E 35 | The Secrets to a Successful Real Estate Partnership | with Joe and Courtney Bourland

[00:00:00] Kathy (Guest): My team can come to their own conclusions, which are frequently mine, that see the benefit to them. You know, people don't do things because you tell them to. They do that because they see the benefit to them.

[00:00:16] Suneet (Host): Hey everybody, what's up?

[00:00:18] Kathy (Guest): Welcome back to the Reside Platform podcast. I'm your host today, Suneet Agrawal, and today I am joined by Kathy Courtney. Kathy, what's going on with you?

[00:00:29] Kathy (Guest): Kathy Suneet is raining here in Reno. We don't get that much in the desert. It's kind of nice. It feels like fall.

[00:00:36] Suneet (Host): It does. I think it might be fall.

[00:00:38] Suneet (Host): Is it official yet? Better

[00:00:40] Kathy (Guest): get that cement

[00:00:41] Suneet (Host): porter on your pool soon. Yeah. Yes. So guys, if you don't know Kathy, she's done so many great things in real estate from running a mega team before anyone knew what a mega team was from leading at a franchise level and now building the Courtney group into a powerhouse team at LPT Realty.

[00:01:03] Suneet (Host): You were voted, voted Northern California's number one luxury realtor. Kathy, all these things you've done in your real estate career, we've been a broker owner, coach, CEO, luxury agent. What made you decide to start over and build this team at LPT?

[00:01:23] Kathy (Guest): Before we do that, can I tell you a little quick story?

[00:01:25] Kathy (Guest): I had an agent come in last week to interview with me and she was coming from Sacramento, and for those of you who don't know, Reno and Sacramento are about an hour apart. And , so I said, well, do you know, do you ever heard of Sun Wall? She went to spitting and stutter her, and she goes, yeah, you know, I, she was total fangirling on you.

[00:01:50] Kathy (Guest): And Oh, I'm like, oh yeah, you know, he's a partner of mine and so I had her from sun. Thank you for the easiest recruiting interview ever.

[00:01:59] Suneet (Host): You are welcome.

[00:02:00] Kathy (Guest): So anyway, you were saying how wonderful I was.

[00:02:03] Suneet (Host): Yeah. So yeah, super wonderful, super cool woman, , as your boots at the Tahoe event won the entire day.

[00:02:12] Kathy (Guest): I

[00:02:12] Suneet (Host): got 'em

[00:02:13] Kathy (Guest): on

[00:02:13] Suneet (Host): today if you wanna see them. Didn't you get those boots from a client or something?

[00:02:17] Kathy (Guest): No, I got those boots when we were at a maverick event in Dallas. The girls went shopping, we got some hats and we got some boots.

[00:02:25] Suneet (Host): So what made you start over and build a team from scratch at LPT?

[00:02:30] Kathy (Guest): when I got into real estate, which was, you know, back in the dark ages. I had burned my life into the ground.

[00:02:35] Kathy (Guest): Like I was living in, , a barn mucking out 25 stalls every morning, which is good exercise. And, , I was driving a car that would only turn right. So I, a friend taught me to go into real estate school. I got my license. I didn't wanna be there. I thought it was totally beneath me. But here's the point is that I said, you know what?

[00:02:56] Kathy (Guest): I had burned through my whole life. That was my opinion of what had happened. I had burned through my whole life and I was there and I didn't wanna be there, and so I made a decision. And the decision was to draw a line in the sand. I'm here now. I didn't want to be, I don't like this. And I said, but that's it.

[00:03:13] Kathy (Guest): I'm gonna make something outta myself and I'm gonna make something outta my life and I'm gonna understand this game, this career, and sort of became a student of the game. So, you know, fast forward all through the rest of that stuff and it, we come to, , January. . January of last year. Okay, so we're talking six, well, I don't know, we're talking 18 months ago and I had had a team back in the day back when there was, you know, there weren't teams and you know, it was like a mega team, five agents, 200 deals a year we were doing, but I was like the only one, right? So whatever. . I got so burnt out. I was a crispy critter. We were on the east coast every deal, and you know, God bless them, but there's two kind of negotiators in this world. There's a straight square shooter like you, I'd take for a square shooter, and there's the handlers.

[00:04:05] Kathy (Guest): Now, if you're a handler by nature, as you tend to be in the northeast, and I shout out to all my northeastern friends, get sport to get every drop. Everybody. And so I was just burned. I was a crisp could. I said, no more teams ever. I'm never ever, ever, ever, ever gonna do it again. Ever. So come to last January and you asked me what decided to do it.

[00:04:29] Kathy (Guest): I honestly think it may have been a moment of insanity

[00:04:32] Kathy (Guest): looking back in retrospect, , you know, and I thought, you know what? I'm rested up. I, it is just me and my dogs, French bulldogs, and shout out for the frenches, shout out. and my horses. And so I said, you know what, I've done a lot of stuff, you know, I've done stuff, I've accomplished stuff in the real estate career and I had a team back, you know, before there was any path, You know, crafted for that. and I really like, really like what's happening in the real estate industry now because my quest was always to build a business in the business of real estate. And, you know, that's what's going on right now. We have businessmen, you, you know, you, you know the king, you're the king, right of business people in the business of real estate.

[00:05:19] Kathy (Guest): And the dynamic has changed so much and we, and I love to see new people, young people getting in with intention. Gonna be my career, as opposed to, oh my God, did I fail out as a used car salesman? Which is what I thought I was. So I thought I got this idea. I said, I want one more accomplishment. I wanna go back and do one more big thing, kind of like the capstone of my career.

[00:05:49] Kathy (Guest): And I said, I wanna get this done. I wanna get it in done in four years. And not only that, I wanna kind of use it as a vehicle for kind of giving back maybe what I've learned. 'cause I've learned a lot. So I got this bright idea that I'm, gonna do this and, And I have a belief, I have a belief that we learn, I've learned along the way, is that, if you wanna do something, look around to the people who are doing it really well, people that you vibe with, people that you respect, people that you admire, that you'd like to mentor, and the model that they're doing, and just copy that.

[00:06:24] Kathy (Guest): So I wanted to build a real estate team, the modern team, with all today's tech stack, today's, , standards you know, I wanna do it right. And so, , that's what led me to reside actually. 'cause I looked around and I saw you guys were kind of infant and I saw what you're doing.

[00:06:40] Kathy (Guest): And I said, okay, you know, if I'm gonna do this, I'm going all in. Right? I made a decision. , and so I started, , a year ago, April with the team.

[00:06:51] Suneet (Host): Yes. Awesome. So what do you think about the term? And thank you for the testimonial by the way. You gave me two you, did he call me the king?

[00:07:02] Kathy (Guest): I might've, yeah. You know, be good. We might move you to emperor,

[00:07:07] Suneet (Host): whatever. , So what, what do you think about the term messy middle Kathy?

[00:07:13] Kathy (Guest): It gives me a stomach ache when I think about the term.

[00:07:16] Suneet (Host): Yeah. Why is that? '

[00:07:18] Kathy (Guest): cause I'm living it, think a couple things. Okay. One, and this doesn't have anything to do with the messy middle, but I, you know, I'm kind of the student of the game and as I look out into the industry going forward, I see the cloud brokerages being a dominant force, but I also see two real models that really, really work.

[00:07:36] Kathy (Guest): One of them is the solo solo agent. Okay? You're a solo agent, 24, 48 transactions a year. You spent several years getting there. You bring on a buyer's agent, showing assistant. You have an assistant, a couple of VAs. I think that is an awesome model. The other big model that I see coming on in the future is teams and teams are getting bigger, multi-state and they're finally being run like real businesses, by real business people.

[00:08:05] Kathy (Guest): And so I said, you know, I wanna, I wanna learn that it's something new. I wanna learn that. , And what was the rest of the question? The messy middle. We're talking about the messy middle. And the other thing too is I know from having done it before and watching other teams fail, and they usually fail in the messy middle.

[00:08:23] Kathy (Guest): I know. And I wanted to get this accomplished in four years because I ain't getting any younger. Right. And then I wanna get it done in four years. And so I thought, I don't wanna spend as much time in the messy middle as possible. 'cause you got to go through that.

[00:08:37] Kathy (Guest): You gotta go through that and that the messy middle is the stage from, you know, you're this successful realtor looking for a way to expand. And it seems kinda like, well the next, well, I should build a team now and think that through. If you're thinking it, call me, talk to me, because it's not always the best idea.

[00:08:56] Kathy (Guest): But, so that's a process, right? And it's a process that's gonna take a while. And it's a process you gotta learn and it's a process that can be. Very expensive because when you look at it, as you build a team, you know, you've gotta, find the team members, get 'em trained, get 'em into production, and you know it's gonna take you.

[00:09:17] Kathy (Guest): Six months really, or so I'm working on shortening that right now. But until you're seeing any real income, so you've got a lag time and now you've got a team of, you've got two agents, four agents, six agents, but they're all, you know, it's still six months till you get paid and you still paying the bills and and all your learning.

[00:09:36] Kathy (Guest): And like me, I was in personal production and I did. I did pretty good last year. I was like, top 20 in, in Northern Nevada. MLS if you take out the teams and you know, so, okay. And it eases up your time for your personal production. I would advise anybody who's thinking about building a team and I know I love to hear on your podcasts and others, the teams that are super successful, you know, big, several hundred agents and that's all, you know, a thing.

[00:10:04] Kathy (Guest): And by the way, I, I don't want that, but that's a thing. And oh, like, oh, you know, it's get stars in your eyes, but you need to think it through man because, , you know, that's where, you know, the death of a lot of teams are, is you get in this messy middle and you run out of, , maybe you run out of financial bandwidth.

[00:10:24] Kathy (Guest): You can't go into it and not, be able to support the team for a while. if you think you're gonna end up making more money and have more time, you're crazy. , Because maybe eventually you can sit around and eat bon bonds like Sunita, but not now.

[00:10:42] Suneet (Host): Hey, you've seen me. You think I hate bon bonds? Come on. Come on.

[00:10:47] Kathy (Guest): Okay. Play guitars and play with your dogs. Yes.

[00:10:52] Suneet (Host): Play guitars is what I wanna be doing. Yeah.

[00:10:54] Kathy (Guest): You wanna be what you wanna be doing. Yeah. So it's gonna take a, it takes a a tremendous amount of your time. It's gonna take time away from your production, personal production, which takes money away from the income.

[00:11:05] Kathy (Guest): There's so many frustrations, there's so many things to learn, It can be really rewarding if you get to the other end of it, but I don't know, Sadid, maybe you have a statistic on this, but there's got to be a pretty high failure rate.

[00:11:22] Suneet (Host): Well, I mean, so if you talk about small businesses in general, there's a high failure rate,

[00:11:28] Kathy (Guest): like 80 or 90%?

[00:11:30] Suneet (Host): Yeah, something huge, right? Like think about your dry cleaners. Think about your restaurants. Think about all these small businesses, right? So number one, , number two, there's growth requires sacrifice, right? Like, that's just how it goes. if you wanna work out and build muscle, it's gonna hurt along the way and it's gonna be hard, right?

[00:11:58] Suneet (Host): So it's the natural part of doing anything right, is there is a messy middle There is a hard part, right? And that's why being in tip top shape. Is, you know, not that many people are having successful businesses, not that many people are, because it's about finding the balance in my experience between, , what you're willing to sacrifice for the growth, whether it's professional growth or personal growth.

[00:12:27] Suneet (Host): do you think of that answer Or Kathy?

[00:12:30] Kathy (Guest): Well, , you know, it brings me back to a. Call I was having with , my coach, Nick McLean.

[00:12:37] Suneet (Host): Oh, I know him

[00:12:38] Kathy (Guest): yeah. Right. he could be a king too. I'll make him king too.

[00:12:43] Suneet (Host): He's real good at real estate. He's better than me at real estate. I got business chops, but he's a true real estate guy.

[00:12:49] Suneet (Host): A hundred percent.

[00:12:50] Kathy (Guest): Yeah. We were in a coaching call with him at, at News. One of our, , beliefs actually is we, , we're education based and we believe in personal development. And so Nick and I were talking about this and in terms of how, and this is kind of a later part of the story, how I've grown, but, .

[00:13:08] Kathy (Guest): Helping the team with personal development and the conversation morphed into, if you look at the Pareto principle, the 80 20 rule, 20% of the people do 80% of the business. Well, a common denominator of that 20%. In fact, I don't think you're gonna find anybody without it that is not really immersed in personal growth.

[00:13:29] Suneet (Host): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the parental principle is super fascinating because it is a law almost at this point of anything, and within the 20%, in the first 80 20, there's another 20%. Within the 20% of that 80 20, there's another 20%. It goes on and on on. And then the people who are at the top are worked on themselves the most and have sacrificed

[00:13:54] Kathy (Guest): and they're called Alex Ho or Elon Musk.

[00:13:57] Suneet (Host): Yeah, Elon. Yeah. It's crazy, right? Like he's sacrificed a lot. Right. , So you guys have experienced some big growth, what, two to 20 some odd agents?

[00:14:09] Kathy (Guest): Well, the goal is 28. We're at 18 right now.

[00:14:13] Suneet (Host): Okay. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced growing from two to 18?

[00:14:18] Kathy (Guest): You know, I have a lot of surprises along the way. I was surprised that, about 25% of the people that I hire, that this is just the metrics that I, that I, you know, am involved with right now.

[00:14:30] Kathy (Guest): And it's, I think it's proven out. Is that about 25% of the people that you hire are gonna make it past the first six months? the other thing about the Pareto principle is that 20% of the stuff you do is gonna give you 80% of the results you're looking for.

[00:14:47] Kathy (Guest): That's good and bad, right? So 20% of the stuff you do is gonna give you 80% of the results you're not looking for. So the key is to figure out what that is and get rid of it. you know, I was a babe in the woods really, and I was just, you know, you know, give me the model, I'm gonna follow it, I'm gonna do it.

[00:15:06] Kathy (Guest): , I was surprised about the amount of work it took. 12 hour day is common forwarding right now. I was surprised that everybody's not like me.

[00:15:17] Kathy (Guest): People gonna to people, and I had to really deep down and, challenge myself. I always listen to you. I don't watch you, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you for the folks who are watching.

[00:15:28] Kathy (Guest): this is a T-shirt. Okay. So it's a T-shirt that my daughter, Anna made me. I was sitting in the office one day and I was just so frustrated. So frustrated about the inability of. , Agents to make an effort to convert a lead. it reminded me of like, have you ever seen like a, nest with baby birds in it?

[00:15:52] Kathy (Guest): And the mother comes in to, feed the baby birds, and all you see is a little beak going, woo, woo woo. And the mother drops the worm and oh, but if the, she drops the worm and it goes right down the side of the beak. They're not like moving their beaks over to catch the worm. They're like, woo, woo. Drop another worm.

[00:16:09] Kathy (Guest): And that's what I felt like the team was with leads. It's like, I'm not, I know you didn't hit the worm. And so Anna, my daughter, she has a sense of humor. She took a picture of me doing that and , she made us the leadership teams. We have t-shirt that says Worm Lives matter too.

[00:16:25] Suneet (Host): That's funny. That's funny. did you used to, , run a brokerage?

[00:16:30] Kathy (Guest): I had my own brokerage, yeah.

[00:16:32] Suneet (Host): Okay. So you used to own an indie uhhuh. So you used to own an ND and then did you work for a brokerage company or no?

[00:16:40] Kathy (Guest): Yeah, I. Was involved with Keller Williams here and there, and Gary. Gary was my coach back in the day and always tried to get me an open a market center and I saw the paperwork involved with that and I'm like, no.

[00:16:52] Suneet (Host): So from owning your indie and then being,

[00:16:56] Kathy (Guest): I held my indie and there were a couple of Keller Williams people who wanted to open a market center there.

[00:17:01] Kathy (Guest): They were kind of fighting over me. 'cause I had copied Gary's own personal market center office exactly. Off and duplicate. Yeah. , and I, I asked for Gary to be my coach as part of that. He had been my coach before and by then I decided I'm, I'm done. I had another coaching company that we had started.

[00:17:18] Kathy (Guest): Some other people may have heard of it. It's called The Core. And so we had started that and so I. No

[00:17:25] Suneet (Host): big deal, just the core coaching. Yeah. No big deal.

[00:17:28] Kathy (Guest): , and I had moved from Florida to Reno at this point because I was ran screaming from the Palm Beach County. Right. and I said, I'm not Gary, I'm not gonna, I'm I don't think I'm not gonna do real estate for a while, but thanks.

[00:17:40] Kathy (Guest): He goes, well, maybe there's something else we could do. And that led to me being the CEO of what was then the, an agent franchise division of Keller Williams.

[00:17:50] Suneet (Host): Oh, cool.

[00:17:50] Kathy (Guest): And that was his first, , first experimented, , expansion. Wow. He was gonna expand with a franchise system. And so that was 2006. So then 7, 8, 9 came along in that whole project.

[00:18:06] Kathy (Guest): got put on

[00:18:07] Suneet (Host): the back burger. Yeah. So from running a mega team back in the day to owning a indie, to being corporate at Keller, right. To running your team now And the core, and running the team now, what are some leadership lessons you've learned that you wish you knew sooner?

[00:18:28] Kathy (Guest): I learned that I really didn't know anything about leadership.

[00:18:31] Suneet (Host): Hmm. So throughout that time, you, you don't think you picked up anything?

[00:18:35] Kathy (Guest): Well, yeah, I did. I did. But you know, when you're a coach, it's, it's different. we're a coaching, high-producing realtors and lenders. it's different. It's more like, you know, here's the model, follow the model.

[00:18:48] Kathy (Guest): I'm gonna hold you accountable to it, your big boys and girls, you know, we expect you to do the work. And so that was kind of, it was more like a. That kind of a coaching environment. And actually it was the day I've had a couple of turning points in this team and the day that this t-shirt was born, , my frustration with my inability to lead the team, the lack of success we were having, , that maybe really dive into myself because, you know, leadership, comes from the top and you know, as LAC teaches us, we need.

[00:19:20] Kathy (Guest): personal accountability? So I said, I gotta go back and look at that. And, you know, and I, you know, I hate to admit it, but I always kind of thought of leadership is something from the front, like the general and the army. And here we're going and we're going to battle and I'm going to lead you.

[00:19:36] Kathy (Guest): And, I'm sorry to say, I kind of thought of it that way and when I've come to find out It was more like leadership from behind and that kind of, sounds kind of a little weird. So let me explain what I mean. ,

[00:19:47] Kathy (Guest): As opposed to, you know, showing telling. Encouraging, carrot stick, carrot stick. I've learned, , and a lot of it had to do with that conversation I had with Nick about the 20%. Is that what I learned is leadership is more like being by their side. Alright. Knowing because everybody's different.

[00:20:11] Kathy (Guest): What they want for themselves and what I want for themselves. Maybe two different things. And that's okay. We're two different people. So number one, I gotta understand, their why that makes 'em cry. What's your why that makes you cry? Right? And keep them focused on that. And I learned that leadership is more about asking questions.

[00:20:29] Kathy (Guest): so they can have their own experience of personal discovery , you know, my team can have come to their own conclusions, which are frequently mine, that it, see the benefit to them. You know, people don't do things because you tell them to. They do that because they see the benefit to them.

[00:20:48] Kathy (Guest): Just go try that with, on your, 6-year-old or 9-year-old. You know, clean your room, clean your room when you get an ice cream. Okay. That's the benefit to them. So once they had taken ownership of it and taken ownership of the systems and the why and the why the structure is here and see the benefit to them, , it's been night and day difference really.

[00:21:09] Suneet (Host): Yeah. Something you said that really resonated was, you know, see what the, why that makes the cry. Yes. But also something that L-P-T-C-E-O, Robert Palmer says very well is what is the ideal definition of success of the individual in your business? Right? Because that's. As leaders, it's, we have almost a fiduciary duty to that, person's individual definition of success.

[00:21:36] Suneet (Host): I love it. So talking about accountability and systems, let's talk about standards. What standards do you have on your team that, keep things on track?

[00:21:47] Kathy (Guest): kind of a baseline standard. We all use follow up boss and a baseline. So the standards that I have are all based on things that if I know they do, they will be successful.

[00:22:00] Kathy (Guest): You know, and I tried to present them that way and they're, tools that I've learned from people who've gone before me. So in terms of follow up, boss, if you're not talking to 10 new. Clients. If you're not claiming 10 new clients after having a meaningful two minute conversations a day, you know, 10 a week, or having the 10 conversations, maybe you don't wanna claim all 10.

[00:22:21] Kathy (Guest): That's a bare minimum. So, you know, and I had to learn the difference between a standard and a goal. A standard is the minimum. A goal is what we shoot for, because the real numbers for those metrics 10 a week is not gonna get you where you wanna go 20 a week. Is your real standard.

[00:22:38] Kathy (Guest): And, , if you wanna talk to Dustin Runyon, it's 35 and he's had some success, right? I think Matt Smith the same thing too, but, so that would be a mere standard. We have standards of attendance, , for attendance on our, , morning team huddle. We have one from 8 45 to nine. Four days a week, and then we have a team meeting from 10 30 to 12 on the fifth.

[00:23:01] Kathy (Guest): , We have standards of what the, , levels of accomplishment they need, the metrics they need to have in their first 90 days, in their first 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. We have a standard for the number of units to be closed in the year below, which, you know, I'm sorry, we're gonna part ways and, at each point if they're not, .

[00:23:22] Kathy (Guest): They're meeting their standards, then, , you know, we're gonna have a conversation about it, it's not about me wagging my finger at them. It's about me supporting them for their success. And if they can't do the standards of that, we have a standard of, , lead gen time daily.

[00:23:38] Suneet (Host): So building a team isn't just about standards and about numbers.

[00:23:44] Suneet (Host): It's about getting the right people. So how do you protect the culture and still grow at the same time? What's worked for you?

[00:23:51] Kathy (Guest): We're here to be of maximum service to our clients and model a level of professionalism in the real estate industry. Our beliefs are honesty, integrity, and to me, integrity means we do the right thing, even when nobody was looking.

[00:24:06] Suneet (Host): Yeah, good definition, Kathy

[00:24:10] Kathy (Guest): And Grit. Okay. We're education based and we believe in personal development. We work as a team and as a team together we accomplish more. We, , believe who you work with matters. We give back to our community and we win the day every day. That's who we are as a team.

[00:24:29] Suneet (Host): I love that.

[00:24:31] Suneet (Host): do you have them memorized or are you reading 'em right now?

[00:24:33] Kathy (Guest): 98% memorized in case I joked. Right. I had a little book here. I haven't memorized, but you know, and actually that's where I started. You know where this all started. Suneet was back in that January when I decided I wanna do this.

[00:24:48] Kathy (Guest): I ran across a webinar that you guys had put on, and I think it was reside, but I didn't realize that at the time, talking about building a team. And they said the place to start is with your mission, vision and I call it purpose. Values and beliefs. And so I got clear on that first.

[00:25:06] Kathy (Guest): And , we also, when we talk about modeling a level of professionalism in the real estate industry, it's that we believe this is, not an adversarial process. we work to a win-win as Gary Keller would say, win-win or no deal. oh, and we don't like grumpy groupers.

[00:25:24] Kathy (Guest): We have fun. We get our team meeting. Last week was just, we did an exercise go called, go to the board. We had a blast supporting each other. How can you wanna be supported? you know, hot sauce wise, what kind of hot sauce do you want? We have one gal that wanted ketchup and one gal that wanted a ghost pepper in terms of support.

[00:25:44] Suneet (Host): Love it. Oh, I wonder where you, I wonder where you're getting all this stuff from. Yes.

[00:25:49] Kathy (Guest): I love it. RD baby.

[00:25:52] Suneet (Host): Yes. RD

[00:25:54] Kathy (Guest): No, you know, follow the model and we have people who frequently, we have people who self select what to leave the team.

[00:26:01] Kathy (Guest): And that actually makes me kind of happy because. my job is to show you what it's really, really gonna take to be successful. And if, after you see that it's not the amount of work that you're willing to commit to, fine. That's great. And I'm glad you found that in 90 days.

[00:26:18] Suneet (Host): Ideal definition of success.

[00:26:20] Suneet (Host): Yeah. If this isn't something that you're into, then cool.

[00:26:22] Kathy (Guest): Yeah. And learn it fast. Don't be like the rest of the realtors. It takes 'em five years before they run screaming from the business with credit card debt and behind on their taxes.

[00:26:32] Suneet (Host): Yeah. Oh good. Good point. So your daughter works with you? She does.

[00:26:40] Suneet (Host): Do you love it? Of course you're gonna say

[00:26:43] Kathy (Guest): I love it when I love it. You know there's challenges when you're working with family, right? And especially I wanna the line between. Boss or leader, and mom, it needs to stay separate, so and so sometimes that line gets blurred a little bit. But, , she's not with me because she's my daughter.

[00:27:03] Kathy (Guest): She's with me because we were starting to expand and I, I needed another role filled and, and she came to me and she sold me on it.

[00:27:11] Suneet (Host): Okay? So she hadn't been hanging out around real estate for a long time. Yeah, she got her license when she was 18 or 19. Okay. So she was following in her footsteps kind of, or at least had her license?

[00:27:22] Suneet (Host): You know, I mean I'm asking for a selfish reason 'cause as you know, I have two young daughters and something that has always sounded cool to me is the family business vibe. I mean, they probably want nothing to do with dad's business. That's what they say now at least. And they got a long ways to go.

[00:27:39] Suneet (Host): At least nine years till my eldest is 18.

[00:27:42] Kathy (Guest): You've

[00:27:42] Suneet (Host): got

[00:27:43] Kathy (Guest): years to brainwash

[00:27:44] Suneet (Host): him. Yeah. So, , what's been your biggest surprise, this current chapter of your team?

[00:27:51] Kathy (Guest): You know, Suneet, my biggest surprise. Is how much I really love my team members.

[00:27:58] Suneet (Host): What a good answer. You've created a family, haven't you?

[00:28:03] Kathy (Guest): Well, and I'm not really a social kind of person. I'm a get into the office, put your head down, do your work. You know, I'm good with my clients, you know, love my clients, but just, you know, the team really has become somebody that we all care about each other and I care about every single one of 'em. And, I had one of 'em, their, her, her kitty cat died the other day, so, you know, we're there to support her and, and yeah, it does kind of feel like a family.

[00:28:32] Suneet (Host): That's awesome. So, , second to last question. What advice do you have for other team leaders listening to you right now?

[00:28:39] Kathy (Guest): Well, you know, if you're in the messy middle, I would stop and think about, why you chose to do this. ' cause if you chose to do this, to make a lot of money and have less time, you might wanna reevaluate that right.

[00:28:58] Kathy (Guest): What was your intention? What's the goal? What's your why that makes you cry? That sort of thing. Because, , that model of the solo, you know, I'm kind of a numbers person. If you're a solo agent, the model I described, solo agent with buyer's agent, or showing agent assistant to VAs buy and leads, do everything you need to do.

[00:29:18] Kathy (Guest): If you're at the gold standard, you're running about a 50% profit model. after you build up, please correct me Sydney, 'cause you're the guy who knows this. But after you build out the team and you get everything going, and if you're at a 25% profit margin, , that's, success. so, if you're in the messy middle and, you know, I was looking forward to doing this podcast with you because people don't talk about this very much. I don't know. , Sarah Hardy said it the other day. I wrote it down. It was, oh, the sage on the stage.

[00:29:48] Kathy (Guest): Right? The sage on the stage. It was from being the sage on the stage to the guide by their side. That's kind of what I've done. It ain't all glitter, man. the first step I would do is take a reassessment and make sure that this is what you really wanna do, because there's a thing called the principle of sunk costs.

[00:30:07] Kathy (Guest): And the principle of sunk costs means I've come this far down the road, I've spent this much money, it's too late to turn around because I've come this far, I've spent this much. Well, then the question is, what if you're on the wrong road?

[00:30:22] Suneet (Host): Good advice. So yeah, get real clear, right? I think people need to stay real clear and stay real self-aware.

[00:30:29] Suneet (Host): I also think that if you're in the messy middle, you should pick up the damn phone and recruit more agents.

[00:30:34] Kathy (Guest): KFR solves all problems. But yeah, if you make the decision. Okay. Self-reflection, you've made the decision. Yes, and been a couple points to when I was ready to throw in the towel, and I had to, why?

[00:30:45] Kathy (Guest): I mentioned that. Me making a decision at the beginning of this. Yeah.

[00:30:48] Suneet (Host): You made your mind up.

[00:30:50] Kathy (Guest): I said, you know what? I made the decision. you know, when I burned the boat the first time, it was a car that wouldn't have turned. Right? So who cares, right? This time, you know, I haven't burned the boats, but I had to remind myself, no, I'm doing this because I wanted the challenge and I have to stay into it.

[00:31:06] Kathy (Guest): So the advice I would give to the person who is struggling and, you know, we don't really like to admit it if we're sometimes is to find a mentor. You know, find somebody whose model you respect, whose model you would like to have, who you respect and, , you know, find that mentor. If it's a coach, if it's a another team member, if it's a, you know, got reside here.

[00:31:30] Kathy (Guest): And it's not all about a plug about reside except I'm very happy. , You know, find a mentor and, do the work, you know, and I think you're probably gonna find a lot of us inside work.

[00:31:39] Suneet (Host): Love it. What a good answer. If somebody wants to send you a referral or talk to you more, how do they find you?

[00:31:45] Kathy (Guest): Happy to do that. , Email. Great way. Kathy, K-A-T-H-Y at Courtney, my last name, C-O-U-R-T-E.

[00:31:59] Kathy (Guest): V as in the state of nevada.com or text me, don't call. Don't leave voicemail. Messages not effective. Text me 7 7 5 2 2 5 6 9 6 1.

[00:32:13] Suneet (Host): You guys send, Kathy all your referrals in Reno, hit her up. She is a very cool, interesting person. With lots of good value to provide, I think. And obviously you dropped, some heat on this one, Kathy.

[00:32:27] Kathy (Guest): Thanks Sydney. it was been my pleasure.

[00:32:29] Suneet (Host): Good. Everyone, thank you so much for listening and tuning into this episode of the Reside Platform Podcast. Make sure you click like and subscribe and send Kathy all your referrals. Until then, we'll see you on the next episode of the Reside Platform Podcast.

[00:32:45] Suneet (Host): Bye-bye.