Building a Bigger Team Is Making You Broker

#RealEstateUnTucked #Leadership #ScalingTeams 

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Building a Bigger Team Is Making You Broker 

Most agents think more people = more money but that’s the exact trap killing teams right now.

You add agents. You add leads. You add expenses.

 And somehow you’re working more, making less, and stuck in a business you can’t step away from.

In this episode of Real Estate Untucked, we break down the real math behind team growth, why high-volume teams are quietly struggling, and how to avoid building a business that drains your time, profit, and freedom.

If you’re a team leader or thinking about building one this is the reality check most won’t say out loud.

Because more deals doesn’t mean more money if your structure is broken.

Timestamps:
 0:00 – The biggest lie in real estate teams
 1:26 – Why team leaders make LESS per hour than solo agents
 2:43 – What’s actually happening in today’s market (tight margins)
 3:22 – The real problem with commission splits
 6:03 – Why most teams fail before they scale
 7:32 – The 2 biggest reasons teams collapse
 8:29 – How leads are quietly draining your profits
 11:11 – Can your business survive without you?
 13:45 – The mindset shift every team owner needs

What You’ll Learn:

- Why “more agents” often kills profitability
- The hidden costs of leads, splits, and overhead
- How to structure a team that actually makes money
- The difference between being a leader vs. the bottleneck
- How to build a business that doesn’t depend on you

If you’re building a team or already running one this will either validate what you feel or expose what’s holding you back.

#RealEstateUntucked #HotTakes #UnfilteredTruth #AgentProblems #RealEstateMyths #ThinkLikeACEO #WakeUpCall

✅ Join Our Mastermind → https://linktr.ee/realestateuntucked

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The biggest lie is that more people bring more money.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

The guy, they're doing 150 million. Um, they're doing like 400 transactions. His his take home is um 100,000. Lower transaction count for most people. Urgents are definitely getting tighter. You're paying for more things. So why do you think teams collapse? Welcome to Real Estate Untucked. You add an agent, you added overhead, you added meetings, group chats, all the things, and now somehow you're working harder than ever.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

And honestly, that's not a growth problem. It's it's literally a trap where you think you gotta add more because you think that's gonna be more, and it's just not.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Yeah, like like you built them for yourself or to give yourself a life, freedom, and a legacy, and now we stuck. So uh let's get into it. What's the biggest lie?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

The biggest lie is that more people bring more money. Like that's the biggest lie. That is, I mean, people where it seems like it makes sense, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Like more people doing more deals, I should make more money. Like, this is how math works, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

If if those people are doing more money, but what you have is that normal bell curve, and honestly, in real estate, it ain't a bell curve, it is a damn pyramid. You got a couple that are doing average, you got a few doing a lot, you got a whole hell of a lot. So I guess not even a pyramid, doing nothing or a little bit of nothing. And so it just it takes your time, it takes your time.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

I mean, most team leaders or most like like real estate agents that have teams are making less per hour than they did when they were solo. And I want you to like take a second, think about that for a moment. Like, they're actually making less money per hour, they're working more hours than they did when they were solo because they've been sold this live that oh, you just add people and it's gonna be a problem. But it's cast. I I got off the phone this morning with a guy, not a client yet, but a guy, they're doing 150 million. Um, they're doing like like 400 transactions. His his take home, right, which is probably and he's probably being generous, is um 100,000. I think that's not working. That's insane. That I'm not saying $100,000 is bad. $100,000, you know, that that's that's good, money. But you're running an entire team, you're doing $150 million, you're doing 400 transactions, you get a gazillion agents. That's a bad month. With those kinds of expenses, you have one and a half bad months, and now all of a sudden you owe the IRS and and everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Like it flips so fast. Maybe that's what 450,000 GCI or 44.5 million GCI.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Like, that's it's it's it's crazy. And I wish I could say that was that was crazy and that's unheard of, right? Like that number is a little shocking, but like that's not wild. Like, that's more common than the agent that that's making good income. And right, so so then what you happen is transactions drop, right? Your your margin gets gets this is what we're seeing right now, right? Lower transaction count for most people. Urgents are definitely getting tighter. You're paying for more things, right? Your agents are expecting more, so you need more headcount. Infrastructure goes up, right? Is man, it sucks.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Well, also, the more people you get, the more voices you get, and the more reasons they have for not being able to sell, right? Because not only that, but they're gonna be like, hey, it's too hard to sell in this market, we have to cut commission. It's too hard to this, we don't want to use the tech that you bought for us that we said we wanted, right? And it just it exacerbates itself the more people become more of a problem. But but it's also hard to only have five people and two people leave. Like, so I get that too. So I understand the juxtaposition, but guys, that we one, we're giving way too much commission. Most teams I see and I've consulted with, they're giving away way too much commission, right? And they can't make much way too much.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

What do you think is the number? Like, but what do you think is the number that most people need to be on?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Oh, I I do think 50-50 is a little strong, a little hard. I do. I get that. I've got friends that have their whole companies and teams on it. And I feel like if you're doing that, then what you're providing better be everything. I mean, I actually know some that are getting less than that, but you better be providing the leads, the follow-up, you better be doing the deals. Like really, the agent should just literally shake hands, write the offer, and go away. But I mean, I have found 70-30 is a fair for what you provide. Now, if you're not providing crap, like literally crap, then yeah, you're robbing people and you shouldn't even charge them anything. It shouldn't be a team. But the reason you're a team is because you're providing services, you're collaborating together, you're pooling resources to further the team, and that has to be equal. But I would say I think 70-30 is good. I mean, other than that, like you're losing money. It's hard to do a 70-30.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

You're so nice. I mean, I most teams need to be 50-50. Like, they need to be 50-50, 60-40, maybe like 50-50, and maybe it graduates to to to to 60-40 or 65-30, maybe, right? Like after you've done 200 transactions with the team, cool, you get a five percent bonus. And and that's not to be a jerk to the team members, it's the reality, it costs you a shizzle ton of money to run a team, right? And most people are are like, well, if everything works perfect, I'll make money. Guess what? It's ain't gonna work perfect. It ain't gonna work perfect. You're gonna get sued by somebody at some point. You're gonna have to buy a $3,000 refrigerator for somebody because somebody missed something. You're gonna have to, I'd be like, you know, those are the things, right? Which which goes into an episode we're gonna do a little later on, which talks about how do you reiterate your value to your team. We're gonna get to that, go watch that episode soon. But but that's a big part of it. So I think you've got to do the math and you gotta do the real math, not the best day ever math. And and going back to the reason, all is a big point of it is because they don't do the boring stuff on the way up, they just add ages.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Well, that's I think that goes back to, and this may not be the conversation for today, but like like actually creating the team. I have people all the time go, hey, I want to start a team. What do you think? Hey, will you advise me through this? And half of them don't know what their niche is or what they're actually providing. They just have a couple of like tag-alongs that are in the office that aren't doing as much business. And they're like, Well, hell, I'm doing 10 deals and they're doing three. We should start a team because I know what I'm doing. And then it's like, hey, let's give you super high splits, not provide anything, but all the bills come to you, right? And that makes you a leader somehow.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Yeah, well, and what actually survives and thrives is is is structure and process. I know people are probably getting tired of saying it, but structure and process, and what that looks like is in the beginning, going, does this make sense? Yeah, and I and I would challenge everybody to do this. Write out your org chart. Hey, we want to do 200 transactions as a team. Cool, right? Now you're at 30 transactions as a sole wager or 60 or whatever it is. But I want to do 200 transactions as a team. Okay, who do I need doing what to be able to do that? And then does the math math, right? To decide that I'm gonna pay this person less much, I'm gonna pay this person, but that's your excuse. Like, do a projected profit loss. And by the way, if you want help with that, do not call me. I'm joking, call Brad. Right? He he loves girking out, you know, geeking out in a good uh good Excel sheet, right? If you can't do it in your own, get some way to help you, right? But but that's where it starts is, and then I know this is unsexy, but build slow. As you do things, press record, write the process. How do we do an open house? Here's how we do it. How how do we prep for a listing appointment? Here's how we do it. How do we take it off the market? Here's how we like just write down the processes, and and that's how you actually start building a team to get you out of out of out of a job so you can go to the next level of of what you need to be doing.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, uh a hundred percent. So, why do you think teams collapse? Like right now, why are you seeing some teams disband? Why are you seeing some teams and and I've got some ideas, but why are you what do you think is going on there?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Hey, really quick, you know how YouTube works. Like and subscribe so we know this is working and it keeps pushing the content out.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, this is what we do as a passion project. Wayne got his own coaching, I got my real estate, but we've come together because we want y'all to learn from all our scars and mistakes. So that like and subscribe means the world to us because it means you care and it means we can keep giving, and also it makes us look cool with my mom. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

I think I think two things. I think one, the money doesn't make sense, right? Like they're simply not making enough to weather the storm. So they've built, they're okay in the good times of when there's some stormy times, or like, hey, December, January, it snowed 18 days. Like, like we didn't sell a house for you know, we st it stunted our per our progress. That really hits them hard. Yeah. Um, because they haven't they haven't done that because the the money doesn't make sense. I think the second thing is, man, it's hard. I mean, you guys do it. You're how much you're offering your agents is exorbitant. Yes. Most people are simply not able to offer enough. And I think when when the agents, we'll talk about this in a couple episodes, but when the agents go to their team leader and they go, Why am I paying you this much money? Sometimes the team is have a hard time having that conversation because they know that there's more they'd like to be offering and they don't know how to do it because there's simply not enough enough cash, time, systems built, whatever it is, to be able to do that. So it's it's not and it's getting harder and harder every day.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Well, I think a thing that's really, like you said, collapsing teams is the cost. And I think it's the cost because people want to buy stuff to fix stuff. So for instance, they're like, hey, yeah, we'll do Zillow Flex. We're gonna buy Zillow leads because my agents will do it. But if the agents are still getting the majority of the money and you're paying out 40, 50, 60, 10%, whatever it is in referral fees, and you gotta pay to transact it, and you're paying for all the photography, and you're paying for all the the staff and TC stuff, and the deal doesn't go through, guys. You you're buying leads. Have you actually looked at leads? And like I had a team reach out to me and they say, Hey, I'm not making I think I'm making money on leads, but I don't think I am. And so I looked at their numbers and I said, Well, what is uh what are you what are you spending right now on this lead platform? And they said, six grand. Said, cool. I was like, how many deals do you close in a month? They said, two. And they said, but our per lead average is 25 bucks. And I was like, no, but your per close average is 3,000, right? So are you getting 3,000 of that deal? They're like, oh no, these are $200,000 houses. So on you as the company owner that's paying the $6,000, or the team owner that's paying $6,000, you're actually negative on leads. So your agents can make money, but you're not making money because you're like, you don't need leads. And that's what happens, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:31

You hire agents, you feel like you owe them leads, which is what you probably promised them. Um, and then you're you're trying to, because you're not building your database and you're not having them build additional streams, right? You then you're trying to backfield that all of a sudden you're upside down and you're paying money to keep people that are costing you money, and we've all been there. But then you're like, but we're the number one team in the region. I don't give a rip if your life sucks. And I think that's what we have to come down to is like an identity shift, which we'll get into. But that that that's really uh a hard part of of all this. So I think for so many people, it's it's like if if you're spending sixty thousand dollars a year on leads, I mean, what should your return be? It should be at least two hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah, four or five X.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Right, like it should be four or five X. I think what people get lost in, and and we can do a whole episode on this, but people get lost and well, I'm getting a one to one return, or I'm getting a two to one return. Two to one return is okay if you have an infinite amount of money, but if I only have a five, if I only have sixty thousand dollars to spend, yeah, right. If you have if you have endless buckets of sixty thousand dollars, cool, go do the two to one return. That's awesome. But if you have one bucket with sixty thousand to spend, you better go get the five, the six, the seven X. And you and I both know that that usually that is not the way to go get it. I'm not saying those leads are terrible, but you better be building alternate things and have and have those going on.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, and I will say actually we'll save it for a different one, but lead lead systems are very smart now. They know exactly what they're delivering, the odds, the statistics. They gotta dial it in where you're not gonna be five X in your returns on most of these things, even though they might think you are, but you're not.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

No. So go for it.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

I was gonna say, so we we we we talked about like things that are collapsing right now, but like how do people ensure their teams are gonna survive in this uh an incoming market of craziness that we're already in?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Yeah. It's everything, is everything documented? Because those are your assets. Is everything documented? What would it take for your team to survive, you know, 30 days without you being there?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

And then and then is it profitable enough so you're able to sock some money away for for the storms that we know are coming? Yeah. Those would be the three I would look at. What would be your three?

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah, I think mine is can you can you step out and it still work? If you can step out and it still works for call it a week. I mean, it should be a month, but if you can step out for a month and everything still closes, quality's still there, customer service is still there, lead generation's still there, closings happen, then I think you have a thing that is actually profitable and running. It may not be the smoothest, but if you're the cog, you're not a team leader. You're actually the bottom. You're the you're the one grinding away, you're the donkey walking in a circle, grinding up the corn for everybody else. So you've got to make sure that you've got the way the systems, like Wayne said, that will be there when you're not.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

And like we said, like just do a week. And and here's the simplest way to do this. All right. So so you say you step away for a day, two days, three days, whatever it is. What questions come at you and ask yourself this question? What's causing this to come to me? Meaning, what have I not written down? What have I not made an SOP about? What have I not made a video about? What have we not taught somebody? Like, like what's causing this to come to me? You know, someone goes, Hey, should I give this person a discount? Like, what's causing that to hit my plate? Okay, well, I need to have a framework for when we give discounts, when we don't. Hey, you know, what do I do about this? That question is coming to me because I probably haven't written out or or built a process for that somewhere that's easy to access me. So that's a great way to just start building stuff. Like, what's coming at me? Why is it still coming to me? What would need to be in place for that not to hit my plate anymore? Yeah. If you want a whole list of the stuff, we got lists for days. So if you need checklists, you want SOPs, whatever is like Brad has built so many of those. So comment below and we'll we'll send you a bunch of those things we put we packaged together to help jumpstart this so you can just tweak instead of starting from scratch.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

True. I mean, I can't. It does sound like we just all we talk about is processes and systems on this thing. But like I don't know, maybe you just gotta hear it 4,000 times until you hear a certain idea. That's what a team leader should be doing is just processes and systems. Because they should, should have been or are good at real estate. That is number one. If you are good and have been good and built a business that is good, then you should document said good business so your agents can do good business. But actually, if you don't do good business or you're not doing a lot, who are you really trying to teach? Like you're still learning. So, like, why are we trying to teach already? But I digress. All right, so what's the real like what do we really gotta get through our heads for team owners and small indies and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Clear on the vision. Yeah. Does the math math get clear on the vision? Here's where I want to be a year for now or three years now, and does the math coincide with that? And then what do I need to to document? What do I need to create a system or checklist to process around so that I can be free? So I go do the other things and not be the cog in the Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

I think it uh my my two cents where a team leader right now would be to look at my structure. And again, if I'm not donkey making the circles for everybody, then you don't need a team. You can still have help, but you need to restructure it. You need to do a showing agent, you need to do TC, maybe a sales assistant, and actually be a group that you're the head of and not everybody gets a vote. Not everybody like you're almost paying them salaries because you should have the business, and now you have people taking stuff off of you, like a law firm, and really evaluate your structure because you may be the right person in the wrong structure. And I think that's what's holding you back.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Very true.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

So let's wrap this thing up. Uh, guys, if you want to get some of these SOPs or ask us some questions and do things like that, uh, do me a favor, hit the word, comment the word team down below. We'll make sure that we get you this information that you're seeking. Use a DM if you have specific questions and we'll engage that way. Um, as always, we do E4 and E5. You want to see if you're a good fit for that, go to our LinkedIn tree and you'll see the uh the invites and we'll get an interview to see if you're a good fit for our in-person masterminds. Absolutely. Go get untalked. Hey, real quick, if you're liking this content, imagine having a full day immersed with people that are on this, like us, that are learning from each other.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Man, we do these kind of events, these intensive, a couple times a year. And if you know that you are the smartest person in the room and you need to get into the rooms, this is the place to be, right? So apply, send us a message right now. We'll send you the application link and see if you are the right fit to be in one of the rooms.