You Can't Afford Me
You Can't Afford Me
The Art of the Deal in the Digital Age: Property Insights from Mark Joyner
What could possibly tie together AI, altruism, and the art of staying current in the ever-evolving real estate landscape? It's the entrepreneurial spirit and tech savviness that Mark Joyner brings to the table. Growing up with an entrepreneur for a father, Mark shares stories that underscore the profound impact of tech advancements and the lessons learned from a family business. His leap into teaching and volunteering within the industry reveals how sharing knowledge can be a powerful tool for growth, fostering not just a sense of community but also paving the way for unforeseen opportunities.
Have you ever been gripped by the conundrum of managing your time like a pro while leading a bustling group of 38 agents? Mark walks us through the trenches of work-life balance in leadership, illuminating the importance of 'me time' and the art of prioritizing crucial events over mundane tasks. As a bonus, get the scoop on how he cultivates his social media presence to connect with and inspire his audience. So tune in, and let's navigate the real estate waters with Mark Joyner, a beacon of wisdom who's no stranger to the dance of career and personal fulfillment—sans the TikTok moves!
www.themrpreneur.com
Are you an aspiring entrepreneur? Are one-on-one coaching Taylor's strategies to your unique business goals. Dive into interactive workshops fostering skills essential for success. Looking for an inspirational speaker for your next event? Book Mr Pernumer to elevate your gathering. Visit wwwdmrpnurcom to learn more and embark on your path to entrepreneurial success. Mr Pernumer, empowering your entrepreneurial spirit. Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the you Can't Afford Me podcast. I want to say I have real estate royalty in the building today. Yeah, you hear him chuckling.
Mark :Come on man.
Sam:Come on, today we have Mark, president of Napier ERA. Mark, how you doing today, buddy?
Mark :I'm doing great, Sam. Thanks for having me in here. I look forward to it. You and I have had some good chance before, but this is the first big official.
Sam:For sure. The world needs to hear what we're talking about, man. I like it. So first tell everybody who you are and what you do.
Mark :All right, as Sam said, my name is Mark Mark Joyner. I know it's a little confusing. I'm president principal broker of Napier ERA. Even though my name is Joyner, I'm in real estate, so people get that confused sometimes. But yeah, president principal broker over at Napier been at Napier 25 years. I've been in real estate here in the Richmond Central Virginia area for 33.
Sam:Nice, nice. So talk to me first about what did you do prior to real estate, like what led you into this field.
Mark :I'm a little bit of an odd duck in real estate in that there, if you ask 10 realtors, maybe one or two of them are going to tell you they went to college, got out of college and got in real estate. I'm one of those. I'm one of those too. I went to James in Madison and I had no intentions of being in real estate. My dad was a. I call myself an SOB twice over because my dad was a builder and a broker. So I'm a son of a builder and son of a broker.
Mark :So I had real estate my whole life, had building my whole life and I mean I enjoyed it. It wasn't like I didn't enjoy it, but I wanted to do something different. So I go to JMU, I jump into finance. I'm going to be a big financier. You know, work downtown, wear a suit every day, get in the high rise building, pay for my parking underneath the building, all that good stuff. I went down and interviewed a couple of the big banks down there and I kind of realized that that wasn't for me. And I'm still at JMU. And just so happened they had a real estate concentration as part of the finance major. So I jump into the real estate concentration, trying to improve my GPA from freshman year and thinking it'd be easy. And sure enough it was. It was very easy to Easy to you, easy to you, yeah okay, fair enough, fair enough.
Mark :A good comment, easy for me, because I felt like I'd been around in my whole life, so a lot of it was like I'm not going to say common knowledge, but I had seen it, heard it, done it. Yep, you lived it, I lived it and jumped right through it. So I get out of JMU. I got licensed my junior year of JMU so I was licensed a licensed salesperson in Virginia to sell real estate. My entire senior year was too busy trying to graduate, didn't do any sales, but jumped out of JMU.
Sam:Well, hold on. That's quite an accomplishment You're a licensed real estate agent. Your senior year of college.
Mark :Correct. Yeah, I wish I'd done a sale man.
Sam:It's been so cool to go up on campus with a wad full of cash.
Mark :Yep Didn't do it, though.
Sam:Like the cases of Beast Light, are on me, guys, all the global beer Gobal beer you can drink, yeah, yeah.
Mark :So I graduated from JMU, maybe took a week to myself, went to. I forget where I went Nagset or somewhere close by. I came back and just jumped into real estate sales at 21, 22 years old.
Sam:You just said something right there. Why did you take a week before you jumped into it?
Mark :That's a good question. I felt like I had been on kind of a treadmill just trying to, you know, get out of college. Get out of college straight. Yep, like I say, I was working hard the last few years to improve my GPA which I did, thank goodness and I just needed like a little reset. You know, I needed a little. I knew I needed a little reset. I couldn't just jump, you know, graduate college on Wednesday or Thursday, whatever it was, and then, you know, start working Monday. Yep, I just wanted to go read a book, listen to the ocean, do nothing, no classes, no homework, no exams, no work, no pressure, no, nothing. And I've tried to we'll talk about that later but I've tried to follow through with that, that theory or that theme, throughout my entire business career.
Sam:Yeah, I was just about to say that, like that's a point that a lot of people need to take, where I know myself I'm guilty of this, where I'm just running nonstop and it's like sometimes you just have to take a moment and just breathe, no doubt, like just let it soak in, like today, as I was running around the office, I'm like you know what? I just need to go outside and take a walk and like clear my head for a second.
Mark :Good for you.
Sam:I've done a lot of things that I'm thinking through and it's like you don't have to take a week. But even if it's like taking 15 minutes to clear your head and just stop, like realizing, hey, things aren't on fire, you're good, let's take a minute, regroup, get our head together and let's jump back into it.
Mark :Yeah, I didn't know how important it was years ago.
Mark :A few years ago, not like 10 years ago, but a number of years ago one of my mentors, brian Bofini, told a story about the rest run process and he used the.
Mark :You know, if you're familiar with it, I really wasn't until he talked about it, the I did a ride race, that crazy dog race like across Alaska. I mean it's the most insane thing. So they run these dogs for days and it's you know, thousands of miles on dog sled, right, and this guy set the record and because he like never slept and never really ate and, you know, burned his dogs up and had all this heavy carb stuff just to keep his dogs running, I don't know he lost a number of them during the race, but his whole thing was kind of like you were just talking about it Press, press, press, press, press, press, go, go, go, go go and I'm gonna set the record, yep, and that stood for a long time. And then all of a sudden, this guy shows up out of nowhere years later I mean years later and just blows the record out of the water and his dogs weren't like you know, didn't look like Hulk Hogan you know 12 Hulk.
Mark :Hogan standing there or whatever. There's normal dogs, normal dude, a normal pack that he jumped on the sled and took off. Well, real long story short, how he reset the record by a lot was he rested as much as they ran, because when they ran they were running a lot faster. So Brian's whole thing is that reset keeps you more focused, keeps you working better, keeps you sharper when you're on, but you gotta be able to turn yourself off every now and then.
Sam:Yeah, oh man, that's such a good point. That's a lesson that, as entrepreneurs, we all need to take heed of, because you will burn yourself out. I don't care how much you love doing what you do, if you don't take those moments for the mental health, your physical health, like just to get yourself in check, you can't run this race long. So something like that man, that's a powerful story. I'm not to read that that pull story on.
Mark :Yeah, it's good stuff.
Sam:So go straight into real estate. Talk to me about it then. What was it like your first year in business? Let me ask you this let me preference it with this A lot. Obviously we do a lot of work with realtors. I've found that a lot of real estate agents don't treat their business like a business. They treat it as a straight commission check. They get paid, they put it in their family's joint account, they keep it rolling, and then January rolls around the next year and they're like holy crap, over 60 grand in taxes, like I can't afford to do anything now. When you first got started, how did you treat it? Did you treat it like a business or did you really just treat it as a job?
Mark :Business and I was fortunate because I'd just come out of business school and I had already had all of my real estate licensing classes. Like I told you, I went ahead and got that, but in addition to that I'd already had all of my broker classes as well. So all the broker management, business management, financial management, office management, people management I'd already had all that. So I'm probably on business overload right and watching my dad grow up my entire life as an entrepreneur in his businesses. I grew up with it too, so I had that bug a bit and when I started I knew I had to differentiate myself because I knew I was gonna be a 20-something year old sitting in front of 40 and 50 year olds talking about their real estate transaction at 20-something year old, eight years old, and I knew if I was competing against another realtor they're probably gonna be in that person's age bracket not mine.
Mark :So I was like what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Well, damn if I didn't get my laptop out, my 1990s Toshiba blue screen, white text laptop.
Sam:Oh man, you're rolling now Rolling man, I was big town.
Mark :And cost me probably three grand back then.
Sam:It's crazy how much computers were back then.
Mark :But the MLS had just gone. Believe it or not, this is how old I am. The MLS had just gone live data and was overlapped with the old MLS book, which was a big two-inch thick news print black and white book and that's how realtors used to sell real estate, wow. So I would show up and maybe they have some copies of the book that the other previous agents gave them. I said, oh see y'all. Y'all seen some stuff out of the book.
Sam:Let me show you my fancy computer here.
Mark :I was like yeah, they didn't fill in the book in bad. I mean, the sold info is six months old and even the freshest info is at least a week, if not two weeks old. Let me show you what happened today and I'd say this is what came on the market today. This is what went under contract. Today I'm a little different. I think current information is super important and I plugged into what happened today, yesterday and the day before not two weeks and six months ago and that got me through my first year. I mean, I didn't set the world on fire but made plenty of money, put some money in the bank, I was able to pay my bills and I knew I needed some help in running my business. So I got some software back in the day and I didn't use all the software. It's a humongous piece of software called Top Producer way back then, and back then you could buy actually buy the disks and then load all those disks on your computer and then the software lived on your computer.
Mark :I did all that, but I used enough of the software to where I could run the business, manage my business and, like you say, treat it like a business.
Sam:That you made a good point that I don't even think you realized. Is that cause? Like when I started my career, I was in the mental health space and for me it wasn't technology, it was the way I dressed. I was like coming in as a 22, 23 year old, like these people aren't gonna take me seriously. I gotta look the part and you ultimately did the same thing, but like the bar you just dropped there is looking ahead and how that can accelerate your career. So in today's world, I look at like AI I'm preaching everybody. No, I stop. Like, figure out a way to utilize AI and whatever business it is that you're in, because that's gonna give you a jump on what your competitors are doing. A lot of them are like ah, this AI thing's a fad, it's not gonna. I'm telling you it's not going anywhere. But figuring out how you can integrate that into your business and that's one way that you can differentiate yourself from everybody else that's out there in the field.
Mark :Man I like it.
Sam:You also said something else growing up with a father who was an entrepreneur. Kind of break it down what would you say are the top three lessons you learned growing up under an entrepreneur? Because I always think to you know, somebody's a UPS driver, your dad's a UPS driver. There are certain conversations that are probably being had at the dinner table. Then I think of, like the Rockefellers or anybody on that level what are their kids learning just at the dinner table each day that most kids don't get the opportunity to learn. So same thing in your situation. I'm sure the conversations were a lot different at an entrepreneur's dinner table than they are. It's my works nine to five. So what would you say are top top three lessons that you got from your father?
Mark :well, the one thing I say about being an entrepreneur, son and in the family business, is that Unfortunately, a lot of the meals became a business meeting a lot of Christmases became business meetings. A lot of Thanksgiving became business meetings. The whole story behind that and but looking back on what I learned from my dad, my dad is it is a hell of a businessman and he's actually still in real estate. He's still with us, which is great. He works with me on my real estate team. He's, you know, he's. He's in his golden years.
Mark :I think he's gonna be 80 this year and and still kicking still driving, still rolling around, still taking walks around the neighborhood, my mom and he. For some reason, he had the innate Desire to swim upstream, mm-hmm, and I think some entrepreneurs think that that's the only way To get ahead or to win or to beat Mm-hmm. What's you know the system or what's going on. But I learned from him that you don't always have to swim upstream. You don't always have to be the opposite of what everybody else is doing. Maybe you can embrace some of what they're doing, do it even better and then go side stream, yep, or go upstream even faster, mm-hmm. Don't need to reinvent the wheel. No, I don't think so. I think you can polish it up, build a better one, put some pain on it, widen the tires tall it, make the tires taller. Whatever you do to the wheel, yep, but you can make it your own wheel and and and still succeed. So I never looked to Directly swim upstream, but I was always looking for that advantage, edge, difference and how to make that, like I talked about my laptop how to, how to make that a benefit to whoever I was meeting with mm-hmm, because if it's not a benefit to them, great, it looks good, but who cares? Yep, you know. So I'd say that's probably number one. Number two is Be very careful.
Mark :Starting a family business and and my mom worked in the business love my mom. She's super talented in design and selection and so as my dad's building career progressed, he slowed down from from big neighborhood building and went into Custom home building and my mom got really deep into selections and decoration and design and. But my dad looked at me one day he's like, son, I'm gonna tell you something. He's like don't ever hire somebody you can't fire, mmm. I said I hear you by. He's like I love your mama. He said. But I'm gonna tell you what it's. It's tough to work with somebody All day, every day, then sleep with them, then get up and have breakfast with them then, and then you're working all day and then you look and then you're having dinner together and then the whole thing starts over again man, you just dropped a bar right there.
Sam:Because when, as I grow, probably next year, is where I get really hardcore with my real estate investing. And Since my wife is a stay-at-home mom, like the thoughts been like hey, once the kids start going to school full-time, what is something that she can do without? I don't want my wife working in a retail store for some 50% discount like, yeah, we got it, you don't need to be working for 20 bucks an hour right.
Sam:But she loves interior design, she loves decorating our home, things like that, and it's always been my thought like Well, let me kind of transition her here into the real estate side. I get the property, she can go in and design them. You know, decorate, do all those sorts of things. But you may have just talked me out of that.
Mark :Well, I'm not saying it can't be done because we've got a number of husband and wife teams in real estate. Mm-hmm and they seem to have it balanced and all but it'd be fun. It, that's probably, you probably probably just prompted me to have a discussion with them and how that side of life goes.
Sam:And are you all?
Mark :able to unplug liquor at all? Are you able to have a family dinner? Or Christmas or Thanksgiving, and business doesn't creep into every conversation.
Sam:Because what I like right now is that you know I'll give my wife updates in terms of things that are going on with the business, but she's not an entrepreneur. Like I Share one piece of a story and like our heart drops in her stomach like, oh my god, we're gonna be bankrupt next. No, just cuz this happen doesn't mean anything like that. Like we're good. But, yeah, I've always seen couples that work together and I'm like I'm not sure I could ever have a marriage strong enough to survive that I don't know if me and my spouse could be together all day, every day, non-stop. Yeah, like it's a difficult place to be in. All right, so, growing your career, you start to put a team together. Now you're present at Napier era, which, when that transition happened, like about a year ago, actually actually almost exactly a year ago, february last year nice.
Sam:So one talk about how you got into a position to do that. How did you build yourself and work with a company to be in a position to take over as president?
Mark :Man. That's a great point to make, sam. I mean, I'm nothing magical, but my experience specifically and it was really I'm not going to say by accident, but it was almost inadvertent yes, I wanted to run my own company one day. Yes, I wanted to be the man making the decisions and helping everybody do better one day. But that last thing I said, helping everybody do better, that's what got me in front of the people that make these kind of decisions. So, and helping everybody get better, I jumped into teaching and training at the association of realtors Because you know, I'm 20 something years old at the time and the average realtor was probably between 40 and 50 years old average at that time, and so I'm not going to say I grew up with computers, but I had computers for years and so I was like you know what?
Mark :I went to the association like I can teach these people computers. I mean computers are coming our way. You know, we're getting ready, finally got rid of that book Now. We got data online. We got some online MLS systems here. We'll get our forms online. We'll start. I mean it's coming, and so if y'all want me to jump in and do some coaching, teaching, training on that, I'll do it. They said that'd be great. So I designed a couple of PC classes, computer classes, that was Paul's there for a second.
Sam:Why did you choose to add value with I'm assuming there was no, no transaction involved there? Were they paying you for those classes?
Mark :At first no.
Sam:Okay, why did you choose to do something for free?
Mark :Great, yeah, I have that thing. I have that team captain coaches. I didn't know it at the time because I'm in. I'm in like the one on one business right, real estate is not only you're competing against, you're competing against everybody. Everybody else that does real estate is your competition. But I had that weird itch to help everybody do that better and I didn't know how much I had it until I taught my first few classes at the Association of Realtors and you know that first standing ovation or the first whole rouse of claps from everybody in the room and thank you, thank you, thank you and shakes.
Mark :As everybody was leaving man, I was like it's like a drug. Yeah, this, I'm like, this is, this is what I. This is what charges my batteries back up and, as an entrepreneur, you need to find that Absolutely. I don't know what that battery charger is for any individual, but you've got to spend some time to search that out and when you get it, you'll find it and you'll know it. Don't ever forget it and always stay close to it.
Sam:Yep, and it's interesting in your field because there is a lot of competition in your space. Like, my space is competitive too, but I don't have as much competition as you do. With that, I think so many people doesn't matter what field they're in. They are so worried about somebody taking their idea, running and doing it better, like they're, so they hold all this information to their chest, thinking that's going to serve them better. And you did the opposite. You said, hey, I want to add as much value to others as I possibly can with little to no pay. And when it comes to things like social media management, things like that that's what always preached declines is that you got to be value driven first. The last thing we're trying to do is sell. We're branding here, like if you get your name out and you're adding enough value to people, people will do business with you. And I'm sure over the years, as you're teaching those classes, their realtors who fell off may have reached out to you and said, hey, I'm getting out of the business, but somebody just hit me up that's trying to buy or sell a home. I'm referring them to you that value that you're adding. There is something that I think a lot of people got to get with. Like to me, I really have no competition. I know that may sound cocky, but my competition is who I look at in the mirror every day. I'm not worried about what anybody else is doing. So we're launching some stuff where I'm going to be teaching videography courses to other videographers. I don't think they're going to be able to do it like me, and most people that you give that information to they're not going to run with it as hard and long as you will.
Sam:In the fast paced world of business, your digital marketing strategy shouldn't be a burden. At Enzo Media Firm, we make it effortless. We specialize in empowering medium to large businesses with comprehensive digital marketing solutions, from dynamic video marketing and podcast production to advanced web development and social media strategies. Every client at Enzo Media Firm is paired with a dedicated account manager, your guide through the digital landscape, ensuring personalized attention and tailored made strategies, and with monthly meetings with our creative team. We keep your marketing aligned with your vision, even if you're short on time. Enzo Media Firm where marketing is just not simplified it's personalized, effective and designed for your success. Discover the ease of digital marketing with us. Visit wwwenzomediafirmcom to get started.
Mark :Right and they go out and build a client base. They build their client base and, for whatever reason, they need to leave the area, move out of the business, get out of the business. Well, who are they going to try to give back to the one that gave to them? Yeah, you know and that's what you were talking about earlier is that I didn't do it for that? But yeah, I mean, I had agents join our firm because they knew who I was. I've always continued to sell throughout this entire process and I still sell to this day some which I really enjoy. And when I come across another agent in the field, there's a pretty good chance that we've bumped shoulders, come across each other and if they've been in one of my classes and I set up front and just poured out everything I've learned over 33 years, I think they go into the transaction even though they're representing the opposite client. They come into the transaction. They're like this is going to be a good transaction.
Mark :I know this is a good guy, We'll get this worked out. So I do think that over my 33 year career that's helped me a bunch Love that Love that.
Sam:So you start teaching the classes. Or, moving into your role as president, you start teaching the classes. What else are you doing to move yourself in that position?
Mark :I volunteered some time on the at the time the MLS committee, and this is where some inadvertent things happened that put me in the position I am now.
Sam:I think you were smarter than you realized.
Mark :You were Well, maybe, so I volunteered for the MLS committee, because this is when all this is going technology right and this is like, oh, then we need this technology guy to help us. So I did that and I helped him do some of that. Well, the second year I'm on the committee, they make me vice chairman. So I'm vice chairman of the MLS committee for the Richmond association realtors and the central Virginia MLS. Well, that year the chairman moves and leaves town like in a flash.
Sam:And that's like that's interesting.
Mark :Well, what they didn't, what they didn't tell me, was that vice chairman becomes chairman and chairman of the MLS committee has a seat on the board of directors. So here I am, at 20 something years old, and I'm sitting in this room of board of directors and he's the most powerful women and men in real estate in the Richmond area and me you shaking a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, and I said you know what? All I can do is be me, and that's all I did every time I was in there. I was just me and they asked me a question about this that the other and I didn't think about like the politically correct answer, or what does everybody want to hear. I'm like, if I tell them exactly what I think, then I remember what I said yesterday and last next year and the year after.
Mark :So I just told them what I thought and it, I mean, it got a little. It got a little thick sometimes. I mean sometimes you'd have two or three of the biggest names get up and say something about this software system or that software system. And the president I'll never forget her, she helped make me who I am today She'd always look over after the two, three or two or three biggest people in the room said something what do you think, mark? And I was like, oh my God, because what I'm thinking is totally different than what the three of them just said. And I said here we go, I'm going to say what they said and be like them, or I'm going to say the truth. And wherever the chips fall, they fall. And I always told the truth. And a lot of times it was totally opposite of what the room was thinking.
Mark :But here's what I didn't know at the time, so that that chairman leaving, making me the chair and then putting me in that room with the board of directors Well, at the time, who are all those? What are? Who's going to hire people in real estate, you know, to run an office, to run a branch, to build a branch, to do it. They're looking for other leaders in the industry. I'm in the room of leaders. I didn't know it, but I was kind of acting like one at a pretty young age I was still 20 something years old on the board of directors for association realtors. So I think that little plan right there I had nothing to do with it, but how that plan played out put me shoulder to shoulder with all the decision makers and if I was to pass along some advice to entrepreneurs if you wanted to scale it, if you wanted to do something bigger, get involved in some leadership roles get involved in the firm, yeah, and, and there was no pay for that.
Mark :Right, my pay was the words. Everybody else was saying yeah, I mean, I was there to learn and say a few things, and it ended up. You know, that's how Jim Napier and I met, is he? He met me teaching and at the board of directors and the association of realtors, but he invited me to breakfast and I'll never forget it. This is a. I've been with a couple different firms before this and my dad and I tried to work together. But back to his statement of don't ever hide and the Thanksgiving and the Christmas says we looked at each other one day and we just, you know, in a very business like but father, son way, said man, you're great at what you do, I'm great at what I do. Let's just do this in different places, but keep doing it.
Sam:Yeah, and we did.
Mark :And we, we, we parted ways and I went to work for a couple different firms and we dad and I circled back and tried it again and then we did the same result and I'll never forget that. Second time we did it, we knew that was it. And Jim Napier called me within a week and he said you want to have breakfast? I said sure, at this point in time I've been in the business probably 15, 16 years. I had a good book of business, so I thought he just wanted to have a successful agent come over and was going to smooze me on that.
Mark :And he and we got about halfway through breakfast and I said so you want me to come work for you? He goes yeah, I was like, oh, so you want to see when we come to work, sell out of your West End office? He goes no, I want you to run the West End office. I'll never forget this. I looked at him and I said Jim, you got people in that office that had been in the business longer than I've been alive. And he didn't blink. He looked right back at me and said and you know, mark, those are the people that need you the most.
Sam:I was like all right this guy's thought this through.
Mark :This isn't just like let's go see what happens.
Mark :He's looking for something longer term further down the road thing. So that was in March of 98. And then 2000,. He opened up the ability for me to buy in as a partner, and so I spent a number of years buying in a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here, a little bit there as a partner in the firm. And here we are, I'm at Napier 98 today. So I mean, what's that? 25, 26 years, nice 26 years in March, and principal broker and president.
Sam:So talk to me about your role, because it seems like you were becoming a leader and developing all these leadership characteristics without even like realizing it. Like a lot of people are searching for this knowledge and I guess it was just by osmosis, like what you've learned from your parents. You're starting to just implement those things into your life without even fully recognizing what it is that you're doing. So to come over that young and run an entire office and now be present just for putting in perspective for people how many agents roughly are at Napier RA.
Mark :Right now we've got about 120.
Sam:Okay, so looking at an organization that size, what was the change between you had your own team and how many people are on your team?
Mark :you know, in the early years, Early years it was just me and one other person. My team today is I've got. I've got four people in Richmond and two people in the Northern neck.
Sam:So talk to us about the difference between leading four to six people and the difference between leading 120 some people.
Mark :Great question. Honestly, honestly, I would say, if you can lead four or five people and people talk about scale. You know that's a cool word. Nowadays, All you gotta do is scale, scale this and scale that. Well, my only scale I know is the one I hate, on there every morning when I step on it.
Mark :If you can do it well with four or five people, that your only constraint is time right. And I'll never forget this. We were head, we had a management consultant in town and we have all four of our managers sitting at the table plus Jim, and he's like all right, let me ask y'all something and take a minute if you need to answer it. He's like how many agents can you manage? How many agents can you manage? And I was like I started counting on my fingers. I fired back 22. He said 22,. Where'd that number come from? He said. I said that's how many deaths I have in my office.
Mark :He said I didn't ask you how many deaths you have. I said how many people can you manage? Like, how do you want to participate, how much time is that participation going to take, how many days a week are you going to do it and how many hours are you going to spend doing it? Now go back and figure that out and tell me how many people you can manage. And I remember my number.
Mark :My number back then was 41. And my number was 41 because when I do my business planning, when I do my education, when I do my contract coaching and buyer agent coaching and deal doctoring and negotiating, coaching, and I put time values on all that. And then I put my day in there, because I've never worked from sunrise to sunset. I've been working seeing the sunset and I've been working at the sunrise, but again, I work very hard to maintain some balance because I think that's super important. So when I figured that out, I was like, okay, and if you ask me how many people you manage out of the office right now, while you're president, while you're principal broker, while you're managing, while you're coaching and teaching, how many people you managing now? I've got 38 right now. I've got room for a few, a few good ones.
Sam:And that's the sound of a good leader on Jim's part to act, because I love hearing these stories where a mentor will come to someone, ask them a question and then make them sit on that question for 24 hours and then come back and give the response Like to me, that's the mark of a great mentor. That just doesn't come in the room and tell you like, oh, this is what you need to do, right? They're like no, think about this. Come back to me in 24 hours, let's talk. Yep, that's a great way to help someone expand their mind. So you're not forcing them to something that also shows you what you have in that person. Like, if you give them that question and they don't come back with the answer that you know is the right answer, it's like okay, well, either this may not be the right person or I got some different ways of coaching them to get them to where I need to be, but that's a phenomenal thing thinking about that. So, breaking down your day and looking at that how you talk about you know balance at 38 now, managing 38 people on a day-to-day basis, do you feel like you have a good balance of? Because to me there's never true Work-life balance.
Sam:When you're an entrepreneur and you're a high leadership position, like something's got to give from time to time, like like tonight. I got a zoom call with my mentor at like from 6 to 8 pm and Normally I get home at 6 o'clock, get a couple hours with the kids before they go to bed, then me and my wife get time to hang out and then we go to bed. Tonight I'm really not gonna see the kids at all. I'm running the house. I'll kiss them. I'm gonna have to go in my office and and and jump on this call, but I can even that out because you know, next weekend I'm gonna be spending more time with the family. How do you feel, with being president, still managing people directly, that you're able to balance both sides of that?
Mark :In the position I am now, where I still I still do have my team and I still Care about my 38 agents and I still care about my 120 agents and I care about my team and obviously I care about my family. It's tough. Yeah, you have to frontline focus on that. I mean, almost every morning, mm-hmm. Every morning, you got to look at your calendar and you got to say you know when can I take a breath today and go out like you did and take a walk or at least stand outside, get some fresh air for a second Yep.
Mark :Or put the headphones on, listen to a little music when?
Sam:when is that?
Mark :time will happen, and when is my family time gonna happen? Mm-hmm, I do a class on time blocking Because I don't believe in time management, because you can't manage time times always ticking. All you can manage is the event you put in your time.
Sam:Mmm right reach. Oh See, I get this man a hip-hop contract main truck bars.
Mark :So the first thing I recommend when you get, when you're scheduling your time out, you just got a schedule in some me time, mmm. They're like wait a minute, I got all you know, I got to do contracts, got a new people it's coming. That's like got scheduling your me time, mm-hmm. Second thing you got scheduling is your free time. Mmm, free time, me time. I was like, yeah, free time, free time is not a lot, I mean maybe it's 15, 30 minutes, couple times a day. Mm-hmm, nothing in it. And I said, and then you got to schedule all your daily activities in, ranked from what makes you or gives you the biggest benefit to what somebody else can do for you, mmm, and that's what somebody else can do for you's and what that.
Mark :What you have to do, it doesn't make a whole lot of money. You got to crush that into structure or spend a time possible and knock it out. Yep, spend your good quality time on your money making activities and the free time. What that does for you in there is it. If you get on a great phone call with your mentor with a New future climb, that phone call goes twice as long. Well, you've got that free time that you kind of ate into and you can say, okay, so I ain't spending my free time. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take off a little earlier. I'm all. I'm gonna really focus on Knocking these three things out at the end of the day a lot quicker, yep, so you, it takes a stress off of I'm ten minutes late, I'm ten minutes late, I'm ten minutes late, mm-hmm. So you got to put that free time in there?
Sam:How do you, how do you Manage your expectations, so that you don't feel guilty about taking me time or free time, because that's a hard part for me. I'll be honest with you, I do not like leaving all of his before my other employees, and I know this is a mental thing that I have to get out of, because when I first got into my industries, it was like I had to work so hard because I was the youngest guy in the room. I had the least amount of education. So it's always been that thought process of like nobody's gonna out work me but at the same time realizing I'm not Superman yeah.
Sam:I can't do it all and there is a level of guilt when Sometimes on Friday, especially during the regular season with golf, I'm golfing every Friday like by 12 o'clock, like my team like Don't book anything on my calendar. I'm golfing right. And when I first started doing that man, I felt really guilty. But how do you deal with that struggle? Or do you have that struggle at all where it's like do you feel guilty taking some me time?
Mark :Great question I have and I think realtors have this beautiful benefit and that we don't have a set day. Yeah, somebody at what somebody asked me other day. They're like. Oh they they called me on the weekend, they called me over this last weekend, this past weekend. Oh man, I hate to call you on Saturday. I'm like you know what I do for a little bit, I know I've been in real estate my whole life, right? They're like oh yeah, y'all work weekends. I'm like man for us, every day's a Monday.
Mark :Mm-hmm and and we have to schedule our weekends now. The cool thing about that is we might get a weekend on a Wednesday and Thursday when nobody yeah, most other people can't golf, most other people can't kayak the pond and catch fish and the prices are lower, all during those times. Yeah, so I had that going for me as far as not feeling guilty, because I always I have always run my own schedule, ever since graduating college and getting into real estate. Now, when Jim Napier hired me, that's the first big management position I had.
Mark :Mm-hmm and yet, trust me, I had a suit on. I was in the opposite 8 30 every morning, mm-hmm. Now I did have the benefit of out office meetings and I had trainings I had to do out of the office. So I didn't feel is, I'm gonna say, like anchored to the to the Geography. Yeah, I was more anchored to my team, making sure they were all okay, mm-hmm, and I could do that by phone. I could we didn't have zoom back then but I could do it by phone. I could send them a text message or, yep, hit the beeper up.
Mark :And have a good old days haven't called me back and you know, just put my hands on their shoulder. We call it the house, your mama, you just put the hand on the shoulder and how you doing as you get everything done this week you want to get done or anything else we can do for you, but I could, we, we realtors, have we've had work from home Way before COVID. Yeah, we've always been the work from home and and we we needed to focus on getting into the office as a, as an industry, to, you know, get with your team and get some of that camaraderie going and then and feel that whole synergy, energy thing. Yep, so I never really had to fight the guilt of Either leaving the office early or balancing my time. And I tell you, what really got me over it is my dad being a builder and me being a realtor working out of the same office, because if you know anything about construction, those boys and girls start early. Oh yeah, I mean they're up and rolling when the sun's up.
Mark :Yep, and here I come strolling in in real estate at 9 10 o'clock in the morning, because I've been negotiating the contract till 11 pm the night before and I come in bleary admin, no, would you stay up all night partying out there with your fellas. No, I was actually negotiating the contract for you back and forth till about 1115, which is why I'm in here at 10 am. Yeah, that was a huge rub. That was a huge rub one because, obviously, the relationship, but two because the industries are like polar opposites when it comes to time. Um, and if I did have any guilt About taking my own time, that got rid of it Dead. Not working in the same office cleared that up entirely love it.
Sam:Last thing I'm gonna ask you if. There's someone listening to this now and they don't particularly need to be in the real estate industry, but they're young. They may just be a couple of years out of college and they're trying to figure out their path. What would you recommend to them as an entrepreneur?
Mark :Don't pigeonhole yourself into where you think you should be. Try some other things, explore some other things. Maybe do it on somebody else's dime, mm-hmm. A lot of entrepreneurs started off as employees and then figured out how to do something they were doing a whole lot better, yep, or they found a niche in what they were doing that wasn't filled properly. Filled that niche, boom. Their business takes off and goes bonkers, mm-hmm. You can learn a lot from Other businesses and other business people like me.
Mark :Being in the boardroom, I sat back and listened 90% of the 95% of the time, mm-hmm. I did a little bit of talking and then a lot more listening. If you put yourself in Positions to listen to a lot of different people, I Think that is the best way to find you and in what yours. And don't be afraid if you go off on number one and it wasn't right, yep, you know what I'm saying. I mean, there's the best entrepreneurs probably not have not started one business and knocked it out of the park.
Mark :Yep, right. They started multiple businesses, maybe sold a few, maybe went out of business a couple times, mm-hmm. And. And then they started to really hone in on what they wanted, how they wanted it and where they wanted it. And I think you know the old saying where God gave you two ears and one mouth. For a reason, yep, you use your mouth to say you can turn your ears on even more. Hmm, you know, ask a lot of questions and then shut up and like it, and entrepreneurs are typically Pretty outgoing 100 sales people, kind of people that like to talk.
Mark :Yes, it's hard for us to shut up and listen. Yes, we got you to be a good entrepreneur. You do a lot of listening.
Sam:Mm-hmm, when I'm in certain rooms I try to shut the hell up, right when there are people that are on a whole another level that I'm trying to get into, there's no, there's no value for the time that I'm getting with them. It's not gonna benefit me to talk, it's gonna benefit me to listen, and the more I can absorb in that short period of time, that's also gonna help me. I can go, I can go flat my gums of somebody else who's not in that room and help them level up. But when you're in that room with, with a certain caliber of people, yeah soaking in that information is one of the most valuable things, mark.
Sam:This has been awesome, man. If people want to follow you, get in contact with you working.
Mark :They find you man, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram. I don't do the tic-tac, though.
Sam:No, tic-tac, you ain't dancing on tic-tac man, I don't do it.
Mark :I don't. I probably shoulds at some point. I'm not that guy. You can follow me at at K mark J on Instagram and on Facebook. You can also look up K mark J and my real estate team. Go RVA homes is Oliver Facebook as well for some good information love to connect up good stuff appreciate you being here, buddy.
Sam:Yeah, man, thank you, all right, and we will see you guys on the next episode.