Build a Recruiting System Agents Won’t Leave with Isacc Guzman

[00:00:00] Issac: Most people do a bad job recruiting, but it's not actually because their model is bad. It's because they're bad at it. .

[00:00:12] Suneet: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Reside Platform podcast. Today I am here with my boy, and it's gonna be a great guest and great conversation. The one and only Isaac Guzman. Isaac, what's.

[00:00:28] Issac: , I'm just grateful to be here, man.

[00:00:29] Issac: I've been watching Reside platform for a long time. Big fan, , some really good friends and good business people have decided to partner up with you guys and, just excited to be here, dude. And then, right now I'm just, I'm guns blazing on the team and, growing that. So, having fun.

[00:00:44] Suneet: Yeah.

[00:00:44] Suneet: Team, , tell me about the team.

[00:00:46] Issac: , Team is, is a restructured broke it down. Right. Started from scratch again, type of team. , We're really focused right now on growing agent count. Right. I mean, that's always been my, focus. But I think right now it's, really just scaling that and making it a lot more, , uniform and how we do that stuff.

[00:01:05] Issac: Right. And kind of making it , a model. Or expanding out across different markets I want to be in, in several markets across Southern California in the next 12 months. And so it's taken a strong look at what would it look like to scale recruiting across multiple markets, not just, you know, I. I've been in real estate so long, I've been a recruiter so long.

[00:01:25] Issac: If if you're a real estate agent in San Diego and my number pops up on your phone, you know what I'm calling for.

[00:01:29] Suneet: Yeah.

[00:01:29] Issac: Right. there's a certain amount of saturation that I have that enables me to recruit, I think, a little bit better and faster. , I. Well, that doesn't exist when I go into Riverside or Orange County or whatever.

[00:01:40] Issac: I don't have that, connection. So what am I gonna do to get similar results at a similar pace? , But using a process instead of my personality.

[00:01:48] Suneet: Yeah. No, I feel you. Like, without having that brand or brand recognition, honestly. And the brand. Is Isaac calling you? Yeah. Getting it all up on your line.

[00:01:58] Issac: you go to one of those agent like Sunset sos for YPN, and you see me standing there and you're like, oh, don't, I'm happy where I'm at. I just, got, I just signed a new contract and they paid me to be at Coldwell Banker. Right. You just avoid me altogether.

[00:02:13] Suneet: Well, yeah. Good. That's the reputation That paid the bills, dude, right? Heck yeah, , So lately you've been crushing with recruiting, using YouTube at least , since you joined LPT. , And doing the whole real estate CEO's thing, which full disclosure Yeah. I'm partnered up with Isaac on, but it's not a pitch about that I really wanna talk about what the game is.

[00:02:35] Suneet: Dude. YouTube's been really good for you.

[00:02:39] Issac: it's been great. I wasn't the first one, right? there's all those other dudes that did it at exp and whatnot. what I saw was an opportunity one I saw, I was in on the model early two.

[00:02:48] Issac: , I saw the ability to scale up here's the truth, man. , Lots of people do a bad job recruiting. Yeah. Most, yeah. Most people do a bad job recruiting, but it's not actually because their model is bad. It's because they're bad at it. Yeah. , so what they do is they spew out, they feature dump just like all salespeople, right?

[00:03:07] Issac: They feature dump. Well, those features are things that float around in agent's minds and team leader's minds. Right. But the person that gave them the bad recruiting experience, meaning they were just not good on the phone, they didn't have any way of understanding or relating to them, they weren't having a sophisticated business conversation, right?

[00:03:28] Issac: They go, you know what? I like two or three of this, things that this person just vomited on me, so I'm gonna go do independent research. And then they find me, I have a sophisticated approach to it, and they go, well, this. Brokerage does make sense, but I don't wanna work with that clown that first called me.

[00:03:46] Issac: I wanna work with the dude who's answering questions. that's the whole model is I'm gonna let everybody else do the work and, and obviously like I'm hamming it up a little bit for theatrics, but like, I'm gonna let everybody else do the groundwork of making the calls and doing the things and trying to do a lunch and learn and then ruin the pitch because you're showing up on freaking Google.

[00:04:08] Issac: Exactly. If you Google LPT Realty and then put it in your state, I'm probably the first three videos that pop up. that's my whole thing. And by the way, I didn't learn that from any other place than that's what you do in real estate.

[00:04:21] Suneet: Make content weird. But like, here's the thing.

[00:04:24] Suneet: So, , you have a video on like the tech that LPT provides. Yeah. You have a video on, of course you do. This is, I'm just loading you up with the easy and question with the marketing that LPT provides. Yeah. You have a question on like, . Getting paid fast. you got a video on On office space?

[00:04:46] Suneet: I don't think I have a video on office

[00:04:47] Issac: space. Do That's a good one. Hold on.

[00:04:50] Suneet: Going in the notion, going in the noad. Yeah. Right, because this is what I think of as you're talking. I'm just gonna hit up Isaac offline about this. But since people are listening and they're about, , six minutes in deep, now we can give them, maybe they stay this long.

[00:05:04] Suneet: they can hear some goals, some ideas. It's like every time. I've been saying this for years, like most agents and team leaders are looking for, what about eight things, Training, support, marketing, branding, leads, tech office space. Get paid fast. Yeah. Right. So you made videos about all of 'em.

[00:05:26] Suneet: except for our office space, which will be easy. 'cause there's plenty of offices. So I think anyone listening and wants to try and play in that sandbox, that's what you do. Right? Like those could be like your pillar of videos.

[00:05:37] Issac: I call it getting into bed with agents, right?

[00:05:38] Issac: Or getting into bed with team leaders. Same thing. And I don't mean physically, right? Like talk to your HR department about that, but I'm talking about like what, keeps 'em up at night, right? What has 'em tossing and turning in their bed? And then on the flip side of the coin, what gets 'em to jump out of bed?

[00:05:52] Issac: What's the thing that gets 'em excited? Like, dude, I can't wait to tackle a day. And if I could just answer the questions about how my model, whether it's LPT or my team or whatever, right? If I could just answer the questions, , that help them understand. If by siding with me, they get those things done, I'm able to put away a lot of the concerns that keep 'em up at night and I'm able to put in play a lot of the things that get them up and excited outta bed.

[00:06:16] Issac: You're talking

[00:06:17] Suneet: to your avatar, bro, right? You're talking to the avatar. , Are you making recruiting content for the team or No? I'm starting

[00:06:24] Issac: to

[00:06:24] Suneet: now.

[00:06:25] Issac: Yeah.

[00:06:25] Suneet: You gonna run it just on the same channel?

[00:06:28] Issac: Yeah, I'll run it on the channel, , for a couple reasons. One is I'm gonna be sending those out individually in , my recruiting flow for the team.

[00:06:38] Issac: Right. And so when that person clicks in that hyperlink in the email, it'll take 'em to the YouTube channel. And that's just giving me YouTube juice. Right. So I might as well ize them. Right. And then also if they understand, so one of the big problems that I had at a previous brokerage was when people left my team, they also left the brokerage 'cause they didn't know any of the benefits of the brokerage.

[00:06:56] Issac: Sure. Right. So I want them to also not only experience why they should join my team, but I want them to, let's say they don't join the team. Let's say they move off the team. I want them to still understand why we're at the brokerage we're at, and I would like them to stay. So I think because my YouTube channel right now is primarily LPT, but if I fuse that in there, it's gonna cross mix.

[00:07:19] Issac: And I'll have a better retention for people that either A, don't join the team, or people that leave the team to go, well, at least I'm still at the. Brokerage.

[00:07:27] Suneet: Hmm. Good. Super smart. I love it. Let's talk about recruiting a bit, and how many recruiting phone calls do you think you've made in your life,

[00:07:35] Issac: , I mean, if I had to quantify that, it's well over.

[00:07:38] Issac: 20, 30,000.

[00:07:41] Suneet: Nobody wants to make those phone calls. what kind of mindset does somebody need to have to start doing that?

[00:07:47] Issac: , The first mindset is that your enthusiasm for what it is is going to fall off right away. So are you the type of person who only shows up when your enthusiasm is at a eight, nine, or 10? Right. And you have to fight through that. You have to realize that like all the money is made when you lack enthusiasm, but still do the thing.

[00:08:06] Issac: So I think personally, you gotta put your game hat on, I'm just gonna say former athletes have that muscle that's more developed than non-formal athletes. 'cause when you grow up playing a sport, guess what? Some days suck, some tournaments, you're a loser. Sometimes you feel like you lost the step, but you still show up to practice.

[00:08:25] Issac: Right? Yeah. So like, first of all, you gotta have that mindset of I'm gonna show up regardless of how I feel. Right. , The other thing is this, you also have to have an internal understanding and conviction that you actually have something to offer. Right. But here's the way to develop Isaac. I, I feel like I have the conviction, but it still doesn't convey right or whatever. There's another part of this. It's not what you, your company, your team provides that they need to hear about. It's also, you need to understand the nonsense that they could be experiencing and the danger of not being part of your team or your broker.

[00:09:00] Issac: That's 100% what I'm doing because I know my competition's models and I know where the breaking points are, where the challenges are, where the pain points are, and I'm here to expose you, if this is my job, on my initial calls. Uhhuh is to learn about what you like and dislike about your brokerage or your team.

[00:09:19] Issac: Right. I wanna learn and understand that, right? And then I wanna expose to you why it's more dangerous than you ever thought it could be. If I can just show up and say. I'm here to do an expose on why your brokerage is actually harming you or why your mindset around this is actually harming you or could potentially be a bottleneck for you.

[00:09:39] Issac: That's all I'm looking at now. The thing is no brokerage is perfect, so that's I. 100% applicable to 100% of agents. Right. I'm also not arrogant enough to believe that I'm not susceptible to that same level of scrutiny. Sure. That my team isn't perfect, my brokerage isn't perfect, none of that. But the thing is nobody else is calling them, helping them expose my weaknesses.

[00:09:58] Issac: Yeah. So like it could be played on me, but people don't have the balls to pick up the phone and make the call and go ahead and call me out and lift my skirt up so that people can expose me. So I'm just gonna do it to you first. Right? Now, the other mindset around making those calls is that you have to understand the math behind the money because you will, as a team leader, as a recruiter, you'll pick up the phone call to call listings.

[00:10:22] Issac: I know you will. 'cause otherwise you wouldn't be a leader. You wouldn't be making money in real estate. You'd be on somebody else's team, right? So like, let's just make the assumption that you're down to go pick up the phone for money. What you don't realize is that a. Middle of the road agent on your team, a lifetime value is minimum Fourex the best client you've ever had.

[00:10:41] Issac: Take your best client, the one you've done. You've helped them buy three houses, you've helped them sell two, and you've helped both of their children buy houses. You've got $7 million in volume with just that one person and the sources that maybe in

[00:10:54] Suneet: San Diego. Sure. Yeah.

[00:10:56] Issac: Oh, you're right, you're right.

[00:10:57] Issac: I'm thinking San Diego numbers. you've done two to $7 million Yeah. With that one individual. and don't you wish you had 50 of those people inside your pipeline or inside your database? Heck yeah. You do. Right. But the lengths that you will go to to.

[00:11:13] Issac: Get more of them and to service them at the highest level. You won't even do a fraction of that to get a middle of the road agent. But here's what I can tell you. You get a middle of the road agent. I don't mean they're a middle of the road human, I'm just saying their production is middle of the road.

[00:11:25] Issac: Sure. They're, they're selling eight to 10 units a year. They're not a complete rockstar. They're also not a dud. That person's gonna stay on your team an average of like three to four years. Yeah. they are going to produce more retained company dollar in a lifetime. Of that three to four year span, then working with those clients.

[00:11:44] Issac: 'cause by the way, to do those seven transactions with them, it's been eight and a half years, 10 years, 12 years. you've put them in drip emails, you've had them on home bot, you have 'em on all of, you're creating all these fancy things to just get that person to, transact with you that many times, dude.

[00:11:59] Issac: You will make more money and have a better life if you just focus on agents. Yeah. So what you need to realize is whatever motivation you have to make the call for the Zillow lead, for the, for the home value lead, for the fellow lead, for the sign call, whatever things you had to cross over to do that at a high level, this is minimum four x more important.

[00:12:18] Issac: So pull your pants up and just make the calls. Yeah. Yeah. What else works? Yeah. It is true. here's the other thing too. Nothing is static. Nothing is static. They love their broker, their broker's, their best friend. That's not gonna last forever. Sure. So when I call you, I need to make you aware that I'm hiring and then I need to add value over and over and over again.

[00:12:41] Issac: that's the game. Pick up and let 'em know you're hiring. Don't try to hire 'em. Just let 'em know you're hiring and then wait.

[00:12:46] Suneet: you're probably happy you have your current team, but if anything were to change, we'd love to be your destination team.

[00:12:53] Issac: There's nobody that does it better than the reside platform and teaching you the simplicity of just exposing them to the fact that they just need to be aware.

[00:13:01] Issac: I. Now you're hiring and then you're gonna add value over time. You, some people are gonna bite right away. Awesome. We go all in. The other people, we just need to make 'em aware and then wait.

[00:13:11] Suneet: So, okay, picking up the phone is the undefeated champion and there's the champion for a reasoning 'cause no one does it.

[00:13:19] Suneet: Yep. if you were to pull it out? Of the air. What's your call to, , pickup rate? , 30%. 30%

[00:13:29] Issac: triple line or single line? I'm going single line nowadays. I used to go triple line. Well, why don't you do the triple line anymore because I'm old. I don't know, dude. , ,

[00:13:40] Suneet: What's your phone call to appointment right now?

[00:13:43] Issac: hmm. Pulling outta thin air.

[00:13:46] Issac: 60. 60 calls. 60 calls. Actually, I'm sorry if I'm looking at that, it's probably gonna actually take me like 120.

[00:13:54] Suneet: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:55] Suneet: In addition to making calls, how else are you recruiting for your team right now?

[00:14:00] Issac: , LinkedIn messaging is always huge.

[00:14:02] Suneet: Truly always.

[00:14:04] Issac: Yeah. automated. here's the thing. I, I don't actually know that it works, but I know it works.

[00:14:09] Issac: And here's what I mean by that, is that it doesn't hurt. It can't hurt, they need to know I'm hiring. Now, here's the other thing. it's the entire ecosystem. the multifaceted or, in the words of, John. Right. And yourself.

[00:14:21] Issac: The multi-channel approach. So I don't know that LinkedIn isn't working. I don't know that it is, but I know the whole thing is working. Sure.

[00:14:30] Suneet: if you look at LinkedIn messaging, yeah.

[00:14:32] Suneet: So in the six years that I ran it and shout out to everybody who's ever helped me run it one time, did a conversation from within that little sales navigator. Turn into somebody joining. Right. However, I had tons of other conversations that may have not nurtured something years later that I, you know, it's the whole attribution thing.

[00:14:54] Suneet: Good. So you got picking up the phone, LinkedIn.

[00:14:57] Issac: What else? Webinars. Webinars are fun. Lead magnets that lead to webinars. Those are good. That's what we're working on. I'm revamping all my stuff right now. , We have a new like agent levels program where like, hey, the more real estate you sell, you get these fun perks, right?

[00:15:11] Issac: People have them. , And we're running a webinar around that on a weekly basis around like, Hey, learn how to scale your business and aren't you tired of teams not helping you build your brand, right? All this stuff. And so like anything we can do around that. We're doing a lot of recruiting. , In addition to that, because I'm inside of a, cloud-based brokerage that has revenue share, it's super easy to just like, this is a, a ninja one right here.

[00:15:34] Issac: If you're at a brokerage that has revenue share, right? 'cause this is gonna work at all of 'em. Doesn't matter which brokerage you're at, if it's if it has revenue share, you're gonna have people that care about revenue share, right? And you're gonna have a local presence of people that are in different downlines and uplines and sidelines.

[00:15:48] Issac: I don't know what they're all about.

[00:15:51] Issac: You like that? , Yeah, because there's all kinds of weird stuff coming out all the time. I dunno, dude, you're the go-to. Yeah. I just ask you. So, , dude, one of the best things, get your local brokerage people in a room, train them, do whatever you gotta do. Feed 'em tacos, I don't care. But get 'em in a room and they go, Hey, whoever's interested in building your downline, like building revenue share and passive income through revenue share.

[00:16:16] Issac: 'cause they're already exposed to it, right? These are already people inside the brokerage. I'm not recruiting anybody to the brokerage in this conversation. Here's what I do, is I help them understand the number one reason that you're not doing it is because it's way too hard to maintain a downline as an individual trying to be the main source of value.

[00:16:33] Issac: So here's what happens in those types of brokerages. People go and they go, I wanna build passive income. I'm gonna be the best, whatever. And most of the time, this is not. The hard rule, but it's a loose rule. Most of the time, you only attract people that are less productive than you, right? Hmm. But when you attract people that are less productive than you, you end up becoming their defacto mentor trainer therapist, right?

[00:16:52] Issac: Like you become all these things and then they don't sell as much real estate, or it's not as fruitful. They leave because they join some team or whatever, and you go, oh, this is not worth it. Right? Because the. The energy in doesn't yield as high a, , energy out or like results out. So what I do is I just go to them and go, Hey, listen, still do all the things in terms of like getting them interested in the model.

[00:17:15] Issac: Then introduce 'em to me. I'll give 'em leads, I'll give 'em training. I'll be their mentor. not me personally. My team will be their mentor, their trainer, their therapist, and by the way, we're gonna hold 'em accountable. We're gonna help 'em manage their time, all the things that they were relying on you.

[00:17:30] Issac: So just build your downline through sending me agents. You can have the, the sponsorship, they'll, you'll be their sponsor at this brokerage, right? Let 'em join the team with me. 'cause for me, this is the shortsightedness of a lot of teams inside these models is they go, if you're gonna join my team, you also gotta be part of my downline.

[00:17:49] Issac: You're tripping over $700 and you're on your way to. 50,000. So that's, that's the easiest layup recruiting that I'm doing right now is going, who wants to build their downline? Great. Just send me all the people that you talk to.

[00:18:00] Suneet: so webinars, how do you get the traffic to the webinar?

[00:18:05] Issac: , Email lists, right. Running ads. Meta. Yeah, meta running ads. We've dabbled in YouTube. the problem with that is for the local team, I can't be as, as focused as I'd like to be. , Especially 'cause like my YouTube channel specifically is a national one, it kind of

[00:18:23] Suneet: international.

[00:18:24] Issac: International, you're right. I did a Canadian video just the other day.

[00:18:27] Suneet: Yeah. Good. What about, , you did not say indeed, dude. Oh yeah. Running ads on job boards. Okay. I was gonna say, are you not running job job ads right now? We are. Big time. How's the email game? Is it good or is it being worked on? It

[00:18:43] Issac: is being worked on.

[00:18:44] Issac: Dude, I could be better at it. I'm, like, you're really good at that. I'm not good at it. I burn domains and blacklist myself all the time. Like I need to be more sophisticated with that approach, so that's the thing is like understanding that concept but here's where I'm going in on it, and maybe you can tell me if I'm wrong, but like a big part of it is having the same exact message going out from my server to lots of people that don't respond is gonna be challenging.

[00:19:11] Issac: Right? And so, like using some version, and this is something I'm exploring literally next week with the company, , that my buddy runs, , I. Is like, well, when you use ai, every message can be different without you having to write a different message. Right?

[00:19:24] Suneet: Yeah, I, yeah. I mean, you could change it based on like previous behavior or you can just not send to people that don't, like you can just sunset your list.

[00:19:34] Suneet: Yeah. So my strategy is if I'll send multiple emails in one week, I'll hit the whole list on day one and then on day three, when I do another send, it'll only go to the engage list, which consists of people who opened the email in the last 30 days. You click the link in 60 days and the next week, so then like.

[00:19:56] Suneet: For example, I got an open rate of 41% on Monday. Mm-hmm. 65% on Wednesday and 65% on Friday. Makes sense.

[00:20:06] Issac: Yeah. So that's the level of sophistication and I don't even know if that's like, would be considered sophistication. I think it's discipline and, monitoring really, that I currently lack. I'm just being transparent and like I could be better at that.

[00:20:20] Suneet: But the whole thing is, is as long as emails are going out. Then that's what really counts. yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent Good. So what else is working in recruiting? Dude?

[00:20:29] Issac: , I mean, the age old, who do you know? Right. Whenever I have a value. So like a good example, I just landed Zillow and Open Door right here in San Diego for my team.

[00:20:37] Issac: , Like two separate things, right? Zillow Flex and then open door seller, like agent led offers, whatever. It's , we just got those And we're super excited about it, by the way. I say it nonchalant, but like I couldn't be more pumped. , It's reaching out to productive agents that I know and I go, Hey, listen, this is probably not the right fit for you, but like, do you know anybody who would like to meet with four to 10 sellers a week?

[00:20:57] Issac: And they go, me.

[00:20:59] Suneet: It really is that amount of sellers. Yeah. Dude, Good for you that you got it. I didn't even know that you were talking to him.

[00:21:05] Issac: Yeah, dude. it just fell in my lap. 'cause of Keith, my buddy, he is boys with them and all that and they were like, Hey, we need a new pilot team in San Diego.

[00:21:13] Issac: And he was like, oh, I know the guy.

[00:21:15] Suneet: Yeah, I was beta, I was number one. Nice. Is that going well? Fuck yeah. I got Listings for days. That's what I'm saying, Dave. So, yeah. , Good dude. Good. Well, what are you excited with? On the team besides all that cool shit you just said.

[00:21:32] Issac: probably two major things. One is like, I don't know, a world and, and I could be wrong and like whatever, but I don't know a world where good, well priced listings that are marketed well.

[00:21:44] Issac: Running open houses at those on the first two weekends or when we get an a price reduction is the best lead generation and agent on my team can do. So in working with sources like fellow and then having open door list things and then our own, , what I'm most excited about is just having a, an army of listings out there working for me.

[00:22:07] Issac: Right? Yeah. We're gonna make, we're gonna make money on those listings, but the combination of how we. Approach marketing both through our internal marketing and our affiliation with LPT listings, beget more listings and it kind of cycles more and more. Right. , And then in addition to that, one of the number one problems I've always had, and we'll always have, but I.

[00:22:25] Issac: Like it's a little bit more reprieve is what are agents doing to generate business that's actually producing results as opposed to just putting them on a dollar and saying, make 200 calls today so you can feel productive. Right. So getting them and, add open houses and getting them to like, so we, every time we have a listing, we get , like this whole marketing kit right?

[00:22:43] Issac: With like flyers and door hangers and all these things. And so like being able to get the listing. Order that marketing kit branded to a buyer's agent and saying, here's your job for the week is awesome. It works really well because they don't have to come back and question what's happening. They're getting really good results.

[00:23:03] Issac: I don't have to give them too much guidance, right. Until like what you're doing this week and then additionally. What it does is it helps us sell the listing faster it produces the results. It gives them something to do. That's what I'm super excited about. The other thing I'm super excited about is like building, I have a good line of sight to expand this across California.

[00:23:24] Issac: , I. And specifically Southern California is where I really wanna be. , And so that's another thing I'm excited about is, is just systematizing the entire process and scaling this out across SoCal.

[00:23:34] Suneet: Awesome dude. If somebody wants to reach out to you and, . Learn more about what you're doing or talk about LPT or send you a referral, where should they go?

[00:23:42] Issac: , Probably the best place to go to just connect with me is Instagram. That's probably the easiest way to do it's at I am Isaac G. My name is spelled I-S-A-C-C. It's a weird way of spelling. Isaac. , I am Isaac G On Instagram is probably the easiest way to learn about. Everything I'm doing, 'cause I'm just like always posting and then I, I read all my dms.

[00:24:02] Issac: , And then if you wanna just learn more about us, you can also check out the YouTube channel, realestate CEOs youtube.com/at realestate CEOs plural. , I think that's an easy way to learn about LPT without having to talk to me, the sales guy. I'm gonna recruit you.

[00:24:16] Issac: You broke a one-on-one with me, dude. Like we're, we're having a recruiting conversation. Fair game. I'm just being fair, fair warning. So if you wanna do it without the pressure of me trying to close you for the next appointment or meet with the CEO or whatever, then just go watch the YouTube channel.

[00:24:29] Suneet: Right on. Dude, thank you so much for coming on. I love talking, recruiting with you, bro. Always, dude, I appreciate you, dude. It's so much fun. Guys. I hope you got something out of this. I got some inspiration and more information of knowing what's working. . , Hopefully he got inspired and got some value out of this. Go follow Isaac. He's a stud. Him and I were all friends and we worked together on a cool project. , Click like, click subscribe, share with a friend, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Reside Platform Podcast.

[00:25:03] Suneet: See you later.