawsuits happening with the buyer agent commission. I don't know where that's going, but I know like in Australia, for example, it's just the listing agent. The buyer comes to the listing agent. There's no buyer agents really. It's starting to become a thing because the market's slow over there, but the buyer pays a retainer like a lawyer and they pay their own commission to the buyer agent once the deal is done. But this listing agent gets like 3%. And then they represent the buyer as well and they get the 3%. And if these lawsuits happen, I don't know if that could be a reality that we go to a model like Australia where our commissions are literally cut in half compared to where they are right this second, something that's a possibility. Do you know much about the lawsuits? Not that much now, Ricky. I tried to invest my time in really positive forward thinking things, yet I didn't just attract an agent over to our organization, EXP from Australia. And I estimate once the last time you spoke with another rail tour, I mean, because you have an opportunity to build revenue share, you said, Sean, I never talked to other rail tours. Suddenly, they don't cooperate with one another over there at all. So it's kind of a grassroots approach to the person who gets the listing gets the income. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see what happens with AI and the lawsuits and all this stuff. What I was going to ask you too is, Gary doesn't have a social. I don't really know, what is Gary like as a person? He's a pretty sure business man. He's always on purpose. He's got clarity, no doubt about that. In the moment, yet many of the decisions might be short-sighted. I think he's a really brilliant fan. When he asked me, are you open to new opportunities, I said, well, I only listen to smart guys. And Gary, I think he's one of the smartest guys in real estate. I really do. I think he's a little bit stuck with the brick-and-mortar model, because I think the brokerage model in the future is not going to be brick-and-mortar. Trust me, I ran one for two years in 10 months on my own. It was nowhere near as profitable as I thought it would be. It's been estimated that the brick-and-mortar expense of Keller Williams with 880-some market centers in North America alone is somewhere under $1.5 billion a year. So he's got franchise agreements. I think he's stuck in this brick-and-mortar model. He's a private company. He's not publicly traded. So it's really challenging to really retain people with KW because lack of ownership. I think the brokerage model of the future is going to offer stock equity ownership to the agents who work so hard for the brokerage. Kerry, I think is undoubtedly an intelligent man. He truly is, and he sees things that other people don't see. He wrote the most successful real estate sales book in the history of real estate, the millionaire real estate agent. The one thing where I got to collaborate with them on the writing of that book, he's written other books like Shift. Again, I think he's an intelligent man. No doubt about that. By the way, Shift is one of my favorite books. I read it back in 2009 or so during the Shift, and it really helped me understand the clarity of market cycles and how the whole thing plays out. It took a lot of pressure off of worrying, is everything going to go to zero? Is the world going to end? Yeah. You know, it helps me a lot. So millionaire real estate agent, you feel like is the best-selling real estate book ever? Well, I'm certain it sold the most number of copies. Right. Well, that would probably be the definition of that selling. Yeah, I don't know if it was lost inside. Right. That's selling. And then the one thing was it didn't sell as many copies as millionaire real estate agent. The one thing, it was number two on the Wall Street Journal best-seller list. I don't know the exact number. I went to look it up the other day and I didn't find the results, but it's well over a million copies sold. Well, a very successful book. And then if you haven't had a chance to read that one, Ricky, and your listeners, read the one thing that will help you ring it out to get the most out of yourself every day in every hour you choose to invest in your work life. And I had the pleasure of building all the training curriculum on the back end of the success of that book. So, great book. Gary is a great guy. He's definitely built a legacy. He's very introverted. He's very on purpose. And that was fun and challenging. You all kind of the office singing. Does he say, how do you do? Does he come in, dance in? Does he, what? First off, in a KBRI corporate, it's a four-story building or a three-story building, excuse me. And KBRI is on the third story. Now, he's got his own private suite down on the garden level. And he comes in the back door. He goes out the back door. He doesn't come in singing. He doesn't come in. In fact, he rarely goes up to the top floor. So, he's just down with a relationship. Pardon? Do you still have a relationship? No. Yeah. I mean, if I saw him on the street, I would walk up and shake his hand and say, hi, Gary. Good to see you again. But, yeah. No, we don't talk. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, that's, you know, that's how business goes sometimes. I mean, you know. Well, bro, trying to think if there's anything else I can squeeze out of you today. We're over by 12 minutes. So, I got to get on to my next thing. But Ricky, this is a truly honest talk. Where can people contact you? You know, the best thing to do would be to go to iconcoaching.com. Not only are there a whole bunch of free content, scripts, dialogues, videos, podcasts, webinars. You name it, it's there. You guys, so go check that out. Yet, there's a button there. If they choose to connect with me, they click the button to just do a free consultation. And that'll go right to my scheduling link and we'll get you on the schedule. You'll get yourself on the schedule, actually. Cool, cool. Yeah, absolutely, man. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Ricky, it's my pleasure. It's always fun to talk to you, man. You're just an inspiring reader. And I just love being here. Love working with you. Love that we're part of the same organization. Thanks, man. I mean, as much time as we spent, like, you know, today, I got to learn more about, you know, you and your story and kind of how things, you know, played out and everything. So, I got a lot out of this and I know everybody else as well. Thank you, Ricky. Talk to you soon, buddy.