Entrepreneur Files with Andrew Ellenberg
Entrepreneur Files with Andrew Ellenberg
How Martin Taggart Flips The Traditional Real Estate Model On Its Head
His co-founder, partner, and wife Suzie Taggart is a brilliant operator, he is a seasoned dealmaker, and they both woke up one day with the same epiphany. They wanted a larger piece of the pie. That's when the real estate business got really interesting.
Andrew Ellenberg is President & Managing Partner Of Rise Integrated, an innovative studio that creates, produces, and distributes original multimedia content across digital touchpoints. Email andrewe@riseintegrated.com or call 816-506-1257.
entrepreneur files, inspiration inside. These are their stories. We're back in the studio with another thought provoking episode of entrepreneur files. When business owners discovered new meaning in their businesses, they feel more connected to people around them. Executive producer Andrew Ellenberg created this fast paced 30 minute podcast to inspire business owners creating deeper perspectives into their personal and professional motivations. Join the conversation with other entrepreneurs who give you the energy you need to power through the daily grind of owning a business. All right, I've been looking forward to this we're here with Martin Tagore, Chief Executive of Team real estate broker by exp Realty, the largest publicly traded real estate company in the world. And here we go. Let's roll. Let's talk about this story. Yours. Oh, my goodness. Well, I guess I guess I should clarify first partner, co founder with my lovely wife Susie. I didn't say that I bought a pallet. I didn't mean to demote it. What was it doing before real estate so worked for a very large tech company for 1718 years, and through the process of that had a lot of responsibility for marketing and sales really enjoyed the marketing and sales. Part of the world. We were moving data before the internet. So TCP IP, all that kind of stuff that happened to our phone lines. That's nerdy and boring. Then Then I was actually going through some life changes and I wanted to be involved with a business where I knew that my ability to market myself and deliver excellence for clients would would be the driving factors that wouldn't I would no longer be waiting for somebody else to drum something up for me. And I also when it came to real estate, my dad was a contractor I've got cousin two cousins that built homes. I've got one that is a an architect, so I kind of have a love for that kind of stuff. And we've worked on our own. So I grew up as a kid in a really small home. Okay. It had a living room, a kitchen and a dining room and a bathroom. We added bedrooms, we added a master suite. So I grew up doing all that stuff. And then when it kind of came time in life to sort of make a pivot and move away from what I'd done was worked for a company. Then it was like you know what, I could do this. So, real estate. Yeah, I heard a rumor. That's a really good business. Well, I think, you know, our market is going through a massive shift right now. Okay. And I think the benefit for that is that people who work hard and are client focused, are going to are going to prosper like crazy folks that have been mailed in and writing the highest offers available to simply get their client into a home. They're probably going to do something else, so that's good too. There you go. fit into the herd survival of the first thing of the day when you say that leadership is a choice, and then it takes courage. What would be your best advice for someone looking to take the next step in their life to become a leader? Okay, so so loaded question right. I think we all need a little bit in in lots of roles we play in life with fathers moms Scout true, folks, that folks that follow your path in church, whatever your thing is, I do think that there's a couple hallmarks of great leaders and stuff that I aspire towards. The first one is going to be the servant side of leadership. So you have to realize right up front, that you're not there to serve you. You're there to serve a couple of different groups of clientele. The people that actually buy your product and service and then the people that you lead, and those people have to have a sense that you're in it for them. And it's not you. You cannot fake that. Maybe years past you have the opportunity touch points now. We watch you on social media, they can see you if I'm out singing with a band or I'm singing to juries, bait shop, my folks who work with me can see me do that. So that would be one sort of leadership. The second thing I think you have to remember is on the leadership side of the world, is you have to have a strong sense of empathy. For what your folks are going through. It's it's it's one thing to tell somebody man, I feel really sorry for you. It's another thing to tell somebody, you know what, what you're going through, I've gone through or somebody else's gone through. Let's kind of hitch up our boots and go through it together. And that's the difference between empathy and sympathy. I don't I don't I you're dealing with adults, and some adults are taller than others. I'm just saying like emotional intelligence, right? Sure. So my kids when they were little, we would talk about the fact that some adults are taller than others and it had enough to do with physical height. And now it's it's it's interesting to hear their perspective on that. But that that sense of empathy coupled with emotional intelligence and a servant first leadership style. Those are the folks that I look up to, and I think, Man, those are those are people that I really want to emulate in my walk. Love it. Was there a pivotal moment in your life? When you made the decision to strike out on your own? You just said, I gotta get out of here. I gotta do my own thing. Yeah. So I was working for a small tech company in Lenexa, you know? You are. And then it was, it was it was with a market set that had about 6500 clients nationwide. And I was traveling a lot, and by that, I mean, it was not unusual for me to be swinging in on Friday afternoon, dropping my clothes off at the dry cleaners, picking them up on Saturday and flying out on Sunday night. The moment for me when I realized I kind of hit the bottom of all that is here. We're having a successful year. making lots of money, great bonuses, great tech development. Just a fun environment and really good people, fundamentally good people. The the issue that you ran into, though constantly was that there was no way for us to get ahead of the market in any way. We had to be in reactive mode because that was the type and style of that solution that was developed. I didn't want to do that anymore. I wanted to be in a situation where I can be ahead of the curve. It sounds funny when you're talking about real estate, but real estate really is nothing more we've got we've got bread on shelves, okay, and we're trying to figure out the way to deliver bread on shelves and the ongoing consistent challenge of figuring out who's going to buy this bread on the consumer side and then the people who make the bread the home sellers you're you're constantly communicating with them. The the fun and the challenge of it was what inspired me to make that pivot great analogy. Thanks. Yeah. So how did you come up with the name of your business, and why was it meaningful? So we saw Susie's gonna hear this, Susie and I saw a lot of people in our industry who wanted to be rock stars, and these are the same people that put their faces on everything. And we saw the market shift seven or eight years ago away from the Rockstar realtor to the Rockstar client. And so we made a conscious effort to not put our names on the business it's not about team Martin or team Susie or team Taggart. It truly is teen real estate. And from that, we had a vision of how the culture would be different. So so we all this need, I'd love to tell you that we had this might you know this big thing and there's this map we followed. But I think for most of us, in our as entrepreneurs, we have an idea too. We know they're right. We know they're right. Like they resonate with us. And then we make changes and we make changes and to make changes we make changes and you're constantly upgrading updating getting rid of stuff. But team came about because we knew that clients needed to be the number one focus in that business. It doesn't mean that agents aren't important. You can serve my clients, but agents clients had to come first the the, the totality of the processes that we developed the model that we developed, had to be pointed at buyers and sellers investors. And I know that's not super popular because there are other brokers out there that go with agents first. But if you're a consumer, and you're thinking about buying or selling a home, you really going to work with somebody whose company motto is you're not number one, it's the people making the commission that our number seems kind of it seems really short sighted and also, it's kind of denigrating to the consumer. These people end up being our friends and a lot of places. We go to karaoke, we're out having, having cocktails, we're doing our pie giveaway in the fall. These are people that hate our last pipe like it we had a client swinging cocktails, like he pulls up in his truck, and he says I brought something for you guys to do while you're out. You're freezing your backsides off delivering ice. And we can't do that because I just did with adult beverages in them Why wouldn't they be first? Of course they'd be first. So I like it. So how does your culture support that? And how do you how do you get your people engaged in embracing and extending? So we skipped over the appetizer and dove right into the steak here. All right. So yeah, so So the culture, the culture is pretty simple. It's not it's easy to enact, I think, because it starts at the hiring process, but I'll give an example. So one of our agents Scott was out getting his knee replaced. And you know, that's pretty traumatic surgery while he was out. Four of us in the office showed homes for his clients. And he ended up writing an offer and getting accepted without having met those clients to show these homes. The same things happen for me so we do these things amongst one another. It's not it's not a hey, we suggest that you cooperate with people. It's, hey, this is how it works. The clients first if they want to see a home, we're gonna go do this last evening and whenever somebody listens to this last evening. Last evening, Susie showed homes for an agent who is outside of outside of the metro, and this is the second or third time that she's shown homes for that agent for this client. Clients get to know more than one of us. And again, when you're surrounding a client with really good people running really great processes and the intent is that the client's needs are met first. It's super easy to have that culture be self perpetuating. The question you didn't ask which is kind of like, float around for somebody is if you're gonna do this, how do you keep the people who aren't culture warriors out there right. So so you so you know who you are. Because if you're listening to this, and you're saying, man, it's got to come first well and you're not my speed and you're not my client speed either. And that's totally cool. Like I I want you to be successful in whatever you do. But it starts with the hiring process. It starts with the what ifs and asking people to demonstrate for you or explain to you how they demonstrate the client first in the past. It happens when somebody is on vacation, and you post in a Slack channel. That's our communication tool you post out there. Hey Andrew, nice to see a home who could help Andrew see a home in a Mission Hills tonight at six o'clock, and you have five or six people respond, say hands up, I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. That type of culture is doubly reinforced me of client events. And it's up and they're saying hi to more than one of you. Excellent. So yeah, that's we that's a great example. How is your original concept of the business evolved over time, man? Okay, so the original concept was Susie and I selling a whole bunch of homes with a small support team behind us and we added a couple of people. And the thought was everybody's working with buyers every is working with sellers and we have this small tech team behind us and small transaction coordination team that can process paperwork. We did that because I am awful. At paperwork. And I am and my wife is was smart enough to say you're really good at the client facing side of things. So let's get to some resources that are going to enable you to be successful in that environment. Things wound up we realized that as they wound up and went forward, we realized other people that were good at the client side had the same weaknesses. So we hire to prevent the weaknesses from impacting the client experience. The second thing that really evolved away from that original mindset was Susan I realizing that there were a lot of people that we knew that were in this industry that wanted to be successful. But they didn't have a track to run. They didn't have the tools to use if they were shown the track and they weren't in a culture in which they could become a product to the process. And that's where I'm really grateful that Suzy has a mindset towards process that I don't necessarily share. So she she chose a part of this business that she is super good with and then learned to enjoy the client side. Okay, I love the client side and learn to be open to adding the process stuff to make my life easier for clients life's easier. So she's your operations chief partner, wife, she's a lot of things she wears all the hats not not just head of operations she Susie's very accomplished in her own right so she she coaches our real estate team on operations and deliverables. And then the other thing is she also does a fantastic job coaching other real estate team so she coaches right now are total of nine teams across the country. So now wow. So I understand that you recently made a big move to exp Realty. And I'm very interested in sharing with our listeners. The strategic thinking behind it, and your most significant source of optimism about your future there. So it started with Susan I investigating the options of being able to deliver an ownership style experience to everybody that was on the team and we ran into some roadblocks. The people at the Security Exchange Commission, they definitely have some some thoughts on on doing profit sharing those kinds of things as a single as a single entity. So that was part of it. The other part of it was when we looked for options, what hit us about exp where was the the ability for our agents to own stock in a publicly traded organization, they could share in the proceeds through revenue sharing. There's a significant amount of training materials that are available to their boss. And then fourth and finally the biggest issue was a collaborative collaborative environment. So we could walk into a situation where we could literally call people on the phone, who sold 500 600 700,000 units a year with a team and we could say what's working for you, and what's not working for you. So I could avoid a lot of my own developmental issues, the things that I would bring to myself or my lack of knowledge, I could avoid that and vault over it simply by working with these people. And I gotta tell you what, it's been a fantastic ride with those folks. I'm looking forward to many, many years ahead of us. And that is the source of my optimism. I think more and more people don't want to simply have a brand they play within. They want a culture that backs the brand. When we're on our passport group on Monday, you might have 102 or 53 or 50 people on there, asking agent level questions, team level questions as well about how to make their business prosper and you're getting the straight stuff is not filtered. It's not in any way. It's not in any way. Well, if you weren't in my market, I would share this with you that was what I experienced at a different brokerage. If you weren't in my market, I would tell you what this looks like but we're competitors in the EXP world because we're publicly traded and because we have revenue sharing, it wouldn't matter to me if you and I and our engineer were on the same market. He would share what works because it makes us money collectively together. We have a shared mission and a shared sense of purpose that other brokerages can't replicate that and so as the water rises, so too all the chips are real and how does that work? If you have an opportunity in another market, what do you do next? Well, so So you kind of have two options right? Within the EXP world I can I could if I want to start a team in that market. So as an example, we've got people that are are working with us in San Diego and other markets as well. Or I could I could have them join somebody else's team and still work with them on the coaching and training and things like that, that I know work. There's lots of different options or there are single agents or teams that we work with that say I've already got a going business saying Coral Gables. So I want you guys to be involved with me. I appreciate you guys your mentorship we work together but but you know what, I'm good here. And we can plug them into all the deliverables that are available in exp too. And I know I sound like a little bit of a commercial, but I did have stays at two other international organizations, companies within our industry. And so I think I have a pretty good background in terms of the differences. Fascinating. Wow. That's really impressive. So you guys are really strong and remote working the new way of working and you have a really powerful platform in the metaverse Am I right about that. Yeah, so So in here's the here's just Yes. So exp was the first digitally digital digitally diverse digitally deliverable brokerage experience. All the tools are out there for almost everybody else. They just didn't combine them all under one package. I think now the rest of the world is caught up with us a little bit in that regard. And what's still kind of strange I can agents who work all over the metro. But they still want to clubhouse, right. They still want to show up. And you know, we want to get around at one table. We want to throw some ideas around the winter, have a cocktail on Friday night and go to those kind of things. So even with all the diversity and you mentioned the metaverse, which is where exp is training, training and client service and those kind of things are available get super cool. And there are some people who love that diverse experience. They dig it, right so they jump online and they've got their they've got their icon and you know, like the gray haired dude that walks around and this is digital image and those kinds of things. It does feel like that's an advancement in the technology there is and then there's people like me who kind of go well, that's cool. But if I really want to learn something, I want to pick up a phone call somebody or do a zoom. I want to I want to be immersed in the experience of the learning side and I get a lot of that through the nonverbal so I have that available for me in the metaverse but it's probably not. Now I have other agents that work with me that are they prefer that. So excellent. So that I have heard for years that you are one of the top marketers in real estate, at least in this market. Probably regionally. What what are you doing differently than everyone else that's getting all this attention. So so what I would tell you is there's lots of go to marketing your team that go to Marketing, you're the go to marketing, the opportunities that you have, and so forth. So there's two things that come to mind when you ask the question. The first one is, I think you have to tell an authentic story. I know what my origin in this business is. I know where I come from a talking to folks about it. And I'm also Kay integrating their stories as well with mine and building that sense of shared community. If you want to pick something specific like with a with a listing package or something like that. We still have a a large unfortunately the majority of people in my industry are trying to figure out how to do more with less money. Instead of trying to figure out how do I resources that I have and deliver the very best outcome for my clients. So when you take a listing, you might be looking at drone photos, drone videos, a black and white line drawing outline or floorplan of a home duty photos, you got 3d walkthroughs 3d automated walkthroughs you got all this stuff. And the issue is you also have to combine that with a compelling narrative. Now, again, this is where agents have just found it to be so easy during the times of traits which are now changing, which is a good thing. I think people gotta go back to work now. But But I think again, when it comes down to the marketing side of things is your telling authentic story about you and about your team and about who you want to identify with. You're gathering your tribe by telling people who you are, and by listening to their responses and incorporating all that together. I think that would have difficulty doing this. Are they think they can appeal to everybody? And I know we can't. You're not going to appeal to everybody. When it comes to sellers you want to appeal to just those people that have the capacity to purchase that home and have a desire interest in it. So when it comes to agents who want to join the team, I'm looking for people interviewed lots of folks and I'm looking for people who have a specific issue that we can address. Maybe it's the way they market themselves or they want a better lead flow consistently flow they want to see RPM that's consistent. They want processes that work when they're sleeping. And there's lots of people who say I don't want that or they want the old style right and want to be there. Well, you can you just work together but you'll be Roxanne Hey, Bob, and that's cool too. Right? Maybe you're a rock star thing works. That's cool. Absolutely. So I know that you're building a reputation as a publisher now, why are you in the media business? Because my friend Andrew forced me to me. No. So I think on the publisher end of it, people feedback in the long run relevant content in the digital world. You hear that over and over again, relevant content. What that means is they want a story that they can if you think about stories that you heard as a kid that you could resonate with, whether it's Hansel and Gretel or Pinocchio, whatever your thing is. And today for today's folks that are much younger than me that are going to think about influencers in social media and listen to their stories and want to be a part of their stories. At the end of the day, what the publishing thing was, is really about building a set of stories that people are into so if we're talking about vacation homes or Airbnb, or how to purchase one, well, there's a story right that's behind them because I own a couple of them. I can talk about that or I can interview other people who do the same things. For buyers and sellers. They all go through the same types of trials and tribulations. And if you have just one shred of empathy about that you can build those into a compelling a compelling offering that enables people to say, hey, guess what Andrew seems like the kind of guy I can work with because I'm listening to the stories he tells I'm reading the stories I can buy often. Andrew is a system where people have a big advantage over you and me because we actually believed in brands like Sears and wall that Walmart was around at Sears, Kmart and GM like we bought stuff for brands. We used to call a photocopier, Xerox, right, that generic, it was generic because Xerox generically meant photocopier. Now, like I look at our engineers sitting across from us, she's of an age group, where she's going to look at things and say, What are the five star reviews? And in some of those five stars, I know where lies because nobody gives a straight five. What about the 4.8 4.6? I'm going to pay attention to those. I'm also going to take a look at when people leave comments about somebody or their service level. Younger people have a little bit more discernment than we do because they're not just looking for a thumbs up or thumbs down. They're looking for why the thumbs up and why the thumbs down. We didn't grow up with phones. We grew up with cell phones anyway. We didn't grow up with the tech that gave us all the feedback. So their group is actually has a better handle on all that than our age group does. That's true. They also very much attracted to brands that are socially conscious that are good corporate citizens and purpose driven. So how would you how are you how are you addressing that? Need to be a part of something bigger than just selling real estate? So you could you can we call this commission breath on my team, right? So if you're interested in selling stuff, like this could be a really cool thing, right? You sell stuff you make money, sell stuff. Now, if you're interested in developing a tribe of people who are super positive about what you do, and really want to talk to their friends about you and their family about you, that's a different it's a different mindset starts with your mindset, but it's also this is from everything and how you communicate with people to how fast you deliver feedback. And is your languaging that you're using, really a part of your relationship with this person. Or this is just a script that you've been taught you just name a script which I Yeah, so the getting back to what you originally asked, it really comes down to having that mindset of client first and having that client outcome, front of mind. So I understand that you're actually up to something in terms of helping the community and cause marketing, it's fair to say, but you've got your team fully engaged. How did you pull that off? So we started with something simple, and that was to run a canned drive alongside every open house and we let our sellers know that it's not just an effort to sell their home, or an effort to draw people in to buy their home. It's also an effort to engage the community in a way that's meaningful. So, two or three days beforehand, we walk to all the neighbors we pass out flyers as well as paper bags, and we let them know that the open house might take place say let's
