This Real Estate Agent Breaks Every Rule (And Wins) | Building Trust Over Volume

From social worker to disruptor. Scott's story flips the script on how real estate agents are supposed to operate.

He went from zero to 36 units in his first year, realized he was burning out, and made a choice: scale differently. Now he runs a brokerage where mentorship is hands-on, every client feels known—whether they're buying a $150K home or $1.5M—and agents actually stay.

In this episode, Scott breaks down: 

• Why real estate agents are in the bottom 10% for public trust (and the exact mindset shift that fixes it) 
• The psychology of how people make decisions and why trust beats commission every time 
• How he went from managing one transaction at a time to building a team of 22 agents—and why most brokers can't do what he does 
• The mentorship model that actually works (hint: it's not virtual) 
• Why scaling by volume is the worst way to scale 
• AI, fiduciary responsibility, and what the future of real estate actually looks like

This is not your typical real estate advice. Scott leads with authenticity, transparency, and a deep belief that your client's mission becomes your mission.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 - Introduction: From Social Work to Real Estate 
2:15 - The Moment He Almost Quit After His Best Year 
5:30 - Scaling Wrong vs. Scaling Right 
8:45 - Why Trust Matters More Than Commission 
12:00 - The Psychology of Decision-Making (Jordan's on Amazon Analogy) 15:30 - Real Estate Agents and Public Trust 
18:20 - The Lawsuit, Price Fixing, and What Changed 
21:45 - Fiduciary Responsibility: What It Actually Means 
24:30 - Building a Brokerage on Authenticity 
27:00 - The Mentorship Model: Hands-On Coaching 
30:15 - How to Avoid Tasting the Blood (Integrity Over Easy Sales) 
33:45 - The Launch Plan: A Different Way to List 
37:20 - AI, Personas, and Problem-Solving 
41:00 - What Freedom Looks Like 
44:30 - How to Connect with Scott

#RealEstateAgent #RealEstateBusiness #TrustInBusiness #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #Mentorship #AuthenticLeadership #RealEstateMarket #BusinessStrategy #SalesCoaching #BrokerageLife #PersonalBrand #IntegrityInBusiness #ScalingBusiness #PodcastEpisode

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Transcript

 Scott. Welcome. Appreciate you coming to the, uh, podcast to today. Mm-hmm. We were talking, we were talking before this, and you started off as an investor in 19 mm-hmm. But then quickly went to the retail side of things. Yeah. And from there you went from. Doing zero. When you started obviously Uhhuh to doing 30 something, now you have a team or a whole brokerage with 20 something people. Yeah. Talk to us about that trajectory and your mindset that kind of went into that. You bet. Well, um, and I, I feel like with most real estate agents or professionals, we didn't, I wasn't plan to be here. No. Um, you know, that wasn't, you didn't, you didn't grow up as a kid wanting to be a real estate agent. And to be honest, nobody in my family ever, ever owned a home. We were military moved every four years. Um, so it's kind of funny to think about where I'm most successful and happiest is a place that I never, never originally thought of. Um, my background prior to real estate, prior to 19 was social work. I spent 10 years in the social work industry. Um, you know, I was. In my young twenties, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and wanted to make a difference in the world. And, um, honestly got into social work, uh, originally in the child abuse and neglect space. Um, and, you know, it, it was impactful. Um, I think it framed a lot of my deep connection to, um, getting to the heart of where people are at and truly striving to, to solve problems. I think, um, I think all businesses, entrepreneurship, uh, uh, as well should be framed around solutions and, um, loving me lovingly, not the, not my solution, the solution to their, their problem. Um, and I think from that, you know, obviously gotten into to social work, which is. I always say, which like, the world loved, like when I'd go to parties or coffee or something and I was, um, and I would mention I'm in social. I'm like, wow, how rewarding, you know, how do you get into that? And in the back of my head, you know, it was, um, a great, uh, um, great party or get together conversation, um, but income wise wasn't getting it done. And, and I started to think about it. I, I, I really believe that when it comes to success, and when I say success, I mean not just outward, not just inward. Um, overall, it's interesting if you take a look at it where I, I think it needs to be a balance of outcome in the world and income, right? So when you take a look at social work or where I started in the beginning, it was a very outcome driven career. And the world love, the world loves outcome driven focuses, but my income was low. Didn't bother the world, but it bothered me. Um. And so I started to work through work, work my way into leadership within the social work space. Um, I also got into the Army, army National Guard at the time, went the officer route. Um, my background is in actually, you know, medevac and, um, movement, mobility ops, coinciding with social work. So, you know, worked my way up. I was, um, to supervisor then to, I led, um, uh, two social service agencies and on the tail end of my social work career, I was a regional manager for the Department of Labor. So, um, leadership and operations along with social work has always kind of been my jam. Um, but you know, I had gone through a divorce, um, tail around eight actually before 18. Um, and I hit this glass ceiling in the space of social work. I'd, I'd gotten to, you know, a very high level at a young age and, um. You know, you look at the bank account and you're like, well, the world loves this, right? And, and I'm as high as I can get for, you know, until someone above me dies or moves outta the way. Um, is this it for me? And, um, I, I believe that some of your best entrepreneurs, um, you have that feeling of comfortability and the immediate complacency. Um, there's really no time difference. You think I'm, oh man, I feel comfortable. Oh crap, I must be complacent. Oh, I gotta move. And I've always been that way. And so, um, you know, I was terrified of staying in one spot and not just staying in one spot, staying in one, one spot that didn't fulfill both the outcome and the income. Because I, I, I, I think that was a necessary for an individual to be happy. But then you take a look at the opposite side of the spectrum, which the world, let's say the world perceives what you do as a very income driven career with low outcome in the. What's interesting is the world doesn't let you do that for very long. Um, when you think about it, okay, outcome high, they're okay with an income low, you're not income high, uh, they're not okay with it. Um, outcome, you're not. Um, so is the key to success really balancing the two. If, if you move the needle in outcome or you're matching that needle with income and vice versa. Because if the world sees you make a significant amount of income, but don't believe you're making the outcome, they don't let you stay there very long, they cut you off, we're gonna pretty heavy cancel, cancel culture, right? They, they do it at a very rapid speed. So I was thinking as I was, um, I had picked, picked up Rich Dad, poor dad to go into that divorce and you know, nobody in my family ever had money. Nobody in my family ever owned a home. And so it was kind of groundbreaking for me. It was like, um. It's like learning math for the first time. Mm-hmm. Right? Or learning a, a subject that you hadn't been exposed to. Um, and it, it helped at bare minimum unlock the mindset needed to break a, a, a glass ceiling or a barrier. Um, and so I, I had read that book and I, I started off, um, off market and learning all about it and, and chatting with investors. And, um, and in 2019 I got my real estate license and I was still doing a lot of off market stuff. And I turned to my, I was, mind you, I was still in social work at the time. I was still running the Department of Labor. I was doing it as a little sidekick. Um, and funny story is I, um, I wanted to learn more about it and I wanted to get involved in the real estate space, you know, specifically the off market stuff. And so I saw a bandit sign, um. And I had called that, that, uh, cash for home sign and 'cause I had actually put an application to that company and like a marketing application, right? So I'd done all these amazing things in my career and they'd never called me back. And it really ticked me off because like, I feel like I'm more than qualified for what this is. Uh, they didn't, didn't respond. I didn't call me back. So I, you know, I was like, I picked up the phone, I called them and I said, Hey, um, I have a home you might be interested in buying. I didn't own a home at the time. Um, and I said, uh, uh, they said, well, we'll meet you out. They said, no, no, I wanna meet you guys first. And so I set an appointment, drove down there, and the first thing that I said walking through the door is, I'm be honest with you, uh, I don't own a home. I'm super interested in what you guys are doing here. Um, I don't care what I do. I, um, but I wanna be a part of it. I wanna learn. And first thing I said was, Hey, you got some balls? I said, yeah, I'm pretty smart too. If you just gimme a chance mind. I was running the Department of Labor at the time, but I was that hungry to, to get exposure to what this is. And so. They said. Sure. And so I started on off market acquisitions, um, and um, kind of took off at that, learned a ton about the investing side. And, um, then, you know, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna get my real estate license and try to make something outta this. But I got my real estate license and, um, truly started to enjoy that more. And, um, at the end of 19, I turned to my, she was my fiance at the time, and now my wife and I said, um, I don't think I can make the money to buy cheap houses. If I'm just selling cheap houses, I'm gonna try this retail thing. Uh, so 2020 started and then boom, COVID hit. Um, and when the rest of the world, you know, um, took a step back, I was like, there's, there's my opportunity. I'm gonna lean into this as hard as I can. And my breakout year was what would some would say was one of the worst years and we've had in a couple decades. Um, so, uh, um. Jumped into the real estate space, uh, full time. My first transactions, um, you know, were off market investment properties that had kind of make it on the retail side. And, and I realized that my why and my how have always remained the same. Um, my why is I wanna maximize the potential of other people. How I do that, um, as I found out and, and anybody who switches careers right, is irrelevant. As long as I'm doing that, that why I've done it in social work, I've done it in the military, um, I've done it in real estate. And so had that breakout year in 2020, so 36 units and, and hired an assistant and things were going great. And I remember finishing that year off. And like from the outside looking in, everyone was like, wow. Like what an amazing rookie year and all that kind of stuff. And I remember my broker at the time turned to me and said, Hey, you can hit 40 next year, you know, 40 units. And I looked at him and I said, I don't if I'm gonna be doing this next year. And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean? I was like, I, I, I may have hit the goals, if not exceeded them, that I wanted to professionally, but I was not the man that I wanted to be during that year. I wasn't the husband I wanted to be. I wasn't the father that I wanted to be. And that it just felt wrong. And it goes to show like, hey, um, on paper you can achieve all the goals that you want to, but are you who you want to be during that time? And um, and so, you know, we, I sat down and really contemplated, is this something I want to do? I mean, after a breakout year. Um, but, you know, I, with some guidance, um, and, and some growth I had, you know, scaling is. Scaling is subjective, right? Um, the hardest part about being a real estate professional is 95% of the industry teaches you scaling is one way more units. Um, and, um, that's a fallacy. It's not. That's, that's not the only way to scale. And honestly, if you think about it, it could be one of the worst ways to scale, um, specifically as a real estate agent because, um, there's a dozen other ways to scale. You can scale in average home sale price, right? That's scaling. How about average commission that's scaling? Um, and when I had looked at my transactions for that first year, 30 outta 36 units were with were single-sided. Um, meaning I only repped just that seller or just that buyer. And looking at that, I was like, no wonder I'm exhausted. Right? Um, and, and I, I had taken a look at my trajectory and the marketing that I was putting out. Um, and I said, you know what, if I get closer to a 50 50, um, helping someone sell and buy, I could do the same amount of transactions with half the people, um, seems more efficient to me. Right? The kind of the difference between going from straight up all single family homes in your portfolio to maybe starting with a couple duplexes or multi-families. Um, and then, you know, as I started to break through some barriers, um, it really felt like my mission was still the same. My wi I was still sitting across from people in the living room, just like social work, helping them work through a problem. I just sit in the real estate space and I also felt like not a lot of people were being taught that way. Walk into a room, discover the problem, truly strive, I mean, like truly strive to solve that problem for the other person. And then you both get to the outcome. And I feel like even on the investment side, um, you're, you're taught to listen to the problem and almost negotiate with it, and you can't. That people can see right through that truly help them solve their problem, um, in a way that makes sense for everybody around and, and move forward. But at bare minimum, um, as I was scaling and, and, and growing, I thought, you know, one thing that I think is vastly or drastically missing in the real estate agent space, or at least in the education around it, was the necessity for trust. And I don't think it's talked about at all in our space. Um, but you know, when you think about human beings and the one emotion that they want with other human beings, it's, I hate to tell you, it's not love. Um, I, I would, I would debate and argue that trust in itself is the most valuable human emotion you can have because, uh, you know, you know as well as I do, you have people that you love. That you don't trust very much. But, um, but with that, and you, if you really think about that, um, we're not educated on trust. We're not educated on how to grow trust. Uh, it's rarely ever talked about in our space. And I hate, I hate that. Um, it bothers me because I think that's the key is building trust between you and other, uh, uh, individuals. And so when you think about that, you know, I, I really wanted to break the mold on how agents were educated and how they're grown and the businesses that they scale. Um, and so on the tail end, you work, I built a small team, um, work through about the systems and the processes. And, um, at the end of 2023, made the decision to, to break off of a previous brokerage, get my brokerage license because I didn't have it. And then a three or four month period that opened up my own real estate brokerage with three people, me and two others. And then, um. Realty, one group, authentic, and you know, that name is deliberate. Um, I truly believe in authenticity. I think it's the best thing you can be as an authentic human being, and then give, give everybody around you the ability to decide whether they wanted to rock with you or not. Well, and and so this podcast came to be after you sat down with my wife and she came back from that meeting just energized. She just said, you know, Scott's a disruptor and he's doing all these things and, and part of what you just talked about with the income and the outcome, I think pe what people fail to realize is that you can maximize that income category at the expense of trust with other people and it will burn out eventually. Mm-hmm. But some people, you have no idea. It could be millions of dollars, it could be hundreds of millions of dollars you make before you burn through all that trust, but eventually it will come crumbling. Yeah. And part of being the disruptor and everything you're saying about authenticity. How, how important was it and, and talk about the, the place that you were in mentally at the time where you realized that your, you, your values were no longer aligned with the organization that you were with. Yeah. Um, all leaders have an impact on you, um, the good ones and the, not the, not the good ones. Um, and one, you gotta be grateful for the impact. You gotta grateful for the lesson. Um, and, and I think there's, there's a little bit of, you know, we're human, uh, um, leading is hard, very hard. Um, it's not a popularity contest. Um, it's an honesty contest and I think the lines really start to get blurred when someone feels as if you're there, you or you're being dishonest. And so now, um, in, in making that decision, you know, um. I learned a ton from my previous leadership. A a ton. Um, but you know, the last thing that, um, any of us wanna be is the stair step to someone else's continued success. I'm fine with being a resource, truly at the, from the bottom of my heart, I am fine being a resource for others. I think we all have that drive to help others. And, and actually there's been studies around it, you know, the eight outta 10 human beings, no matter what industry or career field they're in, truly have a relentless drive to help other people. And that's exciting. However, there comes a point in time where, um, you want that growth too. You want the trajectory of what you can do to match where you are. And then I, I. Discontent. Like when do you hit, when do you hit discontent? And I firmly believe that it happens when one thing happens with all people. I believe that discontent only happens when the belief in your potential and your current reality have space. And, and I'll give you examples. You have people in your life that are, um, have a low belief in their potential and are not doing anything with their lives, and they seem perfectly happy with it. And those are the people. We sit back and ask yourself the question, how, how can you do that? Well, think about it. Their belief is low, their reality is low. They're completely aligned. Why would they be unhappy? And then you have the people who watch from the outside are looking in the top 3% on Instagram or social media or whatever they want you to see. And they're living a high life. They have high potential, high belief in their potential, and they're living a high life and they're completely aligned with where they're at. And then you have the other 92% of the population. Somewhere in the middle. Now, when I figured that out, it's, um, it's empowering to the point where it's scary because now that you know any point of discontent you have at any day ever, be it what you have for lunch or with the person sitting across the table from you, uh, or the scenario or the, or the job you're doing, it only happens when one thing happens. Do your belief in your potential and your current reality have space. And I tell my kids this, uh, there's three decisions in that dynamic. The worst decision you could ever make is to do nothing, because all that does is spread that gap and it just hurts the entire time. The worst thing you can ever make when you recognize that there's discontent somewhere is to do nothing. Now, what are the other two decisions? The other two decisions are to lower your belief and your potential to match your current reality. And when I say that, the high achievers in the room say, oh, couldn't be me. I couldn't do that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's times in our lives where we do lower the, our belief in our individual potential to match our current reality so that, you know, Scott at 22 years old and his belief in his individual potential changed drastically when I had my first kid. Wasn't that I didn't wanna achieve the goals that I wanted to do. My current reality at that time had a breakthrough. Um, so do you lower your belief and your individual potential? Yes. When your current reality matters more than what that individual potential and belief was, but then what happens after that? It doesn't go away, does it? Over time. And you get comfortable with who you are and the and, and the reality and where your life is going, and you realize how important that is. What does that potential start to do? That's to challenge you to push back and go further. So the, the true and only answer ever is to raise your current reality, to match your potential. And, um. When you recognize that it's only three choices, whenever you're discontent, it becomes empowering because you have the ability to make those, those, those three decisions. But like I said, the worst thing you could do is ever is do nothing. And I, and I'm, I realized that my potential and the impact that I can make in others' lives in the real estate space, I wasn't achieving that. Um, I could sell houses, I can sit in listing appointments, I could have great conversations. Um, I could get listing contracts and purchase contracts and negotiate with the best of them. That wasn't it. It's, that can't be it for me. Um, and so in that, how do I, the idea around, okay, I've built businesses for other people, brokerages and social work side and all that stuff, what about my turn? So therein lies the jump. Um, and um, of course the jump is scary, but you know, we're getting to a point where we went from three to 22 agents now and, um. And at the end of the day, I, I, I want our training to be different. I want it to be focused around trust within other individuals. I want, you know, in the, in the world of real estate, it's, um, there's a lot of hidden doors. People will sell you the online software you need to solve the problem, but not anything else. Uh, they'll sell you the, the, the cookie cutter solution that only works for one out of a hundred people and tell you that it works for one out of, it works for that one person. So why couldn't it work for you? And they don't tell you the behind the scenes. They don't teach you how to, how to where money is made. And, um, and you know, as, as kids, we, we, we go to school and we get report cards. Well, entrepreneurship has a report card too. The hard part is it's not equal for everybody. You know, you look at your GPA compared to your GPA as an entrepreneur now becomes your profit and loss sheet. Now, um, the hard part is. Uh, the subjects that you take are yours and no one's at a grade job, but you. Um, and I think, I think with that, you know, you take, I, I made the leap and um, it's still scary. This is still the hardest thing I've ever done. It's always been the hardest thing I've ever done, whether I was in social work. And today is gonna continue to be one of the hardest days you're gonna have. And it might be a little easier for today, but it doesn't get any harder. You're not getting any better. Um, and so made the leap and trying to grow and train agents, trying to be something completely different. I think, um, I think the real estate sales space needs an absolute disruption, but I need, it needs a disruption in the best way. Real estate agents are. In the bottom 10 for trust when it comes to view from, from the public. And I hate that. Um, can I understand it? Yes, I can understand it, but I can at least strive to be a leader that tries to break that mold and try to grow others to lead with trust. And in that everything else follows the money and the, and the contracts and, and the growth. And so that's the trajectory trajectory we're on is, you know, we're a realty one group authentic. I want everyone to be exactly who they are and happy with who they are and how they solve problems in the real estate space. So therein lies, you know, what, what got me started and um, what the mission is. And, um, it's sad that it feels a tad bit against the grain to be that way, but, but I also know that PE agents don't know any different. They only know the models out there and what they're being sold. Um, and truly I'll do it one by one, one agent at a time. So, Hmm. Question on that. Your. Model that you're creating, you're roughly two years into mm-hmm. Into this experiment, if you will. What results are you seeing? So you have 22 agents, or mm-hmm. We'll call it 20 just for using math. Are they producing higher than 20 agents? If I had 20 agents in a traditional model, sure. Or I know you use a lot of ai or you're, you're big into AI with that. Is everything that you're doing producing better, if you will? It's a good, good question. You know, I, I found, um, that the first like six months is, it's almost like if you go back to when you went through bootcamp to be broken down before you, before the breakthrough, you gotta break down those bad habits and what people are told. And it takes a minute. Um, because how we're taught in this space is very assembly line like, um. Make these 100 calls to these five groups and you will be successful. And you have 3000 agents being trained that way at an given point in time in this area. Um, and so first you're kind of, it almost feels like some agents are like, okay, why does this feel a tad bit too good to be true? Because the assumption is that because we're a fee-based model, we're cheap, we're not cheap. We have the same tools and resources every, every other brokerage out there. Um, and I also say that in a lot of my one-on-ones is, I'm gonna be blunt with you, we have the same tools and resources, everybody out there, but I nobody trains you on how to execute, how to use those tools and resources. That's where still being in sales helps me stay involved. It, it helps me keep in tune with the market. So I find that the first, like four to six months is almost like breaking down what, where they were and what wasn't working. And then, um, the next, the. Four months or so is the confidence building, having them get confident in the conversations and being confident against the grain. It's very easy to be confident when there's a hundred resources out there that aren't working. 'cause there's a hundred resources out there. Right. You have something you can lean on. Well, how, how well has that listing presentation that you've been doing 10 times in our work for you? Well, I got one listing. What about the other nine? What do you feel like you were missing? Well, I don't know. I don't know any different. That's how I was trained. Um, so I would say the first six months are usually breaking, breaking them down to, to, to move them back up. And then when they realize that they do have the ability to succeed and we will be next to them. Guiding, coaching, mentoring. Like we have a mentorship program and I feel like the term mentorship is just thrown around all over the place. It's very specific for us. Um, our mentorship is very hands-on and so, um, when I say hands-on, like you're sitting in the passenger seat of my truck. When I go to a listing appointment and I go to a buyer's appointment, and you're part of that, our agents, if you wrangle up a listing appointment and you want one of the mentors to go, we will absolutely go accompany you, participate in a listing appointment, wrap that listing contract up in a pretty bow for you and toss it back. That's what I believe that mentorship should be, and I don't think agents believe they're actually gonna get that level of help they hear, and it's kind of crazy to me. They hear mentorship from a lot of big box brokerages and that ends up meeting that might, that might be somebody you meet with every two weeks that asks you to bring in your tracker sheet of how many calls and contacts you made, not guiding you through how to have those calls, contacts, and those conversations, and the amount of, um. Learning that someone can do in the passenger seat of your vehicle or sitting in on a listing appointment. You can't, you can't replace that. Uh, um, and well, and the other, the other side of that is, as the managing broker, you own that transaction. Everything has your stamp on it. And it drives me nuts, these fog and mirror brokerages and I see all across the country mm-hmm. Where they're like, just mass numbers and whatever. How do you have accountability of that? Because I guarantee you don't even know everyone's name in this brokerage, so how can you put your name on their contracts? And I, and I think that ke what was the, the phrase from school hard knocks or he, he uses it over and over again of you stay small enough, long enough. Um, something, something about that. Well, I'll, I'll find it another time, but I think that there's power to staying small like that because just like, you know, a flame, you grow too fast and, and too hot, you're gonna burn out. And usually that burnout falls on the shoulders of the managing broker. Yeah. Where they're getting slapped on the wrist and they're getting disciplinary because they have no accountability of what's happening. But if you stay small enough, you maintain that control over the quality rather than just can we get the maximum number of transactions in the state? Mm-hmm. Who cares if you're just gonna lose your license next year? Mm-hmm. So, I I, I'm curious about that side of being hands-on and then there's still a trade off. There's a dichotomy of your time. Yeah. And knowing that, that, I mean, it's a high turnover business. You're gonna lose agents. Yeah. You know, um, I'm with you on the smoke and mirrors. It's amazing to me, um, how loyal real estate agents can be to somebody they see once a year. Well, I've got this guy's name or that guy's name. When's the last time you talked to him? I've never actually talked to him, but I have him, I have his number in my phone. Do you? I saw him at the Christmas party. Um, that's great. I saw Santa at mine. Doesn't mean I got Santa in my back pocket. Right. Um, I lead from the front, right. Lead from the front. So, um. One of my biggest fears is not being close enough to the market as a, as a leader, because I feel like then I, I, I lose the ability to stay in tune. Um, I don't wanna be that, that leader that teaches you a, a ways from a decade ago. Um, I wanna be the, the leader that just had that conversation yesterday that you had a problem with and to work you through that. And they even offer the ability to participate now, um, even on the, the leadership and the brokerage side. Yeah. There's ways that you're taught to grow and it's very similar to how agents are taught to grow, I think. Um, I like that. I don't want an agent to ever feel like a number at our office. I want them to be known. I want them to feel comfortable, um, and, and who they are as people. Um, on their best days and worst days. I want them. Um, to know that I don't care if it's one transaction or 20 transactions that, that they will get better if they put the sweat in the work and someone will be next to them side by side. Um, helping them, helping them work through that. Now to get back to what you mentioned, the dichotomy of time. Yeah. I ha if you think about it, I have to be selective and 'cause I'm not gonna spread my, I can't spread myself thin. Anybody's in the military know you're greatest. Your, your longest arm is three people. So I can't, um, I have to be selective and know that the potential is there to put them next to me side by side and grow them. But I really feel like that's the loyalty that I want and the people that I want, that they, I wasn't just the guy who, who talked you into walking through the door and you saw me at the Christmas party. I'm the guy who talked, you. Um, who had a conversation with you, got you through the door, and sat with you on your first listing appointment and, and helped you wrap up your first buyer's appointment, made you feel confident, talked to you about what worked and didn't work, didn't work. We have solutions to what you're struggling with. And I, I, it's, it is amazing to me how blind some of the loyalty is right now. And I feel like when I offer that as a solution, like, no, you'll be, I'm picking you because you have quarterback potential. Um, I need more quarterbacks on my team. You can sit side by side. You can, you, you can work through our mentorship program. Um, get hands on help. It's almost like agents don't actually believe that it's real. Um, because, you know, in that it's, it's, it's, it's just interesting to me how blind loyalty is, well, I don't wanna leave this place because it's this place. Consumers don't care about that. They care about you. I mean, you are the brand. You should, if, if you're leaving a brokerage and losing a client, you weren't valuable enough. And that may sting here, but it, your clients want you as a human being no matter what the color of your sign is or how big your brokerage is. They don't sign, you know, they, they want you to represent them. Um, and I, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Um, there's a lot of space for error in that type of scaling. Um, but I think the greatest error in that is a lack of connection between leadership and agents. And that's my biggest fear. I have always been a contrarian at thinking that real estate agents or a useless profession. Mm-hmm. I appreciate the transparency there. No, I, I, I'm just being honest. Like you became a real estate agent too. I, I, I, I, I got my license. Got it. But I still think it's a useless profess perfection profession. Mm-hmm. In, in the sense that. What else do you, other than stocks and bonds that you buy and sell? Sure. That you go through somebody and technically you don't have to nowadays. Mm-hmm. But it's, it's a, like a gatekeeper, if you will. And I feel like I, I understand why from a economic standpoint that buying, selling a half million dollar house can affect economy dra dramatically if done improperly. So that part I kinda understand, but at roughly 10% of the, the total, so if I sell a half million dollar house between fees and realtor fees and, um, all the, all the process, sure. I, I basically factor in 10%. Sure. So that affects people's bottom line. Do you think that the market, that real estate agents are gonna be changing with ai, with everything and kind of the fee structure changing along with, I know there was a lawsuit a couple years ago on it and Nebraska changed their rules. What, what is your. Vision of the future of it based on things. 'cause sure, it is the one market or the one thing that sells that is like this. Sure, sure. You know, and one I like full. I I love the transparency, I love the question because that's, that's the mass belief in what we do now. Um, you gotta get back to trust and risk and reward. You know, when you think about psychologically, how you make a decision, uh, 'cause we all make decisions in a similar fashion, just with different motivating factors. So let's say you wanna go online and, um, you know, you're, you're wearing a, a fresh pair of, uh, uh, joins, done that, right? So, um, you go online, you type in Jordan's into Amazon psychologically. Let's walk through that, how that works. Um, first you click the prime button, right? 'cause nobody can wait two days for anything. Um, and then what do you do psychologically after that? Well, you see three pairs of Jordan's, all same colors, all stacked up at the top. How do you make that decision from there? Okay, well let's assume that they're all, you know, 150 bucks or around that price point. And that was, you know, 'cause one psychologically you actually frame out a price before you know a price, right? We have this, you got this gut knee jerk reaction that it's either expensive or too expensive or, you know, a great price before you've ever looked at the product, ever. Um, it's, it's interesting to me, but you, let's say you have, um, same three pairs, one at 175 bucks, one at 160 bucks and one at 150 bucks. You're like, okay, so a $15 difference between the three. How do you make the decision from there? Um, so let's say the one for $175 has 9,472 reviews, and then the one for hundred 60 has, uh, 2000 reviews and the one for 150 has 12 reviews. Um, well, okay, let's work through that decision. Um, you click on, you go through reviews. You realize the one for $175 has a higher amount of reviews, 9,000 reviews. 9,000 reviews of five stars. And, um, uh, we as human beings are actually psychologically more prone to make a decision off of, uh, influenced by social proof or belief of 9,000 human beings that you never met, right? So you gotta remember in a $50, $150 decision, you still need trust. Um, so what about a $500,000 decision? I'd argue that the necessity for trust in the professional helping guide and advise you, um, needs to be significantly higher. The problem is when you have 99% of agents that don't lean into the necessity to build trust between you and I, therein lies the belief that we are the gatekeeper. We're not gatekeepers, and I hate, actually hate the term salespeople, um, or advisors. And so when you take a look at how entrepreneurs and successful entrepreneurs make decisions, you think that make 'em alone. No, no. My dad told me as a kid, you never make a big decision alone. So when you look at those entrepreneurs that are doing significantly well, how big are their advisement parties? Um, how big is their circle? You, you can't build a business, you know, as well as I do without partners and people in the right spaces. So at the end of the day, you still want the same thing from your real estate professional as you do with your attorney and your accountant. You want trust. The problem is that hasn't been found, um, at the depth that you needed. If, if you knew that, um, your, your real estate professional could look you in the eyes and say, if I was making this decision, here's what I would do, then you feel a lot more comfortable now. Um. Why such a gap? That's the question. Um, 'cause if you had a real estate professional that you, that you believed deeply in their advisement, IE you've gotta actually believe that that person advising you has more knowledge than you in that category. And I, I completely agree with what you're saying. Mm-hmm. And my problem is more the way it's structured, I guess more than anything, if I buy and sell a $150,000 home mm-hmm. An agent's gonna be a lot less inclined to help me than if I'm selling a million and a half dollar home. Mm. Whether they get 10 times the commission. Sure. And so I have the same issue with, uh, financial advisors. I had the same issue with Yeah. Insurance agents. The same issue with attorneys or anybody that's makes more money off from a higher skilled higher, yeah. I would rather a fee based You talked about earlier about how your brokerage is fee based. Mm-hmm. I like fee based from, okay, I, I need to buy and sell a house. Okay. It's gonna cost you $3,000. I'll help you through, through the process. Doesn't matter if it's $150,000 house or a $1.5 million house. Yeah. You're still giving me the same level of service at the same price. Mm-hmm. Same thing with an attorney. If I need to draft up a buy, sell agreement. Mm-hmm. Okay. Buy sell agreement's gonna cost $750, you know, going into it versus, hey, you know, we might, attorneys notorious with arguing with other attorneys mm-hmm. And going back 750 times so that it costs you $10,000 instead of $750. Yeah. That's kind of where my mindset is for that. So I like what you're saying based on that. Yeah. You know, and on the agent side, we're fee based on the, on the consumer side, buying and selling. We're still, you know, the commission side of, of having that conversation about commission at the end of the day. It's that person that real estate professional should be working for you, just the same amount, 150 as our 1.5 million. Obviously there's more due diligence needed. Um, the problem is you have agents out there that will only work for what they're paid for, not for who they want to be. Mm-hmm. And I always, um, you know, I I always say, you gotta live your life. Yes, you have to eat, but you gotta sleep too. You gotta be proud of who you are at the end of the day as a professional and, and who you represent. I serve clients at 150,000 and, you know, a million dollar transactions, and they go, they all, they all develop the same level of trust. Um, because who I am during that transaction as a real estate professional, if that changes, I have an authenticity issue. Um, I'm not comfortable with who I am as a professional. I should be just as you, the same professional at 150 as I am at 1.5 million. And you, and you should feel just as much trust at 150 as you do at 1.5 million. The problem is, and, and I, and I. On one hand, I don't, I, I don't feel agents are trained to lead with that level of authenticity. If, if at the end of the day commission, right, it's all breaks down very similar and your numbers aren't far off. When I talk commission, you know, the conversation's simple. Hey, you're gonna retain anywhere between 92 to 93% of whatever you sell for. Um, then less your mortgage. It doesn't matter who you list with, to be honest. So, um, in that decision, it, the trust is more important because I, and, uh, next to somebody else at, at, uh, um, that's that split there. You wanna make sure the person representing you is the right human being to guide you through that. And, um, and the numbers always take out the same way. So you know, when you get down to it, um, if the numbers relatively range in between that, you know, seven to 9% no matter who you work, work with, that trust factor becomes even more vital. The problem is, um. You also have the o you have to have the open, you have to have the person in front of you that you feel you can trust. And you've also gotta have the openmindedness. And this is where there's, you know, as well as I do, the difference between serving an investor and serving a retail transaction mindset wise is different. It's bottom line. The good news is it's very black and white. The numbers work or they don't work. It's has nothing to do with emotion. However, trust is an emotion. And so it's, it is a very thin line to walk to get you your return of investment as well as, um, make sure that you trust me and I trust you. Um, and, and we can repeat that process. But at the end of the day, what human beings really want during that is to be protected. You know, my number one job is to protect you. And I say that with all my buyers and all my sellers. It's not to get to the price that you absolutely love. It's to actually protect you. 'cause if I get you a price that you love, but I don't protect you along the way, you'll never call me back. But if I can protect you on this one and you get a price that you at least like, or like enough to be happy with me, you're gonna rinse and repeat those transactions with me because you know that you can trust me to help grow your portfolio or help you buy your first home or, and you shouldn't be served any different between those two. The mindset's different, don't get me wrong. But, um, but yeah, I, and on top of that, like I mentioned in the beginning, agents aren't tra trust aren't taught to discover the gap there to the trust factor. What's missing? What does that human being really, really want? Um, besides the bottom line, we all want to protect you both. Bottom slum, bottom lines. I would say that's the bare minimum, but the deeper, you know, if someone can sit back and ask you your 10 year goal and truly strive to help you support and ex, you know, exceed that goal, um, that's where true partnerships and relationships are. Unfortunately, a lot of agents aren't taught to lead with that mindset. Yeah. Yeah. And on, on what Ryan's talking about, I think we, we have the same conversations, my wife and I, when we were setting up our brokerage and, and we, we don't, we're not setting it up as, you know, a we're trying to go out and make a lot of sales. Yeah. It's, it's brokerage is something we offer our trusted, you know, our investors that we serve, but how can we align the incentives with what benefits them? Mm-hmm. And that's, that's like a daily conversation is alignment. And I, I think about every profession, it's, it's a problem is you call an electrician and say, Hey, uh, should I be concerned with this? And they go, oh yeah, yeah. It's gonna be 10,000. Like, oh, I guess it's gonna be 10,000. Yeah. You know, so the person that you're calling to trust them for advice, and I think that's why. Financial advisors have such animosity towards real estate agents because they understand what the, the word fiduciary actually means. Mm-hmm. In the real estate agent side, it's not really taught, they say it as a buzzword, but what does it mean to be a Fido, uh, fiduciary for your clients? Mm-hmm. And I, I think, and this is one of the things you mentioned also the, the lawsuit that came out. Mm-hmm. I was one of the ones saying, and I mean, we talked about it on the podcast a lot. I don't really have a problem with it. And, and that's con contrary to what most people believe. Sure. Because what I believe is that the, the rules are there to protect the general public. Mm-hmm. The, the real estate commission is there to protect the general public. Yeah. And what was happening was price fixing. Mm-hmm. Is every buyer's agent in town knows If I put my offer in, I'm getting 2.4. Yeah. 2.4. 2.4. Yeah. What? It's an unwritten rule. You just know it. That's price fixing. On the commercial side, every commission is negotiable. Mm-hmm. Because the seller needs to know how that commission affects his net proceeds. The buyer needs to understand how it affects their total purchase price. Yeah. And when it's a negotiating ship, if you're in a strong seller's market. Then I don't think a listing agent really needs to, they just, you know, put a listing up. It sells itself. They're not really in, they, they don't need a three and a half percent commission to, to sell that house. Yeah. Same is true in a buyer's market. You know, the, the buyer's agent doesn't have to work very hard. So the, the commission should be negotiable based on the deal. Mm-hmm. What, what are your thoughts about that whole lawsuit and how it impacts the general public? Yeah. You know, and before I touch on that, I, I, I'm, one thing that I think it's cool, you have to recognize why you and your wife started. What you started. You recognized a, a problem that did have an impact on you, and it pissed you off so much that you wanted to solve that for other people. And, and it, and when you walk into those conversations with those people and you express it, half of what I do is knowledge. The other half is passion. If I didn't bring passion you, you wouldn't believe that I believed in what I was doing. But you gotta get passionate at first. You have to uncover, uncover a problem, and when it affects you truly believe it's gonna affect more people. And if it ticks you off enough to go and strive to solve that problem with true authenticity for other people, that's where passion and purpose align the, the unfortunately, not enough people flip over enough rocks and get pissed off enough about how stuff is going wrong to actually do something about it. Now that one space for you turned into an entire business model. You started your brokerage with a mission, and you had to get that mission first. And so when you sit across from investors or, or, or, you know, um. Be it small time or, or, or big investors and, and they bring to the same problems that you face, that you and your wife face and you tell them, Hey, I'm here to completely flip that upside down. It makes me, I'm gonna be honest with it, makes me even more irritated than it makes you. I want someone, I want, I want Miley Dog to do that. I want them to be angry about the problem than I am. But not enough people get passionate about how upside down models actually are in a lot of spaces, not just us. Um, you know, on the fiduciary responsibility and the lawsuit side, you know, yet again, I go back to training on paper. Has the buyer's agreement always said commissioners negotiable? Yes, it always has. Was it trained that way? No, it wasn't trained that way. Um, and now, um, I'm with you the entire time. I've always had con those same conversations. It, it all comes down to transparency. You know, on my cost sheets for the last four years, I've showed the different, the, the seller split and the buyer split. It's always been 110% transparent. But I've always rocked that way because I, I do believe that therein lies, you know, that trust factor, stay transparent and the best thing you could do. You know, when I came over into the, and think coming from social work, which was very outcome driven to, to real estate, which is very income driven. My biggest fear was, man, if I tasted blood, would I like it? Hmm? Would it change me? Um, and I can also say, I never had to, and I'm doing just fine. And when, when you, when you think about the beginning of trust, if you ever have to, you realize that the risk you're about to take requires a trained enough professional, skilled enough professional, that you do actually wanna lean into their professional expertise. Let's take, uh, financial advisors the same as an accountant, the same as an attorney. The higher the risk, the higher the necessity for trust. I would, I'd argue, and, and then in that, let's say you sit across from five attorneys, let's say you never have to, I, I hope you never have to, but if you did, um, four of them break down what they can do for you in what they call legal ease, and you walk outta the room and you think to yourself, man, that person knows what they're talking about, but I have no idea what the hell they just said. But the fifth one, the fifth one, breaks the process down and how they can help you in a way that just makes sense. So step one to starting with trust is translation. The best, the most skilled professionals, I say the top 10% at bare minimum, are skilled in their craft. They're good at what they do, but the top 3%, they can break down what they do in a way that just makes sense to the people sitting across from the minute, whether they're the $150,000 buyer or the $1.5 million buyer seller. So step one, truly for real estate professionals or for any professional looking to now realizing the value of trust with you and other human being is to f the next, take what you do and translate it in a way that doesn't just make sense to some makes sense to all. And you have to be, um, you have to have a deep understanding of those real estate space to be able to do that. The, the less you can talk legally is in real estate terms, the higher the opportunity for you to develop honesty, transparency, and trust. So, um, your financial advisor, um, should speak to you at the level at which you understand, not the level which they understand. Um, and so, so I believe if more real estate professionals truly broke down the process and put in the work the same level of work they did at 150001.5 million, you'd have a lot more trustworthy, uh, real estate professionals, or at least, and, and I started the brokerage 'cause I actually believed that there's agents out there that want to do that. They're just not trained on how, and that's a me gap. If I'm not loud enough, I'm not disruptive enough. They, they, I want them to at least know it's over here. You don't gotta believe in it. You don't have to believe that it's real. These come find out. But you know, when you, at the end of the day, I think, um, I, I, I hate that's against the grain. I hate that authenticity is against the grain. I hate that transparency is against the grain. I, but I like the transparency that struck out from that, from the lawsuit. It required everybody to break down their commission two or three times to a consumer. Why the hell were we not doing that before? So at least people know how it shakes out. Um, but you know, it also offered the opportunity, if you have a higher level of value, you can make more. It could, your buyer's commission can be higher if you have, if you have that separator between you and the other agents, and you actually believe, and the other person across you believes that you're worth that. Um, so I, I, I all, I understand where it came from. Um, yeah, there's a big hub up 'cause there's a big change, but I'm glad that it increased the transparency in our industry and raised the value of at bare minimum the buyer's agent. Because there's a lot of work on that end. So, um, yeah. So what is next for you in your, are you continue growing? Are you branching out in other areas? I know before we started, you started talking about mortgage and just other ancillary businesses. Is that kind of what your trajectory is or what's your, where are you bringing Auten authentic authenticity too. Yeah, I'll, I'll can't speak today. That's okay. Um, you know, um, I'm happiest when I was a kid all the way up through elementary school and even middle school and every parent teacher cons conference I ever had teachers say I talk too much. Um. I've always enjoyed speaking and talking and now, you know, um, most people know me for AI and where I, where I help in the, in the real estate space. And so I traveled, the nation speaking was in Alaska a couple weeks ago, and I'll go to the Philippines in November, you know, spoke in Las Vegas twice, Miami, uh, Pennsylvania, all over. Um, and I, I, I really do love walking into rooms and, and be it for 30 minutes or six hours and having an impact on one person. I don't care if it's one person in a room of 600 or one person in a room of 60. Um, it brings me a ton of joy to help people at least understand how to use tools and resources to break the mold of what they think they know to, to kind of scratch that edge of is there more out there and, and, and, and is it the fact? I just don't know about it. But in that upward trajectory, you're against the grain. And so being loud, um, in a loud space for the wrong reasons gets harder. Right. Um, so, um, what's next for me is, you know, continuing to grow the brokerage, bring on agents, train them, um, in a way that's vastly different than most. Um, and, um, yet again, show the world that there, there can and should be trustworthy real estate professionals out there that are, that are. And I, and that's the thing is my biggest fear in jumping over to the real estate brokerage side was, is is there enough agents out there that wanna be, want to do different, that want to be different? And I feel really selfish for thinking that because I've met dozens and dozens of agents that have amazing stories here. And have that grit and that grind and want something different. They're just so latched on to the conventional model. Um, and, you know, um, but for the few that I can break that mold and get them to, to take a shot at trusting what we have, um, we've been very blessed to, you know, um, I can honestly say I think only two agents in the last two years have left. Um, they've all stayed, and I think that's because of the, the, you know, we don't say culture. We say culture here. And the authenticity, the honesty, the help that what, what they're promised when they walked through the front door was actually there. Now, yet again. Um, real estate is simple, not easy. Um, so the work's still to work. Um, hard is still hard, uncomfortable, still uncomfortable, but it's a lot easier. You know, you think back to the most impactful human beings. Um, if you're ever an athlete, you're a coach and you have, we have a lot of impactful coaches in the world, and that's where I think I'm best is speaking and coaching. So, to answer your question, I want to grow the brokerage to a point where, um, you know, we, we, I continue to be able to coach and guide and mentor and, um, um, and truly let agents strive to be successful, as well as branching out and continuing to speak and, and connect and coach across the nation, you know, because what's exciting is, um. I am finding out that there's a lot of hungry professionals out there, leaders and agents all over that do want to change and do want to think differently and do want a little bit more trust back in their business. And so, honestly, I'm happiest there. I'd love to just be speaking, coaching and training. Um, and I'm ex uh, but, but with that I also wanna make sure that I have my impact locally and build a brokerage that is doing the right things and happy to be who they are when they're doing it and making an impact on the community. And honestly taking a swing at the man and, uh, trying to break the mold of, of what, what's conventional. So if, if someone out there truly strives to, knows that there is different, there has to be, but doesn't know where that's at, I'm, I believe we're that different. And, um, that's the goal. Yeah. One of, one of the things that you said earlier was about, I mean, I know you said culture is not, not what you call it, but the, your, your ability to keep. Integrity in all the, the agents in there as part of your mentorship program, do you think that your military experience has allowed you to be a better delegator to be able to have those mentors treat the agents exactly how you would even in your absence? You know what, um, the military has helped me a ton, specifically in the leadership space. I, I don't think there's a better training opportunity than any branch of service that has a leadership route. Um, because it's, it's, you learn the structure of leadership, the impact of leadership, um, and on the military side, um, you know, the good leaders in the military, um, care about. They're for me, they're soldiers and the impact, and, and they know how to motivate and guide, you know, when, you know, um, if, if you tell 50 soldiers to move this rock, the what? Will they move the rock? Yes. But they'll complain the entire time. Um, and take three smoke breaks. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Um, but if you say, Hey, um, our mission is to clear this road because we've got a convoy coming down the road. Their goal is to get to this sustainment point. I mean, what we're doing here is impactful and if we, they chose us specifically to get this done. And the only thing standing between us and that is that rock over there. So I'm gonna ask everybody here to make that rock their mission. I want us to work together at the Y so we can get, um, be our part of the team, move it out of the way. And how we get there is how. Decide to get there. What we need to do between, you know, now and eight hours from from now, is to come together, get that rock outta the way, and clear that, that that road will you do it with me. And the the difference is being told what to do is the worst way to ever walk, walk through a process or motivate others. But what's cool is what's exciting is when you can have a common why. And I, um, it makes leading real a lot easier. When you look at how military operation orders are written. They actually are written from the why, from the get go. Um, but not enough agents, not enough, not enough military professionals get that, that chunk of the message to be able to, to, to understand the deeper mission behind what they do. Now on the mentorship side, you know, um, gotta be hyper selective in who that is too. Um, because just just 'cause someone is good at something doesn't mean they should teach it. Um, and, and so I think being good at what you do is, is a necessity. But I also think the ability to help others be good at that too, to truly translate what you do in a system that makes sense for others, that makes it easier for them to do. And so with that, I think you have to be very selective on, you know, we have two mentors, me and uh, uh, Jean Mahoney, who's been in the industry for, you know, over 20 years. You know, she's an impactful human being. Had a huge impact on my life. And what's cool is I actually believe there's more leaders out there that wanna be mentors that maybe come into the tail end of their career or just have a true desire to grow and, and, and guide others. I would love to meet them and, you know, maybe it's the process that they're missing to be able to lead and mentor others, but I think, you know, each one teach one. Um, if we can get more fantastic mentors that lead with a system and an impact, and help agents get better at, um. You know, the skills, resources and just being happy and confident in themselves. And I, I, that's where I want our mentorship program program to be. And it's a win-win. I think with the mentorship program, you know, agents that are thinking of starting a team, it's a great opportunity for them to vet out any agents that are vet in any agents. You know, where the way our mentorship works is if you're a, uh, if you want to do a mentorship, it's a 70 30 split for five transactions, not forever five transactions. You get five transactions knocked out with your mentor, and you can go on our a hundred percent commission model. Or if you're an agent that wants to start a team, I use the mentorship to vet. How, if I wanted people on my team or not, if we, if they, if we did great for five transactions, I can see them walking the walk, then I'd invite 'em to my team. If, if they did a, I think they'd be great building their own business and, and working their own model. Maybe they didn't want to quite do things exactly how I did. Maybe they had their own method. They go to a hundred percent commission model. So mentorship should be very hands-on. It's not just sitting behind a computer screen or sitting in a, a mastermind that makes you feel better for 45 minutes. It's legitimately getting hands-on day in, day out and, and helping, you know, real estate professionals solve day-to-day problems. Hmm. A lot of what you talked about is psycho, the psychology of sales and all that stuff. Mm-hmm. But you also mentioned you travel around the world. Mm-hmm. Doing and speaking on ai. How is AI changing what you do? Mm-hmm. But not only what you do, just business as a whole. I think we're in the, um, I. How is it not? I mean, it's almost, we've gone through the sprint of, okay, it's new to us and it's accessible to everyone, and, um, we went from it being uncomfortable, you know, 2, 2, 3 years ago to now being too comfortable. Um, as far as AI goes, uh, truly, um, I believe that AI is meant to solve problems. Um, it's meant to help others solve problems and meant to get personal with you and help you solve some individual, um, either business or maybe even personally related, uh, um, areas that you need some assistance, coaching, guidance on. Now, what I love to start with, AI is yet again, backwards than most. Um, I believe that 90% of the population is, is now in the space that you use Google for. I have question, I ask question, right? That's, that's now turned into the framework of how you use ai. It's transactionally based. Um, and those that are breaking through and breaking or moving upwards, don't think transactionally based, um, they think long term, they think solutions. And so when it comes to AI in the, in the real estate space, it, it still boils down to solving the help, protecting the consumer and solving the, the problem. And, and I say that because, you know, now all systems, CRMs and all that are integrating ai, um, it's, it's so rampant that I believe we're gonna go through, and I don't know if it's a term yet, but maybe we can coin it here. The over amplification of software and AI now that it's so accessible to build your own app or solution that it's, it's getting so mainstream that we're getting bombarded with AI solutions. It's, it's, it's, it's too much. Um, but let's go back to trust and psychology. Um. Human beings make decisions off two emotions, love and fear. One of those emotions, um, is pretty widespread. The media is really great at pushing one of those emotions and that emotion is fear. Mm-hmm. Now, what I often to hear people say is, well just be the opposite in a loud space. That's really hard to do. Right? Own it. Own the fact that misrepresented fear is rampant. And AI is only, uh, AI in the wrong hands is only allowing that, um, mass communication of fear. It doesn't mean you can't be that solution and, and the way that you use AI should be, that helps solve that problem. So if we know that all human beings solve, um, um, um, want, trust and fear is one of the driving emotions on how we move throughout the world and decisions that we make. What I often start with in a lot of the workshops and coaching that I do do is personas use AI to develop personas around the people that you wanna do more business with. And, and when you, when you look at big box companies, Nike and the big brands, they all use personas when developing a new product because they, they first identify what gap or what, so what problem is out there in the space that we're looking at, what problem are they facing and then what is the demographic around that? What's the fear in that demographic? Where's the gap and how do we solve that problem? It always comes down to solving problems. Um, with, when we do business planning as real estate professionals, we're taught on identify how much money you wanna make and how many houses it takes to sell to do that. Right. Um, not, uh, the number one question I wanna hear from agents is where do you, what problems do you actually find passion in solving? And, and that shakes out. I guarantee when I say that to seasoned real estate professionals, the, the Rolodex clicks and they think of the buyers and sellers that they helped along the way that just are cemented here. Those ones you go back to on the, on the hardest days, um, because there was passion there, right? And, and it was a win-win. I helped you solve a problem that you didn't think you could for your first time or your fifth time or whatever it is. And I, at the end of the day, got to look in the mirror and be proud of who I was. Um, that's, there is a niche of people in that demographic. Whatever that problem is, be the first time home buyer, the veteran home buyer, the, the, the, um, boomer demographic, whatever the problem that they're facing. You find passion in solving that problem right now, if you think about it, if. All consumer bases or people in general have fears. The goal really is to first identify what problems that I'm actually passionate about solving, because human beings can feel passion, right? And if I'm passionate about solving the problem of downsizing and the estate sales and first time home buyers, if I truly find passion and in that, I should be building my business plan around serving those individuals, solving those problems, and getting really damn good at solving those problems. So therein lies the persona. A first time home buyer is a persona. They have fears. If you understand those fears, if you go into whatever AI platform you're using today, chat, GPT, cloud Gemini, does not matter. You can say, please give me a persona for, uh, x demographic first time home buyers in said city, Omaha, Nebraska. And it will give you a detailed persona of that human being. You then take that and lean really heavy into what it tells you that they're afraid of and, um, the, the most impactful human beings to ever walk this planet. We're really good at one thing. Um, influence the good ones and the bad ones. And I don't need to name names, you can think of them, but in that I believe the ability to influence is a superpower. And I actually believe all of us have it a little bit or a lot of it. The key to it is when you uncover, you have the ability to influence others, what you do with that and, and that leaves your legacy, right? Um, when you realize that what people are afraid of and you do right by them, that is what I think builds relationships and builds trust and helps solve problems. And if, think about it, if I truly enjoy solving those three problems and I build a career out of that, I get really good at something I love doing, and I get known by others for being really good at something I love doing. I'm passionate about what I do. People believe in that I'm one of the best at it. I believe that's where, um. Purpose really comes is, is identifying what problems am I truly passionate about solving? Who is having those problems and how do I, how do I help them solve that problem through the real estate space? But that's not how we are trained to do that. So tr I I believe that ai, the, in the right hands in our, in the real estate space is I helping agents identify what they are passionate about doing and solving and who out there is doing it. And then, and it's crazy to me, if you don't know who you're talking to in 2026 in the real estate world, how the hell do you know what to talk about? And you don't wanna know what the rest of, what most people do, they talk about themselves. And I'm tired of those posts. I, I'm sorry. You're great. I love your success. Don't get me wrong. I think it's necessary, but it shouldn't be always. If you knew that. So the boomer demographic moved from the number one, number three, buying and selling position two years ago to now the number one buying and selling position in the nation right now. Why? Because they have higher liquidity in their, at their assets. They're, they're not uncomfortable with where interest rates are because they bought homes in that, that space before, if not double the interest rate. And they actually have a motivating factor that is required. They ha they, they, where they're at is not working for them. But that doesn't mean they should be traded any less. They still are afraid, just like everybody else. They may be less likely to bring that up. But if you address those fears, if you bring them up, are, are you afraid of, uh, moving into a home that still requires more maintenance than you're ready to handle? Right? Motivating factor. And then if you understand their fears, couldn't you put content and marketing material out there, resources in the world to help them identify that, hey, this person actually may have a solution or is at least willing to understand where I'm at. And if I lean in with, with. Um, value. And when I say value, not valuable to me, valuable to you, and I have to discover that first. But if I'm putting out content and material out there to help solve a problem that I'm passionate about and people feel my passion, don't you think they'll be attracted to that? And won't they tell others when I help them solve that and I'm passionate about it and I do a great job, won't they tell other people in that specific space? So I want AI to help all individuals solve deeper problems with people that need the help, but it's not necessarily where it's always going. It's going into systems and technology. And I, I'll be honest, we, I don't know if we need more of that. Um, we need more authentic human beings understanding each other and using AI to help solve, solve problems. So, um, in my workshops and training, we'd spend. Two or three hours going over personas and actually using those personas to build text messages and emails and phone call scripts and ideas around content. You could use that same chat to, Hey, what are five objections I might get? I'm going to a listing appointment with someone who's looking to rightsize and working to those conversations. Um, so yet again, my approach to AI is a tad bit drastically different. Can I build websites with it? Yeah. Can I build systems with it? Absolutely. Um, and my, a tad bit of a tech nerd You bet. But, um, don't ever get away from the true solution, which is helping people solve problems. Well, and and the other part of that, and, and I, I think AI is a fantastic tool. I use it daily. It's running in the background of my pocket right now. Yep. But people are too quick to delegate the end result, which is what's getting attorneys into trouble. It's getting, you know, the people need to own the result. You delegate the task. The same thing in leadership is like, even though the, have you seen the four levels of the delegation before? Mm-hmm. People are so quick to jump to that level four and just hand everything off and be like, let me know when money's coming this way. Yeah. One, one of the things that regardless of whether it's delegating to an agent or delegating to AI or delegating to third party service, is maintaining that responsibility. And that's how you are truly authentic for your, your clients. Mm-hmm. One of, one of the, um, guardrails I'll say that we put in is that we would never calculate what our commission was until the deal was closed. And I think that the concern of 150 or a $1.5 million house is I'm gonna work hard regardless. Yeah. And I'm not gonna be motivated by what that dollar amount is. Yeah. Do you have any kind of guardrails that you teach your agents to, to make sure that they stay in the right mindset to not, not saying that they, they will become bad, but don't even let yourself become susceptible to compromise. Yeah. Um, absolutely. And um, so when I show up to listing appointments, for example, of course I'll do a CMA, but I don't bring in a listing presentation. I think putting it, a lot of agents are taught to sit in a box. And what happens when you do a presentation, you know, you're sitting across from somebody and you bring up the PowerPoint and they spend 90% of their focus here and 10% of the focus on you. And you're looking at the pretty slides and it looks great, but you build no human connection with that individual. When it to keep great, good humans on the right path, we have to discover each other's why as quickly as humanly possible. So when you walk into a meeting with somebody, um, or specifically a listing appointment, that seller has no idea the tempo of that meeting. The first thing they're gonna try to get, try to do, which is not nothing against them. They're gonna try to walk you around the house because they don't know any different. They think that's why you're here. Don't do it. Not, not right off the jump. Get straight to the kitchen, sit down, and, uh, one, because a lot of big decisions are made at the kitchen table, right? Uh, sit down and. Understand that human being, the number one question out of my mouth when I sit in a listing appointment is kinda why am I here? I just sit back and wait. And what's funny is someone was just, um, well, we're interviewing listing agents 'cause I wanna sell. Okay. Why? Well, um, you know, she just got a job that she's been going after for the last five years. We gotta relocate. Oh, okay. When? Well, we gotta be out in three months. Okay. Um, what's important to you about that? Well, um, honestly, we wanna get the house sold and we, you know, she's gotta be there early and I gotta be here with the kids and, okay. And, okay, so in that, what do you wanna make sure, what, what do you want that to feel like when you're going through that? Well, honestly, we're stressed about whether we do or don't have to do this and that and just dig and under one, people wanna feel heard. What's cool about that is, and I learned this in social work, the quicker you can understand why someone wants to do what they do, the quicker I can latch onto it. And when you latch onto it, it becomes my mission too. So I can take that in every fuel decision when I go to advise you, Hey, you know, I know we just made it through the inspection period. Here's the deal. They asked for these five things. You mentioned during the transaction, you want the stress to be low. My fear is that if we do this, this and this, it could expose us to X, Y, and Z. My suggestion is to make that easier and to go back to what you really wanted is to give a credit for this, this, and this, which ultimately would equate to an equitable solution. But what I remember when I sat at your kitchen table and you told me that your biggest fear is this when dig as deep as you can spend, if you're having 45 minutes of a conversation of a listing appointment that has nothing to do with the house, you are winning. You're winning that relationship. 'cause I guarantee the, the other agents had nothing but a listing presentation, um, uh, a suit coat and, um, uh, and, and didn't stand out at all. Now the other half of that is the plan. What I train agents to do is, all I bring to my listing presentations is a little trifold, uh, launch plan because in the military we're, we're taught the backwards plan. And I would sit across and I said, okay, Tanner, now you said you wanna be sold. Um, you wanna be moved into that new. A home in three months. Well, that's backwards plan. In order to do that, a timeframe, we're probably gonna wanna be up on the market 60 days in advance of that. So here I'm gonna put in the listing date, and in that trifold, I have the date that I'm, um, uh, doing the first open house, the date that the photographers come in, the date that the cleaners come in. And we walk through every single step of those, every single day. So by that time, I've walked through an entire plan, and the only next step is to sign listing documentations, right? So the same, same thing I told you about commission was you're gonna retain 92 to 93% of your, of what you sell for no matter what, who you list with. But do they have this plan? I'll take a picture of that plan. I'll take that plan, put it on my, on their fridge. And now I've got my marching orders and they've got the plan on their fridge. But if I didn't sit there and learn 45 minutes about their story, I need to pull that up in my brain when we're going through the transaction, when I'm negotiating for them, right? Well, they said that their timeline is uber important. Your office is not gonna work because I openly said that their timeline was X. And I'm telling you right now, my client's not gonna be happy with that because that's very important to them. They also said they wanna leave the PlayPlace because they don't wanna have to worry about anything like that. So we have another offer over here that actually did pay attention to the timeline and is gonna be okay with us leaving the PlayPlace. That type of stuff matters, but if I don't understand that deeper, how could I ever truly advise you on what to do at the end of the, if I don't, it's, we're just talking numbers and um, and that's all we have to go off of the intrinsic motivators. Your goal is my goal, and the deeper I can dig and understand that the quicker I can latch onto it. And now you've got two people focused on the same mission, one with a high level of experience in the arena that you want them to have. Cool. Did you come up with this on your own? Just, I'm gonna teach you this. Did you have a mentor? Because it, it's different play on what you traditionally see, I guess, is why I'm asking. Um, yeah, that's a great question. So I've been to the, I've been to coaching programs and I've had mentors and, um, you know, first the launch plan. I've seen them, I've seen another agent use something like it in a different state and I loved it. Um, but then what do you do when you identify something super cool? You wanna grow it, you want it, you turn it into your own. So it's molded over time. And now we're building a service model out of it for agents where if you, um, for a certain fee, if you want the, if you bring back the launch plan, we'll schedule the cleaner, we'll schedule the photographer, we'll put the listing warranty on there. We'll get your listing documents put together, show up, have honest conversations, get a plan together, and go do it again. And, um, and it all comes out of the problem. The problem was I was going, the first couple listing conversations I was going in and sounded like everybody else because I wasn't there to solve the problem. I was here to do what I was trained to do, which was ask backwards than what human beings actually want. They want to know that you care about their mission. They wanna know that you've got a plan and they wanna trust you. You can do those three things. You're not just leaving with a listing contract, you're leaving with the potential of another friend, someone who actually believes in you. Um, so I, I've seen pieces of it, I just wanted to put it together and honestly, it, I can show I have 'em in my backpack and in my truck. I can show up to a listing appointment, 15 minutes. If now, run a quick CMA on my, my phone. Check the estimate because you're gonna ask about it. Sure. Whether I believe it's true or not. I gotta gotta be hyper aware of it. And then I have that launch plan. And when I get that crap out of my way, when I don't have the iPad, I don't have the PowerPoint and I don't have, I, I get, I just get to talk and I get to walk the, okay, tell me more. What do you mean by that? Oh, now why does that bother you? So if that didn't happen, then what? And all that, that level of interview came from forensic interviewing and social work. But I dig, I dig, I dig, I dig. And when what's, what's cool is someone gets really vulnerable and when, when people get vulnerable and express to you what really matters to them, you get to make the decision of whether you wanna do right by them or not. One, one of the things that you said earlier was about. I, I never wanted to taste the blood 'cause I was afraid that I would like it. Mm-hmm. And I think all these psychology skills can be used to make people feel more comfortable to build trust and to genuinely do right by them. But the same skills can be used to manipulate them and take advantage of them. And I think too often in the sales sales books and the sales coaching programs, they teach people to say the right things to manipulate. Yeah. How do you stay on that line of integrity so that you don't taste how sweet it is to just manipulate and get an easy sale? Yeah. Um, I think being able to walk people through when they have an immediate thought because either they, or maybe it's a knee jerk reaction or, you know, you're standing 10 toes down on, I'm not replacing the water heater. Whatever that is, um, walking them through out loud. Okay, let's walk through that. My job isn't to disagree with you, um, it's just to advise you. Okay. So if we didn't, um, if we didn't replace the water heater, um, then more than likely these, the clients are gonna withdraw. And if they withdraw, which I'm, I'm fully in support of, do I think the water heater is gonna come back up? I do. Um, so lovingly, if we didn't solve it, now someone's gonna ask again, and then if we restart this journey, then um, then we're back on the market hopefully getting the same, um, scenario. My fear is right. Um, I throw my fears on the table because I've done this 102 hundred times over. Um, I had a, I had a client, um. Last night where we got a backup offer. Why we took it, we took it off for Sunday, we got a backup offer, and I walked them through the whole scenario of, Hey, this is how this could, should shake out. Um, at the end of the day, you know, um, we stayed available for backup offers. Um, we, my fear is if, if this doesn't happen, then this, when you walk people through psychologically our road that you can see it going down. You let them walk that path with you and you watch them say, okay, that makes, that makes sense. I hear what you're saying. I didn't think about that. So, um, um, in that, you, you've gotta think out loud. Like one, you have to have the experience under your belt or the mentor behind you to be able to guide you through that process. And then you gotta be able to think out loud. Allow them to know where your mind is at and why you're making that decision. The worst thing you could do is hide why you're, you're help, you're pushing that decision or guide that decision because if they know the ingredients of the decision, they're just, they're okay with the outcome. If you hide. What, and what's, what's cool about humans is, um, we can feel trust, and we can feel the lack of, you can feel when something isn't trustworthy. And that's the salespeople that are being way too strong with sales and not too honest with you. I love that. I don't think that's ever gonna go away. Um, can some people get amazingly good at blurring that line? Yes. But it always shakes out. It always ends up coming out. When you lead with authenticity and you lead with transparency, and you lead with truly discovering another human being, that's when true passion comes out. And the good news is you can at least try to be the human being that does right. By others. So, so. Um, a lot of what I do is against the grain, everything from who I recruit to, how I grow to the, how I go and have a listing. But what I, what excites me is, um, it allows me to have a different mindset and view on everything. Um, how AI is used, what's going right or wrong in the real estate space. And I'm grateful for that view, um, um, because it's vastly different, but then it just takes execution. It takes people walking through that listing launch plan and being guided through to realize how easy it is. And then they go out and they get everything outta the way and they get to have a great conversation and they have a plan in place and they come back and feel like they actually got their stuff together. Um, but, um, but yeah, I mean, there's great tools, resources out there, but you've gotta kind of mold them and always lead from the angle of trust. And I just find that that makes things look a lot more personal and it always makes stuff better. Um, so, well Scott, I really appreciate everything you've levied out. It's, it's, uh, uh. I think your social background, social work background plays a lot into what you've done. You can see the psychology in it and all that stuff, and just leading different. Mm-hmm. One of the things you've alluded to, one of my final questions is, what does freedom look like to you? I have a feeling you have a different answer. Mm. What, what does freedom look like to me? Um, you know, I have a, it's more of a vision than it is, um, a concept, I guess. So like, you know, right now balancing the sales production with the leadership, I'm still in it. I'm very active in it. Um, freedom for me, um, at least in, I guess what my dream would be, would. To be, to speak, coach, guide, travel, connect, and be able to be solely focused on that and my family being, helping others break through barriers by being present in their lives, be it momentarily or long term. Um, and then being dad and, and husband and, and being able to combine those. You know, I, I've had a few opportunities where I can bring my family along on some of the speaking opportunities, and that's just cool. I mean, that's just fun to go and take those trips and, and, and combine them all to be, um, you know, in, in the whole gamut. So freedom to me is being able to, to travel, coach, guide, mentor, connect as, as well as, um, opening up the opportunities to still, still be dad, to still keep those, those, both those things level. Um, so right, and, and don't get me wrong, I, I love. Real estate sales because I get to help people solve problems. But I want, I, I want to build a layer or two under me of, of other agents that wanna do things different and break the mold and be able to guide leaders and have businesses, you know, uh, um, the real estate side, the to title side, um, that are making an impact and, and being able to, to also build a legacy that I can hand off. I think all entrepreneurs secretly hope that they want their kids to have some bite of it or some piece of it, but something that's longstanding that makes a difference, that, that when I'm gone, um, you know, there's a lot of people that were proud of me for who I was and what I did. Um, I, you know, the key is just being a little bit louder than most and disruptive in doing that. So, um. Yeah, my, my vision of freedom is probably a ta bit different than most. Um, but it still takes some of the key pieces it does with everybody building a successful business that can run, or, or two or multiple that can run on their own and well, not its own. So you can get out and do the things that you love and be who you you want to be. So that's my goal for freedom. Well, I appreciate that. If someone's watching this and they want to connect with you, sure. What's the best way, if they're an agent or wanna sell or, yeah, what, whatever their thing is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. If you're in the Omaha area, you can easily just type in my name in Google. You'll find me, connect with me, um, on, on Instagram, Scott, be the realtor. Same with TikTok, Facebook, um, text message, doesn't matter. I'm, um, readily available. I'd be happy to connect with, uh, buyers, sellers, investors, agents. If something about, um, this podcast had an impact, I asked for the opportunity to let that impact go a little bit deeper by getting face to face and having a great conversation. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. I got one final question just for Tanner. Do you do like TikTok dances? I know he likes the TikTok dances. You know, um, I, I like TikTok. I back in my day, um, I used to dance a little bit, but I can't say that that is my bread and butter. So, um, I'll, uh, not my mo, but there's some great TikTok dancers out there. Yeah. Tanner watches 'em all, so, oh, yeah. I, yeah. You know, maybe, maybe we can do one together at some point. Well, Scott, I appreciate it. Thank you for coming. Yeah, my pleasure. Appreciate it. Thanks guys. Thank you. And that's a wrap.