The Teamerage Philosophy: Growth Through Leadership with Kara Hinshaw

[00:00:00] Kara: I've failed miserably at the beginning. not that they're wrong people or bad people, just, I didn't know what I was looking for, what I needed, who needed to be around me.

[00:00:08] Kara: I've learned a lot about staffing and how important staffing is around you. When you are starting to grow. And that's a big lesson learned right there is creating the systems have been the right people around you to help create the systems, but also operate them,

[00:00:28] Nick: Welcome back to the reside platform podcast. I'm your host, Nick McLean, co founder of the reside platform and broker owner. And I'm here with Kara Hinshaw. She's the team Ridge owner. Notice I didn't say broker and I said team Ridge. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Key associates, signature realty, six agents five years ago, and now they have 60 agents doing Transcribed 550 transactions a year, 120 million in volume in Santa Claus, Indiana.

[00:01:00] Nick: Carol, welcome to the show.

[00:01:02] Kara: Thank you. It's appropriate timing for the interview, isn't it?

[00:01:06] Nick: It is appropriate. yeah.

[00:01:08] Kara: Here we go.

[00:01:10] Nick: Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Kara, we met recently really in the last year because you hired the reside platform to help grow and scale your team region into expansion markets. And if there's time, we'll talk about expansion markets. But I mean, a hot topic right now.

[00:01:27] Nick: This team Ridge. What is a team Ridge? We know what teams are but they've evolved and broker owners have gone independent. I would like to know your reasoning for going independent or staying independent. I also want to talk about how , your business model works. How do you make money? Why do you personally still sell homes and what the future looks like?

[00:01:46] Nick: So Carol, how did it begin in real estate?

[00:01:49] Kara: Well, first of all, I was born and raised in real estate, so I'm a real estate baby. My parents sold real estate. But I. Thought I would never do it. I grew up where there was a million phone messages at the phone because it was a landline. I was taking calls from my parents, with the house showings.

[00:02:06] Kara: I was like, I am not going to be a part of this business ever in my life. And so I went off to Purdue university. Graduated as an industrial engineer and went into corporate for 10 years. so I was in global procurement, which honestly, has helped me a lot in what I do today. People wouldn't think that, but, I was global procurement.

[00:02:24] Kara: I managed global teams. I was a global negotiator. That's what I did. And I loved it. Honestly, it was a great job. Worked for IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Flextronics,

[00:02:34] Nick: What does that look like?

[00:02:35] Kara: What would happen is I would go and negotiate the global contracts for the world Of whatever these plants were buying on. I used to buy these things all these little connectors and all that I would negotiate the prices for them And then my last job was in glaxo smithkline.

[00:02:49] Kara: I managed all the travel So all the hotels around the world they used all the paths of the airlines they were using I was negotiating them globally for those companies. so did a lot of travel globally, teams globally, suppliers, vendors, just to really put all that in place and get an order for the company to purchase.

[00:03:06] Kara: So there is a site purchasing, which is a lot different than this. They would work with us. We would negotiate the contracts and they would buy off of them.

[00:03:14] Nick: Yeah. So let's remember you grew up in a brokerage and your parents or parent owned the brokerage.

[00:03:20] Kara: they did. All small town where if just Santa Clause, Sydney has 2000 people, so.

[00:03:24] Nick: Wow. So you have this. knowledge base that you just formed as an adolescent, as a kid. And so you went into procurement and I'm really interested in that because how did those skills translate to a real estate brokerage?

[00:03:37] Kara: because you have your supplies, your vendors, you're negotiating contracts. And even to the point of managing the brokerage, it actually helped me manage all the VAs today because I was into the global world 20 years ago and managing people overseas all day long. so my relationships for me to start a VA team, which I'll get into was nothing to me.

[00:03:58] Kara: Like that was just. Old school corporate that I used to do.

[00:04:02] Nick: wow. So a lot of, team success that I find, working with all these teams is how they structure their organization. And so let's get to that with your VA team. When did that come about? How does it work? How does it run? What do they do? A lot of people want to know about that because you just don't sell 550 homes and still have a life unless you have lots of great human resources,

[00:04:23] Kara: Well, let's go back to why I started what I

[00:04:26] Nick: Yes, please.

[00:04:27] Kara: so I sold real estate for 20 years. So I came back home That's why I got into real estate had a baby back to indiana left north carolina, which I loved loved my corporate life when I came back, I worked remote a year, which was very odd back then, 20 years ago, but I went as long as I could.

[00:04:42] Kara: I'm really close to my boss at the time, but I had to say goodbye to that world because they wouldn't let me stay remote in my house in Santa Claus, Indiana. So I thought, well, I'm not going to get the pay scale in Indiana that I was getting back there. And the jobs weren't here in Indiana when at the time and what I was looking for.

[00:05:00] Kara: I thought, well, why not try real estate? Here it is. My parents are doing it. I've never tried it. Both my brothers did it, hated it. So I was the third one try here of the family. So I got into it and, really never looked back, but just to give the history is I sold homes only really and focused on homes.

[00:05:17] Kara: I mean, we've always had a few agents because of my parents, some more from them legacy. Some came on, but not very many. I wasn't recruiting. I wasn't trying. It was what I'd call almost a solo brokerage. You making money as an independent. And, did that for 15 years, to be honest with you, I bought the business three years after I started, which I started in 2005,

[00:05:39] Kara: it in 2008.

[00:05:41] Kara: But did not try to grow or do anything beyond that until 2019. So I had the real estate skills, down, from old school, because back then it was a lot different than it's right now. I mean, we were using CRMs, but I mean, just even digital signatures. I mean, we didn't have any of that. You can't do the amount of business back then that you can now just speak by technology.

[00:06:04] Kara: So, technology has definitely helped us, Ramp up how much you can do as well.

[00:06:08] Nick: Yeah, for sure. So there's these mom and pop brokerages and they really just formed just to operate their own production. Right. And they, have a high level of service. They have very few clients because of the scale and size, but the clients they have are usually fairly loyal and use you generation after generation.

[00:06:27] Kara: correct. Yeah. Correct. Especially in smaller towns, which you understand that,

[00:06:30] Kara: you get into the bigger cities, it's not as much loyalty as some of the smaller towns.

[00:06:35] Kara: So

[00:06:35] Nick: There's more competition. There's more skullduggery. There's more, you know, let me try to get that client , that's the way it is. But yeah, small town, sometimes it's like, oh, that's Kara's client. Kara sold the mom's house and the grandkids house. and they stay pretty loyal because you're going to see them around town and wave and , they want to avoid that awkward situation.

[00:06:53] Nick: so you decided to grow.

[00:06:55] Nick: , what made you decide to grow? What was it? What inspired it?

[00:06:58] Kara: , I think you get to a point where, I mean, obviously you start off the business monies, what is everybody's focus, right? You want to make money. I did well for 15 years along the way I invested as well. I'm a big. property buyer. I'm a holder. I don't flip, started young because I'm in a real estate company.

[00:07:15] Kara: So like my first rental, I was 21, I was young. So I started really young and, it got to the point, I mean, I grew that portfolio along with the success of me selling real estate for 15 years. There's a point of what makes you get up in the morning and get excited. And I love to sell, don't get me wrong, but I think I was at that next step.

[00:07:33] Kara: I came from corporate managing billions and then I went to small town, cried selling real estate for a hundred thousand

[00:07:42] Kara: and I lost my identity. And then I got back into my world where I've been, I mean, I was very successful as an agent. And then I. Decided it was just time to that next step. , was always a go getter.

[00:07:53] Kara: I was always a what's next. Never thought I'd even be back in my small town that I grew up in. So I thought that was my way really to give back, to the agents and especially the industry, there's a lot more newer agents, young agents in the industry, my 15 years. You didn't see a lot of 20 year olds, 30 year olds, they were all 50, 45, 50, 60.

[00:08:15] Kara: So a lot of, you know, me giving back is bringing on those younger people and getting them in this industry because it's a great industry. And, giving them success and also being allowed to do very well in a small town , there's not a lot of opportunities in a small town, real estate, that's an opportunity.

[00:08:30] Kara: So if I can bring in these people, even to the bigger cities where I'm at, it's still not huge compared to corporate, big Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Nashville. They're small, they're a hundred thousand people. So, it just allows me to give back to the community, help coach agents up and It also looked at me as my retirement plan. when I started, I was 45 starting to grow it. I'm almost 50, 55 has been my goal. Like at that point, do I want to sell, which I choose still to sell? Cause I love it. But at 55, what will that look like? What team am I going to have around me? What can I do?

[00:09:03] Kara: How much flexibility can I have? So it really became retirement planning to some extent and just my ambitions of giving back.

[00:09:10] Nick: That's a good reason to do it. And, I remember my mentors in similar story, 2007, eight, nine, 10, these were 60, 50, 60, 70, 80 year old realtors that gave me the old school tried and true practices of real estate. And yeah, it was an aging industry. It really was. And then when technology hit, we started attracting more and more newer agents in the technology world.

[00:09:36] Nick: It's like, okay, wait a second. I all of a sudden became the, person that I can give back to, I wanted to give back in that hero's journey. So did you decide to do a team Ridge in 2019?

[00:09:47] Kara: No, I did not actually,

[00:09:49] Nick: how did you arrive at this business model?

[00:09:50] Nick: What is your business model and how did you arrive at it?

[00:09:53] Kara: I think when I started, I mean, think about it six, seven years ago is when a lot of the teams really started. , when you really started seeing a lot of them, I'm sure it was a lagging for me cause I'm in a smaller area, Phoenix and all them probably had it a lot sooner, but I started seeing a lot more teams.

[00:10:10] Kara: And so I went down that path. I had a buyer agent. In my small brokerage of six, and I didn't see it go very well. when you have six agents and you have one dedicated to you, it just doesn't work well. Just the fairness and, just how you support everybody. I didn't like how that was feeling.

[00:10:28] Kara: So I decided if I'm going to grow this, I'm going to grow it as a brokerage, but as a team environment, so that everybody gets, The same equal, share of what support we're going to give. If that's leads, if that's transaction coordinators, if that's marketing, , I basically looked at is what did I need in those 15 years to grow what I did?

[00:10:46] Kara: And how do I implement that to support these agents that I bring on new or if they even switched us? So my model has really been about what did I need? What did I learn? What can I give? and I guess also the team Ridge is you have the newer agents that need a lot of help, but you got existing agents or even if they grow to those really productive agents, how do you support them all?

[00:11:08] Kara: you know, when you're competing against cloud based, color, William, I mean, all those people, not colors, not cloud, but just those models. How do I give it all to everyone as much as I can with different? I guess levels within our brokerage. So that's where the team is. you may be very team ish right when you start off because you get everything.

[00:11:28] Kara: You may get to the point you're more a team within me. And you don't need my support so much anymore, but I helped you get there. I give you the support you need, or you can pick and choose, but you still get the levels of support, but also, obviously as anything goes compensation, as they get more, people are going to look at that.

[00:11:43] Nick: Yeah, I think a mistake a lot of teams make when they're forming their team is they start with their splits. So they go, okay, I don't have a lot of resources. I don't have a lot of support. I don't have a lot to offer. So let me, let me start with a very lucrative split or not advantageous to the team or the team Ridge.

[00:12:03] Nick: And if you take the mindset of, Okay. What does that support look like? what are the values I want to resources I want to have available? What's the cost of those things and how do I get those cars? How do I generate that revenue? You said you identified what you needed in 15 years.

[00:12:17] Nick: what did you identify? You need it as an agent that now your team Ridge benefits from,

[00:12:23] Kara: six or seven years ago, I don't even know exactly when it is. That's when I started getting into coaching. I didn't coach before that. my coach was my mom and dad, to be honest with you, and that was learning real estate. I think I got into coaching is like, what's next out there? I saw the changes happening in the industry.

[00:12:40] Kara: John Sheplack and Joshua Smith were my two six or seven years ago, two good, really good solid foundations. And it really came down to, you know, I was growing a team Ridge from a small town. And you know, our MLS is like 10 counties and the biggest town is an hour away. That's about two 50, 250, 000 maybe.

[00:13:03] Kara: Above us, maybe 80, but either way there's a lot of, territory and here I'm in the small town 2000. So I really kneeled down working on systems, before I try to grow. knew that I had the knowledge to grow. I knew what I was doing. I just didn't have any systems in place, especially if all these people are going to be remote because to some extent, some people are 2 hours away from each other in our team or group.

[00:13:29] Kara: systems was a really big thing. And that's from how do I pay? I mean, just everything. Like, how are we going to do this? How do we train them? How do we bring them on? How do we on board them? Everything had to be systematized. I look back then and it was, terrible compared to what it is now.

[00:13:44] Kara: I've really evolved in systems, but I mean, being that engineer background, the systems wasn't a big deal to me. It took me a year to, Figure out what I was going to do. how am I going to operate this? Before I just jumped in, I know some people jump in and I do that a lot.

[00:13:57] Kara: Don't get me wrong. I'll, adapt quickly and turn the ship. But I didn't feel comfortable just then. I really worked on systems for a whole year

[00:14:04] Nick: What would be the first system you develop as starting over or coaching someone to

[00:14:09] Nick: build a team?

[00:14:11] Kara: mean, it was simple as how am I going to pay these people?. I mean, just I had to get the HR down. how are we going to at the time? how are we going to even do the digital signatures? How are we filing? We're not using paper files anymore.

[00:14:21] Kara: We can't do this. I mean, it's that crazy. just how do I get everything online to cloud base? I guess at that point. 7 years ago. It's probably when I 6 years ago when I started before I even try to evolve with agents. So, I mean, you're talking, how do I pay him? How do I digital signatures?

[00:14:38] Kara: How is I filing him? when I bring them on, what am I doing with these people? How do I support them in marketing? Putting all those systems in place where our marketing is very much evolved more now than

[00:14:47] Kara: back then.

[00:14:48] Kara: and how all systemized that is. But, just all that, TCs, what's the system around the transaction coordinator, the listing coordinator? how are we going to operate them? I've learned a lot about staffing along the way, I've failed miserably at the beginning. not that they're wrong people or bad people, just, I didn't know what I was looking for, what I needed, who needed to be around me.

[00:15:09] Kara: I've learned a lot about staffing and how important staffing is around you. When you are starting to grow. And that's a big lesson learned right there is creating the systems have been the right people around you to help create the systems, but also operate them,

[00:15:22] Nick: Okay. I want to get into staffing, but before we do that, let's recap. This is really, really important because I don't want people to listen to this and go, well, I'm at a cloud base. I don't have to worry about that. They do it for me. Okay. Really? You should understand it and take control of that because as the team leader, your agents are going to look to you to fix it.

[00:15:43] Nick: Right? Number one, they want to get paid on time and accurately. Okay. You need a system around

[00:15:49] Nick: that and it for sure one day finally like I

[00:15:56] Nick: was just I was just talking to my executive assistant last night on standards around paying the agents. And so even if I was at EXP, LPT, you name it, XYZ, as a team leader, I'm going to have a staff member, transaction coordinator coordinating with the corporate on deliverability and accuracy because I'm sure there's not perfect all the time.

[00:16:18] Nick: Right. So I want to have control of that because as a leader, you want to be the one that is perceived as the one paying them because there's powered influence over the ones being paid. So think about it. Who's really the leader if they're getting paid by someone else?

[00:16:32] Nick: . So that's first number two, training and onboarding your agents.

[00:16:36] Kara: Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of them, especially the cloud based, if you have a team, they have training, but it's not your training. Like you have a team or brokerage or whatever you're doing, you have your way of how you're going to do things. You have CRMs, you have systems, you have role playing, you have scripts.

[00:16:51] Kara: , it's how you're going to do business as your company. So I think that doesn't really matter what your brokerage is doing as much as how you want to guide people.

[00:16:59] Nick: Yeah. I would love to learn more about your onboarding and training, but training, I, this is so similar to how I thought about this stuff. So I went into training cause I was a commercial airline pilot. You were in manufacturing, logistics, we started at the end and then we go back to the beginning and then now we're within the process.

[00:17:15] Nick: Transaction training. Coordination, management, and listing coordination and management. And in order to drive that, in order to get those two things, you got to market and advertise,

[00:17:25] Kara: Correct. Now that's where we evolved as we're really evolving now.

[00:17:29] Nick: yeah, and that's always evolving. And so as a, team leader, you're the number one marketer. Are you still the number one marketer, advertiser, face, voice,

[00:17:37] Kara: as the brokerage. Yeah, but what's really been interesting is I, I was on video a long time ago. Video has always been my thing and I'm not scared to be out there. I don't care what people think.

[00:17:47] Nick: that's big.

[00:17:48] Kara: yeah, that's big. You just got to get over it. But there is agents that, were under me, like I call, more of my originals.

[00:17:54] Kara: And even as I evolved that just were scared to death of video or didn't like it or thought it was not relevant. But now, as I've been doing it for five years and I love seeing them all get into it and excited about it and understand how important it is. And so I think it's important that as a leader, you know, what is your core values?

[00:18:11] Kara: And, me. Obviously video is always, our marketing has always been a big portion of what our company has been about. And as much as I include the agents I do, but I love when I see them do it on their own as well.

[00:18:23] Nick: Yeah. You guys got to follow Kara and her social and her videos. , how often do you do videos? How often are you posting? Is it just organic, like John

[00:18:30] Kara: It's a little, it's a little bit of everything. I mean, it just depends on how busy I am. To be honest with you. I'd love to be as good as John, but no, I'm not a work here. But in regards to videos, I do have a dedicated person that manages all my social media. So. It makes it easier to make sure that I get enough out all the time.

[00:18:47] Kara: it's us working together, whatever I need to get to them to make sure that I have out there, but I also have a marketing platform that I hire as well to help, just with understanding. Exactly different angles, different, mixes, and that as well. So it's a combination, but as the company, not just me, I mean, I, I give tons of support, they have custom, marketing graphics that we'll do.

[00:19:10] Kara: They have video that they can be edited or they can shoot and edit from us. and it's all the marketing itself, like the just sold and all that. That's all automatic. They just, it just pops in a file form. They don't even have to ask us for it. It's just that natural how we set up all the systems around the transaction coordinator marketing.

[00:19:27] Kara: They're all tied together. We use click up is pretty much what it is. And. It starts with the transaction and marketing is all part of it. So they don't, our agents don't want to do anything to notify us. It's just dumped in a file when everything happens.

[00:19:41] Nick: you got to take control of that with the agents is like, you can ask them to do all these things, but at the same time, the company needs to take control and deliver it. deliver

[00:19:52] Kara: Yeah. Now they want custom stuff. we will charge them for that stuff. Yeah. It's there. That it's the availability is there for them to have custom stuff. It's just at that point we start charging.

[00:20:02] Nick: I was talking to a, this was years ago, one of the top teams in the wall street journals, top 250 teams. I think they were in the top 50 at the time back before they did small, medium, large. It was just, who are the top two 50 teams in the nation? they told me, they were like, I don't consider myself a real estate company.

[00:20:18] Nick: I consider myself a marketing

[00:20:20] Nick: Agency,

[00:20:21] Nick: Mr. Mr. So you're hiring me because I'm a marketing agency. I'm going to market it. he took that same idea and he's marketing his agents, marketing their social brand. So isn't that true? Like at some level or a marketing agency.

[00:20:33] Kara: We are. And evolved for me as an agent now to the company. Honestly, the agents that attract to us, it's because probably that marketing, and it's the agents we want, like they feel us, they know us. By watching us and those that usually say, Hey, I knock on the door and want to potentially come over They're a fit and that helps weed out even learning Because I feel like the attraction's there for the people that we want but yeah the marketing that definitely helped me evolve to where I have today I mean if you think about the agent count, I think what we're at 65 agents We're in a market of a thousand agents guys, like you can't compare me to a Phoenix who has 20, 000 agents. Like, it doesn't sound like a lot of ages, but that's like six and a half percent of my market.

[00:21:16] Kara: And that's, I mean, there's other bigger fish don't get me wrong. And I'd love to be, somewhere someday, I don't know what my goal is or where I want to finish, but, that's not a lot to be selecting.

[00:21:26] Kara: So there is a lot of newbies I would call it that we bring on. Because I'm not sitting there, tapping on every body that I do business with every day to come over. I mean, hopefully that if they want to come over they like us, they see us, they're attracted to us. So it's just a little different when you put it in that.

[00:21:41] Nick: It's, it's so incredible. I mean, 65 agents out of a thousand is absolutely incredible and you're, growing. I think we talked a couple of weeks ago, it was at 60 now you're at 65. and you're inspiring people to get into the industry. Which is super important for everyone to listen, you need to be inspiring, motivating people to get in the industry.

[00:21:59] Nick: If you see talent, you need to tell them, especially in these local small marketplaces, imagine you saw Kara and you've seen Karen, she's seen her success and she's on video, she's selling a lot of homes and she sees you and see something in you and says, have you ever thought about being in real estate?

[00:22:15] Nick: And they're probably like, yeah, I have. Oh, well, I have a plan for you. I have a training plan. I have a marketing plan. you got to do

[00:22:22] Kara: plug in.

[00:22:24] Kara: Yeah, license a plug in.

[00:22:27] Nick: And what I often tell people to is when I'm talking to a new agent is you need to invest in yourself.

[00:22:32] Nick: So get your license, invest in yourself in the next talk. But I want to go back to the staffing. So let's build a team. What staff is required to build a team rich?

[00:22:40] Kara: I guess everybody's different and I put a lot of importance I mean, there is a point that when you're growing, you have to put some of your money into the business, obviously. To get to a certain point because there's the messy middle. I think everybody knows there's the messy middle.

[00:22:55] Kara: Like you do really well when you're small and really well when you get more agents and the messy middle is when it costs you some to really get to where you're going. And, I'm getting out of that, but there was a bad, messy middle. and it was because you needed support, or at least I did, especially because of what my expertise is versus others, that I just, I had to staff up and especially for what I wanted to give.

[00:23:18] Kara: So I guess it depends on what you want to give, So my staffing is, I mean, I have a huge marketing team. That's my choice. Not everybody would do that. But that's the core of what I'm all about. And so there is a big marketing group around us and to support agents. And then because I'm a brokerage, obviously you have to worry about the payroll, the HR, a little bit, all that has to go in there.

[00:23:38] Kara: Then it's a lot of the training, and then the TCs, listing coordinators. Like from a staffing perspective, I have more VAs. Then I do, I would say, people that are sitting right next to me here in the U. S. So, and a lot of that choice was, I think I did it like two or three years ago, maybe? And I failed miserably.

[00:23:56] Kara: We started three years ago, the VA route, failed miserably. It did not work. We had to wrap our heads, start over three times. I'm like, I know this can work. I've done it before. we really had to get systematized and that's the key. When you go to the VA is I feel like is you got to know what you want them to do.

[00:24:15] Kara: There has to be a system around them, accountability around them. Even to the point of being able to reach them, knowing what they're doing. And then about two years, it clicked. now there's 12 VAs supporting our group. And that's from marketing, transaction coordinator, listing coordinator, ISAs, helping us with recruiting, just the database.

[00:24:35] Kara: They're doing a lot. and they're wonderful. Like I actually plan to visit all of them. Hopefully this year,

[00:24:40] Nick: So is there a manager that oversees all of or are they in silos? Our combination, like assistance to people onshore,

[00:24:49] Kara: they're, they're all the more assistance to people on shore in sections. So marketing, it reports up through marketing. Now we do do a, biweekly call me and my director of ops with all of them. we're very involved with them, from that perspective, but I would say different sections have different people that they're working closer to in the U S for sure.

[00:25:07] Kara: But I would say there are some, I would say, had people that are helping train and all that, especially in the transaction coordinator, listing coordinator area, we do have some leads over there from that perspective. Like they train everybody up and everything,

[00:25:19] Nick: What project management software or tools are you using to help manage with the VAs?

[00:25:24] Kara: Clickups, everything.

[00:25:26] Nick: ClickUp. Okay. You mentioned that

[00:25:28] Kara: We designed a whole system around from start to finish. use Trello, it, failed on us as we grew, everything's, you start something, you have to tear it apart and burn it down. about a year ago, I finally got to the point, like we gotta do something to automate better.

[00:25:46] Kara: And we hired out to help design our ClickUp system. And so it's to the point of auditing, paying. Marketing, TC's listing, all, everything is in the system.

[00:25:57] Nick: Yeah, that's all project management, workflows, checklists, automations, and that's, I think it's fundamental when you have these offshore people, whether it's Dominican Republic, Philippines, Mexico, now Guatemala, South America is really huge. Now, working with Sunita Rizai, like he's like you, he's had 12, 20

[00:26:17] Nick: VAs and he uses Monday.

[00:26:19] Nick: He loves Monday,

[00:26:20] Nick: but so it same thing, it doesn't matter what it is and what it matters is you got to build it out. Right. and you gotta meet with your VAs. You got to manage them. how do they log on? How are they available? That's always the thing that I've seen people fall in.

[00:26:31] Nick: It's like, they're sleeping, they're sleeping in the Philippines. You can't get ahold of them when you need them.

[00:26:37] Kara: Um, so we, we used to do, and I know if you go to a lot of the VA companies, they'll have the monitoring system on. to make sure they're working and you can pop in and look at them anytime. We don't do that anymore. To be honest, we started with that. We trust our BAs. the way we do it is we have a marketing war room and we have a listing TC coordinating for room.

[00:26:57] Kara: So every day they're required to log in on a Google meet and everybody sits there like they're in the office. And so if I pop in and they're not there, And we all pop in like all the agents can pop in. Everybody knows these Google Meets. They're on their calendars daily so that if they need to jump in the war room and ask a question, they pop in and they get them all, in the different sections.

[00:27:20] Kara: I mean, we don't have marketing with, the listing coordinators or the transaction coordinators, but the sections all sit together. So marketing sits together and the listing transaction coordinator sit together and they even sit together with our U. S. base. So, it's not like it's just them, it's everybody.

[00:27:37] Kara: It's really the online office to some extent. And

[00:27:43] Kara: that is what it is. And so that's our way of really communicating. I mean, they can all text, we have all that set up. But if you need an instant answer and you want to make sure you can talk quickly, just jump in the War Room, Google Meet.

[00:27:55] Kara: And talk it works really well, honestly, it's simple so simple

[00:28:00] Nick: It's simple, but it's worth, it's worth highlighting. Like, okay, you have a Google meet is that Google meets must be a dedicated email, right? Like marketing at,

[00:28:10] Kara: I don't I think it's like an info at key associates. com connected to that gmail So Yeah.

[00:28:16] Nick: Yeah. And then it's free. You're already paying

[00:28:18] Kara: It's free. It's not yeah, it doesn't matter

[00:28:20] Nick: It's like walking into the office. All you gotta do is the, any agent can just click the link and join and start talking to somebody. And if you need something, boom, you're on it.

[00:28:29] Kara: we actually have some of the vas on different office hours let's say some work earlier, some work later, if, like, let's say you have a transaction coordinator that's not on yet, the other transaction coordinators have access and can help. So it's not, we do have dedicated transaction coordinators to people, but everybody's out there willing to help if they need to.

[00:28:47] Nick: and it's brilliant. It's brilliant. And it's scalable and you can add virtual assistants around the world based on the talent you could find. Right. Cause it's a virtual room. And so, and you can onboard them, they can train them. They can, Cross training over here, other things departmentally. it's a beautiful thing.

[00:29:05] Nick: I know at reside, we have a lot of VAs too in our financial department. I mean, we have like five, QuickBooks certified bookkeepers to help run all the books. We have marketing teams. I mean, it's this thing, right? And so as you scale, you figure those things out. So back to the team Ridge, I mean, what.

[00:29:24] Nick: I mean, how did you grow, you decided to grow six to 65. That's crazy. How did you do it? and is, the team Ridge, the model of the future?

[00:29:33] Kara: I guess it just depends on who you are and what you're after. I mean, there's different goals around all the models, to be honest with you. You know, is it time? Is it, money? Is it niche? There's so much, you can do so much around all these teams, depending on how you structure them. like I said, once I got the systems in, I did start the recruiting process, which is, what I learned a lot from John.

[00:29:54] Kara: And it was hard for me to be honest with you. That's probably one of the biggest challenges I had because I was a small brokerage in a small town trying to go into a big town and start evolving agents to join me and they're like, who are you and why would I work on a Santa Claus? Like, so I had to evolve from changing my name because my name was key associates of Santa Claus to signature reality.

[00:30:19] Kara: So we weren't, we're four offices now. I was so worried. We aren't identifiable by a town. Back in the day, it was always, that your town, that's not what we were anymore. So, I mean, he even got to the point I had to evolve with logos and websites and just changing The name and feel of who we were.

[00:30:35] Kara: And then from there really going into the towns and I'm like, how do I get these people to join me? And honestly, I had to start selling in a market that I didn't have any desire to go sell. And, just to be seen, I guess is what happened, in people to get to know me. And once I started that, I started getting people to join, then they saw what I had to offer and it was a no brainer.

[00:30:56] Kara: And then, it feeds from there. Yeah. you bring right people on and other people see and then the marketing and I'm still tapping. Don't worry. The calls are there, but in this, in the meantime, we're doing a lot of newbie recruiting too, which I think. I don't know how much locally my competition is after the new people as much as we are.

[00:31:15] Kara: I mean, we have dedicated systems around finding new people, from everything. And it's all very systematic and automatic and. They're getting hit by us left and right, those new people. So it's been a combination of probably 50 percent new and 50 percent people that just. Started to come on board and follow us.

[00:31:33] Nick: I always thought, you need a feeder system and a developmental process. I was like looking at, money ball, the movie, and there was a book, I think Michael Lewis wrote money ball About the athletic A's. And then I think Brad Pitt played Billy Bean, which is great. If you guys haven't seen that movie and it's like, how does the athletic A's compete against the Yankees?

[00:31:54] Nick: And I was the same thing. And when actually it was like, there's brokerages that are dominating and they have dominant agents,

[00:32:01] Nick: Relationships with builders and their husbands are builders they get all the relocation business from the hospitals. It's like, okay, that's a tough one to crack. I got to develop these people. they're like the Yankees and the Red Sox.

[00:32:15] Nick: and so I got to start finding new talent. And bringing them in and then beat them in the development game because got a little lazy. They're not in the development game. They're developed. it sounds like you've done the same

[00:32:26] Kara: yeah, it's exactly the same thing. I mean, I'm not saying they're not developing still, but I'm sure I'm a lot more aggressive on bringing new people on than they all are, just because. different

[00:32:37] Nick: but here, here's what I've heard from people, Nick, I don't know if you heard this, you're training your competition. Did you ever, fear that you're training up people that are just going to leave you?

[00:32:49] Kara: Well, there are people going to leave you and that's the nature of the beast of this business and you just have to bring more people into It sounds terrible, but you have to keep bringing people in for that reason. I mean it could also be people that just they retire or they have a family issue People are going to go up and down in this industry or exit it You just don't know and they can have a great year two years before that and then they're gone in three You you don't know what the future lies for agents with you or without you and where they go.

[00:33:16] Kara: And, honestly, if they leave me. I mean, I don't have bad relationships with anybody that leaves me. You never know if they will come back. And, I get it, especially people think things are greener on the other side when they haven't seen it. And so that's , probably the hardest part about bringing people on the first.

[00:33:31] Kara: The first person, because then they start wondering, is things green on either side? and you might lose them for that reason alone, because people talk and they give a lot of things about why join me, I'm great, and then they get over there and like, what the heck is this? And, so they may call you back and that, that's fine.

[00:33:48] Nick: They do come back. And sometimes, I think team leaders are scared that people are going to leave them. And maybe because they're fearful that they aren't better than the other teams and that was my thing was to, it's like, I was hoping I was better and I don't want them to fail.

[00:34:03] Nick: So then I, took the mindset of like, if they are going to leave, which they are eventually, maybe in town or out of town or out of the industry, will they take some talent, some skills, some knowledge that will help them in their life?

[00:34:17] Nick: And for me, That's a job. Well done. That was my purpose in life. Because like you, you went from corporate America and were able to translate those skills and knowledge and experiences into a successful career. How awesome is that? That you could probably train someone on sales and process and systems.

[00:34:33] Nick: And if they move to North Carolina and get a job at wherever

[00:34:38] Nick: they can apply it.

[00:34:39] Kara: Yeah. , there's nothing better than actually seeing someone succeed in the industry, to be honest with you. You're like, I helped that. Look at that. It gives you, I mean, it's excitement. And like I said, if you don't, keep them, I, it, it hurts. It always hurts. But, like I said, I've learned, it's just like anything when you client, when you're in real estate.

[00:34:59] Kara: You lose them to someone else. It's, the same thing. You just learn to how to roll with it, I guess, and move on. But, Honestly, our retention has been very good though. I think over the five years, don't think we've lost more than 15 people. And some of that's just going in referral or leaving the area.

[00:35:14] Kara: There's a few that.

[00:35:15] Nick: Wow.

[00:35:16] Kara: With to others, but not a lot.

[00:35:18] Nick: That's fantastic. Retention. And what do you got to look is that through line net over net gain. You're obviously gaining and growing. that's wrap this up in terms of leads, how does a team rich handle leads?

[00:35:33] Kara: that's probably my biggest challenge and what I need to work on the most.

[00:35:37] Nick: Everyone

[00:35:38] Kara: Hey, we all have something we're not great at and this is the one area that I probably need to improve on. So we do give leads, we basically operate it. It's not really, They can opt in take leads and there's different rules around taking leads.

[00:35:50] Kara: Where we fault and our goal all along when we started giving leads was I want to give leads to get people trained, used to it, comfortable enough that we can get them to fly on their own and get out of nest. my goal was not to feed people leads all the time. Like, that is not our goal.

[00:36:07] Kara: Where some teams that is. Environment. Our goal is to use it to train to get them going. Maybe during the ups and downs, we help, supplement. So, we're learning along that path and, who's eligible, who's not eligible. Back in the day, we let everybody do it. Maybe not the case now, especially as we're growing.

[00:36:24] Kara: We have more people. really managing the leads and the accountability around the leads is probably where we failed. If you ask me, if I go back and look at all the money I've spent on what I've delivered on leads to these agents, we probably haven't made the money I should have made on it.

[00:36:41] Kara: And I'm sure people all learned this lesson, right? And part of the problem there is probably because I wasn't a hardcore team leader. that wasn't my focus. My focus was around how do I. support these agents and get them growing. It wasn't about, oh, how much money can I make on these leads?

[00:36:57] Kara: That wasn't ever my focus. , my focus was always, how do I use the leads to get them going?

[00:37:02] Nick: you said something that was very, very brilliant. And I think you probably did make money on your leads because you've used leads as a way for them to train.

[00:37:11] Kara: correct.

[00:37:11] Nick: So it's not just closing the commit. If you look at the ROI, okay, they've made a sale, made the company for

[00:37:17] Kara: I long term ROAs been there because then they start doing it on their own and that's less money out of my pocket to feed.

[00:37:23] Nick: and it tied into your retention because there is a correlation between did you make a sale in your first 90 days? Did you make a sale in your first 180? Because if you take a new agent, if they don't make money for 180 days, I'm sorry, you're not keeping them.

[00:37:37] Kara: I mean, honestly, those 15, I would say 10 of them didn't make the effort or, they went into referral or they don't like it, you know, how that goes. I mean, not everybody's going to love the world real estate. So,

[00:37:47] Nick: a lead is a way to, allow that agent to make some money and survive. So you can continue to develop them,

[00:37:54] Kara: Cause otherwise they are going to be out and you're wasting all your money. They're just trying to get them going.

[00:37:58] Nick: cause then you're looking at the lifetime value of your team member or agent at your brokerage. And you have some people that are going on that have probably made you 10, 20, 30, 000 a year for year after year after year. Now on the, lead side, it's interesting as team reaches as I'm talking to broker owners, Broker owners are creating lead teams or teams within the brokerage because when you deliver a lead, you can get, there's better margins.

[00:38:21] Kara: Yeah, it's different. If you take leads, it's different.

[00:38:23] Nick: it has to, so they have to opt into that agreement.

[00:38:26] Kara: Yeah, they don't want that. They don't have to do it.

[00:38:29] Nick: So you don't force, this is the mistake people made. And I heard you say that you used to give it to everybody and force it upon everybody,

[00:38:35] Kara: force it. I just let everybody take them. Now I'm, as people grow, there is a point you got to cut them off. Like

[00:38:41] Nick: get them to the people that want them.

[00:38:43] Kara: we need to get to the people to grow. That's where I'm going. When you have someone doing nothing and someone doing 7 million, you need to give to the one doing nothing.

[00:38:50] Kara: that's more where I'm learning. Not that we'll ever take it away from existing people, but as new people come in, you know, grandfather, move on. That's adaptability. You got to do that a lot as this industry maneuvers and changes.

[00:39:05] Nick: Do you have someone looking at the database, these leads,

[00:39:09] Kara: Yeah, we do. we have one ISA that really, we call it more client care now. We used to do it more. We've done so many different ways with these leads guys. I mean, I'm sure everybody's like me, you just change it up every year trying to figure out what makes sense. But we've gone to more of the, pool.

[00:39:24] Kara: and letting everything just go in there except Zillow cause Zillow calls you up. You can't do it there,

[00:39:28] Kara: but you got to answer him. But the rest, I'll go into a pool of people. Just, we let all the newbies go in and call away, so the aggressive new people are going to get it all. And like the other day I was even showing a house and they were calling one of my people I was showing.

[00:39:42] Kara: I'm like, I said, I love that.

[00:39:44] Nick: Yeah. Right.

[00:39:45] Kara: Doing your job.

[00:39:48] Nick: I absolutely love that. So they were calling somebody you were showing for.

[00:39:52] Kara: It was one of my people. And they're like, who is this person? And they called me today and they were in the pond.

[00:39:56] Nick: that's an important thing that I think some team leaders, make a mistake on. they develop systems on lead rotations and lead assignments so that the wires don't get crossed. People don't step on each other's toes. they're so worried about having a conflict over whose client it is.

[00:40:13] Nick: A lead conflict that they create these systems that ruin their conversion rates. I want the client to get a call from four different people.

[00:40:22] Kara: Oh, I was happy. I giggled when he told me that I said, Oh, that's great. I love that.

[00:40:27] Nick: Yeah. If I get, I've had complaints where the person calls me and it goes, Nick, I got to let you know, as an owner, I signed up on your website and four different people have called me.

[00:40:36] Nick: I am so upset. I'm like, Oh, that's, I'm thinking in the back of my head, this awesome, because most teams don't call the leads and I got like too many calls. Great. And I said, I'm so sorry about that. , we just have standards to call and I'm going to look into it. And when you work for us or when you hire us, you can expect the same level of proactive approach and selling your home or finding you the best deal.

[00:41:02] Nick: And then they go, Oh, okay. That makes sense. Okay. I feel better now.

[00:41:06] Kara: we're maneuvering right now. We're like, now it's more, our ISA is more client care, and watching the database on what everybody's doing, or if they're not in there, then we'll know that too. So like I said, I'm not saying we got that nailed down at all. We're learning and evolving there every,

[00:41:21] Kara: every

[00:41:22] Kara: every day.

[00:41:23] Kara: Yeah,

[00:41:24] Nick: see, this is what I love. And we can end on this is this is a common trait for a high achiever and like care is high achieving, right? She sells 550 homes a year, right? She's growing 65 agents and she's like, Oh, we got a lot of room to grow. Like so humble, so humble. I know there's a fire in your belly.

[00:41:44] Nick: I know you're tenacious. Yes. And I know you're type a, but you have to have this, like, do you find fault in what you're doing? You find mistakes and so you can improve them.

[00:41:53] Kara: Oh yeah. I mean, I know I'm not perfect for sure. And honestly, part of what's important in real estate is, that continuous learning, adaptability and coaching? I mean, I'll tell you right now, if I didn't probably do all that, and I don't know how many, Coaches and coaching platforms that I listened to or signed up for or everybody has things they can offer and they're all a little different which is interesting just everybody has a different expertise and what they can teach you but Don't reinvent the wheel completely because there's so much expertise out there in this world that you can learn quicker and faster By hooking on to someone that's already done it.

[00:42:29] Kara: I definitely did that five years ago. Probably helped me from where I am today, to be honest with you. If I were to just did all this on my own, I mean, I'm sure I would have got there, but I don't know that I would got as fast as I did for sure.

[00:42:41] Nick: if you're around Indiana, if you're around Louisville, Kentucky, and you want to latch on to a leader, a mentor, Someone's going to develop you. , you need to find Karen. Number one, number two, if you've got referrals, definitely. And if you're a team leader, you need to follow her because she does amazing marketing.

[00:42:57] Nick: It's a pleasure working with you and your team.

[00:42:59] Kara: thank you. you. too.

[00:43:00] Nick: Thank you for being on the reside platform. If you guys like this episode, share it, like it, comment, download the other episodes. And we got a lot more coming and. If you're looking to build a team, you build a brokerage. We're looking to help you grow.

[00:43:15] Nick: So look to the reside platform. com to learn more information. Cara, thank you so much for being on the show.