Your CRM Went Silent... Here’s How to Fix It

If you’ve ever said “the leads suck,” this one’s for you. 

Shane & Duane sit down with longtime tech insider Randy Carroll alumni of Commissions Inc. (CINC) and Chime/Lofty now the growth engine behind Ruuster, a lead-nurture platform built to mine the gold already sitting in your database.

Randy breaks down the 19-month buy cycle (and why most systems stop nurturing at 6–12 months), how teams end up repurchasing the same lead through referral portals, and why your oldest leads are often the ripest to convert. 

We dig into real examples (three-year “dead” leads turning into weekend showings), the misalignment between agent pay and long-term follow-up, and a simple mindset shift: every dial has a dollar value even the “no’s.”

You’ll also hear Randy’s behind-the-scenes stories from rocket-ship growth at CINC and Chime, a raw failure lesson from the road, and the core values that keep him playing the long game. 

If you lead a team, run a brokerage, or just want your pipeline to be predictable again, this episode is your follow-up masterclass.

💡 Takeaways:

• Plug the nurture gap between 6–12 and 19 months.
• Re-label “Bought w/out us” as future seller leads.
• Score each call by dollar value to stay consistent.
• Prioritize 3–36 month leads. Today.

Connect with Randy: randy@ruuster.com

Listen & subscribe: Apple | Spotify | YouTube 

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Transcript

I'm uploading the transcript from Episode 35 with Randy Carroll from Rooster, nurturing software technology. I'm going to load up the transcript. I want you to create a killer description and title and social media post to get the word out there. I want to drive viral traffic with this thing.Duane Murphy (00:31)

This is zero fun allowed. Per Shane Kilby. Today is another episode of Real Estate Agent Life. We're gonna keep her down a little bit, not amp up too high. But I tell you what, I am sitting here today again with my coal heart, Mr. Shane Kilby from...

Shane Kilby (00:33)

Thanks.

Randy Carroll (00:33)

No

fun zone.

Shane Kilby (00:50)

Sweet home Alabama.

Duane Murphy (00:51)

Bam, just love that, just smooth as silk right there. I'm Dwayne from the frozen state that's covered in smoke. Thank you Canada, Wisconsin. If the air is so thick, you can just cut it with a knife. Thank you Canada, just throwing that out there again. But I tell you what, we've got a great episode today and a phenomenal guest that we've known for a long, long time. Both Shane and I, a lot of years, we'll get into that. And Shane, who do we got today?

Shane Kilby (00:54)

Yeah.

So today before we introduce our guest like when we rolled this out and he's like, oh we're taking all the fun out of it is because I asked him to bring it down just a tad bit because he comes out a little hard a little excited but our special guest today is is a good friend of ours Randy Carroll and We've known Randy for I guess since about 2015 2016 Yes, all the way back to the Commission's Inc days

Duane Murphy (01:27)

So I had to stretch it out.

Randy Carroll (01:42)

Yeah, long time.

Shane Kilby (01:46)

And since then, Randy has spent some time at Lofty. Is that correct? Chime, that's right, chime. Yeah, chime in Lofty. And then Randy has now got a new product, not a new product, but it is his baby product in his profession. And he's always been around the technology field. Randy has always been a great resource. All the way back to the early days when we first met Randy, he's always been a great resource in the technology space and just in the relationship space in general.

Randy Carroll (01:50)

when it was chime. Yep, yep.

Shane Kilby (02:14)

That is a sweet spot for him. so, Randy, share with us today a little bit, introduce yourself to the world and just a little backstory, because typically we bring on agents and loan officers, what have you. So give them a little backstory about Randy Carroll.

Randy Carroll (02:29)

I appreciate that and thanks for the kind words. Seriously, it means a lot, especially coming from y'all since you've known me for so long. I've had a long enough time to really screw it up and I haven't seemed to do that yet. Yeah, ⁓ yeah, you know, we've seen a lot of people come and go. There's a lot of people that you don't really talk to anymore that used to be in the spotlight, but that's a after hours podcast, guess. Me, you know, what's my story? So it's really actually quite simple.

Shane Kilby (02:40)

That's easy to-

Randy Carroll (02:57)

I, from, Atlanta, born and raised, don't live there anymore. I'm actually Shane's neighbor to the South in Florida. But, I was desperate to get back to Atlanta out of college. took a really crappy job. I mean, a really, if you've ever seen the movie office space, my first job was that movie. I was sitting in my cubicle hating life every day more than the day before. and so my dad was in real estate and I met Jason Hoback.

who y'all will remember. And he told me, hey, come, hey, come work for my company, commissions Inc. And at the time that name was like, sounded sketchy, you know, they rebranded to sync for a reason, right? Like am I getting into an MLM? What is commissions Inc? I call my dad. I call my dad and I was like, dad, what is real estate CRMs? Like, does real estate need that? What's, what's the, what's the deal here? My dad goes, yeah, man.

Yes, son. It's a big opportunity. The real estate space doesn't have like a great CRM. So if you have a chance, you should take a shot at it. And so I joined Commissions Inc. February of 2015 and have been really, really fortunate ever since. That month, the month I started was the month

commissions, Inc. took some private equity money and the private equity company was great because we were doing so well that they didn't get involved in our business at all. They just said, here's some money, light fuel on the fire. And so we usually have a three to five year timeline before you try to exit that position, right? For private equity companies. We ended up selling 18 months later to Fidelity because we were on such an incredible growth trajectory. So I got to experience all of that.

know, commissions inquiry branded to sync. That's how people know today. I got an opportunity to start a business line there and that was really great. A couple of years later, a guy had worked with it at sync, moved to chime before it was lofty. he asked me to come start a new sales strategy at chime. and I did that for a few years until ultimately I ended up here at rooster. So, ⁓

Duane Murphy (04:39)

the day.

Randy Carroll (05:00)

been some places, seen some things, but been really fortunate, got to work with some of the best in the industry. I've been able to position myself, I think, where I'm in the rooms with the people who are 10 times smarter than me. So I'm actually not very smart, but I listen. So I hear what all these people say, and then I just go tell them to somebody else. Now, if you ask me to explain them, maybe we'll have to work a little harder. But I've been really fortunate where I can just pass this knowledge around.

and it's worked out really well.

Duane Murphy (05:27)

That's great insight because you've been attached to a few rocket ships. When you talk about Sync back in those days, Shane and I have been, you know, we're on Sync back in the Duane LeGate days, right? The pre-private equity and I mean, it was crazy walking back into the rooms back in those days. Like any second a lightsaber battle would break out along with a...

Randy Carroll (05:40)

Yeah.

Duane Murphy (05:51)

you know, an entire palette full of Red Bull and just the most crazy lock-in, you know, coding events, like we're going to go 48 hours straight and no one's going to sleep. I mean, was...

Shane Kilby (05:51)

you

Randy Carroll (06:01)

yeah. Lights off, lights

off. The only lights in the room are from the computer screens.

Duane Murphy (06:06)

Yeah, just crazy. then to where, like you said, during that time of private equity, was, stuff was coming out and new things were coming out with things so fast. Like it was like, like literally like two to three times a day, you're like, okay, what's new? Like what just changed? What just happened? I mean, it was, it was evolving and growing so, so, so quickly. And then, you know, you attached to Chime, Lofty, which was again, a pretty fast upstart.

Randy Carroll (06:32)

Mm-hmm.

Duane Murphy (06:32)

tremendous

fast growth and now rooster which we can't wait to hear about is also on a on what appears to be a very fast and now growing quickly trajectory.

Randy Carroll (06:44)

Yeah, like I said, I've been really fortunate just to be in the right places at the right time. At Sync, we grew, it was like, well, was some crazy number. We were growing like 80 % every quarter over quarter or something like that. And so we ended up getting this incredible multiple. We were able to sell to Fidelity. It was just so awesome to see. know, Duane was still around. that is a testament to how well Duane ran the business that even after we took the private equity money.

Like he didn't leave, he wasn't replaced, right? Usually private equity companies will come in and they will try to implement their own management, their own leadership. And they didn't do that at all because we had been doing so well. And then we sold to Fidelity. They left us alone for a year before they, you know, Fidelidized the company, which is natural for a Fortune 500 company, right? You ⁓ have different sets of rules you have to play by.

than a private equity and a startup and all that stuff. And then at Chime, yeah, it was a ton of fun because I was back in that like early sync days. were not profitable when I got there. We were profitable by the time I left. They were really heavy on just running like, Taper Click ads to other competitors. Like you'd Google sync and Chime's ad would show up, right? And that's how they would get a lot of inbound leads. And so I came in to help build

like a strategic partnership type of sales channel. So I was, you know, trying to flourish up the few big names we had on Chime at the time. I was trying to evangelize that to the rest of the industry and get them on board. And you know how this industry is, there's a ton of influence and influence kind of a lot of the industry follows the leader, if you will. So when you see the big names using the product, you want to use it too. And we were really, really successful with that.

you know, when I, when I joined, that was a 0 % part of our business, um, because it didn't really exist. And by the time I left, we were at 40 % of our new MRR each month was coming from some type of influencer, so to speak. Um, so that was just a ton of, ton of fun, um, getting folks out there. Um, and then, and then a rooster, it was my first time ever starting from zero. Like I joined and we had no clients.

Shane Kilby (08:57)

You

Randy Carroll (08:57)

That was

crazy. If Rooster goes on the same trajectory that we've been on and we grow and be this big success that everybody knows, my claim to fame will be our first paying client started the day that I announced I was starting at Rooster. So we saw, I put a little Facebook post out there and somebody signed up. It was a totally different product then too, but ultimately.

We're growing, you we reached a milestone, a revenue milestone last year that only 4 % of startups ever reach. So I'm really, really grateful. Feel really fortunate. We have an awesome team here. So just to be a part of that has been really fun because it's that early growth stage, you know, like you were talking about with Sync and with Lofty, we're rolling out new features all the time. And it's so fun because

we'll have these clients ask for these things and then a couple of weeks later we'll roll them out and just to see like that kind of shock and awe and how pumped they are.

Duane Murphy (09:53)

was gonna say, looking

at your product from where it is today currently to what Shane and I saw, think we had, trying to think, where the heck did, we might have had a few adult beverages. Was that a, it wasn't a, that was that was a fub event, wasn't it? That right after, right after you had joined Rooster, it wasn't very long, I don't think that you were there.

Randy Carroll (10:15)

It was in Atlanta, ⁓ FUB was doing an event, right? At the Fox Theater.

Duane Murphy (10:19)

Yeah, yeah,

Yes, at the theater.

Randy Carroll (10:21)

Yep. Yeah, man, that is a totally different product. Like when I talk to people who have heard about us that long ago, I tell them to just wipe their memory of anything they know about us because it's so different.

Duane Murphy (10:33)

Like

I had saw the- the- like you were kind of running through the demo on your phone and it's like-

Like I don't even know, I couldn't even try to take it in tech terms and try to compare it. It's like Shane would be like, you mean like an Android versus an Apple? ⁓ this might be like more like, I don't know, like maybe DOS versus like, I could go a high level side right now. I mean, it's like, it's like that much of an extreme from where that was. And thank you for, jarring my memory. There was Atlanta at the theater and, yeah.

Randy Carroll (10:46)

Hahaha!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is like Cobalt versus...

Yep. Same theater,

same theater, by the way, that Sync had our acquisition party, which was the party where I met Stephen Blackwood and his wife, who introduced me to their daughter, which is now my wife and my child's mother. Yeah. So it's a real family affair. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's a crazy life story, you know, meeting Cindy and Steve at the party and them.

Duane Murphy (11:16)

Why?

Shane Kilby (11:16)

wow.

Technology has built you all the way around.

Randy Carroll (11:29)

for some reason lacking me enough to introduce me to their daughter. That was a bold move on their end, but it worked out so far.

Shane Kilby (11:37)

So, without making this a sales podcast or anything, so walk the listeners and viewers through exactly what Rooster is and what problems Rooster solves for the real estate industry.

Randy Carroll (11:51)

Yeah, I'll keep it really quick. And if people want to find out more, please reach out. we're a lead nurture platform is the way to look at it. So as y'all know, y'all been in the industry for a long time. People have been buying leads for forever. Right? ⁓ Yeah. Crazy, right? They don't just call you. They don't just call you. Right? All the best agents I know sit and look at their phone until it rings. Right? Yeah, exactly. Where do I pick up my commission check?

Duane Murphy (12:04)

You have to nurture them?

Shane Kilby (12:05)

They're not ready to go. ⁓

Duane Murphy (12:13)

Hmm, alright. Thanks a lot, Jett.

Shane Kilby (12:16)

Don't get my check.

Duane Murphy (12:20)

You

Randy Carroll (12:20)

so that's exactly right. know, folks have been around a long time generating tons of leads from all the sources in the world, right? PBC and Facebook and Zillow and this portal and that portal, the fly by night lead company. And so these, you know, these large teams, you know, these, these teams have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of leads in their database. And like a lot of databases. Marketing is misaligned with the real estate.

buy cycle, if you will. So, you know, the generally accepted stat is online leads, know, people take 19 months to buy a home, they enter in your CRM and they're going to buy 19 months later. Well, as it turns out, pretty much any system in the industry shuts off engaging with those people after the six to 12 month timeframe. So you have that Delta of seven to, you know, 13 months where those leads aren't getting any communication from you.

And they didn't even know who you were when they registered. They certainly don't remember you 19 months later. So you've got that big opportunity set in your database where you can plug Rooster in and we're going to start picking up where all the systems left off and keep those folks engaged with you. And then through your incredible tools in the CRM that already exist, you can prioritize your follow-up based off of who's showing the highest and most interesting engagement. And so that's what Rooster does.

We've got a few other gadgets and gizmos that we do, but lead nurture is the name of the game for Rooster.

Shane Kilby (13:45)

That's interesting because it's all around real estate groups, around any type of technology, it's always been that random post of what's your conversion rate. When I first bought in the sink, mean, two questions, what should I shoot for best practices, best expectations?

Duane Murphy (13:58)

You

Shane Kilby (14:09)

worst, you know, best practices, worst expectation. So I can prepare for that, you know, cause you know, my market and Dwayne's market are real similar. mean, in 2014, my market is $135,000 average price point, which is insane. Especially when you're, you know, investing into a product, when you got folks that are running it, then 304,000 average price points.

Well, you got more skin and skin for transaction to cover that. So it's funny to watch those conversations and how all over the place that they are, you know, and what lead converts at this timeframe and a Google and a Facebook and social media. So that's interesting that you position it that way. I saw the one taking notes.

Randy Carroll (14:37)

Yeah.

Well, and so,

well, I'll tell you this, and this is just universally true. When I was at Sank or Chime or what have you, the folks who had been on the platform longer and followed up with their leads longer, usually saw a higher conversion rate the longer they were on the platform because these leads have that gestation period that they can go through. And Dwayne, Dwayne the gate, super brilliant dude. He actually,

Duane Murphy (14:57)

Mm-hmm.

Randy Carroll (15:21)

When I was there, came up with a formula that figured out if a client stays on for this period of time, the odds of them ever quitting is like less than 1%. And that period of time was basically once they reached that mark where leads convert on a regular basis, that person's never going to leave. And so he actually built ⁓ an incentive model for us to get people to that.

Mark, because then the turn rate just like dropped and people never left. So, ⁓ and then that's not, and that's not exclusive to sync. That's any platform that you're using as long as you have the right lead nurture, steps in place and you're following up with these leads, the longer you have them in your database, the more you're going to convert. So it's actually even better for Rooster selfishly that these other platforms suck at long-term follow-up.

Duane Murphy (15:49)

Yeah.

Randy Carroll (16:09)

because that's where we Excel and that's where the gold in your database is. the most, the agent should be excited to call the older leads, not the newer leads. Like the lead I'm the least interested in is one that registered on your website two months ago. Like I'll call them in about seven months, right? The leads they're three years old, like give me those because those are people who are probably actually ready to do something.

Duane Murphy (16:26)

Yeah. ⁓

And

Without

a doubt, you bring that up and I've been trying to be a little bit more intentional with really being involved in the database and conversion and we're getting the numbers and we have a few outside lead sources now bringing in some opportunities.

It is absolute pain. pain. When I see a new opportunity come through and I get the notification and then I go to look for it in our CRM and I can't find it because it's not showing up as a brand new one because it's already in the system. I looked at three of showings we had this weekend. Three of them.

Randy Carroll (17:12)

Mmm, mhm.

Duane Murphy (17:16)

Just three of the agent showings that were batted up by one of our ISAs as an appointment for the agent. Three of them have been in our system for three plus years. I mean, you said that three plus years they've been in the system. We had one of the showings this weekend was they registered in our system in 2019. We already paid for them once. How have we probably paid for them twice? Now we just paid a third time.

Randy Carroll (17:28)

Yeah. Literally.

Yeah.

Yep. Well.

Duane Murphy (17:41)

Like that

gold was already in, that gold is in our databases, in all of our databases. And it's like you just, you have to do the work and the farming to get it out of there.

Randy Carroll (17:53)

It's really painful, really painful for team leaders. I hear the story once I've heard it a million times is they have that same situation. They've had a lead in their database, you know, for three years, for six years, for however many years. And then they come in through Zillow flex. And you haven't or, you know, or Ops City or whatever, and you haven't talked to that lead in two years or two months or whatever that time frame is for flex. Yeah. See now.

Shane Kilby (18:07)

D'oh!

Duane Murphy (18:08)

YOO-HO-HO!

Randy Carroll (18:17)

Now you paid, you know, paid a couple bucks for that lead a few years ago, but now you're about to pay 40 % referral fee for that lead that was already there, dude. They were already in there. Like that's so painful. You just want to strangle your ISAs or your agent or whatever, you know? It's like, it was already in there, bro.

Duane Murphy (18:35)

And, by the way,

to add, to, twist the knife that you already, already stabbed, but to twist the knife, you just had a conversation our earlier with your ISA about how the leads suck and there is no business there. then that.

Shane Kilby (18:41)

Put in, yep.

Randy Carroll (18:50)

It is truly mind boggling. And you know, some of our clients have trusted me enough to give them their CRM access. So I log into their CRM and I look and make sure everything's set up the way I want it to be set up. And literally that conversation about talking with an ISA or an agent and them telling you the lead sucks. I went into one of the leads that our product surfaced up and on August, like second or third or August 1st or 2nd, whenever,

The agent had left a note that said, this isn't going anywhere. And then three days later, a property tour was requested. And the next day later, there was a note saying that lead signed a buyer brokerage agreement with another agent inside the company. It's like the leads don't suck. Like they don't.

Shane Kilby (19:37)

No,

they they they've either already bought or or they're gonna buy in the future You know

Randy Carroll (19:42)

Yeah. And you know

what? And it's not even a bad thing if they've already bought. If they've already bought, all you need to do is change how you're marketing to that person. Because the numbers have been true for forever that the odds that that person uses the same agent to sell their house that they used to buy the house are very low. So as long as you're just there for the journey, when it is time to sell, you have a very real chance at winning that listing.

Shane Kilby (19:47)

Mm-mm.

Duane Murphy (19:47)

No.

Shane Kilby (19:50)

Irving.

Randy Carroll (20:07)

And you have no idea when that person is going to sell. My wife and I got engaged and we bought a house and we said, we're going to live here for five years. 14 months later, we sold the house. imagine if you had given up on us as a lead. And then 14 months later, we sold when originally we said five.

Duane Murphy (20:25)

Well, lives change,

right? You don't know what's going on behind the curtain. You don't know what's going on in someone's life. you know, that's what I was called the D's in, you know, in real estate. I mean, death, divorce, right? Diapers. I mean, all of a sudden, you know, you have a, you have a new little one, all of a sudden, like the house is getting really small, you know, or all of a sudden you, you know, you bought, like we just listed one this a couple of weeks ago, company opportunity came through on a source I'm going to have to pay for.

Randy Carroll (20:35)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Duane Murphy (20:52)

that was already in our database marked as bought home without us. Been sitting in our database now for three years. So she bought right after COVID. What was their first home purchase? Well, guess what? She's engaged. They're getting married. They're moving. They're gonna go buy another home together. She came through from another lead source already sitting in our database.

Randy Carroll (21:03)

Hmm.

Duane Murphy (21:15)

Right? And now all of a we just got a listing and a purchase off of it with somebody who was already sitting in the database that was marked as do not contact, already purchased a home without us.

Randy Carroll (21:25)

That's crazy. That's a seller lead. That's not a dude. That's not a do not contact. You want to sell or lead. It's right there. Like the perspective.

Duane Murphy (21:31)

Yeah. ⁓

Shane Kilby (21:32)

What's John say your pick

Duane Murphy (21:33)

wait. That

Shane Kilby (21:34)

your pickers broken your pickers broken

Duane Murphy (21:34)

literally just like just shot a light in my head. I just just talking and sharing that story. And it's like, wait, I can look up that tag in my CRM. I bet you I have 5000 more of those that we need to relabel and go after as seller leads because we know they bought a dang house.

Randy Carroll (21:36)

Hahaha

Yeah? Yeah?

Shane Kilby (21:55)

Well, it's just you got to tap into that marketing side and like, yeah, you don't know what they're gonna do until you have that conversation or until you have that engagement, you have that dialogue, you have that connection. And then it is, mean, so what if they bought? Market to them, don't be obnoxious, don't spam them, market to them, deliver them value, no strings attached, nothing in expectations, right? You're still not gonna win them all, but you're still gonna win more than you lose, right?

Randy Carroll (21:55)

Yeah, we know.

Duane Murphy (22:05)

Yeah.

Randy Carroll (22:22)

Yeah, you're going to win more than you are now, which is currently zero. You, you, you mark them and do not disturb. Like do not contact. They bought a house. Here's a seller lead. Never market to this. What? That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. But, but, know, it's, it's because it's, ⁓ the real estate agents incentive, the way they get paid is misaligned with long-term merger. Right. I get paid on the deal that I closed today.

Shane Kilby (22:25)

Yes.

Randy Carroll (22:48)

I don't get paid on the follow-up call that I make, right? Otherwise, if agents got paid on follow-up calls, they would make a bajillion calls, right? And so you have to battle against human nature in order to reposition the perspective, right? So I saw somebody do this. I wish I could remember who, because it was brilliant. They took the stats. They took the numbers.

this many calls on average to have these many conversations, to book this many appointments, to get this many closed deals, right? And they basically took, you know, the average price of their commission and they broke it down to every time you have a call, that call is worth X number of dollars. Every, you know, appointment you set, every, you know, showing you have it's worth these number of dollars. You don't get paid until the end, but this is how you're going to be making money. And I think that

was really insightful in terms of how to reposition the perspective agents have because they look at nothing is valuable until the closing. And that's just not true because you can't skip to the closing, right?

Shane Kilby (23:51)

Yeah, even even the bad calls even whose Piss up a rope calls even the hat like just I didn't I didn't this isn't my I register this said me like I'm not interested like I have an agent like those still have a numeric value because you got to go through X amount of those to get to the yes

Randy Carroll (23:52)

Yeah, yeah, it's all part of it.

Duane Murphy (24:05)

Yeah. You might have to,

yeah, you might have to do 105 of those calls to get the one that says yes. And if you know the number is 105, get to it. Get the 104 out of the damn way.

Randy Carroll (24:18)

Yeah, 100%. Like if I told you it took a hundred calls to get to an appointment that will end up in a closed deal, but you had to call 99 people first that would say no. And then you'll get to your yes. Would you make those calls? Like how long would it take you to make those calls? We already know you would cause you want to get paid. Right? So if I told you it would take you 99 nos to get to that 100th yes, like how fast would it take you to do it? And people and agents would probably

screen through that, right?

Shane Kilby (24:47)

Yes,

I've even tested that conversation, you know, deeper with active license agents that produce some transactions. And I'm like, you know, if I paid you 25 bucks an hour on salary for 40 hours a week, an hour lunch, you know, the breaks, this stuff. Would you sit here and make these same dials eight hours a day? It's like, absolutely.

I'm like, well, why won't you exchange 150 bucks an hour for that delayed gratification? And it's a, it's interesting like that. It's an even like, you know, today we had the same conversations like, well, what if, what if they, we just talked, what if they've already purchased? I'm like, okay, great. So now let's have the conversation of where'd you purchase? Congratulations. Right. Instead of you getting all these property alerts being noise to you, let's,

Randy Carroll (25:17)

Hmm.

for sure.

Shane Kilby (25:36)

Let's reduce that down to once a month and that way you keep an idea of what the neighborhoods worth, right? And I'll reach out and see how you're doing in a few months. You know, just building those relationships constantly, so.

Randy Carroll (25:46)

No, that's exactly right. mean, I don't need to repeat it. You're exactly right. Just rewind the podcast, listen to that again, because that's exactly what you do.

Shane Kilby (25:53)

So let me ask you this question. you, mean, you know, listeners have seen like you've had a track record of success and that's not gonna be any different here with Rooster.

But take us through a big failure. You're a successful entrepreneur, a successful professional in technology field in that space, but everything hasn't been perfect. Everything hasn't been a cakewalk. Share your biggest struggle or strife through this journey.

Randy Carroll (26:22)

At Rooster or just in the last 10 plus years? Sure.

Shane Kilby (26:24)

Just getting a professional career of technology

in real estate.

Duane Murphy (26:28)

We'll give it ten years.

Randy Carroll (26:29)

Yeah. Okay. ⁓ so I've been really fortunate that a lot of my failures have opened up opportunities to be successful in other ways, but the failure that occurs to me the most are the one that I wish I could go back and do differently because I know better now was when I started at Chime, and my, was brought on to, to kind of build on this strategic partnership, sales channel.

And I was brought on to help build strategic relationships. We wanted to specifically have a, um, in a very active event calendar. So before COVID I was on the road three weeks out of the month, right? I was single at the time. Uh, well, I was dating my now wife, but you know, I wasn't married at the time. So I was traveling, traveling frequently. Um, and one of the, my biggest failure was.

I just couldn't get those events off the ground. We had a few early successful events, but then it was so bad. mean, the way these events were structured, they were a ton of fun. actually really enjoyed them when they went well, but I would partner with a local title company. The title company would identify a small handful, maybe 30 to 40 agents that, you know, half were clients of theirs. They were bringing value to half. They were trying to make clients of theirs.

And they would invite them to this, you know, private event. I would fly in a big time producer from another part of the country and they would have a private mastermind talking about what, what works for them in their market. and we got that to work a few times, but it ended up, for some reason, I couldn't get folks to wrap their mind around this. And I was literally on an airplane flying from Atlanta to California. And when I landed.

I took my phone off airplane mode and I had the voicemail from the title company I was partnering with on this event. And while I was on the plane, they had called me to say, Hey, by the way, no one RSVP'd people aren't showing up. We're just going to go ahead and cancel the event. And so I was already in California. The speaker was already in California. We were all there and I was so embarrassed.

I was so embarrassed. was like, I asked the title person, like, is there an agent's office we can go to? And so we ended up spending that day just in an agent's office. And that agent was really, really, you know, kind and it allowed us to come there and the agent basically as a team leader, got to do a one-on-one with this big time producer and just get everything that he ever wanted out of the, out of that, ⁓

team leader. that ⁓

Shane Kilby (29:03)

It's kind of like a

Lane Hiffin and USC moment. I don't know if you follow college football where USC left him in the parking lot. Yeah, just like you don't have a job like we're done with you. You're not even traveling back with the team. So.

Randy Carroll (29:06)

Yeah.

Duane Murphy (29:12)

⁓ yeah.

Randy Carroll (29:12)

Yeah! Yeah!

grow.

No, no,

it was terrible, man. And so we had that happen. I'm trying to think, I had a few others where just like a quarter of the room actually showed up. I mean, it was just like, for whatever reason, I had completely failed to help the title company understand the value.

Shane Kilby (29:37)

Well,

there's always a lesson. There's always an obstacle you go through that sucks like that. The fact that you didn't cancel the speaker and turn around and fly back, you went, you finished what you started. I'm a firm believer that the way the universe operates is when you want to get to that next level,

Duane Murphy (29:42)

Thanks.

Yeah.

Shane Kilby (30:03)

There's gonna be that new obstacle. Every level has its devil. You gotta go through it to get to that level. See if you're really prepared. If that's what you're, if you're, if you're cut out for it, right? like you, you're, you, you frequent the, ⁓ the Chep Black events and, and like the, Tahoe event coming up, it's, it's a favorite of mine now. And, and, but to hear him talk about the first Tahoe, Chep Black mastermind, like it was nobody showed up. Yeah, maybe.

Duane Murphy (30:28)

20 people? 14?

Yeah, 14?

Shane Kilby (30:30)

Yeah, 6'12", like,

and here he is, John Ceplek, style ready to bring it. And it's like, wow. Like talk about, take the energy out of the room, you know? And today, you know, the way he shares that story, that's why he keeps going back to Tahoe every year. It'll always be a thing because it's grown into this enormous thing where he met Preston and Travis and.

Randy Carroll (30:41)

yeah.

Shane Kilby (30:53)

⁓ you know, all these guys who else, like Tony Hansen, all these guys out there were once in that audience at Tahoe and now become, you know, heavy hitters that they are today. so that's interesting. It's, and it's tough to be vulnerable. All right. Because when you've had successes, like, you know, the world believes like everything they touch turns the gold and it's, it's not, I mean, the most successful people in every industry have seen their share of suck.

Right page seen their sheriff suck. So let's go a different direction like All right, when you when you were a staff member Like it's easy to have that energy bring that energy with someone else a checkbook As you shared when you started with rooster there was no checkbook Right. There was no revenue or if it was a checkbook. It no checks to be written

Randy Carroll (31:22)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shane Kilby (31:47)

We all have to have that pivotal influential person. Like we've spoken to a lot of people, a lot of people have said it's their parents. Some have said it's their grandparents. Some have said it's, you know, a motivational speaker, like, you know, influential person, someone that they know as an athlete maybe, you know, who is that person that, that, that Randy's looked up, looked up to and it is influenced Randy that to stay on his path and his journey.

Randy Carroll (32:13)

man, you know, if you've known me, like if you know my family, I'm basically a spitting image of my dad. You know, he busted his butt to be a college athlete. I did the same. He went into software sales out of college. I did the same. You know, I even look exactly like him. So my dad has been an incredible influence for me. There's no doubt about that.

Some folks that you know, though, have also been a huge influence. So just in terms of the way someone runs a company, I've now that I've, you been with SYNC and Chime and now been kind of a founding member at Rooster, the person who stands out to me the most as far as inspiring people has been Duane LeGate. ⁓ He had an incredibly unique ability to rally the troops and just get people so inspired to like

Duane Murphy (32:53)

Hmm.

Randy Carroll (33:01)

bust through walls for him. And it wasn't just like these meaningless pump up speeches, like he walked the walk, he talked the talk, all, you know, he treated people incredibly well. You know, a story I actually haven't shared publicly before is while I was at sync, had some really difficult issues with my mom and

Duane Murphy (33:03)

Yeah.

Randy Carroll (33:23)

For some reason, just poured that out to Dwayne in a one-on-one. Dwayne actually had a fund at Sync set aside for people who were dealing with personal issues. He would pay for you to go to a therapist during work hours and work through those issues. No one else in the company knew this. I told people that I was going to the gym in the middle of the day or something.

All that to say the way Dwayne cared about people and it wasn't just like, you know, work, we're a family, but we're only family as long as you're producing. And if you're not producing, you know, sucks to suck, right? It wasn't any of that. So he poured into people and I really appreciated that. Jason Hoback is just like a sales leader, was total genius. Really, really helped us as a young sales team understand why we made business decisions.

And he made some decisions that sucked for us, right? I was brought on at sync to sell the single agent platform. And then my second month on the job, he said, all right, we're not selling that anymore. Like, am I, do I still have a job? Like, what am I doing now? And so he offered some incredible mentorship in that way. And just here's why we made this decision. know, revenue, revenue growth was dropping dramatically. You know,

Duane Murphy (34:30)

for it.

Randy Carroll (34:35)

people who fall through onboarding process was going up and we can't have that. So we didn't even get to realize revenue. You know, there was a handful of reasons and he helped us understand that and helped me improve my skills so that I could be successful in other aspects of the business. And then another gentleman who came on after, after the sync acquisition, excuse me, after the fidelity acquisition of sync. So don't know if y'all ever met him or not, but it was a gentleman by the name of Lloyd Denison. He, ⁓

was incredibly helpful and helping me just understand how to interface with people, how to actually be belly to belly with folks and present better, have more success and kind of an outside sales role. so he's been a, and I consider him a friend. I was thinking about him the other day, actually I owe him a phone call, but I've just been really fortunate.

You know, the gentleman who brought me over to, to, to, chime, know, Mike McGowan, I've been around a bunch of people who are just really caliber human beings, incredibly skilled at what they do. and so, you know, I just try to take a little piece of it here and there from everybody and internalize it. you know, it's brought me to where I am.

Shane Kilby (35:42)

Yeah,

so we had the great opportunity of building some relationships with Dwayne as well, at least from a client standpoint. What always stood out to me, he did have an absolutely huge heart, not even knowing that story. But I remember the staff that cooked. mean, you guys had a full cafeteria.

Duane Murphy (35:46)

Okay.

Shane Kilby (36:08)

And then it's like, that's cool. And it's like, well, this is, you let me introduce you to these people. These great people preparing this food for you. It's like, thanks guys. Like it's awesome. And then he's like, let me tell you where they were a couple of months ago and they were homeless. And I'm like, dude, that's amazing. Like, he's in any kind of shared, like the focus is to teach them how to prepare food and put them back in the workplace so that they can enjoy what we're all doing. And that's providing homeownership.

Duane Murphy (36:20)

You

Randy Carroll (36:20)

Mm-hmm.

Shane Kilby (36:35)

I'm like, that's amazing. And then I think even after that fact that the, the, haircut deal, the mobile haircut deal. Yes. Yeah. So I'm like, that's, that's always amazing. Like, like we know the power of, of, having big causes like that, but that was, that was so cool. Yeah. Dwayne always had a way of connecting people and then connecting people to a cause. So yeah, absolutely.

Randy Carroll (36:42)

Yeah, hope through soap.

Mm-hmm.

Duane Murphy (37:00)

Yeah, and there's

so many stories too that when you get around the events and some of the older SYNC clientele and SYNC clients that have been there a long time. I mean, you had shared your story and there's, I guarantee you there's probably hundreds like that that just were, that haven't been spoken or haven't been shared publicly or whatever of.

so many things that he did do behind the scenes that most would not. mean, sometimes he'd come across as just this rough, rough, you know, like my way or the highway type, whatever. But, underneath that, think anybody who knew him personally knew he was just a big damn teddy bear. ⁓

Randy Carroll (37:40)

Yeah,

very much so. mean, if you came to him with actual like information of this is why I think what I think, and it was valid and backed by numbers or evidence, he would he would totally acknowledge like maybe I'm wrong or maybe we should make this shift. Like he was not arrogant in that sense. And and I really appreciate that because I have worked for some folks who were less responsive to

that type of feedback and it ultimately was more damaging. ⁓

Duane Murphy (38:10)

Yeah. No, this will...

Shane Kilby (38:11)

Yeah,

Duane Murphy (38:12)

Go ahead.

Shane Kilby (38:13)

there was even like a time when, you know, and this was a legal issue and where I needed an expert witness in this field of expertise. And DeWayne offered to try, this is after the acquisition, so he's enjoying life, right? He's enjoying life. And it's gotta be motivating for him to come deal with this headache. And his only request,

Randy Carroll (38:32)

yeah.

Shane Kilby (38:38)

Was to to make a contribution to the batters battered women's fun like like dude, that's i'm done like done deal like that's Awesome. I'll do that. Anyway, but is that is that is like that's it's all I ask is did you make a make Cover my cost and donate that to the battered women's fund. I'm like done done

Randy Carroll (38:58)

Yeah.

actually during the pandemic, when, ⁓ I switched to, instead of doing these in-person events, you know, the whole world, you know, really did this, but we switched to all these virtual webinars and all this stuff. I hosted a particular webinar that was like, let's just understand the housing market. Like, let's try to understand what's going on. And when I asked him to be a panelist, he said the same thing. Like I'll agree to be a panelist, on the condition that we can.

promote this better women's or foundation. And it just, again, speaks to the heart he has for the less fortunate.

Duane Murphy (39:34)

Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. So Randy, on your path through, we've talked, you're hockey sick, in the journey that you've had, so if you were to look back at that and let's just say it's you in a younger life, someone possibly coming up like yourself up through the industry or even yourself back in the day, what's something that you wish

Shane Kilby (39:34)

Absolutely, absolutely.

Duane Murphy (39:58)

somebody would have told you or something that you would share with someone else that's on your path.

Randy Carroll (40:03)

Thinking about young me, and maybe even me today still to an extent.

When you're young, have a naivety to yourself. You know, you don't necessarily know how the world works, so to speak. You know, coming out of college, you know, I had a great time in college, but you know, college is very much a little bubble. You come into the work force, you go into the real world, as they call it, and you start to learn how the sausage is made. One of the things I'd recommend, especially to young people, is

Don't betray yourself. So there are going to be lot of temptations and there's going to be folks that you come across who have different core values than you or maybe different life principles than you. And there will be moments where it will be really appealing to maybe compromise one of your core values because somebody who, somebody might be able to help you get ahead if you do that. I would say don't do it.

Like don't betray your core values in the vain pursuit of quote unquote getting ahead because you won't, you might in the moment, but long-term you won't. And you'll have to live with that like compromised decision that you made and you'll eventually get older and you'll eventually learn how the world works. And you'll start to think back to those moments and be like, man, I wish I didn't do that.

I wish I didn't go about it that way. So, you know, and I know young people are like struggling to have a sense of self to begin with. So they may not even know what those core values are. Again, that was another thing that I loved at Sync was they had a very defined set of core values. But ultimately, you need to do that for yourself as a person. And my advice is just don't

Don't stray away from those once you've got those built because you'll make decisions that you ultimately regret.

Shane Kilby (41:47)

Awesome, impactful. Stay true to you. Stay true to you.

Randy Carroll (41:51)

That's right.

Shane Kilby (41:51)

Very good, very good stuff. Randy, it has been an absolute pleasure. been so appreciated. The listeners and the viewers are gonna wanna reach out to you just to connect with Randy and just his knowledge and expertise. And some may wanna know more about Rooster and how that works with you guys and the setup and all that.

So how would someone go about reaching you if they wanted to connect with you on a deeper level?

Randy Carroll (42:19)

Yeah, I'm pretty active on Facebook as you all have seen. So apologies for blowing up your newsfeed, but definitely, definitely reach out to me. You can reach out to me on Facebook. You can reach, can email me directly, randy at rooster.com. Reach out to me on Facebook. Happy to connect. like one of the things I hope I can say with ⁓ integrity is that I'm not going and y'all can confirm this or call me out on it.

I'm not going to shamelessly like try to shove my product down your throat. So if you just want to talk about tech stuff, that's completely unrelated to Rooster. Like that's what I've done for over 10 years. Like that's what I know. know like lifting weights and real estate tech. That's basically all I've done for 10 years. So like, I would love to just have those conversations with you, see if I can be helpful. If I can, great. If I can't, well, at least we know what not to do. so reach, reach out and let's have a chat.

Duane Murphy (43:11)

that's that I think it's worth bringing up. It's not like you paid to, you know, we value our friendship. We value the products you've been involved with and what you do and what you stand for and all that you've accomplished. And it's one of the biggest reasons why, you know, you're one of our first non

Real estate we're talking about before the podcast even kind of started like so far to this point. We've had mega agents mega producers team leaders broker owners franchise owners You right you're involved in real estate, but you're not selling homes every day so and So, you know, I think it's worth saying again I mean it's a kudos to you and who you are and and everything that you've accomplished thus far on

on being here. Now that we're this monster podcast everywhere, you know, hey, we might be.

Shane Kilby (44:00)

Hahaha

Randy Carroll (44:01)

Well,

no, I really am flattered to be here. mean, just for anyone to spend their time with me, I've always been grateful.

Shane Kilby (44:08)

Well, it goes back to those core values and that's why we're still connected after all these years is those core values and it's easy. I mean, it doesn't take long, like you said, once you learn how the sausage is made to see through people, right? I saw something today, it's like the older you get, the weaker your vision gets, but the better you become at seeing through people's BS, right? So I'm like, you know what? That's absolutely nailed it, nailed it. So yeah, so.

Randy Carroll (44:28)

yeah, large root.

Duane Murphy (44:31)

I like that.

Shane Kilby (44:32)

All

right, so you got it here folks. I mean, you know, you're Randy is a wealth of knowledge You know, I will vouch for that like Randy's not gonna shove a product down your throat like if you want to touch base with him reach out connect like he's open book and as you can see he's got a wealth of knowledge around the real estate technology and work into database and if you're at any high level position in real estate team leader team agent top producer Brokerage like you got a database if you don't like you will have or you should have

And you need to know how to mine that opportunity. Like you didn't buy those leads just to do business one or two. You bought those leads to invest in long-term return on your investment. So he's an expert to reach out to and he's an open book, open book. Dwayne take us out.

Duane Murphy (45:13)

I tell you what, we appreciate you listening and tuning in to another episode of Real Estate Agent Life. At this point of the podcast, if you haven't heard it before, if this is your first podcast, don't forget to do what, Smash that subscribe button. Don't forget to share with somebody you know, because hey, we're always looking for a few more listeners. And there's usually somewhere wherever you're listening, there's a little system that says, rate me.

Shane Kilby (45:26)

Smash that subscribe button.

Yeah.

Duane Murphy (45:41)

Five stars, please. We like five stars because it gives us Google juice. And the more Google juice we get, the more we show up and the more we show up, the more we can help you. And that's why we're here. We're just hoping to introduce you to people that have started where you have, that are now going where you are, or you're going where they are, and introduce you to other brilliant people in the industry such as Randy. And we're just here to help you. And hopefully you got a few nuggets out of today.

Shane Kilby (45:46)

Google G. ⁓

Duane Murphy (46:09)

Don't forget, subscribe, share, five star, and then what else we got?

Shane Kilby (46:09)

I did.

Peace.

Duane Murphy (46:14)

Peace, we're outta here.