Organic Growth to a 7-Figure Team with Zero Ads with Andrea Crouch

[00:00:00] Andrea: I need to hear those strategies and tactics, at a different level and to know like.

[00:00:05] Andrea: No, my excuses don't cut it anymore. Like if I'm gonna be the leader that I want to be and bring the team where I want it to be, I have to do things different. I can't do the same thing, it's just gonna be the same way.

[00:00:24] Suneet: Welcome to the Reside Platform podcast. I'm your host today, Suneet Agarwal, and today we have the pleasure of hanging out with Andrea Crouch, who alongside her husband, Brian Co-owns the Crouch Group in Phoenix, Arizona With 18 years of experience, Andrea has built a reputation for dedication to our clients and a strong work ethic leading her team to become one of the top in the state and just a great crew.

[00:00:56] Suneet: How are you doing, Andrea?

[00:00:58] Andrea: I am very well, thank you. And we're at 19 years now.

[00:01:01] Suneet: 19 Congratulations. Let me ask you, what was your origin story for getting into real estate?

[00:01:09] Andrea: we sold our home and did not have a great experience and said It should be better than this. It should not be this way. And I had actually stayed home with the kids for 10 years. And Brian said, you should get your real estate license. Everybody should have the real estate license. And I said, okay.

[00:01:27] Andrea: It took me more than one time to pass that test 'cause I'm not a test taker. Turns out it does not affect how well you do in the career.

[00:01:35] Suneet: Yeah. Odds.

[00:01:37] Andrea: never needed any of that. So, jumped in, but just kind of as a hobby, like, oh, we'll just see how this goes. And it was 2006. Got very busy very quickly. Brian was actually in commercial property management at the time, and he's like, wait, you get to pick your clients. I really like that. I wanna do that. And I'm like, but you get a paycheck like every two weeks, it's awesome. And I don't, so anyway, we took that step of faith and we have been working together ever since. And then, you know, the market grasp.

[00:02:10] Andrea: so that was a great time. That was a great time. But honestly, it did just lay that foundation of really seeing how to work hard.

[00:02:19] Andrea: 'cause we were around a lot of people that. You know, realtors that were complaining a lot about the market at that time, and it was like, this is all we know. Keep our blinders on, work hard, take care of our people. And it worked out.

[00:02:30] Suneet: do you guys deal with a lot of crap in 2008?

[00:02:32] Andrea: Yes. Lots of short sales, lots of foreclosures. And I think just helping people at that, you know, the hardest time in their life, right? Like we built in that trust and. We had been working organically by referral that whole time. Like that's how we worked

[00:02:47] Suneet: I think when, you know, just to give people context, Andrea is a reside team leader, her and her husband. So. You weren't running any kind of traffic for any ads at the time.

[00:03:01] Andrea: Zippo only like for our entire career, only by relationship people we knew. I mean, I'm naturally a relationship person. Like I'm friendly. I talk to people everywhere I go. So that worked for us. But it, wasn't scalable, so.

[00:03:18] Suneet: Yeah. It wasn't scalable and I think. this brings up a cool point. So. Belabor it for sake of the conversation and then we'll go, back into the stuff is in my experience of thousands of coaching calls now and having my team, which was started for all the right reasons, I.

[00:03:37] Suneet: I'll say that publicly, I'll admit to that. Is that team leaders wanna try and segment themselves to, oh, I'm a leads team, or, well, like you were, we work by referral only. I think both are great.

[00:03:52] Suneet: However, do you just want to be one thing? No.

[00:03:56] Suneet: Right. I mean, there's some argument to be really good at one thing, but how are you gonna scale that, right?

[00:04:02] Suneet: Like that would mean that if you were to grow your team, you would need to bring people on and teach 'em how to work. There's fear faster than giving them an opportunity to work on. Why can't there be both? When I first started in real estate, I was told, you probably saw me write about it on Facebook before they always go to the story is my team leader.

[00:04:22] Suneet: Said, Hey, go pass out business cards. And I was like, what? Right. So I went and bought some leaves. Anyhow. So you had your, worked with your husband for you?

[00:04:33] Andrea: Yeah, 19 years.

[00:04:36] Suneet: You guys still get along.

[00:04:38] Andrea: I know. Yeah. It's crazy. We've been married for 30, going on 31. But he always says, I go to work, she's there. I come home. She is there.

[00:04:47] Andrea: I mean, it just works well for us. It does. Yeah.

[00:04:50] Suneet: it's really interesting in your origin story, and I think in coaching many husband and wife teams. I've experienced similar stories where you, the mom stayed home with the children, which is great, right? Like, I think that's the hardest job. My wife does it and I love it.

[00:05:08] Suneet: I wouldn't give that up for anything. But then once the kids get old enough and there's less kids at the home, then you enter the workforce in real estate for a similar reason. Right? how many realtors have you talked to that got into the business because they had a bad experience by.

[00:05:22] Andrea: Yeah, I mean it is fascinating how frequently that happens. And then I think when we did get really busy and it was like we just kept like having that feeling of our business and it was, we just did what we could manage. this is what we can do. But it just never crossed my mind to add anybody else.

[00:05:42] Andrea: It was like, I don't know how to do this. And then eventually 2019, it was like, I want a day off if I just wanna not always be on. And so we naturally just added one agent and then I was like, okay, I really like this. I like just, teaching them how the right way to do things. 'cause that's my way.

[00:06:01] Andrea: And having that structure was great. Teaching them like, have a calendar, have a schedule, treat it like a job, what a concept, like, you know, those kind of things. But then it was adding another agent and another agent and then it was, we dunno what we're doing. I.

[00:06:18] Andrea: So stumbling upon our side was game changer for us. It really has been.

[00:06:25] Suneet: I love that. so tell me about the first agent you hired in 2019. Take us back. Where,

[00:06:31] Suneet: how did that happen?

[00:06:32] Andrea: Well, funny enough, it was one agent that we got a two for one. So one neighbor in our neighborhood was talking about getting a real estate license, and I'm like, oh, I'd love to chat with you about it. And here's the thing. I was like, she's gonna be awesome. She's gonna be the greatest. She's gonna just kill it.

[00:06:51] Andrea: And then she talked to her friend and her friend. We were hiking one day with everybody. And those two were talking and the friend caller Sally said she was just let go of her job the day before. She's gonna get a real estate license with this friend. They're gonna go to school together. They both got their license and I hired both of them.

[00:07:12] Andrea: One had a bad day and was like, I have to take a bath. They just have to take a bath because this is a hard job. Take a bath because she had to negotiate repairs. Like, okay, you're not gonna gut it. There's no taking a bath in the middle of the day for real. So anyway, the other one actually killed it.

[00:07:34] Andrea: And she did absolutely amazing. So that's kind of how it started. And then we just added another agent. So, yeah, that's how it went down.

[00:07:42] Suneet: Yeah. Sounds like a familiar story. Two for one, and your, picker was broken, huh?

[00:07:47] Andrea: Yes, exactly. And since then I hear that all the time, like you can't guess.

[00:07:51] Suneet: I'm the one that says that all the time now and. I still double guess myself. It's just natural. just in anything,

[00:08:00] Suneet: right? Even if you're the best at picking out fruit, you're gonna grab two of the fruit one day and you're gonna open up the pretty one and you turn the other side around and say, oh.

[00:08:09] Suneet: It still happens, right? Maybe that's a bad analogy. Maybe it's a great one. I

[00:08:14] Andrea: No, it's good. You can.

[00:08:20] Suneet: that, so. Since then, you have been growing,

[00:08:30] Suneet: what are some strategies that have been effective in growing the team?

[00:08:34] Andrea: I think, getting in the right rooms, which is different for us because we were with a different coaching organization that entire time. I always had a business coach, but it was always working by referral and that was great. it wasn't scalable. So seeing that gap for us, it was like, I don't need to start from scratch.

[00:08:56] Andrea: I don't need to create how to scale a team. I need to be around people who have already done it and been there. So that was really step one, was figuring out what that reside word was on your hat. And these shirts and like seeing these things like what is that? What is that? Why are you hiding? What is it?

[00:09:15] Andrea: So good marketing technique there, 'cause I had to figure it out. But truly just getting in the right rooms and hearing different voices, it was like we just kept hearing the same. And yes, I need to hear the same things over and over, but it was like, I need to hear those strategies and tactics, at a different level and to know like.

[00:09:35] Andrea: No, my excuses don't cut it anymore. Like if I'm gonna be the leader that I want to be and bring the team where I want it to be, I have to do things different. I can't do the same thing, it's just gonna be the same way.

[00:09:47] Andrea: so having those things like your Indeed add and that's awesome. Getting regular emails out to agents that, you know, the one John talks about this, but just following the system that works. Like basically don't ask questions. Don't, you know, just if it works, just do that thing.

[00:10:06] Andrea: Being in different rooms, new voices, it really has changed. It's changed everything. And hearing like, working leads and learning how to do that and having follow up boss and I mean all the whole package has really just changed everything for us.

[00:10:22] Suneet: Yeah. That's awesome.

[00:10:24] Suneet: so let's talk about team meetings because I, number one, actually this is a two part question, is because. I tell you, I love your social media. I think you're absolutely slaying it. And I see your team meetings on there and they look fun. Am I wrong?

[00:10:44] Andrea: No, they're fun.

[00:10:45] Suneet: Why don't you lay out? I wanna hear about the team meetings because I saw one, I think it was just last week. I said, what are they doing? I like went back. I was all, that looks like the greatest meeting. So talk to us about your meetings and then I'm gonna ask you about your social.

[00:11:00] Andrea: Sure. So our team meetings, we are very structured 'cause that's who I am. Every week we start with successes. We always go around and share. Whatever wins we've had that week. And then we talk about our core values every week. It's like, which core value are we gonna talk about? We go through our list, one of which is enthusiastic and fun because it's like, if we're not having fun of this job, what are we doing?

[00:11:22] Andrea: So that's where that comes in is it's like, what are we doing? And then training time. we're always talking about what's going on in the market and what are people's struggles and how can we help that? And we celebrate those closings. So we're celebrating closings, but we're also pulling up the scoreboard of fab, and having that agent leaderboard on the screen, the big screen.

[00:11:44] Andrea: And we just talk about that, like, how's everybody doing? What's holding you back from hitting the numbers that you wanna hit? We have a very competitive team, so everybody wants to be on the leaderboard. and I'll talk about like, Hey, I listened to this call and I heard you say this and that was good, and maybe we can talk about how to say this better.

[00:12:01] Andrea: And you know, things like that. So really just in the weeds with them. Truly. Like

[00:12:06] Suneet: So is the follow up boss leaderboard up in her office right now?

[00:12:10] Andrea: it's not right now, it's during team meetings. Yeah.

[00:12:13] Suneet: Okay. Have you ever thought about leaving it on all the time?

[00:12:16] Andrea: I haven't because the technology does not cooperate.

[00:12:20] Suneet: We figured it out

[00:12:22] Suneet: but right now it isn't refreshing in real time. So it's like, it's whenever somebody went to that computer and hit the refresh button, went it from,

[00:12:30] Suneet: so. maybe it's working. I haven't been in the office in a few days.

[00:12:34] Suneet: Maybe it's working now. But, we had it up at all times. What we did is, when I opened my office, I bought three desktops as drop-in desks. No one ever used one of 'em. Once, so they're still new So I would say it was three of the worst investments, but my VAs log in overseas and use those for American based stuff with, voiceover

[00:12:55] Suneet: ips. So they set that up and just refresh it. So, I don't know, cost me like 200 bucks for that computer. So why don't you tell everyone what the follow up Boss leaderboard is in case someone's a.

[00:13:07] Andrea: Yeah. So it's just showing like how many calls they're doing, how many two minute conversations, how many emails, how many texts, and how many appointments are set. And I always win 'cause I always have the most appointments. And I'm still very, very much in production. That was one of the things I learned from Reside is not having,

[00:13:26] Andrea: not getting out. I wanted to get out a lot faster than I should have. So just having that leaderboard up with appointments, calls, texts and emails, and it just has a different scoring system. So it just shows who's one, two, and three, and everybody wants to be one, two, and three. So really cool.

[00:13:45] Suneet: So, tell me about social media. how long have you been consistent on social?

[00:13:51] Andrea: Probably two to three years, I think.

[00:13:55] Suneet: Every day.

[00:13:55] Andrea: every day, except this week, but yes, every day, every day posting something, whether it's a story. A post. I mean, I'm just always active on there and it does seem like if I have like a weekend off and I'm not posting something, when I jump back on, you know, more people are noticing like, oh, are you okay?

[00:14:16] Andrea: What's going on? So that's good. And I just have fun with it. I mean, I'm not like following any aesthetic. 'cause my daughter's like, your aesthetic is not whatever. I'm like, I don't care. Like your grid, like, I don't even know it's supposed to be a certain way. I'm like, no, this is just me. Real life. This is how it goes. I don't care.

[00:14:34] Suneet: Do you have any kind of process around it?

[00:14:37] Andrea: I know you're saying ev what I post is fun, but I really do want to be educational informative, so trying to always put out. Content that's helpful to people. Like, whether it's on a, at a personal level, sometimes it's spiritual level, sometimes it's, you know, real estate. But always just trying to put out like something that's helpful.

[00:14:57] Andrea: And we have, I mean, the team rule is no politics, no negative, like there's enough of that. We don't need that. So if you feel passionate about that, you can work somewhere else.

[00:15:07] Suneet: Yeah, you be right. What I.

[00:15:10] Andrea: Yes. Yeah. we don't have a place for that here. So just being genuine and I think, you know, so that if a client sees it, they know this is who I am for real. Like, I'm not somebody different when you meet me in person. And the same thing with a team member. If I'm meeting a team member, you're getting the same person.

[00:15:30] Andrea: I'm authentic, I guess.

[00:15:32] Suneet: Yeah. Do you like batch record or batch? Right. Or you just do it on the whim?

[00:15:39] Andrea: Do it on a whim.

[00:15:41] Suneet: Good. It's working for you. That means that you're, that it's like become an instinct, just like a super habit that you just has to be done.

[00:15:48] Andrea: Yeah. You think it should? I should batch it.

[00:15:51] Andrea: You always talk about batching it.

[00:15:53] Suneet: I mean, I have

[00:15:54] Suneet: I have enough short form content for probably three years that I haven't put out

[00:16:00] Andrea: Really, I'm like, I want it to be right now, current, relevant this minute. This is how, I don't know. That's just how I roll. I don't know. Which is funny 'cause I'm not really that way. I'm very structured, but

[00:16:12] Suneet: and for writing. Like for, like John Sheline, for example, will write every day.

[00:16:18] Suneet: I'll write hard once a week,

[00:16:21] Andrea: Oh, okay. That's good.

[00:16:24] Suneet: so I have a bank of like a hundred posts. And also like for me is, and if people are noticing, I don't know, but I'll post the same video with a different copy. Forever. I'll post the same picture with in a different angle, like every photo I take three and I'll just put the next one with the same post with some words moving around I'll do that a lot.

[00:16:49] Andrea: Oh, good to know. It's like a creative outlet for me too.

[00:16:54] Andrea: And I think, like right now it's, I mean, I don't have some massive team like you do. I'm, we're like in the messy middle right now. But I think there's so much value in. Talking about that space because oh, I thought, oh, we're gonna have 9 million people by now and I'm gonna be number one, blah, blah, blah.

[00:17:14] Andrea: But the reality is there was other work to be done, like hearing different voices and processing those voices and thinking about, just all of the information. Are you kidding me? That John puts out, like, I, I can't even rub my head around it. it's a lot. And so that's just where we are right now.

[00:17:31] Andrea: I don't, I mean, we are gonna get there,

[00:17:34] Suneet: Yeah, all the right stuff, right.

[00:17:37] Suneet: I think a big part of it is showing up,

[00:17:39] Suneet: which you guys always do.

[00:17:42] Suneet: You guys will come to the events, you'll lean in, right? Many people will come to our events, people in reside, or people even in a conference, and we'll stay. Reserved and not talk to anybody. Maybe there's some fear of judgment, right? If you are in an environment that you want to be in and you wanna get the most out of, and in many cases you could be paying big money to be in there, it's up to you to get your ass and start talking to people.

[00:18:11] Suneet: You sit back on your ass and say that nothing happened. Well, no shit. I mean, you've been sitting back, right? You came in open-minded,

[00:18:18] Andrea: it's a total mindset shift, especially when, I mean, you've been doing it the same way for so long, and it worked, but it didn't work to scale. So it's like you need to change all these things, It's so good. so good for learning the leader that I need to be.

[00:18:38] Andrea: that isn't where I was at all,

[00:18:41] Suneet: good.

[00:18:41] Suneet: Good. What are some things that you're about that are.

[00:18:46] Andrea: I think seeing the growth that we know is coming for us. As far as like I used to have this, I always wanna have 10 and escrow, like that was our thing. I wanna have 10 and escrow at all times. 10 and escrow, everything's better when we got 10 and escrow and now I'm like, that is the lamest thing ever, again, what a ceiling that is. So just to go, no, I wanna have 50 in escrow because. Of the size of our team right now. Like, no, let's do that. Let's hit these bigger numbers that I didn't even think was possible. But when I'm not the only one doing it, it is possible. So I think that's what I'm just excited about.

[00:19:25] Andrea: And honestly, being back in production, it does make me excited for the team growth because I'm like seeing the impact it can have on the team members', families. powerful. You know,

[00:19:37] Suneet: yes.

[00:19:38] Suneet: That's living a fulfilling life, man. Like being able to see people from the work that you've done and inspire them, you said the right word, inspire them to do based on your actions and them changing everything in their lives.

[00:19:53] Andrea: Yeah. And it gets emotional, right? Like talking to them in those one-on-ones, like when you're like, well, tell me why that's important to you. And they get emotional about. Their kids and you know, college and things like that. And it was like, that was all we thought about. Like, I just wanna be able to put my kids through college and not have debt.

[00:20:11] Andrea: That was our goal. Okay, well we hit them and then it's like, well now what do I do? 'cause they're grownups. So just hitting that next level is very cool.

[00:20:19] Suneet: now it's about that fat legacy.

[00:20:21] Andrea: Yeah,

[00:20:23] Andrea: totally,

[00:20:26] Suneet: fat legacy. And I think also for many people, like with building this building, there's some desire for autonomy,

[00:20:35] Suneet: Ultimately freedom. But legacy is the word,

[00:20:38] Andrea: Yeah,

[00:20:39] Andrea: absolutely.

[00:20:40] Suneet: legacy for your family and legacy for the people that decided to ride along with you

[00:20:46] Suneet: and believe in you.

[00:20:48] Suneet: What advice do you have to the team leaders who are listening to this episode?

[00:20:51] Andrea: I think make sure that you are in the right rooms. Make sure you are listening to, the right voices, and, implementing what you learn and hear about, not just writing the information like John talks about that, of there is so much information but implementing like what is actually critical, having the recruiting calls, inspecting your database, Calling with your team to their database. just right there, that's just powerful. That's such powerful stuff. Leaning into, I mean, if you are with Reside leaning into this group, there are so many resources here. It's phenomenal. Just having, even Curtis, I'm like, I'm not gonna say what I ask Curtis about, but I ask Curtis a lot of stuff. And Nick, with his checklist, I thought I was the queen of checklists and he's got checklists way that, outperformed me. So I think just the value of the group and then others in the group. I mean, I think just that group is a powerful group to be connected to and there's so much value there, just brainstorming with each other and masterminding. It's just really good.

[00:21:57] Suneet: I appreciate all the nice things you said about this thing that we've done, man, that thank.

[00:22:05] Andrea: absolutely. Well, and it's funny how it started with just. You guys in your shirts and your hats. I'm like, what is that? What is that? Resign?

[00:22:14] Suneet: I have made it a point, and I think that you've noticed is I will refuse to wear at any of our events anymore because I was looking one day, I said, I've been wearing a t-shirt for a week, and I'm at an event and I feel

[00:22:28] Suneet: unprofessional.

[00:22:30] Suneet: Okay, so if anybody out there wants to send you a referral or maybe become an agent with you and work closely or just chat, do they reach out to you? Andrea?

[00:22:42] Andrea: Sure. Instagram, Andrea Crouch, or Facebook. Andrea Crouch, not Andre Crouch. He died. But Andrea Crouch,

[00:22:52] Suneet: Okay. Okay, you guys hit up Andrea. She has so many cool things and both her and her husband are really cool people. And, make sure you send her the referrals you get in Phoenix, Arizona. Guys, I really hope that you got something out of today's episode. A big thank you again, Andrea.

[00:23:12] Suneet: So.

[00:23:14] Suneet: Listeners and viewers, if you found this episode insightful, please like, subscribe and share with a friend. We have a lot of other great episodes, so scroll back like 10 episodes and find that last one that we did are the 10th one ago we did, and listen to that and you'll get more insights on how to grow your team and just crush it in life.

[00:23:36] Suneet: Andrea, thank you so much

[00:23:38] Suneet: and viewers. Listeners, we'll see you on the next episode of the Reside Platform Podcast later.