The Truth About Real Estate Success: 44 Years of Wisdom with Steve Murnin

🔥 “Success in real estate isn’t about luck. It’s about mastering your craft, adapting to change, and surrounding yourself with the right people.”

In this episode of R.E.A.L. Real Estate Agent Life, we sit down with the legendary Steve Murnin, a true trailblazer in the real estate world with 44+ years of experience. From his early days cold-calling from a phonebook to pioneering game-changing real estate tech solutions, Steve has seen it all. 

🚀 As a former Senior VP at Commission’s Inc (Sync), VP at Fidelity National Financial, and leader of Sync University, Steve has mentored thousands of agents on how to scale their businesses, leverage technology, and WIN in real estate.

💡 Key Topics We Cover:

✅ How Steve went from zero income to taking 63 listings in his first year

✅ The #1 reason real estate agents fail (and how to avoid it)

✅ The biggest technology shifts that shaped real estate today

✅ Why splits DON’T MATTER—it’s all about value exchange

✅ How to build a business that thrives for decades

✅ The power of relationships & why your next big opportunity is one call away

🎯 If you’re serious about winning in real estate, you do NOT want to miss this episode.

👉 Listen now and get ready to take notes! 🎧📈

🎥 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@R.E.A.L.RealEstateAgentLif-l6z

🎙️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r-e-a-l-real-estate-agent-life-podcast/id1790088933

🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2LAAYbtPUqYJdTVl83hZXS?si=bf6691d7eccf4688

📲 Follow & connect with Steve Murnin:

📌 Facebook: Steve Murnin

📌 Instagram: @steve_murnin

📌 Call/Text: (408) 396-4688 (Yes, he actually picks up!)

🎙 Thank You for Tuning in to the R.E.A.L. Real Estate Agent Life Podcast!

We appreciate you joining us for another powerful episode where we dive deep into the world of real estate, mindset, and business growth. If you found value in this conversation, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network!

👉 Never Miss an Episode!

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📍 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2LAAYbtPUqYJdTVl83hZXS?si=bf6691d7eccf4688

📍 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@R.E.A.L.RealEstateAgentLif-l6z

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💡 Want to be a guest on the show?...

Transcript

Shane Kilby (00:00)
Here we go. All right So today we are live with none other than a good friend of ours Steve Murnin and to give you guys a little insight to this episode real estate agent life podcast Steve Murnin at currently or most recently rather because he's now enjoying a rather laid-back leisurely role Previously most recently he was a senior VP at Commission's Inc

otherwise known as SYNC to the folks that have been around Commission SYNC for quite some time. Leading impactful training mastermind for agents. He was a former VP at Fidelity National Finance, financial with decades of real estate expertise. He was key in SYNC's partnership with Reach 150 that helps agents boost their agent referrals.

He has led Sink University, which has been known for the practical agent and actionable insights for agent growth and development on the platform and just real estate in general. Steve's got over 44 years, and I may be missing some, but over 44 years of transforming real estate with innovative solutions. Renowned for his energy, passion, and authentic leadership. I can attest to that. I know Dwayne can too.

He was a proud family man with a beautiful wife, three daughters and six grandchildren if I haven't left anyone out. He's dedicated and has lived a dedicated at least 44 years of his life in helping agents master their craft and succeed in the industry. Some would consider him, as well as myself and Dwayne, a trailblazer in integrating technology and client-centric strategies into real estate.

He's always been known to be a champion of growth guiding agents to master their craft in elevating their real estate careers. Welcome Steve Mernin.

Steve Murnin (01:54)
Wow, that was awesome. You did great. don't know where you found all of that, but that's fantastic.

Shane Kilby (01:56)
Yeah, that was, I couldn't get all that out in one breath, so.

Duane Murphy (02:00)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (02:04)
Lots of digging.

Did I miss anything?

Steve Murnin (02:06)
You really didn't, you know, it's been a it's been a long career in real estate. It's kind of all I know. And I'm really glad to have had that opportunity to do that. I think it's provided a great living for our family. It's provided me the opportunity to get to know thousands of real estate agents, brokers, lenders, you know, anybody associated with the industry across the nation. And, you know, I think the

For me, we say I'm kicking back. I'm now the CEO at retired as I put on out there on the notice. But I think the big thing for me is the ability to have been involved in several different projects over the years and generally all with the same people. So my kind of good feeling about where I'm at at this point is when you go to somebody and you say, try this, I think it'll work and they try it and it works, right?

And then you say, hey, I'm doing something new. Try this and see if it works. And you do this three or four times with people throughout a lifetime and you create lifetime relationships. You know, one of the things I think everybody did figure out is I tell the truth, not real fancy. I just kind of blurred it out. And I will always try to help that passions. You know, like I said, it's provided a great opportunity in lifestyle for us. So yeah.

That's it.

Shane Kilby (03:33)
So so take us back up, you know, we got 44 years May not be able to cover all 44 years, right? That's a that's a lot of milestones in there But but take us back a little bit in a backstory of How did you get started in real estate? Where did you figure out like that's I want to be a part of this industry for 44 years before I sell off into the sunset

Duane Murphy (03:42)
You

Steve Murnin (03:57)
Yeah, well, you know, I'm glad you asked that guys because I think this will be helpful to people listening like in their thinking is real estate for me or how do you do it or you know, it seems weird. You don't get paid. You don't have insurance. You know, there's all this stuff about real estate that people don't really know because I don't really know too many kids who grew up going. I'm going to be a real estate agent. That's what I'm going to do for a living when I'm eight.

You know, I don't think so. They wanted to be like astronauts or firemen or something, you right on the back of the fire truck. I still that in the bad idea, right, Dwayne? Yeah, so, but but anyway, I was going to school and I wanted to play football and I got hurt and they said, you're not really big enough to play anyway and you're probably not going anywhere. You're not that great. So you should probably get a job. That's what my doctor's advice.

Duane Murphy (04:32)
No, it's more fun than you know.

Steve Murnin (04:53)
when I was 18 years old. And so I got into a sporting goods company because I like sporting goods and I worked there and I worked my way up to an assistant manager, which you feel really good about this job, right? Because you got a big title, you're open, run a store. I wasn't making any money and I was working Saturdays and Sundays and I was missing all the family events. And I walked in the door one night and my daughter, Michelle, who's my oldest now, she was at the top of the stairs and she said,

Hi Steve, ran down the hall and it just hit me like a brick and I said, I don't ever see my family. She doesn't even know who I am. Like I'm not, I'm her dad, right? You know, and I'm not doing this anymore. And so at 20 years old, I just said, I'm going to do something different. And there was a guy, his name's Ellis Eborn, ERA national real estate, 33rd South in Salt Lake city, Utah. Everybody can check out everything I say. It's true. There's, you know, records of it.

Um, he, he was coming in our sporting goods store and he was buying boats and guns and he had a Lincoln continental and he always dressed nice. And his family was really calm. Like, want that. Like that looks like something I want. And I asked him what he did and he said, I do real estate. And I said, that looks cool. And he goes, well, tell you what, I got a licensing program and if you'll go through, um, I'll reimburse you for your license. If you join me, uh, and you pass the test and I'm like, deal.

So I quit my job cold turkey because I didn't want to interfere. I wanted to get my license as fast as possible. Got my license and then I got I got lucky. When you say lucky, you know, I everybody goes, oh, you know, I don't believe in luck. You make your luck. Well, I do believe we make our luck. But sometimes when we meet people, you never know who you're going to meet. Right. This guy was a great broker. He told me I could have this amazing 50 50 split.

If I came in every morning at eight o'clock for training and then worked all day with him and did the things that he told me to do and he'd make me a lot of money. And I said, cool. So he taught me how to list. I went in and we did listing presentation over and over and over again. He's the first guy he videoed it and showed me the video back. It was like very horrible experience at the time.

Right? Like, I can't be that bad. And because we're hardest on ourselves, right? And so long story short, my first 18 days in real estate, I took five listings because I just went in and called. I walked in. I had a desk. I had a mirror. I had a little vision board with my goal up there. I had no chair and I had a phone.

Duane Murphy (07:24)
You

Steve Murnin (07:48)
Now think about this 44 years ago, right? We didn't have leads. We had, we had the little MLS computer that printed out on a dot matrix printer. The paper just kept spiraling and it was expired. And then other than that, no, this is going to sound really weird to people watching that are younger. We had a phone book and literally opened up the phone book, the white pages and put a finger and started dialing. You want to talk cold calling.

Duane Murphy (08:00)
you

Steve Murnin (08:18)
just called up, you know, and I, Tom Ferry or Mike Ferry or all the golden people out there that have all these scripts will tell you I was a big guy on scripts and my script was this, you guys are gonna laugh. So this is kind of funny. I used to say, hey, this is Steve Murnin. I'm with ERA National Real Estate. I'm calling about the sale of your property. And I would, I didn't say anything else.

Out of the phone, but people go, well, we're not selling our house. And I'm going, well, have you thought about it? Well, yeah. OK, well, let's see. I'll be in your neighborhood on such and such. I'm going to come over on Thursday and spend 15 minutes together and see what this looks like. You know, literally that was my script and I did it over and over and over again. And so in my first year in business, I was really fortunate. I just kept doing that. I didn't know what a team was. We didn't know what teams were.

But my broker was smart enough to say, you need to keep listing. I'm going to connect you with a couple of agents in the office and they're going to do all your buyer stuff. They're going to handle the open houses. They're going to make sure the listings get marketed. They're going to follow up. They're going to, you need to just keep going to appointments. Right. And so I took 63 listings in a year. and that's all I did. I mean, and people say, well, why did you go so hard? Well, because we were buying groceries on a credit card.

I had a baby. I thought I was rich when I got married and then I found out, you know, I wasn't and I quit my job. I had no income. I had no options. You take people's options away. They get a lot more serious really quick, right? And so I just enjoyed the heck out of it. It was so much fun. And then that kind of leads into my next story. I don't know if you want to go there.

Shane Kilby (10:13)
No, no, yeah, absolutely go there. I did want to you know kind of drop that that no you drop several nuggets in there but one it just stuck in the mouth in the mouth all process right off the bat of many was you know, this guy gave you a killer opportunity at a 50-50 split Do what I asked you to do show up when I asked you to show up and hustle right and today like the way you can attest this and I'm sure Steve you've heard it too like

The split conversation in this industry is like all over the place and it's in and we all know it's not it's not about the split it's about the value proposition and what am I getting in exchange for that split in your situation? Some agents today would go. that's a terrible split. But in reality you were probably exchanging a PhD level knowledge and skill set in exchange for that split which took you to

You know 63 listings in a short window of time So that is you know and a testament to you know If you listen to this or download this podcast at a later date and time if you're a new agent a veteran agent Like it's not about the split. It's like what am I getting in exchange? For that split right like you may not be good You may have a great split and you get nothing in exchange for it. That's fine And then again, you may be getting a smaller split But you may be getting a wealth of tools and knowledge and expertise and training

Steve Murnin (11:12)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (11:39)
Hopefully that you are leveraging but if not consider that before you start bouncing around looking at other options because you may have the gold right there in your lap That was good and the scripts man that I was making a note of that some like there's nothing wrong with that script today Like that's perfect. Like that's some things never change some things never change So I decided that dive into those

Duane Murphy (11:55)
Yeah.

Steve Murnin (11:57)
Yeah, that's the fun thing.

You you nailed something because I'll get into my brokerage here in a little bit. people are easily distracted by the wrong thing. You know, it's really easy to be distracted by the wrong thing. And the wrong thing is when a split conversation comes up, you're talking that a totally wrong question. The question you should ask is how much money can I make? And it doesn't matter.

And you're exactly right. I would have paid him more. I won't tell him that time now, you know, but and but you're exactly right. It was just how much he asked me, how much money do you need to survive for your family? And what do you do to do to make your car payment, your house payment, you know, pay, get going. And I told him and he goes, we got that. We'll get you that and just do this. And it was an absolutely great exchange. Right.

So people ask the wrong question. They should be asking, you know, how much money can I make? What's my goal? What am I gonna do? And then if somebody helps you get there for God's sakes, you know, work with them and help them. And it's a team, it's a partnership. Everything in life is a partnership, right? You mentioned Lori, we'll get into that probably. We've been married 47 years, same lady. So high school sweethearts. So the next step in the adventure was I was...

Shane Kilby (13:08)
Absolutely.

Duane Murphy (13:11)
you.

Shane Kilby (13:15)
That's awesome.

Steve Murnin (13:20)
lucky that 57 of those homes sold. And so as I was selling them, there was a guy and he owned a Century 21 franchise in Salt Lake City, Utah, was where I was doing business. And he sold his agents sold the majority of my homes. He had over 100 agents and he was just killing it. So I was in his office all the time. And strange enough, like I say, you never know who you're going to meet or what's going to happen in life, right? So always be open.

never ever doubt that someday you're gonna meet somebody that something extraordinary is gonna happen from it. And so I get this phone call, it's like 10.30 at night. And he goes, hey Steve, it's Chuck Zimmerman. And I'm just wondering if what you're doing tomorrow. And I said, I got this, this, this. And he goes, hey, I got an idea. You've been in our office a lot. I'm the broker there. I've said hi. And I realized who he was. was a...

You couldn't miss the guy. He was an ex professional fighter. He was six foot three, 255 pounds and he fought a guy by the name of Ron Lyle. Any old fighting fans are out there and the guy Ron Lyle put him in the hospital. And he said I'm done with boxing. I got too many internal injuries. I'm going to go into real estate. So and you probably could get those injuries in real estate too, but just joking.

Duane Murphy (14:47)
daily basis.

Steve Murnin (14:47)
But anyway, he

said, he said, get together. So long story short, I go to his office and he goes, Hey, I got a guy flying in tonight and I'm going to talk to him about a business adventure and I think you'd be perfect for it. And I said, what is it? And he goes, well, have you ever heard of franchising? And I said, well, yeah, know century 21 is a franchise. And he said, well, they're starting a new one called ERA. That's a guy by the name of Jim Jackson. He's out of Kansas city, Missouri, which is another great story.

Most people don't know Jim retired was getting ready to retire from farm and land where they used to put out a catalog of farms and ranches across the country and mail the catalog out. He was the founder of that and he had sold it and he was good and they they ousted him two years before and he like lost all his retirement and everything and it's really weird and these guys almost 70 and he starts ERA.

Duane Murphy (15:26)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Murnin (15:44)
So his concept was Century 21 as a percentage franchise, 6 % to 8%. And then ERA was going to be a flat fee, but they offered similar things. so long story short, go up to the Salt Lake City airport with them and this plane flies in, private plane on the bottom of it had an ERA logo and lands. And we meet Jim Jackson and his son, Mike Jackson. And they said, how would you guys like to buy Idaho, Utah, Nevada?

and you'll pay us X dollars and then you own the franchise and then you go out and sell to real estate brokers franchises and bring them in and then they pay a flat fee and then you get 90 % of that and you pay us a 10 % royalty and you can build a business. And looked at each other and went, that sounds pretty good. And Chuck goes, I'm a really good sales person as you are. But he goes, I've seen your strength is in the training side.

So as we bring these people in, I want you to help them implement the franchise, right? And get it going and make money with it. So we bought it, Utah, Idaho, and Nevada. And we put in 57 franchises in three years. So we had pretty good luck with that. And I was traveling Idaho, Utah, and Nevada.

and meeting all of those brokers and working with them and helping them grow their business. Right. So that kind of got me into where where I'm in life now with that particular adventure. But we even started a program there. You can look it up on the ERA website. It's called Top Gun. So what ERA was known for was really good initial training. Right. So you get these companies and people say, they're great. Go get trained there and then go somewhere else and make more money. Right.

Duane Murphy (17:39)
You

Shane Kilby (17:41)
Hmm.

Steve Murnin (17:41)
Well, then

people quit doing what they were supposed to be doing in the first place and they don't make the money they were making. You know the whole game, right? Don't get distracted. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (17:47)
Right? Yeah. People do that all the time, right? It's like, well,

Shane Kilby (17:48)
yeah.

Duane Murphy (17:52)
like, are you doing what you did to get there? It's like, well, I stopped doing that. And it's like, go back to what got you there. Like, why'd you stop doing what made you successful? And so many people fall into that trap. like, you know, I'm going to do it a different way. Well, the original way worked.

Steve Murnin (17:55)
Yeah, no, and they quit. Yeah.

Shane Kilby (18:01)
you

Steve Murnin (18:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to change

everything and then hope it's the same. But I'm to keep doing what I was doing. OK. So anyway, with that, were about three years in roughly right at that point. And we got a call one day and they said, hey, we got the opportunity to buy Washington back because before there were what were called all these independent service brokers like we were.

Shane Kilby (18:11)
Right.

Steve Murnin (18:36)
and selling the franchises on behalf of ERA. And then the guys in Washington wanted to sell, so they owned it. And so we went up there from Len Ladeau in Washington and we bought Washington. So I moved there. That was the first time I moved out of Salt Lake. I moved to Spokane, Washington, which Lori hated because it was cold like 11 months of the year, right? 90 miles from the Canadian border.

Duane Murphy (19:02)
She does not

like cold weather.

Steve Murnin (19:05)
Yeah, it like Wisconsin, Dwayne, if you can relate to that.

Shane Kilby (19:11)
That's brutal.

Steve Murnin (19:12)
Yeah, so like seven was a great day in the winter. So it's up to seven. So she's a warm weather beach person. So this wasn't a good move from that standpoint. I went into Washington, we sold the first 12 ERA franchises in Washington and got a call.

And the Jacksons had said, Hey, we're going to sell, ERA and we're selling to the guys who bought Caldwell banker and century 21 out of New York. And, might be a good time. If, if you guys are looking at it, they want to buy all the independent service brokerages back because they want to own it and run it as a company. And so they flew out, they met with this, they wrote a number down on paper. I had no idea that there was that much money even available.

in the real estate industry. And we looked at each other and said, we're selling. Like, why do you grow a business, right? You grow a business so you have someday an opportunity to leave it to somebody and they can make money or sell it, right? I don't know any other reason, but so we sold it and Chuck said, hey, I'm going to Arizona and I'm going to get involved in this diet thing. And it's a franchise and you might want to go with me.

And I said, no, that sounds not fun at all. I don't want to live in Arizona. I don't know anything about diets. And so he started Jenny Craig in Arizona. He was the original franchise or he did pretty well. I'll say out of that field. So it might've been smart to go with them, but I didn't. I stayed. ERA asked me to stay on. And as they were buying these service brokerage back, go in and help them set up.

Duane Murphy (20:44)
my.

Shane Kilby (20:49)
Right.

Steve Murnin (20:59)
the business like we had it as a franchisor and teaching the training program and all of that kind of stuff. And so I thought, oh, that sounds like a good solid job. And I moved that they wanted me in Denver because it was a good hub because I serviced everything west of the Mississippi. I had all of the franchisors. There were about. 1100 of them that I interfaced with, so real estate brokers and owners.

So I moved to Denver and I lived there for four and a half years and I was with, ERA for 15 years. So that was another deal. thought short stint might go back into real estate. cause I liked that. but I, I ended up 15 years. and part of that job, you know how companies are when you work for companies, they're like, we're going to change all the territories that you're going to call it the whole West because you can run everything. And then like, no, no, we're going to departmentalize and put you in a region.

Shane Kilby (21:38)
I

Steve Murnin (21:57)
because it's too much territory and they changed their mind. And funny enough, all these things were around Thanksgiving and Christmas for me. Every single time I made a change, I don't know, it's just ironic. And so they called right at Christmas time, the owner, president of the company, Matt Gevner, and he said, hey Mernin, we're gonna break this up. They're gonna do regions. You've got, we want you to go.

to one of the new regions, you have a choice. You can go to New York, Texas or California. And so I thought about it for about a half a second on being California Monday. Didn't want to go to New York, not an East Coast. I love the New Yorkers. They're fine. I get along with them fine. Texas is just way too far from a Pacific or Atlantic Ocean and, you know, hot in the summer and cold in the winter.

Shane Kilby (22:52)
You

Steve Murnin (22:52)
It's

a great state, got a lot of friends there, Bill Helton and all those guys. But yeah, so I said California, so I moved and that was 37 years.

Duane Murphy (23:01)
Well, that and that probably

helped the 47-year marriage, right? Because you did mention that a certain someone loves the beach. So Texas doesn't have much of that. And New York, I don't know if you'd call that a beach. No.

Steve Murnin (23:06)
Yeah, that helped a lot.

Lori was very excited.

Not the same. Yeah,

when you're laying out in New Jersey, it's way different than when you're laying out in Huntington Beach. Yeah, big difference.

Duane Murphy (23:21)
Yeah, yeah, that's probably

a smart that that sounds like it was a smart business move, but it was probably a smarter marriage move than than anything.

Steve Murnin (23:29)
You

You

Shane Kilby (23:35)
Well, marriage

is still business. I mean, it's still part of the business. know, so it's probably just as good a business move as it was a personal move as well.

Duane Murphy (23:38)
you

Steve Murnin (23:45)
Yeah, so that that that sorry it took so long to get there. I just thought it would be fun to.

Shane Kilby (23:51)
No,

this is what we want to bring to the listeners. This is the real meat and potatoes of the real estate success industry or lack thereof. So this is good stuff, good stuff.

Steve Murnin (24:03)
Yeah, you know, another I guess thread in there after living that many years and doing this is

It's so weird when you start to really realize every day there's opportunity. And it depends on how you look at things in life. And if you're looking for the opportunity, gosh, you find it. And if you're looking and you think it's horrible and it's bad, it will be. Like whatever you decide is what you're going to become. And so I looked at all these things and it's funny, I got brought up. I was a Catholic kid in Utah, which is an interesting story.

just to begin with and kind of the whole idea there. And strict parents and like I didn't get out of the backyard until I was like 12. So like they were very strict, raised me and they always told me to be polite and say no. Like if the neighbors offer you a coat, don't take it. Like just say no and come home. Like okay. So I was taught to say no, right? To stuff. And then as I got into the business world, I went.

That's the wrong approach. I gotta say yes to everything. I gotta meet everybody. I gotta talk to every, I gotta listen to everything. You never know, you know? So all of these things that are popping up, I say you're lucky that you hear about them or you're there, you're in the right place, right time, all the things people say. You make your luck. And so they said, California, I came out here, but when I moved here, I wasn't crazy about the corporate.

I mean, I'm an entrepreneur and so I was an entrepreneur there and I got in big deference with the owner or the CEO. It was a company, a stock held company at that time, Nick Galidis. He used to flip condos in Chicago and his sister was Angie Galidis Carey. She was married to Hugh Carey, the then governor of New York. So that's a whole interesting story, but they were running ERA.

And they were really nice people. were great to me. just, corporate structure was just like bad. He asked one day, we were in a room, there a whole bunch of us, and he said, why are you here? And a lot of the people gave fluffy answers like, oh, I love the company, and I love all the people, and the culture's amazing, and all the fluffy shit people say got to me. And I said, I'm here for the money.

Shane Kilby (26:23)
you

Steve Murnin (26:30)
And he took me out in the hall and he goes, you can't say that. And I'm like, why are you here? Like, why did you guys invest your money? Like, and he goes, yeah, but you can't say that. And I said, the hell I can't. I'm here for the goddamn, you don't pay me enough money. I'm late. Like, dude, I'll do my job, you know? So that we kind of have a little difference in opinion. And so I decided to go back into real estate and I had a gentleman out here. His name was Lee Dana.

They started a little company called Network Real Estate and I bought it in 50 % owner and quit that job and went back into the private life and went into real estate. And we had an interesting concept from the past experiences I had. We had an ERA franchise and so we put together what we called the three in one marketing plan.

with a rocket ship on it. Kind of appropriate today, right? I know a guy that would have liked that. Yeah, I could have talked to him about this, and it stars and all this, but the idea was we have a national, regional, and local marketing approach. And it's the reason you should use network real estate because we have more resources than anyone else out there.

Shane Kilby (27:35)
Yep. Deal.

Duane Murphy (27:35)
you

Steve Murnin (27:55)
And that was our marketing presentation for buyers and sellers. And then of course, I had gotten into technology with ERA. That was the Electronic Realty Associates. And they started with a fax machine. Really interesting. They had two products. So talk about old stuff's kind of fun. I tell my grandkids all this stuff and trying to teach them about Brady Bunch and Hillygens Island and stuff. Yeah.

Shane Kilby (28:23)
iPhones.

Duane Murphy (28:24)
I don't

think, yeah, I catch myself in company meetings or in reflection or talk sometimes, you know, and you just brought up the fax machine. So it just brought up a memory, but right. It's like sitting there late in the evening, waiting for this counter offer, this accepted offer to come through on the thermal paper, right? And then the thermal paper wears out and then, by the way, if it came through on the thermal paper and then like you didn't copy it right away, this, you know, after a while it just disappears.

Steve Murnin (28:25)
We want a pay phone, Yeah, it's hard.

Everyone.

Right?

Duane Murphy (28:54)
I'm like, you all have no idea of what it's like to sit in front of a fax machine at 11 o'clock at night waiting for a counter offer, an amendment or something to come through and just waiting to hear the tones.

Steve Murnin (29:07)
Eight minutes to

go by the name of Shelby, Ernstein from 3M actually brought the fax machine in for Jim Jackson and said, that's how we're going to do referrals. So instead of your old farmland catalog, you know, if I had a referral for you, Dwayne, I fact you the information and then you sign the agreement and fax it back.

Duane Murphy (29:31)
Awesome.

Steve Murnin (29:31)
and that was our referral network.

And then we had a home warranty program and that was about it. Those were our two major tools when we started, but then we got into training and technology and automated presentations and all of that. So long story short, Network Real Estate, we enabled our agents, we got them all on laptops. They all had a PowerPoint presentation. We didn't have phones and iPads then, just laptops. So we did laptops.

Duane Murphy (29:35)
Yeah.

Steve Murnin (30:00)
And we did a lot of our training on laptop. We saved a lot of our training programs, started to save them on computer or video. And then that's how we trained our agents. So another.

Shane Kilby (30:10)
You know,

it sounds like that was a step back in time, which it is from today's standpoint, but there are days now I'm like, you know, it would be so much easier not to have 37 different tools and technologies to have to man and everybody in your organization's like.

Hey, how do you do this? And I'm like, I'm never even, I didn't even know that was a thing. That's an upgrade that took place yesterday. I have no idea. So it is, you know, the simplicity and it's like a lot of times, you know, with agents and stuff, it's like, I don't want to, I don't know much about technology. I don't want to know about technology. just, I want you guys to handle all that talking about our brokers. I'm like,

Unfortunately, the consumer has it faster than we do in a lot of aspects and they dictate like what technology we're going to use today and tomorrow because you know from our organization standpoint we've never wanted to be the the group that says well we don't do it like that here you know we've always adopted the mindset of we haven't before today but we do now we're gonna figure this out so we make sure that we provide you with that level of service or the

You know the the experience with that technology that you're used to We're going to go out and get it today and and master it in the next 24 hours and be able to provide that service to you but it's even like our relationship with or where we met it in Commission's Inc is Even even since like I think this is the 12th year or something 11th No, yeah, this is the I mean going into my 12th year on that platform next month and it's like Wow

The things that like that was a Mercedes when we launched that platform and it still is. But all of the things that have come since that is like, like we spend so much time teaching, coaching, training agents on the technology alone, not just the skillset of real estate, but just the technology alone. And it's amazing how much difference the difference it is today in far as simplicity goes from technology.

Speaking standpoint, but the activities are still the same

Steve Murnin (32:32)
Yeah, yeah, you're exactly

right. You two really great points there that I think listeners would like to catch on and hear is number one is I've heard a lot that, this technology is going to replace real estate agents. And I'm here to tell you it's not. It's always going to be personal. It's these connections that we make. They make all the difference in the world and everything that's ever come my way has been by meeting somebody, having personal interaction with and learning from them growing.

But I will say this, the reason I got into it and got big on understanding it was it isn't the technology will replace agents, but the agents who understand technology will replace the agents who don't. That's a given. it's knowledge, you know? And the times change, like you said. so that was like one big point. The other one is,

Shane Kilby (33:18)
Yes.

Steve Murnin (33:27)
One of the having good mentors is really important. And like you say, honoring those mentors and being loyal to them and pay, you know, sharing with them, being partners, they get paid. So what? I don't really care. I we care that we both make it right. That's the right attitude. But with that said, a really good mentor of mine once said, don't major on the minors.

don't major on the minor. So the little things like you just said technology and what's you sync for an example like they came out with AI and they got behavioral messaging and they've got list cast and they've added all of this stuff and all these features. And it's like, when we do sync university, we taught one thing, understand the software enough to figure out who the lead is, what their name is and get their phone number, call them up.

and use this script and have a conversation, go meet them, list their house and sell their house. All the rest of the stuff, it's fluff. Don't worry about it later. Like if you can do that, you're going to succeed and be able to feed your family and help people. And if you don't do that, so don't major on the minors.

Duane Murphy (34:39)
That's a great point. I always tell agents all the time, I've been on Sync as a platform as well, just about as long as Shane, and a lot of years, way before I launched my brokerage. I tell agents all the time, with half these tech tools, almost all the tech tools, it's like you don't need to know 100 % of it. Use the 20 % that's going to move the needle the furthest, the fastest.

and concentrate on that 20%. The rest of it is bells, whistles, fluff, right? Because it's used to either sell more platforms or it fills someone's need or whatever. But 20 % of any technology like that is what's going to move the needle the most. And then there's all the other refinements or other little pieces you can add in. it's like, focus in on that 20%. That's going to give you 80 % of your results.

Steve Murnin (35:09)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (35:37)
And like you said, picking up the phone, it still can't be replaced by technology. Still, today.

Shane Kilby (35:45)
Thank

Steve Murnin (35:45)
Yeah, that's where you know, sometimes

I didn't make a lot of friends along the way in some cases, because somebody say to me in the training, I want to hold session, I want to spend hours, I want to build out all these email campaigns, and I want to send all these people the stuff and I'd be like, No, do you even read email anymore? It's a piece of crap. Like I get 1000s of junk. I don't even do email. Like I'm, I'm not

Shane Kilby (36:11)
You

Steve Murnin (36:12)
I'm old, I should be the guy doing email like and being excited about I don't do email like people text now. It's just really weird thing. They read text 95 % more than they read email. All right. Adapt. Listen to what's called read the room. So, you know, but yeah, so let's see, I think another thing that will be helpful there along what we're talking about is getting back into real estate is growing a business. with that plan,

Duane Murphy (36:15)
you

Shane Kilby (36:23)
Yes.

Yes.

Steve Murnin (36:42)
We had a definite plan. The very first thing I helped them with is having a business plan. So it's really funny now. I ask agents all the time, like, do you have a business plan? yeah, is it written? no, yeah, I wanted to see it. You shocked, right? How many people like don't have, it doesn't even have to be crazy. It just has to be like, what's your purpose?

Duane Murphy (37:07)
you

Steve Murnin (37:11)
Get a good book like the Apple book about why that they wrote and it'll tell you in there all great companies have three things. They have a what? You got to very quickly be able to articulate somebody what the hell you are because people go, what do you do? And you're like, oh, I'm a technician. It's like, oh, well, I have no idea what that meant. you know, have a what then have a

Shane Kilby (37:16)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Murnin (37:41)
how you gotta tell other people this is exactly how you do it or if you're gonna get involved, here's the step by step because it's easy if you don't unless you don't know how, right? It's as when people say, I have a hard time with the computer. Well, it's easy if you don't know it. It's not easy if you don't know how, it's hard. It's only easy if you know how. So it's step by step. And then the last is most important is a why.

You know, why do you get up every day? If you guys could see around my office here, you can kind of see one of the signs I live by in life. I've got four signs on the wall. live by him. I'm that weird guy with all of those little weird sayings, but I got pictures of all my grandkids and I got my grandson at Cal Berkeley and we're going to, you know, help make sure he doesn't have to take that burden of $55,000 a year alone, you know, stuff like that. I want to do things for

Shane Kilby (38:34)
Right.

Steve Murnin (38:38)
I want to leave them something, right? So days are tough and things are hard. I think, God, this is, I just look around at the pictures and go, I'm not failing. I'm not going to fail those people, right? So you get your Y down and then, so, and that's just it and kind of bullet out, like, what are you going to do? There's verticals in real estate, right? And so the verticals are like sphere of influence or past clients or referrals.

Shane Kilby (38:40)
Thank

That's a fact.

Steve Murnin (39:08)
or leads or sphere marketing or general geographical marketing or whatever you're do. They're all verticals. And the hard part is everybody usually tries to work them all at once. Another wise mentor once told me, you'll do one thing well, two things maybe, and three things not at all. So just do not spread yourself so thin that you can't do it.

Duane Murphy (39:22)
Yes.

Steve Murnin (39:36)
And that is a huge thing I see over life, right guys? Yeah.

Shane Kilby (39:41)
Yeah, it's like that

80-20 rule is like, know, 80 % of your income comes from 20 % of what you do each day. So lean into that.

Steve Murnin (39:49)
Yeah, yeah. And that's why I

listed and got people to help me with the open houses and all of that, take the buyers and give them a split, pay them. Like it was no big deal. Like I got a little bit off each buyer, but I made my money off of my listings. It's like, don't try to hang on to everything. Just like, let it go. Just focus in on what you're gonna do. So with that, we had a real focus on the business and we worked really hard and had a really

good group of people and a good market in California. It's a beautiful state. We don't want to get into discussing the state too much because I think it's the second weirdest state in United States after New York. But thank God for New York. but real estate was good. We grew over 30 offices. had little centers like other brokers had done.

Duane Murphy (40:28)
Yeah

Steve Murnin (40:49)
We went into smaller towns, not the big city of San Jose, for example, but maybe Morgan Hill or Gilroy or surrounding areas, Los Altos, whatever, and put in a market center. And the goal was to have at least 10 agents in each of those with a very small footprint from cost perspective. And so it made money, right? Because we wanted to have a profitability. So we set up a budget, made money.

So at about 300 agents, our last year in business, we closed 1,100 transactions. We were one of the top three companies in the Silicon Valley at the time. And companies like Compass and other real estate groups started to say, hey, we wanna buy real estate companies. The fastest way for our to grow our footprint is to just buy a big company. So again, weird things happen, right? Now the guy shows up.

talks to us and say, I want to meet with you and want to buy your company. We're like, okay. So got together with them and they made a just stupid, ridiculous offer of a bunch of money. And I said, we're selling. That's why you grow a business, right? So I sold a network real estate, eight, eight and 53 years ago. Um, and, uh, the

Shane Kilby (41:44)
you

See ya.

Duane Murphy (41:56)
Man.

Steve Murnin (42:09)
It was great for everybody. And here's the really cool part. The guys have bought it. Network Real Estate's like five times bigger than it was when we had it. It's still there. They really grew it. They did a great job with it. Credit to Bob Allen, Felix LeCapri and that group. They took it. They ran it. They've done a great job. They're really great people. So that worked out good for them, worked out good for us.

Duane Murphy (42:18)
and still there.

Steve Murnin (42:33)
And we used to, we close in California, opposed to like the East coast and that with attorneys, you know, with title companies out here. We opened the escrow and go into the title company and they closed the transaction. And so I knew the title people really well. And Ray Marine, one of the officials at Fidelity National Financial lived in my little town of Morgan Hill.

Lori and I were having dinner one night sitting in a restaurant. Ray walked in with his wife, Dina, and said, hey, Mernin, I hear you're selling your real estate company. And I said, yep. He goes, what are you going to do next? And I said, no idea. Like, I haven't decided. I'm going to do something. You know, I'm in my, I'm young, so get 40s. I got to do something. And he said, I got an idea. Come to my office on Monday. And instead of saying no, I just said, yep, because who knows, right?

Shane Kilby (43:28)
you

Steve Murnin (43:33)
And so I met, went and met with them and he said, we got this idea. We just bought a little transaction management company and we're trying to get it off the ground. And we think you'd be perfect. You understand technology, you understand real estate and a lot of people. Would you take a look at it? So I'm like, sure. So I flew down to Southern California and I looked at this thing. It was called transaction at the point at the time. Today it's called SkySlo. So it,

Shane Kilby (44:02)
Interesting.

Steve Murnin (44:03)
Yeah, really interesting, right? So I spent four years, almost five years building the transaction business forum and we had 2200 offices on our software in that short period of time. I pretty much a lot of fun doing that. That's how I got to know a lot of brokers all across the country. As I got involved in that project and it really opened up the market to me. You know, back to the ERA days, I met a lot, but a lot of guys are my age and they're dead or gone.

Shane Kilby (44:05)
You

Steve Murnin (44:32)
So, you know, the ladies. But so I got back into that and then we decided, well, you know, it's bad in a company to be a one trick pony. So we probably should have another department other than just one. So I took my little team and we built out a project where we help title people go out and get more business from real estate people, because I understood that pretty well, you know, and the whole title philosophy was

buy him a calendar and a donut and take him to a football game, buy him a boat, all the stuff that became illegal to do. And so it was like, well, that strategy's out. So what are we going to do next? So value add was definitely the answer. If I could meet you guys and I said, hey, Dwayne, what's your biggest challenge right now? And you go recruiting. And I could say, I got three programs I want to recommend to you.

Duane Murphy (45:09)
Yeah.

you

Steve Murnin (45:31)
this one and it'll help you manage the recruits, you know, do this, that, whatever. So that, so we developed over a hundred products that Fidelity partnered with where we could deliver value. So Palm agent, it's a, it's the number one real estate app in America today. It's a net sheet and it's super great. It calculates everything. It does marketing now. Like if I were showing you a home,

And you said, I like it and say, what would you offer? And we put in the offer. It already has all the taxes and fees and insurance and county. Everything's all in there. And you just hit the button. You put the price in, hit the button and says, OK, this would be your down. This would be your monthly. What do you think? They go, well, that monthly is a little high and go, what do you want to do? So we adjust the monthly down and then it shows them what price of a home they could afford. We can't afford this one, but we could go show you another one. I got a couple more, right? It is the coolest app ever.

Shane Kilby (46:29)
Yep.

Steve Murnin (46:30)
But anyway, we just developed a whole bunch of tools and then went out and met with real estate brokers. So I signed a five-year agreement to do that with the title people after doing that transaction thing and I ended up doing that for 15 years.

Shane Kilby (46:47)
Like this, mean, honestly, I I'm not typically I'm and I'm not a loss for words. But a lot of times it's having, I'm having to button my own, but I'm just intrigued from this whole story. Cause I knew a lot of, a lot of your history and a lot of your success and just you as an individual, like I was getting like this morning, I'm like, I hope he didn't forget, right? Cause he retired and I wasn't going to hold against you if you did, you know, like it's just part of it. But I was like, man, I hope that hope it still works out because.

This is every time we've had an opportunity to have just conversations like this. It's just been the greatest moment. mean, because it's just, it's so much, so much history, right? And it's, you understand all of everything that I've gone through. then some probably I'm a walk in the park and Dwayne and so many others, right? So it's like, you know, like you get it, you know, a lot of times like

We're working with vendors and that's like they work the business and they have their own struggles and strife and hurdles and obstacles that they deal with. They don't necessarily, know, many of them don't necessarily know what we deal with every day. They know that their goal right now is to sell us a product or service, right? Not necessarily. And I guess they are trying to help us solve a problem that we have in our business, but they don't really know it from that granular level.

like you know it. So it's very, very, very enlightening, very enlightening.

Steve Murnin (48:20)
Four things from what you just said. It's really great to have these conversations. You guys have no idea. I learned as much from everybody I talked to. If you listen, you always learn. And four things there. You said, this will be good messages back, hopefully. Well, number one, never sold anything a day in my life. You serve, you don't sell.

So what you really got to understand is meeting people and finding out what their real need is and what the real challenge is. And if there's some way that you can assist in that, then you can partner and you both benefit. Right. And it's fair for you to both make some income or however that works out. Right. So the second thing you said in there was really important. Our friends are forever and business is temporary. I told you guys that all the time. And I truly believe that, you know, so I would do this in a second.

I'll never forget you guys. You guys have been great to me. You adopted me when I got to Sync, which is where we're at, in this part of the story. Next thing to that is this is the difference maker. Meeting people and having conversations and listening, and sometimes, this has gone on a long time, I've got to be careful here. We will wrap up.

but it's, you listen in long time and you, but man, the stuff you can pull out of this. I listened to Joe Rogan's podcast where he talked to a gentleman who just is becoming fairly important in our country now for three hours. And I listen every minute. And it's funny how many times I pause that now and I've gone back and listened because anything, there's just nuggets and everything, right? So that's kind of how we met is when I was doing that with sync or with FNF.

Shane Kilby (49:56)
Yes.

Steve Murnin (50:03)
Ray Marine, same boss who's been there forever. He's a Western regional president of the company, called me up and said, hey, we're going to Atlanta. And I said, what the hell did I do wrong now? Why am I going to Atlanta? I'm buying this little company, Commissions Inc. Have you ever heard of it? And this is a true story. So what is this eight years ago for me now? And I said, no, never heard of them. And I hadn't. They've been in real estate forever. I didn't know who they were.

Duane Murphy (50:15)
Yeah

Steve Murnin (50:30)
And he said, you heard of Boomtown. I go, yeah, and I know Boomtown. I got a guy here in town that's on Boomtown. He goes, very similar company. They're just different in strategy and they're competitors. And we're buying one. can't tell anybody. I want you to go on the plane with me. I want you to see what you think. We think you'd be useful over there. OK, so I flew to Atlanta and met everybody and I looked at it and I went, this is awesome. I mean, the lead generation business, I think back.

This is full circle now, right? And I got in point in a phone book that that shit was hard. This is like shooting fish in a barrel. This is honest. Right, I'm like, smokes, where was this? And so I was so excited to be selected out of 21,000 employees is the one they wanted to be involved there and. And that so.

Shane Kilby (51:03)
yes.

Duane Murphy (51:08)
Shooting fish in the barrel.

Shane Kilby (51:11)
Yes. Yes.

Steve Murnin (51:26)
Randy Quirk was the president of Fidelity. He retired and we had a really good long relationship too. Now he's doing consulting with Ray and he's in charge of their technology. Randy was there. He tried to get me to move to Jacksonville three different times because the Fidelity headquarters are in Jacksonville. I said, I really am not going to do that. I really appreciate the offer.

So Ray told me, goes, by the third time he asks you, if you don't go, he's going to write you off. Like you got no upward mobility. And I said, what you may not understand is I don't want any upward mobility. like, I'm really good right around that. I'm not trying to get anything else out of this company. I like what I'm doing. so I didn't move. So the story is I'm telling this because the first meeting in Atlanta, I had moved there. So when we, when we purchased Sync, when Fidelity purchased Sync,

I made the commitment I was going to go full immersive. And I think that's probably another good message for people. Always full asset, don't half asset. Right? You know?

Shane Kilby (52:33)
I

McConaughey says it a lot now. Matthew McConaughey uses it a lot.

Steve Murnin (52:38)
Yeah, yeah. So just go after it. And so I moved there. I lived there for 31 months. I wanted to meet the people. I wanted to know who worked there. I wanted to meet the clients. I wanted to, I wanted to experience the product. I, I need, you need to know it if you're going to do it. And, because that, that's the bottom line is if you believe in what you're doing and you have these conversations with people, they know you do. You can, know, babies and dogs, they sniff people out really well.

Like if a dog doesn't like and a baby doesn't like it's like watch that person right? Well you you good business leaders you sniff it out pretty quick too. You can tell like if somebody's misleading it right? And so I wanted to know. So anyway, I moved there, got involved. It's been an amazing eight years. Somebody said to me the other day. Well, what's going to happen to sink and I said nothing. They were there before I got there. You don't understand. I'm just another person like.

Shane Kilby (53:08)
Yes they do.

Duane Murphy (53:10)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (53:12)
you

Steve Murnin (53:36)
I passed away. They're fine. It's the same product. My training team's the same training team. They've actually gotten better at what they do. There's no difference. Life will go on. Just do what you're supposed to do.

Duane Murphy (53:49)
Yeah,

you say that, but at the same time, right, even though the company will go on the impact that you've had on on on that company and the impact that you've had on on the lives of so many people that you've touched mine personally, for sure. There's no way it can be summed up that easy. No way. Right. Like like on everything that you have shared about your past and

Steve Murnin (53:59)
you

So.

Shane Kilby (54:14)
Mm-mm.

Duane Murphy (54:19)
and doing and again one of the most amazing things that I should ask you the question of what you're most proud of at Sync because that's the most recent adventure that you were on. I mean it every bit of that is just the God-given gift you have to build connection.

and to meet people where they're at and just, and then connect people like, hey, right? Like, you know, you got to meet this guy or you got to meet this gal because you know, like she's, she knows this or he knows that or he can help you with this. And right. mean, it, it was your connection and an influence that right. Led me to help, you know, Magnolia realty with some of the stuff that they were doing down in Texas. And right. When Chip and Joanna were trying to do the franchise and

growth brokerages and a call department and trying to figure all those pieces out. And that was right. Just one of many examples of where you were just connecting people and meeting them where they are and just serving them right in the way that you did best. Right. That it it you're cutting yourself. I know you're humble by by like umpteenth degree. But but

You cannot sell yourself short on the impact that you had on is that company going to keep going? Yeah, sure. They are right. Um, is there, uh, will there ever be another Steve Merton? Um, none of that company, no way. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. My friend, there's only, there's only one of you and that, does not get replaced.

Shane Kilby (55:57)
Steve is the great connector.

Steve Murnin (55:59)
you

Well, I appreciate those kind words. And, you know, I know I'm a little different, when they, when we had summit and the guys that we were working with on the crew that we're doing the show said, you need a walkup song. We're going to start doing walkup songs. And I said, what's that? And they said, no, when you walk up to the stage and they said, what's your walkup song? And I said, I don't have one. They said, we'll pick it. And they picked wild thing. I thought I'm a little different. I get that it won't be the same. it'll be different.

There's just no doubt and that's kind of everything in life, know, stuff changes and it's maybe never the same. It's going to be different. Does that make sync better or worse? Nothing. It has zero effect. They're who they are and they're going to be fine. They'd be smart to find another person that builds relationships. And there's some great people out there, you know, that build relationships. I mean, for gosh sakes, you guys are Mike-ish or Chep Black or...

I mean, just look around. There's tons of really good people who understand the value of a relationship, right? But thing probably I'm most proud of is 15,000 people we saw in eight years face to face. And that's the difference. Companies, tech companies are not warm and fuzzy. They're like,

call Taiwan and try to get help. Like, good luck, you bought it, hope it works. It's like, that will never work. Like it's never gonna be the ultimate. So when I got to sync real quick, cause I know we're way over, when I got to sync, there were two CEOs at the time. And I was still looking at it. That's when Ray flew me out. I was looking at it. Nobody knew any of this was going on. Not even my team at FNF, nobody knew.

Duane Murphy (57:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Murnin (58:01)
And the first thing I said to him after the first meeting was, give me a list of your hundred clients, hundred top clients. And I gave them a list of things I needed. I wanted to see their financials. I want to see this. want to that. I wanted to know what I was getting into, right? Because you don't want to make your last stop with the company failure, right? And so I called a lot of you guys and I went and visited some of them and I got to ask. And the first thing was really funny. They go,

Duane Murphy (58:19)
you

Shane Kilby (58:19)
Ahem.

Steve Murnin (58:30)
Well, all of our clients are kind of on the same thing. We don't have top clients. And I said, yes, you do. I said, that's not true. You got top clients. So I don't know how you classify them or consider them. They're your clients. I don't know them. It's your list. Give me a list of 100 people. And they're like, what do you need it for? I said, that's none of your business. Just give me the list or I won't come here. So that's what I did. I started calling them. And then when I got involved, we surveyed you guys. I don't know if you even remember this.

but we sent out a survey. You may or may not answered it. I'll have to go back and look. we surveyed and of the respondents that responded, we said, how do you want to learn about Sync? How do you want to be trained? How do you want to be supported? And we said, you want webinars? Do you want recorded videos? Do you want an account manager? Do you want live training? What do you want? Like a whole list of stuff.

Duane Murphy (59:04)
Hahaha.

Shane Kilby (59:04)
you

Steve Murnin (59:26)
86 % of our clients said they wanted a live training. They wanted to meet somebody face to face and have them help them. So we went, Sync University, you know, that Lance started, it was already there. We're going a whole different direction. And so in eight years, we were able to get to 15,000 people face to face. And then this was a real key. These all things all tie together because what you learn,

You keep doing the same things if they work, right? And so we had a great what? We were a lead generation company that had a CRM so you could manage your business and we generated leads, right? Pretty simple to explain really quickly. And then we had a great why, because we got up every day really believing we could help change people's lives. We'd seen it. We'd seen clients grow and do what you guys have done, amazing accomplishments and

and that, but we didn't have a how. I would walk around the company and say, well, how do we do this? And nobody had the same answer. And I'm like, we're screwed up. This is not good. So we wrote the sync method to success. And COVID was very helpful with that. So when you're doing live training and your boss goes, you can't go see people anymore. You can't go into training room. And I'm like, why not? And he goes,

there's this thing and you can't go and I'm like well that's really stupid and so you know that's what I do and so April and May we closed down in 2020 because we couldn't do them I started again in June by the way I was back at live training in June of 2020 no one died

Duane Murphy (1:00:53)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Shane Kilby (1:01:09)
I remember

I was a part of those and you

Duane Murphy (1:01:11)
I

was gonna say I think both of us were in, right? Cause I've been to three or four universities, maybe five, and you know, a few less than Shane, but I can remember one right after that COVID period. And like, you know, everyone is all spaced out and right, followed protocol. And it just, was, it was weird, right? It's like, wait, where's everyone else?

Steve Murnin (1:01:18)
Yeah.

Yeah

We had to,

in addition to coffee cups and pens and stickers and that, had to buy masks and hand gel. You know, there was just other swag we had to add to the package, but we went because Randy Quirk had said, can't go. And I said, you don't understand our company is so small. And if I don't go see these people and we don't build it, we could lose it. Like we're not a big company. There's not, you know, there's what? 4,000 people like that. It's not.

Duane Murphy (1:01:41)
yeah.

Steve Murnin (1:02:04)
Huge, you know, but so long story short, if we didn't go, it wouldn't have been good. So he said, OK, well, if you go out and get somebody sick and we get in trouble, you're fired. And I said, that's the deal. And he goes, yeah. And I said, we're in. We'll be in Phoenix in June. So we went to work. But out of that, that that that this is the last thing I'll share with you guys. And maybe we can do something else another day because it's too long for people to listen to. But we we we said we don't have a how.

Duane Murphy (1:02:29)
You

Steve Murnin (1:02:33)
We got to have a how. So I bought a book and I bought a book called The 12 Week Gear. And you guys have probably both read it. And in the 12 week year, the reason the book was good for me, because I'm not super smart. In the back of the book, it actually tells you how to do it. It's like, how do you do a 12 week year? And I'm like, buying this. They wrote it down for you. There's steps to follow and stuff. So

We came up with a similar, we had to have one goal. Our goal was we want somebody who joined Sync, I'm brand new. I just joined, whatever it is. I just joined whatever I joined. And I want to know how I can make money. How do I do it? How do I actually make this work? And so we said, that's our goal is to write it out. We didn't care how long it took. If you could explain it in an hour, if it took a month.

We didn't care, we didn't have timeframes, anything. And we just said, don't look at the past training, throw it out, rewrite everything. And so I was the client. I played you guys in this role and we met every day for the 12 week year. And we had mile markers along that 12 week year, like they tell you, well, this has to happen in 30 days, this has to happen in 60 and 90, so on and so forth. And I said, I'd say, tell me what to do to make money.

and they'd start and I'd go, no, I don't understand that. That's stupid. If I do that, I don't know this. I don't know how to find a lead. all right. And now I got a bunch of agents. Like, how do they get the leads? Like, you know, and so I, we just grilled, grilled and grilled. And what we found out is for me to be able to get with you or anyone else and explain the how, it takes 24 hours.

So how do you spend 24 hours with somebody and give them all the information they need? So we broke it down into three eight hour days. Cause we did sync you in one day. We did it in two days, then three days, then four days. We didn't really know. We just did it hoping, right? We hope it's not a great strategy. So, so we, we, we did, that's what we did with our 12 weeks off is rewrote it and literally came up and said,

Shane Kilby (1:04:44)
Yeah.

Thank

Steve Murnin (1:04:54)
Day one, when you start, this is the very first thing that you do. And here's how you do it. And here's the system. And it's all about database. Number one's your database. And that's in anything. If an agent right now today, they don't have a database of a hundred people they know, they're probably not a great candidate for real estate. You to know at least a hundred people, right? And if you don't, you better start meeting them, right? I got 8,500 contacts in my Outlook, just to give you an idea. So.

that you build them over time, right? So you get in your database, call those hundred people. You say, hey, Shane, Steve, how you doing? I'm still, I just wanted to follow up, man. This is still the right number. That's great. What's going on in your life? Right? You got a minute? Just catching up. Oh, by the way, I happen to still be in real estate. Nobody needs any real estate help. Nope, not right now. Great. Well, I'm having an event on such or such. I'll send you notice. Is that okay? Yeah. Just have a conversation. Call those.

You get two pieces of business out of those hundred people just calling them to catch up. Guarantee you. Right?

Shane Kilby (1:05:56)
Absolutely. I

Duane Murphy (1:05:57)
guarantee.

Shane Kilby (1:05:57)
just had that same training call with an agent yesterday and that's what we're working on. She was working, she had 80, she was working to get to 100. I'm like, that's amazing. It's amazing.

Steve Murnin (1:06:00)
Yeah.

Yeah. Good.

And so, so yeah, we just wrote it in database and then automation because life is chaotic and we get so busy and there is so much to do that. You've got to have an automated assistant. You got to have somebody who'll do your mailing, somebody who will reply to a client at 10 30 when you're not going to behavioral messaging, whatever the case may be. And there's all kinds of automation in the software. So just get the key pieces set up.

Don't send a bunch of stupid emails. But if they're on your site and ask you a question, respond for goodness sakes. If it's not you, we got an AI assistant. Then last but not least, that you can have the best database system in the world, you can have the best automation in the world. But if you don't get on the phone and call them and talk to them, you're going to starve to death. We did a whole day of conversion. But that's what I'm most proud of. We came up with an actual method to success and help 15,000 people understand how to do it.

Duane Murphy (1:06:53)
Yes.

Steve Murnin (1:07:03)
And I got friends all over the US and Canada who are making money with this thing. And it's bled into other parts of their lives. Like you said, networking, meeting each other, new ideas, maybe get into lending, and all kinds of other things you can do, right?

Shane Kilby (1:07:18)
Well, if it wasn't for that platform, I wouldn't have the connections with either one of you guys that I have today. know, Dwayne and I, we've created like, you know, just little mastermind groups, you know, and like Lions Den, like, you know, we created Lions Den to mastermind sync events so that we could, instead of going to an event and getting a wealth of knowledge and going back and implementing nothing, right, or that one,

Steve Murnin (1:07:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (1:07:41)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (1:07:47)
You know, we wanted to hold each other accountable to implement 80 % of what everybody took away from it. So a lot more of those connections spun off of that platform and the people formula that you helped to build inside of that company. Like they sync you like that's what that's probably the biggest reason.

that we're still with that platform today. mean, aside from it being a great company to work with and the culture is great, but it's those hands-on, face-to-face, it's like when I bring a new agent in, they think they're coming in to sell real estate. when I discussed with them, Sink University, and it's like, what is it? like, just, every one of them, I'm like, trust me when I tell you this, you know, because it's like, well, can I do it online? I'm like, you can, but it's not the same thing.

When you come back, I to sit down and have a conversation if I'm not with you, and I want you to tell me what you experienced there. And it's always the same, it's like, belief, conviction, culture, connection, like the people, the relationships. I've got people I can reach out to to refer business to all across the country and vice versa. said, here's one magical thing in addition to this, like when you get there, believe it or not, you're gonna know more than some of the folks that have just signed onto the platform from what we've taught you.

Then you're going to see a lot of folks that know a lot more than you do agent wise and the cool thing about it is as you go in and reach back to help someone that's just come in the front door just got the log in to sync you're gonna have someone reaching back to help you take you to the next level of that platform. So it's those things those are the key reasons that why we still you know lean heavily on that platform today after I guess we're going into 12 years now going in 12 years. So absolutely.

Steve Murnin (1:09:34)
Yeah. Well, if you

did brain surgery and the doctor was going to zoom in online and Dwayne was going to actually do it and the doctor was going to zoom in and help him, would you want to do it online? Probably online, a little different than in person, right? So, go ahead.

Shane Kilby (1:09:48)
no.

Gawain's attention span,

he might not be the best reference for that. His attention span is out of a goldfish.

Steve Murnin (1:10:01)
yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, but again, just personally to me, thank you guys. Friends are forever. I really appreciate it. And it's really funny. You did the smartest thing ever because in those big groups, you got a lot of people and you get a lot of ideas and you go and you write them down. And then it's like, man, I didn't take my 12 week year and stop and implement anything. And now I'm not any further ahead. It was amazing. But, and you broke it into a small group of actionable people.

Shane Kilby (1:10:02)
But, you know.

Duane Murphy (1:10:04)
you

Shane Kilby (1:10:08)
Thank

Steve Murnin (1:10:30)
held each other accountable and implemented after the fact. And that I applaud you. That was the smartest thing ever. That was great. I was all, you know, super.

Shane Kilby (1:10:38)
Well,

you brought a great, you know, the sync events and then the masterminds and it's like, and those were like intensive and even overwhelming. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (1:10:49)
I mean, was

so much value, right? And so much that was thrown at you and hit with you and the people that were guest speakers or that were teaching or whatever it might be, right? There was so much stuff. And Shane and I had chatted for, after many masterminds, like, holy crap, right? Like, there's so much to do, so much to get integrated. And where do you start?

right? that, and that, like Shane said, that's, that's ultimately where the lion's den came in was like, okay, how do we integrate? How do we implement this stuff in it? Cause there's, there was always so much stuff and then you go to the next mastermind six months later, whatever it might be. And you're like, damn, I didn't do anything for the last one yet. And now I'm getting all this new stuff. got, man, I got, I still gotta do the other stuff.

Steve Murnin (1:11:35)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (1:11:40)
And now I've got all these other new great ideas and things I need to implement and do. it was just so much. I mean, lot of that truly, Lions Den and just that next level came from those masterminds you put together at Commissions Inc. at Sync. mean, that was literally that big one. Because there is industry events.

Steve Murnin (1:11:41)
Right.

Duane Murphy (1:12:11)
You know, but there wasn't truly a lot of masterminding going. You know, now it's a little bit of a buzzword, but it, you it just, you kind of really put it on the map for a lot of, for a lot of sync clients, right? So it was huge.

Steve Murnin (1:12:20)
Yeah.

Well,

I repeat what works, right? So when I was doing the transaction management, not a lot of people were actually doing online automated transaction management. In fact, it was kind of scary. Like I don't have any files anymore. no, no. You've always got your files now and actually can easily find them. They're not stored in a warehouse somewhere where you got to go look for them for like three months. Right. I said, no, no, no, it's it is different, you know, but it was scary. And, so was like, and you're this guy trying to sell me this thing. And I've always said,

Duane Murphy (1:12:47)
Yeah

Shane Kilby (1:12:48)
Right.

Steve Murnin (1:12:57)
If it works and people are doing it, I don't need to sell you anything. Talk to them. Right. So I did the masterminds back then. But my idea of a mastermind is a little different than when you hear mastermind and you go and there's like six or seven or eight speakers. mean, you know, and you get all this stuff thrown at you. It was really important to get you guys in a room and just facilitate it. You guys pick the topics. Tell us what you want to talk about. We'll try to gather people that can help each other. Let you guys meet each other.

Ask questions, say anything you want, you know, and really mastermind, really talk, meet each other, relationships, and then, you know, get in and out. That was that mastermind's been a lot of fun, but it's a little different to me than what lot of people think a mastermind is. You hear it all the time. It's like, that's not a mastermind, you know, but but again, back to you guys did the right thing. Implement, implement, implement.

Shane Kilby (1:13:45)
Right.

Steve Murnin (1:13:54)
You can learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. And at some point you just got to go, you know what? This may not be perfect and it may not be right yet. I'll keep working up. I'm to do something rather than do nothing. And you just start doing it. And, and if you're on the right track, you find out pretty quick. And if you're on the wrong track, you find out pretty quick and you got to tweak it, you know, and that's where people don't make adjustments. And it's just like adjust a little bit and go and just keep going.

Shane Kilby (1:14:06)
Absolutely.

Duane Murphy (1:14:13)
Find that on Quick Two.

Shane Kilby (1:14:21)
Yeah.

Steve Murnin (1:14:23)
That's why now I've got kind of a little part-time gig thing lined up that I'm with Fidelity in the title group back to where I started. Because I'll never stop. I think when you stop and you give up, got nothing, no interest.

Duane Murphy (1:14:37)
Be

careful be careful not to sign a you know a contract that states you're give them so many years cuz next thing you know Right you're gonna be like okay. Yep. I'll sign this you know I'll give you one year, and then you know your history is gonna be like you're gonna be 90 be like yeah, okay, I Guess I fulfilled my one-year contract, so just you know

Steve Murnin (1:14:44)
right

I'll be 90. What the hell?

Yeah, I'm still

just trying to get to another Green Bay, Wisconsin game man, just Green Bay Packers. That was one of the best days of my life. So and I got to make it to Alabama. I got to come see you got to do that. Come to just tell me when the weather is going to be good and there's no bugs and I'll be there.

Duane Murphy (1:15:01)
I

That was a good time.

Shane Kilby (1:15:10)
Come on, come on.

Yeah,

tell me about it. I right now, it's I mean, it did make it to 28 this morning. It was 10. So we are we are climbing. Thank goodness. I think Dwayne said, yeah, what did you say earlier this morning? Yeah, I think we made it to zero. Like

Duane Murphy (1:15:28)
Yeah,

we made it to zero today finally. I mean, it was negative 11 yesterday and then with negative 35, negative 45 wind chills. So that's intolerable.

Shane Kilby (1:15:40)
That's too cold, that's brutal.

Steve Murnin (1:15:41)
Yikes. Well,

Lori, you guys know her. She's like, 100 pounds, wet, you know, she's a little teeny great shape, no body fat, you know. So we go outside and she just goes, oh my gosh, it's really cold tonight. And I'm like, it's 50. That's summer in Wisconsin. Like you need to move. You need to go back to Spokane for a couple of years, girl. You don't understand. You become soft, you know.

Duane Murphy (1:15:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Uhhh

Steve Murnin (1:16:07)
Well, thanks again

guys. Super appreciate this. I hope it's helpful in some way. Do you guys or other people be glad to do it again one day? Talk about whatever you want to talk about. I had the good fortune of just living a long time, meeting some really great people, learning a lot of great things. Super great experiences and like I say, talking to my six grandkids. That's what I try to do all the time. Just share with them life stories and ask them.

Shane Kilby (1:16:17)
Absolutely.

Steve Murnin (1:16:36)
ask them mind disturbing questions, you know, so they have to think about things a little bit more than the average person because if you really do ask yourself the hard questions and hold yourself accountable to those, it makes a difference in your life.

Shane Kilby (1:16:49)
Absolutely, absolutely. So let me ask you this. So if someone wanted to connect with you, what's the best way for them to connect with you?

Steve Murnin (1:16:59)
Well, shoot, I'm on Facebook. You can find me, Steve Mernin on Facebook. I'm on Instagram, Steve-Mernin, at Steve-Mernin. I'd be glad to, anybody that ever wanted to call me, you know me, I pick up the phone. I still think it's personal. So 408-396-4688, just call me.

Shane Kilby (1:17:22)
Well, I had the number, I wasn't going to disclose it, but ladies and gentlemen, is honest to the core. What you see is what you get, what you hear is what you get. I am a true living testament to that. That is a fact. That is a fact. Steve.

Steve Murnin (1:17:38)
Cuz I never

know, gonna call might be some great opportunity one day, you so. Yeah, just well, maybe not never, but most of the time. Shot maybe you say no, but other than that.

Shane Kilby (1:17:42)
Never say no, right? Never say no. At least you know what to play in no food.

Absolutely, Steve. It's been a pleasure today Everyone is listening to this episode or downloading this episode out there if this has brought any value to your day or to your life, please You hit that thumb like the like this episode subscribe and share it with someone else and until next time I will see you then take care Bye. Bye

Steve Murnin (1:18:13)
See you guys.

Duane Murphy (1:18:13)
Peace.

Steve Murnin (1:18:14)
Thanks.