What To Say Now

Knowing Your Strengths in Real Estate with Max Fitzgerald

• Dan Stewart • Episode 5

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Your strengths are your biggest asset, especially in the competitive world of real estate.

Joining us today is Max Fitzgerald, CEO at Craft & Bauer Real Estate Co., who has carved a niche in leveraging personal strengths to build a successful real estate business. We discuss how to identify your strengths, why they matter, and how you can use them to enhance your real estate career. 

Max brings over a decade of experience and a fresh perspective on building a thriving business by focusing on what you do best.

Tune in to learn from Max’s journey and discover how to apply these lessons to your own real estate endeavors.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

  • The impact of new FCC regulations on lead distribution.
  • The importance of personal connections in real estate.
  • Strategies for building and scaling a real estate brokerage.

Links from this episode:

Happy Grasshopper helps real estate agents and brokerages grow sales and recruitment. To schedule a call and learn how we can help you, visit https://happygrasshopper.com/tour

Happy Grasshopper utilizes best practices to deliver emails, text messages, voicemail drops, and handwritten notes in order to help real estate professionals succeed and convert more leads to closings by building relationships through conversation.

Max Fitzgerald [00:00:00]:
It is an important decision, or at least conversation to have with yourself, of saying, do I want to continue to stay in production, or do I want to really scale my brokerage and be a resource for my agents? Because that personal touch, that coaching, that culture that you build within your organization, that is the reason that people want to be part of it.

Dan Stewart  [00:00:27]:
Hi, you're listening to what to say now, a podcast that's dedicated to helping real estate professionals do a better job communicating with the people they work with and they serve. My name is Dan Stewart, and today we have a fantastic guest. It's my good buddy, Max Fitzgerald, who's a broker owner in beautiful Los Angeles, California. How you doing, Max?

Max Fitzgerald [00:00:50]:
I'm good, Dan. How are you doing?

Dan Stewart  [00:00:51]:
I'm doing really well. Doing really well. What a cool time it is to be a real estate professional, huh?

Max Fitzgerald [00:00:58]:
You know, it's a very, it is a very cool time. You know, there's a lot of changes with the industry, but it's, it's. It's an exciting time. Let's say that.

Dan Stewart  [00:01:07]:
Yeah, well, you know, let's give the audience a little bit of context. Right. Tell us a little bit about your background. How long have you been in real estate now?

Max Fitzgerald [00:01:16]:
I have been in real estate for pretty much my entire professional life. What is that now? Twelve or 13 years? So I kind of stumbled into the industry. It's a really interesting sort of backstory, which I'll try to abridge for you. But shortly after graduating college, I wasn't quite sure what I actually wanted to do. I admired the real estate industry from sort of afar, but I never quite wanted to be a real estate agent. I never wanted to join a big brokerage and just kind of be one of however many agents at the studio City Keller Williams office. Right. That never interested me.

Max Fitzgerald [00:01:55]:
But I, you know, I loved entrepreneurship. I love the idea of maybe starting in a smaller environment, learning the business, and then kind of seeing where things go. So my first exposure to the real estate industry, I actually ended up interning for a very, very small company in Manhattan Beach. I was actually employee number two. I was 22, 23 at the time when I joined my former business partner, and he was maybe 26 or 27, so a few years older than I was. But he was really a one man show doing everything. He had his broker's license, so he was acting as a real estate agent, but he was also building spec homes in Los Angeles. He was raising money from family and friends.

Max Fitzgerald [00:02:45]:
He owned apartment buildings in south central and Compton and all these different areas. So I immediately sort of gravitated to his entrepreneurial spirit and ended up working for him for free, so long as he just sort of taught me the industry. So that's how I got into the business. And flash forward about four or five years later is when I ended up feeling confident enough in my ability to open up my own brokerage. And you know that the rest is really history.

Dan Stewart  [00:03:14]:
Yeah. Fantastic. And that brokerage, dear listeners, is called Kraft and Bauer. And, you know, I serve a lot of clients in the real estate space. I think Max is doing some things there that are really super cool and super useful. You know, my experience as an entrepreneur, it's really about solving problems for yourself first and then sharing those problems with other people and seeing what comes of that. And, Max, part of the reason I invited you here today is because all these great conversations we've had about the problem you've been solving internally at Kraft and Bauer and how it's time to share that problem with a community and really see it get adopted and used in different places. So tell us a little bit about your project, stack wrap.

Dan Stewart  [00:04:06]:
What is stack wrap all about?

Max Fitzgerald [00:04:08]:
Stack wrap. Yeah, stack wrap. It's a really fun project to give you some context there. So about maybe two and a half years into running Kraften Bauer, we were still a very small company, maybe nine or ten agents, but Covid hit and it shut down the world, and we had a lot of downtimes on our hands. And I think the biggest problem that we were trying to solve during that period of time, Washington, you know, saying, man, you know, we offer our agents all these great tools, follow up boss, right? Their CRM system, their marketing materials, their transaction management software. We offer them really good tools, but they're kind of scattered all over the place. They're in bookmarks, you know, they're not really consolidated in an efficient manner. And if we want to grow and scale and really recruit the agents that we want to recruit and obviously retain our existing agents, we need a much better solution.

Max Fitzgerald [00:05:05]:
Right? So that was sort of the idea that ended up becoming now what stack wrap is. So we figured out a way to build a platform that any company, any broker owner, any team leader, anyone with people under an organization can now bring in their internal tech. They can sync up their third party tools with, with stack wrap. So it really does solve a pretty big problem, especially for those folks in the independent space and for the teams that are looking for an efficient way to sort of organize.

Dan Stewart  [00:05:44]:
I think it's a super important problem to be focused on, because if you think of the 1213, 14 years you've been in the industry, we've seen a real change in what broker owners think their technology stack should do. About a decade ago, the whole focus was we need a all in one solution. Like, we need everything to just be behind one login. And that's kind of like saying, hey, we're going to win the Super bowl, but we're going to have a whole team of just kickers or just quarterbacks. If you're going to have really great results, you need to have the right people in the right spots, the right tools in the right area of your business. It's not enough just to have one great system. You need lots of great systems. And what I think is really great about stack wrap is instead of relying on an agent to kind of onboard themselves with multiple different systems and be disciplined enough to remember where to go and what this login is and what that login is, it pulls it all into one place to where, you know, if I'm a brand new agent joining Kraft and Bauer, you have a tech stack that I need to learn.

Dan Stewart  [00:06:59]:
Every agent joining any brokerage anywhere has that same challenge. The difference is at Kraft and Bauer, I just go to stack wrap, and from that one place I see all the other things that are available for me. I know I get pertinent bits of information from each of those services served up right to me in one place. And I think this is going to solve a very interesting problem over time. Because from my desk at happy grasshopper, we're supporting thousands and thousands of agents across the US and Canada. And one of the biggest complaints, one of the biggest challenges every broker owner has is how do I get my agents to use your stuff? Like, what do we do? So as a tech provider, when I first heard this vision from you for what stack rap could become, I thought this is amazing, because if we can train people on one place, that's exponentially easier than training them on dozens of places. And I think there's probably multiple layers of benefits here that you can discover over time. So kudos to you, man.

Dan Stewart  [00:08:12]:
I love that you've got the bravery, the courage to push some idea that you thought was helpful for you into a bigger, a bigger audience. That's very cool.

Max Fitzgerald [00:08:22]:
Yeah. You know, we thank you. And we, we looked at those all in one solutions, right. And to take your analogy about the football team and it's a bunch of kickers, I would even say, well, it's a football team, but the, you know, we're providing your players. Right. We're giving you the quarterback that could be a little, you know, average. We're giving you that receiver that. He's not that good, but it's a, that's what you got.

Max Fitzgerald [00:08:45]:
And that's when we were thinking about all these different solutions. We had our existing tech, but we didn't want to abandon follow up Boss and Ylopo and CCU and all of our really amazing tools that we hand picked to then go and use the all in one CRM or the all in one transaction management software. So that's really, it was born out of a need and, you know, solving a pretty simple problem, to your point.

Dan Stewart  [00:09:12]:
Yeah, I love that. I love the creativity there.

Max Fitzgerald [00:09:14]:
Thank you. Yeah.

Dan Stewart  [00:09:16]:
You know, so for those of you listening to this episode of what to say now, I want you to think about the challenges you face every day and, and just learn to recognize that those challenges are opportunities. Happy grasshopper would not exist if I hadn't figured out, hey, how do we actually nurture relationships with people over long periods of time? That was a challenge I had in a previous business that led to what I've been doing every day now for 14 years. So pay attention to your pain. Pay attention to that thing that you're constantly going, oh, I wish there was a better way because that problem is also an opportunity. And that's what Max has found here with stackrap. So it has been a few months ago that you shared your stack wrap project with me, and in that time, we've seen some pretty cool things happen. I've seen stack wrap featured in Inman news. Right.

Dan Stewart  [00:10:13]:
I've seen large brands and brokerages like, perk up and say, hey, what is this thing that you're doing over here? So I think this is really cool audience, because you get to hear about something today that you're probably going to see in the future is just part of what brands have. Once you see what stack wrap really does, it's just kind of like, what? Duh. This should already exist. Why don't we already have this? So that, that is next level thinking. Max, it's incredibly rare, and I feel very privileged just to be able to help share your story.

Max Fitzgerald [00:10:48]:
Oh, I mean, that really does mean a lot to me, Dan, I appreciate the compliments. And, you know, having your mind on kind of coincide where our thoughts were originally is, you know, it kind of maybe tells us we're on a good path here. So thank you for the kind words.

Dan Stewart  [00:11:07]:
Yeah, well, gosh, you're more than welcome. I mean, if there's anything I've learned over starting seven companies, it would be that none of us really achieve success alone. That is. I mean, that's mythology, right? There's no such thing as a self made person or a single person that just created everything by themselves. In my experience, not only is that less fun trying to do everything yourself, but it's less fast. Right. It's less profitable, and perhaps most importantly, it's less sustainable.

Max Fitzgerald [00:11:43]:
That's, you know, Dan, that's such a good point. And I think that's. That's one of the biggest, I think, achilles heels of people wanting to, you know, be an entrepreneur or start a company is it's having that self awareness of, okay, what am I good at? Right? But what really are my weaknesses? I can tell you by starting Craft and Bauer, some of my weaknesses were organization and the operational side. And so I really didn't have a good starting point there, but I was lucky enough to immediately partner up with my current co founder. His name is Dominic Labriola. And Dominic's strengths were the operational side and efficiencies and making sure that the paperwork, everything is to a t. His strengths and my weaknesses really kind of went hand in hand.

Dan Stewart  [00:12:44]:
So.

Max Fitzgerald [00:12:44]:
That's such an excellent point, Dan. I mean, whatever industry someone is in and whatever role someone may be in, it's really saying, okay, these are my strengths. These are my weaknesses. How can I really either come together with a partner or a group of people to really accentuate what we're all really good at?

Dan Stewart  [00:13:00]:
That is such an act of bravery. You know, here's a frustration for me just about real estate in general. I think at some point in the distant past, someone came up with this, like, catchy little phrase, just fake it till you make it. Right? Right. And I want to push back against the whole fake it till you make it culture, because I see too many agents faking their way right out of the industry. We know 80% of agents leave during their first year, and that every five years, 87% of people practicing real estate churn they're out of the industry. A lot of those people, they see, I don't know, HGTV or something, and they imagine a real estate career as something different than it actually is. You know, in my experience, a real estate agent who's really gonna thrive has that capacity to be super transparent with themselves.

Dan Stewart  [00:13:59]:
Like, it takes bravery to, like, I see the mirror behind you, Max. It takes bravery to stand in front of the mirror and go, okay, what do I need to fix? Like, what's wrong with me, right. Cause we always have that opportunity. We can spend more time on Facebook. Right? Or we could maybe make some calls. We can follow up on those important conversations we need to have, or we can avoid them. And when you consider real estate being something that's so present in all of our lives, if we're live, we have to live somewhere. I think we're going to get a lot further or a lot faster by saying, all right, where am I strong and where am I weak? Where do I need to fill in the gaps? And that sort of radical honesty with yourself, it leads to rapid improvement if you're brave enough to just kind of step into the breach.

Max Fitzgerald [00:14:55]:
Yeah. I mean, it's funny you say that, because almost all of our agents, I mean, we're about 70 or so agents at Kraften Bauer, and I would say almost every single one of them has joined us from a large company. Right. And either they weren't feeling supported or they liked a smaller ecosystem. They liked just kind of picking up the phone and saying, I've got a contract question. I just need to talk to Max. Right. Or I need to talk to the broker.

Max Fitzgerald [00:15:25]:
But also when we start, when we onboard someone and we really get to know them, then we can closely analyze. All right, Dan's. And, you know, Dan's really good with contracts. He's really good in person, but he's hesitant on the phone. Right. It's like that. That's something that he needs to, you know, really get good at. Maybe he's shy.

Max Fitzgerald [00:15:47]:
Maybe. And I'm just using your name as an example. I know this.

Dan Stewart  [00:15:50]:
Thank you.

Max Fitzgerald [00:15:51]:
Is it you? But maybe you're someone who is a little bit hesitant to make those cold calls or to really talk to your friends and your family about real estate. Right. Because you don't want to come off as a. As a salesy kind of person. But we can really kind of take someone in our little bit smaller of an environment and give them the proper coaching and the proper training and understanding. These really. I mean, in California, the buyer broker contracts are quite complicated, and there's a few different ones that now all agents are required to use. So there's so many different nuances to real estate, to the practice, to how do you build your business, how do you maintain your sphere of influence? So it really does take a very well rounded individual to succeed in real estate.

Max Fitzgerald [00:16:36]:
But going back to the main point, it is all about recognizing what am I good at and where are my vulnerabilities, because those are something that I either need to get better at or partner up with someone who can do those cold calls where I can just be in the field and interacting with people that I already know face to face, because that's what I'm very good at.

Dan Stewart  [00:16:58]:
Yeah. I mean, we've all got a place where, like, I think of it, I call it being 10ft tall, right? I mean, there's something each of us have a little bit of genius about. That's our unfair competitive advantage. And if we can figure out what that is and design our life, our work life, in such a way where we can spend most of our time doing that thing, it's impossible to have any result that's not better. I mean, if you spend more time doing what you're great at, everything improves. It just does. So, you know, segueing this back to stack wrap, right. As a broker owner, you've got a challenge where you've got agents of varying technical fluency, right? All these varying talents, all these individuals who are 10ft tall in some areas, 3ft tall in others, and for a lot of very, very good real estate agents, tech is a problem.

Dan Stewart  [00:17:54]:
It just is. It's like, oh my gosh, I've got to know all this stuff about real estate, and I have to know all these things about tech. So I see where stack wrap has been very intentionally designed to create an environment where you can make sure that they don't have to carry all that tech burden themselves. Just creates one place to bring people together. So I think this is a really cool thing. I'm just really proud to be able to share it again. I have to say that because 14 years of serving real estate professionals, I've seen countless things come and go. And just like anyone on this podcast will know if you're selling real estate, you've been targeted.

Dan Stewart  [00:18:41]:
Things that can't possibly work, right? You've signed up for a thing that just turns into a cash bonfire instead of something that's actually better. So in a conversation you and I had, Max, apart from the podcast, we talked a lot about stages of growth for a new tech product. Right. And what you've done is the validation phase. Like, you have solved a problem for yourself internally that other people have said, you know what, that's a great thing, and I want to be part of that, too. I see where that could solve my problem. Right? So that's step one, because before you spend a whole lot of time and treasure working to expand something, you have to know that that thing is really going to do what it's intended to. So the validation stage is something you've worked through and now it's about sharing the message and, and having other people take a look and say, yes, I see where this could be good for me too.

Dan Stewart  [00:19:42]:
So I would like to invite our audience to reach out to you, Max. They can go to stackwrap.com, right? They can do that. But I know for sure that all the broker owners who are listening to this have the same challenges you've had at Kraft and Bauer. And I really believe stack wrap can help them. So my advice for you, Max, would be to open yourself to having as many conversations with other broker owners as possible and let them say, you know what, I think this part's really great. And you know what, this part might not be that feedback at this stage is going to be so valuable for helping you continue to grow stack Rep. So where should we direct people? How can they best connect with you?

Max Fitzgerald [00:20:25]:
You know, the best way is probably by email, right? And I'm happy to share my email. It's just Max m a xtackrap.com, you know, very easy to, to remember. But yeah, I mean we're at the point where the product is early enough where we're looking to just kind of get it in front of, to your point, I mean, as many people as we possibly can, but also to the right people. Right. I'm such a fan of those who are also in the independent space and are doing their own thing. Right. And it's really creating the product, um, for those people and tailoring it to, to those needs. I mean, yeah, there are implications to, you know, bigger brokerages and enterprise level, like so, so, yes, but also I'm just such a huge fan of people doing their own thing that, that feedback.

Max Fitzgerald [00:21:17]:
And hey, this part is cool, this part maybe not so much. Can we do this? Can we do that? You know, that, that is really such valuable feedback that will just make the product better and hopefully empower, you know, the current users that are using the product and then future users. But, but yeah, feel free to shoot me an email. Happy to have a conversation and to really, you know, garner some feedback here that would be really, really helpful.

Dan Stewart  [00:21:43]:
Right. So for people who are just listening, what is that email address? Max.

Max Fitzgerald [00:21:47]:
Max. Maxtackrap.com dot.

Dan Stewart  [00:21:51]:
Okay, awesome. Thank you. Max. Let's talk about the common challenges that real estate team owners, real estate broker owners are faced with. You know, from my desk we serve people in all 50 states and all across Canada and whether it's a team, whether it's a franchise, whether it's an independent, whether it's a boutique. The challenges of the broker owner and team owner are all around the same few areas. So, you know, most commonly you go, gosh, I was an agent, now I'm a broker owner, or now I'm a team owner. I need to get more agents to do this with me.

Dan Stewart  [00:22:27]:
Like, we've got to attract the right people, and usually the first few come organically, but there's a point where if you're really going to scale, there has to be a systematic process to attract the right people, get them to make that decision to join, and then once they're onboard, of course, you've got to help them produce and you've got to retain them over time. And in my experience, I see lots of brands trying to attack that central problem from the perspective of a business plan. Right. Join us and you'll get this. Here's a carrot, right? And here's a stick. Here's all the tech that you'll get, here's all the training, here's all the cultural elements. And, you know, if you boil it all down, it just feels like the same story over and over and over again, told a slightly different way. I think it'd be better for the audience for you to state the challenges that broker owners have.

Max Fitzgerald [00:23:26]:
Sure. So some of the challenges that I know, I mean, that we face as an independent shop that I know many of my other peers who are running brokerages also face are how do we recruit the best agents? How do we scale our operations? How do we retain our agents, right, and keep them happy and how do we kind of get them into production? Or how do we maintain their production and their profitability and keep them happy and all these different things? Because at the end of the day, they're all 1099 independent contractors. Right? So how do you deliver that value to your agency, to your agents, right, to your employees and staff? There's a lot of different things that, that goes into running a successful brokerage, I can tell you that. I mean, I'm sure there's many people listening to this podcast that have been doing it for way longer than I have. But at least in my experience of running Kraft and Bauer for the last seven or so years has been okay. I was a single agent. I was doing really well. I felt confident enough in my ability to get my broker's license and start something.

Max Fitzgerald [00:24:49]:
Once you start that something, then, as many of your listeners know, the first few agents are just your buddies, right? Hey, wherever Dan goes, I'm going. He's starting his own shop.

Dan Stewart  [00:24:58]:
Cool.

Max Fitzgerald [00:24:59]:
Sign me up. Right? Super easy. So that first initial group of people, those are your early adopters. They're buying into your vision. And at least for us, those people joined us while we were building the foundation, right? We were nothing, by any means, a finished product. But then you kind of get to the point where you're hitting a little bit more of a critical mass. And I think this is really where the inflection point comes into play, right? Because in the beginning, at least for me, I had to stay in production, right, to really keep the lights on. I needed to be closing deals to bring money into the company while we were building, while we were funding and paying for all the things that we were paying for.

Max Fitzgerald [00:25:39]:
But then agents start to join you because you have a little bit of something, right? They can sense your magic. They can see, oh, this thing over here is pretty cool. So I had to really make the decision to pretty much remove myself completely from production, because one of the bigger value propositions of a smaller environment is, well, hey, if I got a question, I can call Max or I can call Dan, right? But if my agency, that I'm always in the field, that I'm never really answering my phone, that I'm really just focused on building my particular business and closing all my deals, they're going to say, well, hey, I need a little help over here, too. It is an important decision, or at least conversation to have with yourself of saying, do I want to continue to stay in production, or do I want to really scale my brokerage and be a resource for my agents? Because that personal touch, that coaching, that culture that you build within your organization, that is the reason that people want to be part of it, because they feel like it's a family atmosphere. And to an earlier point that we made, hey, if I'm very hands on with my agents and everyone is happy with the environment that they're in and the trajectory of where the brokerage is going to, then they feel a lot more included. They're happy to see others succeed. They're happy when new agents join, right? I mean, most of our agents that join us are referrals. Someone joins Kraft and Bauer, they say, man, you guys are great.

Max Fitzgerald [00:27:19]:
Susie over at XYZ Brokerage, you guys should talk to her. She would really dig what you guys are doing over here because this is awesome. So all of that doesn't really happen without me making the decision to really remove myself from the day to day, the production, the heads down, the sales calls of just being a regular agent. So that's something that people should really consider in starting a brokerage or at least scaling one.

Dan Stewart  [00:27:45]:
I have a lot of team owners who are in production, and one of my favorite questions to ask them as they're considering joining Happy Grasshopper is what percentage of your team's volume is your personal production? And more often than not, they're not just like a tiny majority, they're a large majority of the production on their team because I think part of that natural flow is, oh, wow, I have more opportunity than I can personally handle as an agent. I need to build a team. And a lot of times people don't recognize that running a team, becoming a broker owner, is a completely different career choice than being an agent. And it's tough to do both at the same time. It really is.

Max Fitzgerald [00:28:30]:
It is tough to do both. But to play Devil's advocate, I mean, if someone is a super successful agent selling a lot of homes, that's going to attract other agents because they want to be affiliated with that production. They want to hold the fancy open houses because that's going to help how they build their business. So that is definitely a good way to grow a business. By all accounts, just the path that I chose to take was really just removing myself and saying, you know what, I just want to make sure I'm the person doing the first interviews with agents and really deciding company culture. And Dominic and I are the operational people behind this. And we're just the resources behind what makes Kraften Bauer go. So many ways to skin the cat.

Max Fitzgerald [00:29:20]:
Something to consider as someone is on this point in their journey, for sure.

Dan Stewart  [00:29:25]:
Gosh, I love that you say that, because there really isn't just one way to be successful in this industry. There are so many different areas that people's strengths have an opportunity to shine. So if you know what your outcome is, it's a lot easier to figure out how to achieve it, right? So two main strengths, I think, of this industry, and not for nothing, real estate has created more millionaires than any other industry. There is a giant waterfall of wealth that's just pumping all the time in real estate. And I think far too many agents are struggling just figuring out how to get wet. Like you're standing right next to a waterfall and they can't get wet. It's kind of crazy. So I really believe that if we're going to take a look at where we want to go, we can observe who's already there.

Dan Stewart  [00:30:21]:
Right? What did they do to get there? What are the things they're consistently doing, what are they consistently investing in that's creating this present reality that they get to enjoy. The older I get, the more experience I have in business. It's not so much about following your gut as it is about listening to what the data says, like following the data. And none of us have to invent how to be successful in real estate. We just don't. We just need to observe, you know, who has the outcome that we'd like to experience, map that back to where we are, and then look at, well, what's the next thing we need to do that allows that growth to occur? So I want to circle back to your story here, and you're at that point where you said, all right, I'm in production, I'm super busy as an agent, and yet I need to really transition, like to create the future I want for myself. Kraft and Bauer needs to go beyond just being a few people to tens of people, to 70 ish people, to however large you choose to make it grow. What advice would you have for that team owner or that broker owner who's so dependent on their own production, like the capital resources just haven't shown up yet for them to say, you know what, I'm going to refer out my production instead of pursuing myself.

Max Fitzgerald [00:31:44]:
Robert. So I had kind of a gut feeling, right, maybe the last year or so of me being full time as an agent, I was, you know, I was doing pretty well. But also I realized in the back of my head, I'm saying, Mandy, Im sort of at the mercy of the people that Im working with, right. The state of the real estate industry, interest rates, all of these different factors that I just cant control, which made me uncomfortable, right? I mean, in Los Angeles especially, theres a gazelle like you can throw a rock outside of my window and probably hit a real estate agent in the head, right? There are so many real estate agents out here. So that coupled with a lot of external factors that I just, that, again, was not in my control were sort of the two primary reasons that I said ive got to build something bigger than what I currently am, right? And I understand real estate and I now understand the operations of brokerage because, hey, I started as employee number two and when I left that company, there was maybe, I dont know, eleven or twelve other agents. So still a very small ecosystem. But I really learned from my partner, man, this is how a brokerage works. This is how it makes money, right? These are different commission slip models.

Max Fitzgerald [00:32:59]:
Like this is now really starting to make sense. So, you know, it was an obvious transition to starting my own brokerage. But, you know, it was something I wanted to pursue, number one, but also to mitigate that internal risk that I was feeling. So that felt like the safest option. Open up a brokerage, keep as much money as you can in the bank, a conservative business model. Bring in good people, get a good business partner, and let it grow at the pace that it's going to grow at. So those were some of the main motivations for me.

Dan Stewart  [00:33:41]:
Yeah, I can relate to that as an entrepreneur, because there's times where you go, hmm, it sure would be nice to have this vacation, that car, this wardrobe, that water. Like, there's always things that are competing for your treasure. Right? And if you're going to build something, you have to have the discipline to set aside the resources it needs. And this is a great segue back to, like, we just don't get through this alone. We don't. You need Dominic. Right? Dominic needs you. Complement those two individuals, you get something greater than its parts.

Dan Stewart  [00:34:22]:
And again, I'm just. I'm delighted to be in association with you, Max, thank you for your business as a broker owner client of happy grasshopper. You know, attracting the right agents to your firm is very important. And then, of course, helping those agents succeed is very important. And we've worked very hard over a long period of time to create the conversations that you need to have with agent candidates and then to help those agents have the conversations they need to have with people in the market, I.

Max Fitzgerald [00:34:57]:
Will say, I mean, happy grasshopper has been a really amazing tool. Your staff is wonderful to work with. But, you know, if someone is listening to this and doesn't have a good recruiting mechanism in place, definitely check out happy grasshopper. But also, you know, I mean, it's having conversations, whether it is through a system like happy grasshopper, or whether it's, you know, identity. I mean, you, everyone listening knows the people that they want to recruit. They probably follow them on Instagram. They know him, they see him in the field, they see him at open houses. Right? But it's all about, number one, understanding.

Max Fitzgerald [00:35:37]:
What are your value propositions of your organization? What do you offer? Right? And then it's, number two, having a meaningful conversation with that person and understanding their strengths, their weaknesses. Dan, you're a great agent. Right. What do you feel you could improve upon? Right? And that's one of my opening questions when I'm having an interview with an agent, because then it gets someone thinking, right. Well, I'm good. I'm selling homes. But if I can get better at marketing or if I can have a, you know, like, I feel a little unsupported at XYZ big brokerage, right. Then I can really tailor my specific pitch to meet your needs.

Max Fitzgerald [00:36:16]:
And I think that has really been our secret sauce in connecting with the right people. Because if I can, if I can show you, hey, if you join our brokerage, this is what you'll get. But really, we'll meet the needs and make you a much better agent than you already are. You know, you have a much better chance of converting that person. So it does take some automated approaches, but also it's that personal touch. It's really empathizing with the person you're speaking with.

Dan Stewart  [00:36:43]:
Yeah, well said. I mean, that's exactly the right philosophy here, is you've got to have the capacity to consistently communicate in a way that starts the conversations you need to have. So, you know, for people listening who might need to attract and recruit real estate agents, you may never have a better opportunity than 2024 has served up for you so far. Because as we're recording this, the whole industry is grappling with the NAr settlement changes. There is a ton of ruffled feathers out there. If we think of all these real estate agents who are going, well, I woke up and things were different today. They need leadership, they need guidance. And if you can extend your leadership outside your team, outside your brokerage, to agents in your community, you can create real, meaningful conversations.

Dan Stewart  [00:37:39]:
So I'm going to illustrate something here, right? If I were attempting to attract and recruit Max from Kraft and Bauer to my real estate brokerage, and I sent him a message and I said, hey, have you heard of Dan's realty? We offer splits, tech, you know, culture, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, he didn't ask for that. He doesn't want that. There's not an agent alive who's going to make the smart decision to join you because you cold emailed them a menu of stuff you can offer them, right? But if you can craft a message that speaks directly to the things that agent is grappling with right now and ask their opinion about it, have a call to conversation rather than a call to action, you're going to create the conversations you need to have. Right? So, you know, that that would be my advice for people listening this who need to attract agents.

Max Fitzgerald [00:38:38]:
Such, such an amazing piece of advice. Because I can tell you before, you know, I mean, during the earlier days, that's what exactly what our recruiting strategy would be. This is what we offer. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Send email out times 100 every single day. And we were pretty much doing it all manually, but I almost never got a response back. It was a lot of wasted time and many months of this. And I said, man, no one is responding to these emails.

Max Fitzgerald [00:39:07]:
But it's because everyone who's on this call or who's listening to this boss get podcast. If you're a real estate agent, you get inundated with recruiting messages, and this is what always. So it becomes white noise, right? But it's really kind of figuring out, okay, who are the people that I want to target, you know, who's on my wish list, what's my hierarchy? And it's going after your top people. But really having those meaningful conversations, developing a community, maybe you're doing a monthly sort of get together or podcast or something where you're talking about the industry and you're illustrating, you know, these are challenges. This is how we're facing these challenges. This is a little bit what we're doing at our brokerage. But that's not necessarily the topic of this conversation. It's really helping everyone in this room, everyone listening to the show, you know, these are challenges.

Max Fitzgerald [00:39:59]:
This is how I think we should collectively think about these challenges. Because if you become that thought leader, you're going to attract a others, right? Like, that is. That is the number one way to grow and scale. So really think about your strategies, and I would say less. Less menu salesy sort of stuff that just doesn't resonate with anyone.

Dan Stewart  [00:40:20]:
Well, who does that work on? Like, if it ever works at all, it's with someone who's probably miserable at the moment they receive it. I mean, and do you want to attract a miserable person into your team or your brokerage? Probably not, right? Probably not. So that same outreach where, again, I mean, as we're recording this, the NAR settlement is being pushed live throughout the country. Agents everywhere are concerned about this right now. So it's a great time to start a conversation with them. Now, let's take that from the agent to the community level, right? If you're a real estate agent listening to this, well, you need a content strategy to reach out to all those people in your database, whether they're your past clients and your sphere, your leads, your vendor partners. Like all these different segments of your database need a different and unique message than what your competition is likely to send. So, again, you want to leverage what's happening now into a conversation starter.

Dan Stewart  [00:41:27]:
So you know, people turn on good Morning America and they hear doom and gloom about real estate. They turn on the news at night. They hear doom and gloom about real estate. You have an obligation right now to be the voice that pushes back against all of that. As a practicing real estate professional, you need to reach out to those people in your database and don't teach them, engage them. Start a conversation about what's happening and what it means to them. Ask them if they have real estate plans. Ask them if they're seeing the headlines.

Dan Stewart  [00:42:02]:
They have any concerns. Ask them if this rising interest rate, lowering interest rates, flat interest rate, like whatever is happening, you need to use that as a means to have the conversations with people who can refer you business, contextualize.

Max Fitzgerald [00:42:18]:
That's, that's something we are preaching right now. I mean, we're, it's August 14. I mean, the settlement is in three days. I mean, or adherence to the settlement. Right. But it's contextualizing. Right. Hey, this is, these are my thoughts about what's going on.

Max Fitzgerald [00:42:32]:
I know there's a lot of confusion, but, you know, at the end of the day, this is a really good thing for consumers. It can, it creates transparency. And there were vulnerabilities in the way that we were practicing real estate. Right. This wasn't a decision, obviously, that I made, but this is now something that everyone has to follow. And if you're buying a house in the United States, these are now practice changes across every single state. So I want to be the resource for my sphere, my friends, my family, about, these are my thoughts. This is how I'm helping my buyers, my sellers navigate these changes.

Max Fitzgerald [00:43:09]:
And at the end of the day, this is going to benefit the industry as a whole. Because whether or not you agree with the settlement, and that's sort of a separate conversation, it will create that transparency that was sort of desperately needed for the consumer.

Dan Stewart  [00:43:26]:
Yeah, that's well said. That's well said. Because you might not like that. It's raining. But it's raining. It's a fact. You just have to deal with it. You had plans to go to the beach, but, oh, it's raining.

Dan Stewart  [00:43:37]:
All right, well, new plans. There's probably lots of great things you can do in the rain. That's right. Stop that impulse to whine and wish and hope and pray that it's going to change. Just accept what is and then move forward with that new reality. Because there's a lot more change coming in 2024. At the end of December in 2023, the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC announced all sorts of changes that will be live by the end of 2024. So, you know anyone who's listening to this, now is the moment in time where you need to get educated about these changes and you need to get your database in shape, because here in the very near future, we're going to have lots of changes into the way leads can be distributed by companies that you're currently buying leads from.

Dan Stewart  [00:44:41]:
There's something called explicit consent, which means that a lead can be sold one time unless that lead is given explicit consent that it can be sold multiple times. Right. There are all sorts of different lead gen strategies in real estate. And, you know, those of you who are buying leads, Internet leads specifically, you've had the experience of being the 10th agent who responded to that lead you just paid for. Explicit consent is designed to make that go away, because it's not a good experience for that buyer to get inundated with outreach from agents when really they just thought they were connecting with one. Right?

Max Fitzgerald [00:45:23]:
Yeah, not at all. And like that, that is something. I mean, you know a lot more about these regulations than I do, Dan. But, you know, my two cent on this, if you're listening and you're a real estate agent, is, you know, these lead sources are great Internet leads, for the most part, don't convert. Sometimes they do. It's awesome when they do. But your friends, your family, the people you know in real life, right, the people you've sold homes to, that should be the core, core, core of your sphere of influence. That's who you should be talking to as often as you can.

Max Fitzgerald [00:45:57]:
That's who you should be taking. And that's how you build, you know, that's how you build a sustainable business, really. I mean, it's not relying on, I mean, the portals and the Internet leads and the Ylopo's, I mean, all of those companies are amazing, right? Ylopo is a big provider for us, for leads. And I know the people who run that company very, very well. But going back to things that make you uncomfortable, right? For me, when I was an agent, it was the interest rates, it was the mercy of my clients. It was all these different things. But the one thing I could really hang my hat on as an agent was, well, my friends, my family, my past clients, these people, they're never going anywhere. They always know me.

Max Fitzgerald [00:46:36]:
As long as I can create community within that sphere of influence, that's going to lead to referrals, that's going to lead to business. That's something we preach all the time. Your sphere of influence is the most important component of your real estate practice. So make sure that you're marketing to them in a good way. Make sure you're paying attention to them, that you're intentional with your relationships, because that's going to be how you grow and scale your company or your business.

Dan Stewart  [00:47:05]:
Those people, I always teach that there's really just two kinds of people alive today. They know you or they don't. Right? That Internet lead doesn't know you. You're just another agent. That past client, that person in your sphere, they can tell a room full of people why you're the badass they should work with, right? Cause they had that experience firsthand. They got to see you pull the deal together at the 11th hour. Right? They got to see you, like, solve these insurmountable problems as you work through a closing. That person is an expert on your ability to do a great job in real estate because they've experienced it firsthand.

Dan Stewart  [00:47:45]:
So, you know, it is kind of a final thought here to anybody building a career in real estate. Just recognize that every single person you serve should make your future ability to grow easier and easier and easier. Because every year you've got a growing pool of people who are experts on why you're awesome. Right? And you don't need to put any sort of crazy, complicated system in place to generate referral opportunities from them. You just have to continue to show up as a human being who actually cares about the relationship you worked hard to build. Right?

Max Fitzgerald [00:48:26]:
So Dan couldn't have said it better myself, but, yeah, that is it. That is a very good point. And the younger real estate agents out here, this will be my sort of final thought, is, you know, you may be looking at the industry and with all the changes, and, you know, you may be feeling a little lost, but really start with your, you know, start with your parents, start with your cousin, right? Maybe your sphere of influence is nine people market to those nine people. Make sure that they know you're in real estate. Right? Do they know you got your license? Are you confident in your ability to take your uncle out to lunch and talk to him about his potential real estate needs? Right? So start small, and then you add a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And then flash forward maybe six months or twelve months, and that those nine people then multiply into maybe 30. Right now you've got a lot more opportunity to have conversations, so don't worry about starting small. Hey, I started small when I left production.

Max Fitzgerald [00:49:30]:
I never was buying leads I only had maybe 20 or so core core people that I considered my clients. So it's okay to have just a small focus group of people that are your bread and butter clients. So that's kind of my closing thoughts to those people that are know, especially at the beginning stages of their real estate career.

Dan Stewart  [00:49:50]:
Well, thank you so much, Max. I mean, we're closing talking about relationships, right? And I just, I want to express again how grateful I am to know you and to be part of helping you as a member of happy grasshopper and whatever advice I can share in growing stack wrap. So you are on the right track. You absolutely are. And I just want to be a cheerleader and watch you grow.

Max Fitzgerald [00:50:17]:
Thank you, Dan. The feeling is very mutual. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me on your podcast and hope you have a good day.

Dan Stewart  [00:50:23]:
Yeah, will do. Thanks, Max. Bye.