E 56 | The Systems & Processes That Will Grow Your Business | with Lauren Rathgeb

[00:00:00] Brooke: busy starts to feel like healthy. It gets confused for busy is healthy. Like, if the phone's ringing and everyone's running around, it's easy to just to kind of assume things are working, but being busy and then growing are not the same thing.

[00:00:13] Lauren: So here's what nobody tells you about team growth. The wall doesn't look like a wall, okay? It looks like a good month followed by a weird month. An agent who seems fine, a lead that slipped. Sound familiar? A new hire who just never really got it. Every one of those feels small, and together they're the reason that a team that was growing suddenly isn't.

[00:00:47] Lauren: So Brooke and I see it from the outside, and which means we usually see it before the team leader does. We're looking at P&Ls, we're looking at the, the warning signs. So today we're gonna be walking through four of those, keeping a tally as we go. So if you say yes to two or more, make sure you stick around for the end.

[00:01:10] Lauren: So hi everybody, I am Lauren Holland, director of all the things here at Reside Platform, from, client success to data, operations, all the fun things. And I am back with Brooke, our client success manager, who manages all the onboarding and client retention, so she's amazing. Brooke, last episode was about finishing the year strong.

[00:01:33] Lauren: This one's a little m- more uncomfortable, and we love that. why do you think that teams miss these signs even when they're right in front of them?

[00:01:44] Brooke: Yes. such, so timely too right now as far as, trying to get to the end of the year and just being really head down and kind of missing those warning signs.

[00:01:53] Brooke: And I think that it happens because team leaders can be too close to it. when you're inside a team every day and you're not really looking for warning signs necessarily, you're just, like, trying to get through the week. You're like, "Okay,what's the, the goal for today?" Or, "What's the goal this week?"

[00:02:07] Brooke: You're, you've got your rhythm and you're just following through that, and busy starts to feel like healthy. It gets confused for busy is healthy. Like, if the phone's ringing and everyone's running around, it's easy to s- just to kind of assume things are working, but being busy and then growing are not the same thing.

[00:02:24] Brooke: And the other piece is what's, worked when you had maybe five agents, doesn't necessarily break all at once at 15, but it, it does break slowly. A lead might slip here, a new hire gets confused there, and then by the time it's obvious, it's been happening for months. so that's a big advantage that Lauren and I have.

[00:02:42] Brooke: We're not necessarily in it every day anymore, so we get to notice the patterns before they turn into problems. We get to talk to different teams and start to see those common warning patterns, that we can speak to and not be so involved in the day-to-day.

[00:02:58] Lauren: Yeah. And we've lived through it too, so we've walked it, we've dealt with it.

[00:03:03] Lauren: We feel your pain. So let's get into it. So I wanna start with the big one, that the leader, warning sign number one, the leader is still doing everything. There's no leverage. So what does this look like? our leader is still the top performer, the trainer, the recruiter, the ops person, and the one that everyone is texting at 9:00 PM.

[00:03:26] Lauren: Their spouse might be going crazy because they're always on their phone. There's no boundaries set there. And I know many of our clients at Reside have dealt with this because they're part of our success story, right? They are the success story. They have been the ones that have been doing 75% of the production while they're growing their team.

[00:03:49] Lauren: team's doing 25%, and then the next year, just from those consistent actions, doing the right thing that we always talk about, that flips. The team starts doing 75% and the team leader stays in production 25%, and then eventually if they wanna step out, they can because they've been doing the right things.

[00:04:08] Lauren: Why this happens, why somebody just keeps taking it on, because the objection is, or the excuse I like to say is, it's faster to do it yourself. And for a while, yes, that works. I'm actually having an aha moment because I'm kind of doing that myself, so you guys are seeing this in real time. the cost of this is that the team can only grow as big as one person's calendar or capacity, right?

[00:04:33] Lauren: So agents stop solving problems because the leader always does. How we can tell this is happening is you take a week off and things stall or just completely stop. And you don't, or you don't take a week off because you know that that's what was gonna happen. So the first fix of this is going to be n- naming one thing that you're gonna hand off in the next 30 days, not eventually.

[00:05:00] Lauren: And so I'm saying this to myself, and I will tell Brooke after the call what I need. and I'm not putting it on her. I have something else. But, this is gonna be a person and a da- and a date. So if you are solo practicing and you are not looking to grow a team, but you are looking to bring on a transaction coordinator or an executive assistant to manage your calendar, taking off those $20 tasks that you're doing when your hourly rate is $200 an hour, right?

[00:05:30] Lauren: I want you to name what that is, and it's the same thing for our team leaders, okay? Maybe you have built up enough production where,we've, we talk about this a lot, you gotta spend money to make money. You have to invest back in your business, especially at the hard points. So if you're in a place where making your first hire feels scary, you're exactly where you need to be, okay?

[00:05:52] Lauren: that first hire for a team leader on the org chart is gonna be an ops manager. All right? We're gonna make sure that you're not the one running, installing the signs anymore, or taking the photos or, putting the lockbox in. you're doing what you need to do. You are recruiting. You're getting in front of your clients, and you're signing agreements.

[00:06:12] Lauren: That's all that matters, okay? We're gonna take away, strip away everything else that we call busy work because we wanna feel productive. It's not moving the needle forward. All right? transaction coordination, someone that's handling the client relationship, someone that's putting the listings on the MLS.

[00:06:29] Lauren: This can also be an overseas virtual assistant, a global partner, whatever you would like to name that position, okay? but leverage is the most important thing, especially for you to be able to go ahead and disappear for two weeks, Would your team be able to keep, closing deals? So, Brooke, let me ask you this.

[00:06:48] Lauren: What is the first thing that you usually see leaders hang on to that they need to be letting go of?

[00:06:53] Brooke: Yeah. And honestly, that busy work that you just said, like that, that's the thing every single time. Like, it's that stuff that feels maybe too small to hand off. Again, those things where you're like, "It's faster for me to do it.

[00:07:04] Brooke: It takes five minutes But that adds up. That adds up. Like imagine if it's something that it took five minutes, but you're doing that 10 different times, like now you're spending almost an hour doing something that you could've just trained, done a little bit of training and had someone do. So like-

[00:07:20] Lauren: Just to feel good about yourself too.

[00:07:21] Brooke: Exactly. Just to feel like you're moving things forward. but that's not your best time spent. Like it's things like, updating your CRM with small little things or fixing, fixing something, like tweaking something as like your lead flow or chasing paperwork, answering the same agent question the fifth time for the week.

[00:07:38] Brooke: leaders hang onto that because again, it does take a few minutes, but again, that adds up to hours and now they're coming out of the time that they could be spending leading. the other I see a lot is being the answer to every question. So agents maybe text the leader before they even try to figure out on their own, or, the leader always responds.

[00:07:55] Brooke: The leader, which is great, we're not saying don't respond and don't you know, don't be there. But they're so used to not figuring out the answer themselves. They're just like, "Oh, they'll tell me." So you're the resource. It feels really helpful. You feel like you're being helpful, but it's also training the team to depend on you instead of a system.

[00:08:11] Brooke: So my first suggestion is usually like look at what you did last week that somebody else could have done with just a little bit of training. Like that's your first handoff. Or if you, that just resonated with you of like, yeah, my agents are always texting me asking questions that I- You know, I, I'm answering consistently.

[00:08:30] Brooke: you can do those got a minute times where you have a general session that it's designated just for that and just keep rerouting back to that. Or you can have a resource li- or both, have a resource library where, we have something called Circle, a learning management system. So we are always pointing people back to that if they need a resource.

[00:08:47] Brooke: It's like, "Hey, did you check Circle first?" Like, you're... If you can't find it, then let me know. But, like, you're training them to look elsewhere and figure it out for themselves before you're just their fallback, just because they know you're gonna respond.

[00:08:59] Lauren: I love that. Yeah. "Hey, have you tried this?"

[00:09:01] Lauren: Just not giving them the answer right away. That's actually how I learned.

[00:09:04] Lauren: Like, if I was asking too many questions, they'd be like, "Hey, did you try Google?" Yes. And I'm like, "No." And now you have AI, so no excuses.

[00:09:12] Brooke: Right. Exactly. I'm like, I'll... Now I'll start my conversations by like, "Hey, I tried Claude.

[00:09:17] Brooke: I tried, I tried, and I tried this."

[00:09:21] Lauren: okay. Brooke, this one's yours. lead data every day. another this is gonna be a warning flag or sign number two, the lead comes in, but nobody owns them.

[00:09:31] Brooke: Yes. That is so, so common. and what that looks like is leads just sitting un- uncontact. Like, i- in your head, you're thinking, "Oh, I thought they called."

[00:09:41] Brooke: But no, agents, can sometimes cherry-pick the good ones or the ones that they know are gonna convert, or the easy ones, the low-hanging fruit. the real notes living, maybe the real notes are really, like, living in their notebook that they just jotted down or on their phone instead of in the CRM.

[00:09:57] Brooke: And why we see this happen is because everyone is responsible, which means nobody is. when nobody owns the system, no one's really trusting it. And now you're paying for leads that really never get a real shot, and you don't feel it till months later when that conversion is flat and nobody knows why.

[00:10:15] Brooke: So, like, you could have just put, forked out, thousands of dollars on this great new lead system, but you never really had, responsibility behind it or any accountability behind it. You're just like, "We're turning it on. We'll see what happens." And it's months down the road and you're like, "We just, like, basically put thousands of dollars in the toilet because nothing's happening from it, and I don't know why."

[00:10:35] Brooke: and that's the tell, is like you can't answer how many leads didn't get contacted last week in under a minute. you maybe don't know where to find that, or you don't know that off the top of your head of, like- H- what is that, that rate of speed to action or how many leads have not been contacted that have come in new?

[00:10:51] Brooke: so really your, your first fix there would just be naming one person who owns that lead accountability. They check it weekly, and then they help those, those dropped leads actually get addressed. So this does not need to be you. Like, if you're a team leader listening to this and you're doing this already, this does not need to be you.

[00:11:09] Brooke: You can have a virtual assistant, run the reports for you. You can have an admin. You can use AI. Like, you can have Claude connect with Follow Up Boss or,whatever system you're utilizing, and have it set up to get you reporting and be able to help flag some of those things. So there's ways around it that it doesn't have to be you.

[00:11:28] Brooke: will you be the one that most likely needs to have that conversation? Yes. But you don't have to be the one that's in there, checking that data consistently. You can have something that's going to do that for you.

[00:11:38] Lauren: Yep. a- and y- y- you're answering it, but just to make it super, super clear, is this usually a tech problem or a leadership problem?

[00:11:47] Brooke: Yeah, definitely a leadership problem. It's... M- most of the time it's, it's not a tech. Like, it's one thing if you're like, "Okay, these... I set up this integration and these leads are just not coming in. Like, I'm not seeing them visibly," that's one thing. But if the leads are coming in, there's no excuse at that point and for those to not go unanswered.

[00:12:06] Lauren: Beautiful. I feel like this is lightning round and I love it.

[00:12:10] Brooke: I know. I like that. I like the q-

[00:12:11] Lauren: Yeah. We're keeping it really simple and straightforward. So the third sign is agents are quietly checking out, and I don't know if I'd put these in any particular order, but you're gonna notice this one first, I think.

[00:12:26] Brooke: Yes, exactly. And we s- we, we see it a lot and, and Lauren, I know that you, even just like with your, not just now, but you being on a larger team, back when you were in operations and you were somebody that was always looking for that, like, retention signal. so what, what are you seeing, or especially with the teams now, or what have you seen in the past of when those signals are happening for agents going quiet?

[00:12:50] Lauren: Yeah. So I think, and it's really funny because I'll have people come up and like, they'll say, "How do you get your agents to show up?" We really didn't have that issue because we just made it such a standard that every Monday at noon, the expectation was you're in office in that conference room. We had a second location about two hours away so that they would Zoom in and everyone would be together.

[00:13:16] Lauren: We went over, and granted, if we had 30 plus agents, we would have to find a new way to make this scalable, probably, smaller accountability groups with a leader. But, for 10 to 12 agents that we were working with doing, about- We were closing about 200 units that year. anyways, like everyone was showing up, right?

[00:13:37] Lauren: And if you didn't, we would do what we have been talking about and, "Hey, where were you?" Or, "Hey, we missed you today. What's going on?" an excused absence. And people would say, "Well, that's basically like treating them like, employees or whatnot." And no, it's accountability. You want to make your goals happen, you wanna move your business forward and have production, this is how you're gonna do it.

[00:14:00] Lauren: So that was the standard of being on our team. So what it looks like when people stop showing up that, like I've gotten a front row seat of this, seat with this in with many teams, is team meetings are getting quieter. People just stop showing up. Fewer people are sharing wins. They're getting quiet. The group chat is mostly announcements.

[00:14:22] Lauren: people aren't actually engaging with each other. And if you start to see m- more than one person doing this, that's actually a culture problem. And we also need to look at our production because production is culture, right? So there's a lot to unpack here, but you're gonna notice the signals by how people are showing up or lack thereof, especially good for any, staff that you do have as well on your team.

[00:14:46] Lauren: The second part of why, why does this happen is because our agents, they stop feeling like they're part of something. they might feel like they can go do it better on their own, or they feel like the team just doesn't have enough value or something to offer them anymore, okay? The team became a place to get leads, not a place to grow Okay?

[00:15:06] Lauren: And the cost of this is disengaged agents don't leave right away. They stay, they produce less, they're making their exit strategy, and they pull the energy down for everybody else. That's what I'm talking about, like your staff needs to be the culture keeper right there. If they see this, they need to ping it immediately.

[00:15:25] Lauren: Even if you feel like you're being, You're over-exaggerating it, I take this so seriously. One weird move, I'm like, no, we gotta go love on this person." retention risk, right?

[00:15:37] Brooke: Exactly. Then it's like, "Okay, you're on vacation. Sorry, sorry. Okay." Like, "I'll back up. But make sure you're doing okay." Yeah, absolutely.

[00:15:44] Brooke: Yeah, it's, it is very, very serious too, like n- especially knowing their patterns, and then once soon as they get out of it, th- like that first signal, I promise you, if you ignore it, it's... You're gonna continuously see it, and you're gonna be like, "What happened?" But when you actually pull that data of the, their engagement or actually look at that, you will notice a steady slip.

[00:16:06] Lauren: Yeah. And someone should be taking attendance, especially for our bigger teams out there. Someone should be taking attendance, who showed up, who didn't, lead eligibility, all those things that are part of it. You need to know who's working the leads, and like, are they costing you money as well? that's the cost, pulling e- energy down.

[00:16:25] Lauren: And then that is, That is costly for you because other people feel it, and they either don't trust you for not saying anything or holding the standard, and you- people lose respect for you as the leader. I've seen that happen a lot. People just have a mass exit because they lose respect for the leader because they're not doing what they said that they would do.

[00:16:45] Lauren: the tell is you can't remember the last time that an agent brought you an idea. So you might not do one-on-ones for everybody, because not everybody needs a one-on-one. They might be producing. They... Their ego might feel like they don't need to. But you still need to be intentional about checking in with that person.

[00:17:06] Lauren: "Hey, how- how's it going? Just checking in." don't say just checking in, because it puts it back on that person. But, like, I'm saying for you, you're just checking in with that person. And then the first fix of this is just noticing it early and naming it out loud, bringing one thing that made the team feel like a team.

[00:17:25] Lauren: you're bringing that back, whether that's wins, recognition, team competitions, challenges, team outings. We used to do lunches. Like, it was so fun. Like, I know that a lot of, top producing teams, they'll do a millionaires lunch. whoever hit a million in volume that month, they get taken out to a nice steakhouse.

[00:17:44] Lauren: Yeah, like, there's so many things that you could do to reward the people that are top performing agents on your team, and that builds the culture, that builds the competition. Everyone wants to get in on that lunch, and it's not capped. So it's fun. So really checking in your- with yourself, gut check. Is your team meeting something that agents look forward to or is it just something that they attend?

[00:18:06] Lauren: So, and John Treflak says, like, you should be nervous before... Like, every team meeting is your biggest presentation of the week, right? You are caring and pouring into your people. You should feel nervous, like, b- and not sleeping the night before. Like, you should be really showing up for that. So Brooke, what is the best thing you've seen a team do to get their energy back?

[00:18:26] Brooke: Yeah. I wanna, I wanna,you just mentioned with the, with the team meetings, and I think that is a big piece that kind of silently happens, and you don't realize how much of an impact it could, it, it can make. I, like, what I see is the teams that are getting that energy back are the ones that really stop making the meeting about the leader, and so, y- so transactional in a way.

[00:18:48] Brooke: Yes, you do wanna hear about the transactions, but you also want those things like, like you just wanna flip it so the agents are driving a part of it. Like, starting with the wins, not just, "Okay, who had a closing last week?" Or like, "Let's talk about that." But like, what's a win? It doesn't have to be professional, it can be personal.

[00:19:04] Brooke: But like, having that culture of like saying something good, really helps, build that energy. appointment set, a, a tough conversation that was handled. Maybe it was a lead that finally responded. And then you can hand a segment to an agent, so let someone share, like, what's really working for them.

[00:19:20] Brooke: maybe they can role play a script or walk through a deal, and that really changes the whole feel because agents stop sitting there, like waiting for announcements, and they really start showing it because they're a part of it. So, and the leader has to go first. So if, if a leader shows up energized, they celebrate their people out loud, they actually look...

[00:19:37] Brooke: People actually look forward to that meeting, and the team picks up on it fast. And how many times have you had that where you could be saying the same thing every single day, but as soon as an agent does it and they start to share with the rest of what's working, those are their peers, so they're gonna hear it differently of like, "Okay, well m- my peer actually went out and did this and it worked, so I can be doing this."

[00:19:58] Brooke: So definitely if it's, if you find a lot right now in your team meetings, it's a lot of you talking, it's a lot of, yeah, kind of those general announcements or just like checking off the boxes of the things that you need to know, look at flipping that so you can bring in a piece where agents can share, whether it is, either and/or like them sharing like their wins of the days, or maybe they have a segment of what's working really well and being able to share that with others.

[00:20:22] Lauren: It's the concept that you just mentioned of borrowed beliefs. Showing up, doing that, it's what we keep talking about. Doing the right activity, letting the consistency, consistency show. And consistency isn't the same level every single day. It is you are giving 100% of what you can give every day to the one thing that you need to be doing.

[00:20:42] Lauren: okay. Warning sign number four that your team is hitting a wall: nobody can explain how things work. So Brooke, last one, you build a lot of onboarding, so I know that you have opinions on how things run.

[00:20:59] Brooke: Yes. and I see this, I see this often, and I've also, I've also been this person, so again, like no, no judgment at all.

[00:21:05] Brooke: The reason that Lauren and I talk about these things is 'cause we've been in these situations or we've been... We- we've dealt with it and seen it. So this is where we can step in and kind of be able to help. what this looks like is, let's say that you hire, you, you hire somebody. Every team has like a slightly different version of how you do things, right?

[00:21:25] Brooke: and the answer that I find most common would be like, "Oh, well just ask Sarah, she, she does all of that." Or, it, we're not really sure, it just gets done. Like, there's just no real answer or it's just one person that's handling everything. And why that really happens is because processes live in people's heads, and then the team grew faster than the documentation.

[00:21:48] Brooke: So it might be like, yeah, Sarah's the onboarding person, but she doesn't have anything written out, so it's like... And, and Sarah might have everything in her head, but like again, human error. You can't... If you have... I always ask teams, could you, could your onboarding handle if you onboarded 10 people tomorrow?

[00:22:04] Brooke: Like, if 10 people were starting t- tomorrow, could, are you prepared? Like, could you handle that? And if you are just one person and everything lives in your head, makes it really hard to ask for any help if you don't have the capacity to do that. and then things again are, are bound to fall through the cracks.

[00:22:20] Brooke: Everyone's at a different pace. So if you might have five new agents, five experienced agents, even within those five newer agents, not everyone's gonna be the same pacing. So it's like how are you tracking or, where they're at and what does success mean? Like you having those blocks of like, okay, let's stop right here and make sure everyone's caught up to this point before we move on to the next.

[00:22:42] Brooke: and really the cost of that, again, like onboarding can take forever if you are const- if you have one kind of bottleneck within your onboarding, it can take forever. it, mistakes repeat themselves. If that key person leaves, the knowledge is leaving with them. So let's say the Sarah person leaves and, or something happens, like- You're starting all over again.

[00:23:03] Brooke: and the tell is like, again, you hire someone new and then you realize you can't hand them anything written down. Like maybe they're asking questions or they're, they're wanting more information. And again, you're finding yourself having to point back to a person rather than some sort of documentation.

[00:23:18] Brooke: so if this does sound familiar to you, the first fix here, like let's say you don't have any documentation at all. Don't start by documenting every single thing. Like start with your top three, right? It's like landing a new lead, onboarding a new agent, the transaction handoff. Like pick one piece right now that you are starting, you're starting to realize this is living with somebody, with one person and we don't have any documentation.

[00:23:43] Brooke: Like start, start there and then you can continue going. And again, like we're in this age now with AI where it's like you can just talk... I literally just have clients and just brain dump into AI. Like, "Here's what I do. Here, walk you, walk them through the entire thing" and then AI can spit back that SOP or that documentation for you.

[00:24:02] Brooke: and you can always tweak it from there as needed. It lives in that system, so you can always tweak it as you go through it too, but at least you've got something documented.

[00:24:10] Lauren: Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And even if you're, whatever projects you're about to start, just talk into AI and do a brain dump.

[00:24:18] Lauren: you wanna do a podcast, you wanna write a book, you wanna do-- don't, like just talk into the AI and say, "These are my ideas. Help me format a plan for this." So beautiful. Okay. That was lightning round, and I think it was really important. We touched on the four warning signs. What I want you all to do is count up your yeses.

[00:24:39] Lauren: Zero to one, you're in good shape, okay? Just keep watching. Two, if you have two of these, you're close to the wall. Pick one sign and start there this month, if you notice an agent has not been showing up, and you-- they're not getting back to you, take that as a big red flag and make sure that you're picking up the phone, calling them, blowing them up, whatever you have to do.

[00:24:59] Lauren: three to four, you're probably feeling it, and that's okay, but it's time to stop pushing harder and start fixing your structure, and this is when it's time to recruit, because you're likely going to have some people walk out. It's just the hard truth. What did you learn from this? What do we need to reiterate or,make iterations of?

[00:25:19] Lauren: And, go recruit. So anything else, Brooke?

[00:25:23] Brooke: no. Just last piece is, hearing yourself, in a few of these, or if you heard yourself in all of these, that is not a failure. It just means that you probably grew at some point, and that stuff that got you here just is not built for where you're going.

[00:25:36] Brooke: Maybe it worked, at the beg- it worked at first, and it worked with a smaller group, but now you're starting to find that it's getting bigger. Like, I just met with a team yesterday with, again, around onboarding, where they had said, "This has worked for us this entire time. We had one agent come in, and it blew up the whole thing.

[00:25:52] Brooke: Like, we felt so unorganized. We had too much el- other things going on that it just kind of blew up, and we..." Now they're having to reevaluate what-- where did this stop working and where do we pick it up so we can continue to grow and it doesn't bog us down. So, yeah, just,start with one piece.

[00:26:10] Brooke: If all four of them hit you, start with one, and like Lauren mentioned, agents quietly checking out is, is a big one. So if that hits you, start there.

[00:26:21] Lauren: Okay. Beautiful. If you're a Reside client, bring your score to the next call. We'll help you figure out where to start. Brooke, as always, thank you so much, and we'll catch y'all next time.

[00:26:31] Lauren: Thank you.