The Power of Belief, Leadership & Discipline | Episode 28 ft. Trey Willard

In this episode of the TLW Podcast, Sean Owens and Coach Pixley sit down with Trey Willard, founder and CEO of The W Group, to talk about what it really takes to become a high performer in business, leadership, and life.

Trey shares how discipline, belief, culture, accountability, and consistent daily action helped him grow from DJ Trizzy into the leader of one of Louisiana’s top real estate teams.

This conversation is especially valuable for business owners, executives, athletes, and leaders who want to raise their standard, build stronger habits, improve their mindset, and lead people more effectively.

At TLW, these are the same principles we help our clients develop every day: discipline, leadership, confidence, accountability, and personal growth that translates into real life results.

Follow TLW for more conversations on faith, leadership, discipline, and becoming the person you were created to be.

#TLWPodcast #Leadership #PersonalGrowth #Mindset #HighPerformance

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the TLW podcast. I'm your co-host, Sean Owens. I'm joined as usual by my partner, Coach Pixie. Coach, how are we doing? Doing great. Ready to go. We got our uh other partner, Jace Augustus with JCB Media Behind the Scenes, making us look good, sound good. I'd say smell good, but he has no control over that. Um, we were joined today by my good friend, and I'm gonna go ahead and call you my real estate agent, even though we haven't done anything yet together, but we will. We will. Um, Trey Willard. Um, most of y'all in the Baton Rouge area know Trey. He is the founder and CEO of the W Group. Uh, what some of y'all may not know about some of his past accolades. I won't get into things too much, Trey, but I know you as DJ Trize. Yep. A lot of people. Um, we'll get into that a little bit here coming up. Um, Trey uh entered the real estate world in 2010 as a real estate assistant and grew from there into opening the W Group in 2016, if we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

10-year anniversary this year, man. Big, big uh, big time.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, but big year, not just from that, but also from what's transpired since 2025, which we want to talk about in a little bit. Uh, but the W Group uh is a group that is year in, year out, one of the uh top-rated, if not the top-rated, which y'all were the top-rated real estate group in 2022, 23, and 24 for the state of Louisiana.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Correct. And we are uh waiting on real trends to put out the um production metrics for uh 2025. So I hope then we're on top. Yeah, yeah. So it's battling between one and two. Then and I I say we're the number one real estate team because we are a true team. There's a guy named Jim Katie, and I got to give Jim credit because he is a great friend and he's a great, great mentor. Uh, runs a really, really awesome uh group in uh in Lafayette. And it kind of runs more of like independent brokerage slash team, where we're just a true team at this point. So um so that's why I say we are the number one real estate team in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I love it, brother. So uh W Group has uh three offices, Batonridge area, yes, North Shore, New Orleans, over 55 agents, if I'm not mistaken. That's correct, yes. And um yeah, uh just oh you did your homework. I did a lot of homework. Uh uh Trey's uh, like I said, I'm just one more quick thing. He's one of these guys that if I'm ever looking for a book to read, uh some advice on uh growth, advice on trying to 10x things, Trey's a guy I call up. And so Trey, uh the fact that you took time out of your schedule to join us today, we really appreciate it. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Dude, I am incredibly grateful. I'll be honest with you, there was a little bit of FOMO that I hadn't been invited soon.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

We're getting there. I mean, I think I think with what Jace is doing behind the scenes, yeah, and not to not to you know steal any thunder here, but I know it's you're it's a little different for you because you actually work here, but we do want to thank Kidder Dental for uh this this amazing facility that we have that we're able to use um really every Friday if we need it. And so if uh like always, we say now that you are a part of this as well. Yeah, if you want top-notch dental care, you need to come over here to Kidder Dental and see Drs Liz and Dustin Kidder and Dr. Sean Owens.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, and by the way, incre then congratulations because we again him and I, we probably I probably know more than most people do. So this has been an incredible transition for you. And it sounds like it's like been the best thing that's ever happened.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

God is good. Uh it's it's interesting. We could do a whole podcast about uh valleys, about uh changes in life that we don't expect to come, but um, it's really cool being on the other side of those uh valleys and those changes and seeing the purpose behind those things and uh what they can lead to us um having uh a greater uh impact on others with as we move forward. So 100%.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

And it was funny. I don't know if you remember this or not, but in Healing Place, the day that you got um baptized. That you got baptized, you were sitting right in front of me.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I think you were outside of my family, you're my first hug after that. That yeah, yep, that was uh February 3rd, 2023. Yeah, I love it. Love it, brother.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Awesome, love it. Okay, let's get into it. Uh, first of all, I have to know about DJ Tristan. Yeah, for sure. I uh what do you want to know? Well, you know, you you talk about, and I know you've worked in restaurants, you you were a DJ. Um I I want to go back. First of all, I want to hear about your experience as a DJ. Sure. I just think it's cool. And then uh secondly, I want to know how you use those experiences to kind of formulate your mindset to where you then use that into what you do today from a standpoint of yes owning and operating a business and all the success you've had leading up to now.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Uh yeah, so what do you want to know? You want me to start from like start with a DJ? I want to hear from that. Yeah, so uh, you know, it's interesting. So when I had always gone to like nightclubs and and was really big into like electronic dance music. And for those who like, like if I can get real specific people who like, they'll know about progressive break beats, which really Tampa, Florida was a was a was a huge um, I guess kind of like a uh the the starting point of of I don't know if it was really the starting point of breakbeats or not, but that's where like Ibor City in Tampa, there's a lot of great DJs. And then, yeah, and then a lot of really great DJs, and I think the real true progressive break beat genre came from Lafayette, Louisiana.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Really?

SPEAKER_02 4:59

So so I would find myself driving a Lafayette all the time, and we were going to, and again, I don't want to like tell people this, those like going to Firestone, like the like really like late night places that I'm I probably shouldn't have been in when I was 18 years old. But I I truly would say I went for the music, right? Like you couldn't, it's not like okay, so it's 2026. This is in like 1999, like 2000, right? Yeah, you you you didn't just jump on your computer and find a song that was popular, right? You had to go to a record store or somebody made a CD, right? Then you would purchase a CD just so you can hear those songs because those were like on vinyl at the time, right? So like the biggest thing for me was just like I love the music. I love being, I love the performance that the DJs put on. So like I always had this infatuation of like, man, those guys up there are like they control everything. And I thought that was really cool. I was interested in dancing, right? Yeah, uh, I was interested in women, right? But the two things, the music and the girls, right? Is what really brought me to the nightclub. I like this, yeah. And and over time, I just I became more fascinated by the DJs and the skills and what they were doing and how they controlled the crowd. And I just like, I was like, I want to learn how to do that. So I literally bought myself, I went down to Guitar Center and I bought myself, it was dual CDJs. Well, no, it wasn't CDJs, it was like a little new mark, but it was dual CDs. You put them in, you had um, you had a mixer, you had two channels where you can cue everything up, you can set your it it's you know very different than um like like vinyl. And it's funny because then it progressed back to vinyl with like Serato Scratch Live, so we can talk about that. But I I literally locked myself in my bedroom and I learned how to beat match.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

That's wild.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

And it that was just something I became incredibly, and then it was just like I really like this, and then you know, I had a lot of relationships. So it's like uh I'll never forget the first gig I ever had. I like DJ'd a friend's party. I love it. And then and then it like people started hearing like he he can beat match, he's pretty good. He's in Baton Rouge. I started, I think my first, I want to say maybe my first residency was Rasputin on Third Street, which was like an electronic dance music club. So I started out playing in that and then progressed into more of like open format where like I could play, you know, everything from hip hop to EDM to, you know, like mashups was really big at the time, like DJ AM. I don't know if you guys remember him, but he was the king of mashups. He actually he ended up dying in a in a I say his the plane caught on fire. Um, but he was like the iconic like mashup guy, and this is when this was like taking off in Vegas, and then so I switched from you know more of like the electronic dance music to open format.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

So so how do you take what you learned from that, what you learned in the restaurant business, what you learned in all of those, and and and you I mean, did you know then I'm formulating the mindset that's gonna help me be a successful business person, or are you just going?

SPEAKER_02 7:40

No, not a clue. And then, you know, I I didn't know at the time what I didn't know, right? I didn't know I wasn't reading, I wasn't really practicing any kind of personal development at the time. It was like I was 20, you know, early 20s. Like I was just having a good time. And it was like whatever would come would come. I went to LSU, I got a degree um in communications, technical sales, and business. And I, you know, who knows? Well, I don't know, maybe some people know. Like you went to school, obviously, you knew what you wanted to do. You know what I mean? You have to go to dental school, you gotta go to I got lucky on that. Right. And there's people who are really like dialed in, they know what they want to do when they grow up.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

I had no idea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

You know, I would say for me, like God's favor, you know, is just like being very personable. Like, like just I love people, I love to entertain, you know what I mean? And I think that as long as I was doing something like that, I felt like I was pursuing my purpose, and as long as it gave me energy, I just was like, I should probably go do that.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Where does that fall in your line of business?

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Yeah, so that that is something, man, I I try to um uh coach this a lot, right? And I I try to, this is the message I'm always trying to get across to my agents is like, what gives you energy?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

You know, like there's certain things that you're gonna do that you're gonna have to do that don't really give you a lot of energy, but there's certain things that you're gonna do that give you a lot of energy, right? And I think identifying what that is is the most important thing in the world because if we can find that, like for me, being in conversations like this, building rapport, being with people that people make me bring me energy, right? You talk to an introvert, it's the opposite. You put them in a room and they're trying to find the first place they can go hide because being in a room and and and you know, uh talking to people or or uh whatever, like they take a lot of energy away from people. So they go the other way. So, you know, we we need people that are introverts, right? That are gonna be like more of the behind-the-scenes people. We need the extroverts that are gonna be out in front. And I think it's just I'm trying to identify like what gives you energy, what takes energy away from you. And if you can live with inside of of your genius, is what I would consider it to be, as far as the things that like number one, that give you energy. Number two, do you feel like God's called you to like this is your purpose, and this is like a passion that I put on you, this is your favor. And like for me, I just I didn't know what it was then. I'm pretty dialed in on what it is today. And if I'm living outside of that, right, what I would consider to be my purpose, which I have it written down and and and I say it almost daily, uh, so I can I can ask myself, is this in alignment with my purpose and my passion? And if it's not, I gotta leverage it out or I just gotta say no to it, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

So, real quick, I want to circle back to what you said about you know, there are things that you do that don't give you energy, and then there's things that you do, right? That would you agree? Because we at TLW, whenever we are coaching clients, whether or not it be business executives or athletes, right? Um we talk a good bit about you know, some of the things that you don't want to do are the things that will allow you to do the things that you want to do. That's for 100%, right? Yeah, um did that fall in line even as far back for you as DJing or being in a restaurant?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Twofold of that. You're absolutely 100% right. And I do have to say that because I don't want to say like if it's hard, don't do it. That's a whole different conversation. Okay. If it's hard, you should probably do it. Right, right, because it's that it's that hardness that creates the calluses, it creates the the thickness, it creates the um the compounding of it. You do it enough reps. We talked about this. You weren't really good on camera in the beginning of this thing, right? Right. You start doing this enough times, you start building the reps, right? It gets easier, it gets easier. So we got to do the hard stuff, right? There's no you cannot get away from it. You got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. We say that all the time. Yep. Um, when you figure out what it is that you're good at, that's where you just try to stay in that. So for me, building relationships, building rapport, sales is something I'm great at, right? So I have, we talked about operations, right? I have the most amazing operator in the world. I am not good at building systems and processes, or I am not good at like a lot of organizational stuff. So, like those are the things that I I know I'm not going to get better at those things, right? Does it mean that I'm not gonna get up at 445 in the morning and do fasted cardio and then I'm gonna weight train, I'm gonna track and measure all my macronutrients for the day, right? And then I'm gonna do the hard things by making the calls and all the follow-ups. Two totally different things. So I just want to make sure I was like you know, specific on that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Let's talk about who you are as a leader for the W group now. And uh looking back as you've grown your organization, can you think about any specific uh setbacks, challenges, hurdles that you had to overcome and uh how those things more or less helped create Trey Willard and we don't have enough, we don't have enough time. Give me one or two.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Yeah, no, no, no. I'm I'm kidding. But yeah, there's a lot. So I think one of the things uh here's the deal, and I'm still this is the thing I'm trying to overcome more than anything else, and that is I am a people pleaser. I want everyone around me to love me. And not everyone around you is gonna love you uh because uh you have to be real with people. And sometimes being real with people and telling people not necessarily what they want to hear, but what they need to hear. I struggle with that, yeah, right. Because I don't, I want people to look at me and you know the biggest uh, I guess like the um uh legacy that I want to leave behind is like I want people to look at me and like he was the most inspirational person that I was ever around. He was always in a really, really good mood. You know, he always brought so much energy when he walked into a room. Like, that's the guy that I want to be known as. I don't want to be the guy known as, like, and I'm reading the um the leadership secrets of Nick Saban. Nick Saban has a very different leadership style than I have, right? Where he is, he talks about his ass chewings, right, all the time. And that really works for him. He held a standard, he did not waver from his standard. I find that like my people pleasing and me wanting everyone to like love me and be happy, I know that's not possible, but that has probably been the one thing that has kept me from truly being like an exceptional leader. Now, I'm not it, I think my people would tell you that I'm an exceptional leader, but there's like I could probably push them a little bit harder by being a little bit more real with them. And that that's one of the things that I struggle with. And I think I've struggled with that for like a very long time. And Shaheel Bloom, I don't know if you guys have ever read or are familiar with Shaheel Bloom. He wrote, I want to say it's called like the five types of wealth. Okay. One of the things that he he he talks about is like when you're really young, you care about what everybody thinks about you, right? As you get a little bit older, you care a little bit less about what people think about you. And then when you get really old, you really don't care about what anybody thinks about you. You get what I'm saying? So, like, not saying I don't want to get to a place to where I just don't want to put so much weight on other people's thoughts of me, or if I do something, how they feel about me. Um, so I struggle. That's that's the one thing I struggle with. The one another thing, um, or one of the things I think that I've done really well, and that one of the lessons I learned, I used to overthink a lot of things. Okay. And I believe that you have to take discipline, action, and execution all the time.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

And and and and I think you get caught up in so much of the what if, what if, what if this doesn't work, what if, and those things paralyze you from taking action and doing anything. I've just got to the point now where I just like I take literally like just like let's go. Yeah, yeah. Like, we'll worry about because I've done it so many times now that I've I found I'm like, okay, and I say this all the time to my team, I'm like, guys, is anybody or did anybody die? Like, if we talk about like some of the worst things that can happen in decisions, that's a pretty big yeah, but if somebody like, well, you know, did they hang up on you when you were prospecting? Did they curse you out? No, they just really weren't interested. I was like, did you die? Like, nope. I'm like, okay, right. So as long as none of that is happening, right? Like, let's go.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

So it is just okay, what could happen? Don't worry about what could what could happen on a negative standpoint, because I do believe in like there is no such thing as failure. There's only lessons learned from the things that we do, right? And I don't know if you guys agree with that or not. I mean, you can call failure whatever you want to fail, but again, like, did you die?

SPEAKER_01 15:49

No, and look, I like we agree with that. I agree with that for sure. I used to, as a basketball coach for a long, a long time, I used to tell guys who, you know, younger players typically who would be afraid in certain situations, especially if they were getting pressured defensively or whatever. Like, what's the worst that can happen right here? Do you think they're gonna walk up and just punch you in the face? Right. You know, like that's the that's not going to happen. So, like, why are you so afraid of this? Right? There's anxiety, I get, but fear is a totally different thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

So when you take discipline action and you do it enough times, the fear dissipates. Yes, right. You don't even give yourself time to think about it. So I was thinking, like, I started um, you know, like during the this time of year, I like to get really shredded, right? Like it's beach, speech time, yeah. Right. So 4 45, 5 a.m. Fastacardia sessions start. I tell like when people try to tell me I don't have time to exercise, I don't have time to do this, it is like the one thing I'm like, you know what? 445 alarm clock goes off, non-negotiable. Yeah, I get up. Yep. You you cannot give yourself enough time to negotiate with yourself. The more time you give to negotiate yourself, the more you're gonna talk yourself out of doing something that easy. Easy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

So it's a decision. It was 100%. It's not you're not being forced to lay in the bed.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

No.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

You know, just like you're not being forced to get up out of the bed.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

That's right. Y'all didn't know y'all get preaching today. 100%. I get I get look, I get fired up about this kind of stuff, man, because today's the extended version. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

It it and look, every like you said it before, every decision that you make will have an outcome of some kind, right? And and if you spend too much time thinking about that outcome and how that outcome could be negative, paralysis will set in and you won't do anything. But if you stop and just say, what's the worst thing that can happen? Right, control your controllables, right? And you just take disciplined action. I know, right? Yeah, and we we we we talk about that and stuff all the time. Like, can you control it? Like, like, you know, my my wife and I, and you know, I have the greatest wife in the world, and I think opposites attract, and I think she balances me out because like I'm one extreme where she might be a little bit of another, another extreme. She she just gets she's anxious about a lot of things, and like I'm like the it'll be fine. Yeah, right. Shaheel Bloom said this also like if you want to be happy in life, lower your expectations, right? And I so I kind of live in this world of like, you know, like I've got everything I want. I literally have the the most amazing family in the world. I'm living in my dream house. I have my dream job. Like, I literally I get to wake up every day and do what I love. Yep. It's like, well, I mean, what what what is gonna knock me off of my my game today? You know, where my wife, she just is a little, she she thinks more, you know, she she's a little more anxious about certain things, right? And and anyways, it's just like we our relationship is really, really good because we are able to balance each other out really well. So she does kind of like you you you need to like think this through a little bit more than you do. And is that voice is like reason for just a second? Yeah, so so and I think that's that's part of it is like having that partner, that person that can like help you, you know, and you balance you out. I think that's important.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

So at the W group, okay, you guys obviously have had significant success.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Uh by the way, I gotta say this. This is like next level. Yes, so today is the May 1st. We've closed 204 homes in four months. Wow, that's pretty sick. I told my I sent that to my team last night. I was like, guys, there was a year's where we only sold 200 homes an entire year, and we managed to do that.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

One third of the year in a market that's supposed to be a struggle right now, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:09

It is. Interest rates are pretty tough. Uh they're high, you know, six, six, one, six, three. Um, affordability is pretty tough. But yeah, I mean, three and a half years of of pent-up demand, people are starting to they're just they're just ready to make a move. You know what I mean? So I just had to give a shout out. Absolutely. Good job, W Group.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah. Um at the W group, all the successes you've had, obviously you've had to uh accumulate talent in order to do that. So there are a lot of people that can attract the talent initially, but they can't keep it. Yep. Okay. Um over years, talk a little bit about the culture that you've developed that that raises retention and just why in general people want to stay as a part of this team. Because you mentioned, you know, you're a team, team, a true team in this in that industry.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

That's an incredible question. That has been the most it's I say it's been fairly challenging. I think the the number one thing that you have to do is you have to hire the right butts for the right seats. And you know, I I think you have to pay people well. Okay. You have talent, you have to pay them well, but you also have to let them know all the time how much you appreciate and how grateful. Because not all the time do you have the ability to pay them, to make them the highest paid marketing director, to make them the highest paid operations director. The one thing that I've done that has been the biggest um opportunity, I say for me, has been to consistently share the vision. And if you can continue to cast the vision and the vision is bigger, way bigger than they are, and they can really buy into that vision and they know that you could help them on that journey, that's everything. So my operations director, who I couldn't afford when I hired him, I shared my vision. He bought into the vision, right? He's a very well-paid operations director, and he runs my team from Atlanta, Georgia, so he could be with his wife, his child, or he was we met when he was passing through during a season of his life, right? Where it ended up bringing him back to Atlanta. He did such an amazing job for us, right? I have the most amazing marketing director, right? I have the best transaction and listing coordinators higher talent, always let them know how much they're appreciated in your world, right? How grateful you are to have them and pay them well. You know, and as far as the agents go, we just provide our value proposition as far as number one, we don't lead with leads or opportunities. We lead with culture. Number one pillar of our business is culture. Okay. Number two is leadership and coaching. Number three is support, transaction management, listing coordination, operations, marketing, ISAs, right? Inside sales agent making phone calls for them. Then it's opportunities and then it's appointments. So I think we do a really good job of um not making it just about the amount of leads or the partnership with Zillow or those things. We don't lead with that. We're like, look, if I can have a conversation with you, Coach. And I can say, I want you to tell me what's really, really important to you. If you and I were to meet and we were to sit across from each other in the next 12 months and this year was a win, tell me what that looks like. Okay. And I get to know these folks. I get to know what's important for them. And I'm just constantly reminding them. And it's either, hey, did you are are we on pace or are we not on pace? If we're not on pace, do we need to change the goal or do we need to change the actions? Right. I think it's like they feel that. They feel, I care. I love them. I care about them. I care about their success. I want to see them succeed. And I want to see, so like my purpose in life is to help people remove limiting beliefs, raise their capacity, chase their dreams with unwavering determination. Right. And the only way that they're going to do that is if somebody challenges them. Okay. Because they're not going to do it on their own. And I think they've seen and we've had success. So success creates credibility, right? And then that success continues to compound upon itself. People are just like like Lane Kiffin's been saying this all the time. He's saying it's just different in Baton Rouge. And I tell people, I don't know, come experience. It's a little different than probably what you've experienced in the past. Because most real estate professionals in our world, different from probably your world, these are people that are almost like hobbyists. They don't know how to really run a business. They're not treating it like we were talking about four disciplines of execution, wildly important goal, act on lead measures, create a compelling scoreboard, you know, case of accountability. That doesn't really go on. They're out there just kind of like, you know, oh, I got a referral from so and so. And then they go work their referral, but they're like, where's my next bit of business going to be coming from? So like we coach them on everything marketing, right? Lead generation, prospecting, like every, I mean, like we're we're uh, I mean, we we we train, we transfer skills, and and the person who comes in and has the mindset of like they're a sponge, they can be incredibly successful. And it's all about two things that I say, two things you can control, your effort and your attitude. You got a good attitude, amazing. Come on board. You got you gotta you put forth a lot of effort, you're gonna be successful in this business. And we just we're constantly reminded them that. So I know that was a long-winded answer, but it starts with the culture, right? But it starts with like taking care of your people, always casting the vision, and then always like letting them know like I tell people all the time, they're like, Oh, he's my boss. I'm like, I'm not your boss, we're partners. Yeah, I can't do it without you guys, right? Like, I value these relationships. Love it, love it.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

All right, so speaking of vision casting, 2025, yeah, big big year for y'all, huge year for y'all. It was a big year, but this year's way bigger. Okay, so so looking at y'all moving into your own independent breakfast. Oh, yeah, that's fair. I mean, that's what I'm talking about right there. All right, can you discuss for us briefly the significance of that and uh why you did it and how challenging it was getting everybody on board with doing it?

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah, so it was not challenging at all, and I'll tell you why.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Uh, like Coach said, I think the most important thing uh that you really have to do, it's all about the culture, but it's also all about like like what I what I was telling you guys. I always have what's best in mind for my agents. Give you a perfect example. Most people don't know how we're paid, right? If you're under a traditional franchise, there's fees that have to be paid to the franchise. So whether that's like Keller Williams, I give you an example. There's a royalty of $3,000 that has to be paid to Keller Williams International, okay, in Austin, Texas. Doesn't matter who you are, you pay in your $3,000 royalty. Each individual office is it's a franchise. It is individually owned. Now, some owners may own multiple offices, but you have a market center, that market center is going to collect another $17,500 from you. So cost of sale to hold your license, which basically consider them like an attorney, a real estate broker, if some something comes up and you know it's something that is um unethical, illegal, right? Where like an attorney or a broker has to step step in. That's really they hold your license and they keep you compliant, right? To make sure you don't get sued. Well, which we have, you know, insurance and things like that as well. But that's how they make their money and that's how we pay them. Well, when you're on a team, you have team splits, meaning you have to pay the team, but you have to pay the team and you have to pay Keller Williams royalty, and you have to pay, we negotiated half caps or quarter caps for our agents. So immediately when we decided we did this, I did not want to do this. I said I would never be an independent real estate broker for the for the whole reason. I don't know if you guys have heard, everybody has heard at this point, but um, in uh 2024, I guess was the settlement of August 17th where this happened. Every real estate company got sued. NAR got sued for like $400 million. They lost, everybody lost, everybody had to pay a bunch of money. So there's what's I call liability, right? So the biggest thing about becoming an independent real estate broker is you're taking on additional liability. Okay. So we have a hire, we have a broker that we hired. I am not the broker because I'm smart, right? I don't want to be tied up in broker activities. I want to be hired in sales activities, leadership activities, right? So when we did this, our agents immediately got an $8,000 raise. Some of them got a $15,000 raise. So to tell the team is like, hey, we're doing this and we're not doing this because of us, because we have to take on now more compliance, more expenses, more everything. But I'm doing this for what the greater good is for the company because I want you guys to net more money at the end of the day. That's why we did it. Okay, and it was the best decision we ever made.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

So let's shift gears a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

AI. Hello, man.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

This is my thing. I love it. Okay. I took you about this the other day. Oh man, let's go. Okay. We we know how rapidly it is it is uh invading the world, yeah. For sure. Ultimately um some people look at it as a as a great thing, some people look at it as a deterrent, right? Sure. Um, first of all, how do you see it affecting the real estate industry over the next five to ten years? And then secondly, how are you guys at the W group prepared to uh use it?

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Yeah, so I I have my my personal coach is an AI, basically certified coach. His name is Jason Pantana. He's created what's called AIM, which is the AI marketing, uh, I don't know, uh Academy is what it's called. He's my personal coach. We talk about this stuff all the time. Okay. So how are we prepared? We're prepared by transferring our skills to the agent. So I'll tell you, there's going to be two two I'll call it two camps in life. The camp that embraces AI and the camp that that that runs away from it and says it's it's the devil, it's it's gonna take over the world. Yeah, all the things. So there's a guy named Peter Diamanis, and I really love Peter Diamanis's his his mindset around this, which is a mindset of abundance. Okay. When the robots or artificial intelligence can handle all of the things that we don't want to do, right? What does it do? It gives us what? Gives us time. Okay. We could all use more time, yes or yes, right? He believes in there's going to be a universal income system, right? And but, you know, there's some things in this that I could go down a rabbit hole because we can talk about identities, right? We all have an identity. You're a coach, you're a dentist, I'm a sales professional leader, whatever. Okay. Take that away from me, man, it's it's it's tough. So I'm in the camp of all abundance on AI, but I'm also I'm not, I'm I'm a realist. There is some negative things that could absolutely come from this. And a lot of that is as if people's identity is a truck driver who've become a truck, they've been a truck driver their entire life. That's who they are. They wake up every day, they drive a truck. That's their identity. You take it away because Elon Musk created robo taxis, or you follow what I'm saying? Like there are definitely some sectors. Now, I will say I don't see it affecting the real estate business as much as other businesses, and I'll tell you why. Until every house is exactly the same, a robot is not going to take my job away from me. Okay. Every house is different, every lot size is different, every amenity is different. There's so many nuances in a real estate sales. And like, I don't know that a consumer, do you want to buy a house from a real from a robot? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

That's right. Like, like you want to I think about it in terms of this though, okay? Like when you go online, you can buy a car, you can put you can put your car together if you want it. 100%. I know you can't, I mean, you could build a house that way, and but you couldn't buy a pre-existing house, but you could search it that way. Sure. So it is is there some concern in that?

SPEAKER_02 30:12

No. First for me, agents that decide not to adapt artificial intelligence will get left behind. What it's going to do and what it already has done is it's giving us an opportunity to be more efficient and and we will take more market share and we can just do more. Like instead of selling, you know, our goal is which we're on pace to sell 700 homes this year. My goal next year is going to be a thousand, 1,500, 2,000. We're going to be selling thousands of houses, and I'm going to be able to do it with less people. Okay. That's the efficiency part of it that's going to happen, right? The automations, the um AI agents. I mean, like right now, I can get artificial intelligence call them agents through Claude or through chat or through Perplexity Computer. I can have them do tasks for me that human beings are doing for me right now. Right. Right. We're living in the future today, right now, and I'm using it to I'm a Claude, I'm all over Claude. That's my number one large language model of choice. The beautiful presentations that I can put together. The the things that it can do for me, right? As long as it has a very specific task, it's not going to stop until it's done. Right. And that's that's the kind of stuff you just you have to embrace it. Yes, there, there's, there's, but there's also from a standpoint of health, medical. Thank you. We're having breakthroughs right now. Sure, the cure of cancer is right around the corner if it's not all there's just things. We're gonna live longer. I believe in longevity, you know, those things are gonna help us through artificial intelligence.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

So the other the other day we were I was uh having a meeting with a client and um we brought up AI. Yeah, you know, I'm I'm really concerned about this, not necessarily for my position, but for for people who work for me, this, that, the other. I said, Well, you you kind of determined some of that, right? I said, but think about AI in these terms. What did it what does it allow you to focus on that you can't currently focus on? 100%, right? Yeah, and so when and she said, Well, I've thought about that. I said, Have you really thought about it? And then it became as simple as let's create a list of all the things that you can't do that you want to do that AI can do for you. Yes. And she, I gave her like 30 seconds since she was still writing, right? You know, and and could have kept going, right? 100%. It's incredible. So it's it's incredible, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

It's gonna make you more efficient, but you gotta look, you gotta learn how to use it. And then you you you can't have this negative mindset around it. You just gotta like how, and listen, I'm not for me, I feel like we got a little bit of a runway. So I'm gonna work as hard as I can for as long as I can, and I'm not thinking about those kind of things. Control your controllables. I can't control what happens with artificial intelligence, things like that, but I could control sitting here and and being in the doomsday mindset and just replaying that and that creating paralysis in my life. Yep. Like, no, I choose not to take that path. That's right, right? And that's a mindset shift, right? That's right.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Just fired up.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Love them, don't you? Love it. That's it. Oh, all right. Common misconceptions uh about uh building a high-end business, yeah, building culture within your business and scaling, any basic things that stick out to you.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

So you are you you're asking the question of um say that again.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

All right, so at as an individual who has built an incredible business with an incredible culture, in your precision, and you look at other individuals who maybe approach you about wanting to do something similar to you, but they say they can't, or they have there's some basic common pitfalls that they fall into every day. So, what what are some of those common pitfalls that you think that people associate or or people fight when it comes to trying to build a business like what you built?

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Okay, I'm gonna tell you something that you guys have heard a gazillion times. Comparison is the thief of joy. Okay. I say that because most people look at my business or or our business and they think, I want that business. Most people don't want this business. Right. Okay. And when they start to learn the nuances that are involved in this business, to not only create it, to continue to manage it.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

I mean, even my wife is like, how in the world do you do what you do on a daily basis? I don't know. God has given me some favor to do this, and I just do it. I don't really think about it. But when people call me and people are always calling me to like pick my brain, hey, I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about this, and I'm I'm like, when I hear them, I'm like, I don't think you want to run a business like this. So, like, what like at the end of the day, like getting down to like what is the the real, like Simon Sinek, start with why. What's the real why here? What do you really want? Do you want to work harder? Because there's two types of businesses in real estate, in my opinion. So you have there's a few, but you have the solo residential agent who maybe does it all by themselves. They're their own transaction coordinator, listing coordinator, marketing coordinator. They do everything by themselves. I think that person will have a hard time competing in the future, specifically as AI becomes what it is. Um, now I think you can build as a solo peneur, if you know how to use AI correctly, you can build a business as a solo agent and have a lot of things taken off your plate. I think that, but I just think it's just hard to compete with like the size teams that are that are coming out there because you it's hard to give the level of service that we can provide with as many people. Because I think still people want an individual and not an artificial intelligent bot to pick up the phone and call them and walk them through a transaction. You follow me? So you have the camp of the solo individual agent. I think there's a place for them. I think they'll always be a place for them. I just think you'll see less of them. Then you have what I consider to be like your um Navy SEALs teams. These teams operate like really lean, only a couple agents, really, really great staff, really good agents with like a high, you've got you've got each agent has a high per unit production per person, right? Then you have this like kind of messy middle, which is when like expenses start to get really high. And this is where a lot of the agents kind of, in my opinion, this is where they really fail, is they try to scale too fast, they try to take on too many expenses, too many leads instead of again. This goes back to the old fable of well, I think about like the tortoise and the hare. You know what I mean? The slow and steady wins the race.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

You get your systems dialed in 100% specifically, you got and scale once the systems are where they need to be.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

100%, man. So you nailed it. So most people are are trying to do it too fast. Okay, and I think that's the problem. I think if you like systems and processes have to be dialed in before anything, we were talking about that with an individual earlier today who tried to scale their business too fast, didn't have the right systems and processes in place, businesses implodes. You got to start over, right? So I think the big thing is for most people, is number one, why what is it that you're really truly trying to do and trying to accomplish, right? Get incredibly dialed in what that is. Second thing is is right, like what are the systems and process that need to be in place and dialed in in order to continue to scale? So, like for me, some of this stuff happened organically. Like Zillow says, hey, you're having a tremendous amount of success. We've got some opportunities in these zip codes, or these some zip codes you're interested in, which happened to be the North Shore, the South Shore. Okay. I said, yeah. Also, there's some opportunities in Lafayette, right? So we're considering an expansion into Lafayette. Um, all that's saying is like, I've already done it twice now, but I got we we've we took our time, we did it right, we dialed it in, then we expanded. Guess what? We made a crap ton of mistakes on the way. Okay. Same thing. So that so now we've done it three times. Guess what? Now we're moving east, right? Louisiana, Mississippi are reciprocal licensed states. We're about to open up an expansion team, Mississippi. Okay. And and what's cool is is this happened organically. It's it's like people coming from these markets and saying, hey, what do y'all got going on over here? I really want to be a part of this, right? And I and I know I'm I'm not answering your question probably as specifically as I even want to, but most people they don't realize what it takes to do it. And you you you just have to take the baby steps. You you can't go from you know, from here to here in a short period of time. It has to be, you know, it's just baby steps, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:08

It's it's we we do we I don't mean to cut you off, but we no no. Some of the clients we work with, we we use Kobe Bryant as like the classic example. Everybody, you know, looks at everything that Kobe did, championships, uh, MVVs, etc. That was built on being in the gym with Tim Grover at 3:30 and 4 a.m. doing the incredibly basic thing like fountain's passes. And that's exactly what you're talking about right now.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Yeah, Alan Stein tells a story we talked about earlier before every one of his keynotes for a long time. He tells a story. He met him at a Nike camp. He said, Hey, do you mind if I just come and sit in and watch your workout? He said, Yeah, of course. He says, What time are you gonna be there? And he said, you know, five 5 a.m. or 4 a.m. or whatever. And he's like, so he gets there at four. He's like, Well, he said, I'm gonna beat him. I'm gonna get there at 3:30. He gets there at 3:30 and he can hear the sneakers on the on the hardwood floor. When he got out of the Uber, and he just sits there and he said he watched him for like two hours. And he said, he just worked on like the most basic thing. So he sees him at the camp and says, Hey, Kobe, you are the number one, the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. And here you are working on the basics. And he says, like Kobe, he flashed the Kobe smile and he says, That's why I'm the number one basketball player in the world, because I focus on the foundations and the basics. So to answer your question, I mean, like, yeah, that's what it is. Yes, love it. You can't, and you can't get tired. The thing is, is okay, everybody wants like this glamorous uh job and day where everything is always, I don't know, like glamorous. Man, you gotta fall in love with doing the boring things over and over and over again because daily disagreements. My schedule, it somebody asked me today, it's like, oh, you should really do a day in the life of of CEO Trey at running the W group. I'm like, I'll I'll do it. And it's incredibly redundant. And you can watch it one time and you've seen it every day for the next 20 years. That's yeah, that's multi-friday. Wake up early. You know, I I spend time in scripture every morning, you know, it's reading some personal development stuff, you know, it's going to the gym, it's weight training, it's tracking and measuring my macronutrients, right? It's making the prospecting calls every day, it's having the meetings, it's literally like when I get home mentally, and I'm done. But I've done the same thing over and over and over, and it's just a machine. Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

So speaking of a machine, we at TLW we operate by five pillars, which I know you mentioned a pillar of culture earlier for the W group. And so um I'm gonna list them for you. Yep. Okay. Uh the first one is honor God above all else. So you can't use this one. Okay. I love it. Because we know that that's that's the most important thing. Um I want you to pick out of the other four, which one to you, and all of them will resound, but but I want you to pick which one to you you feel like stands out the most with what you do personally and at the W group as well. Okay. Okay. Um then I'm gonna tell you my core values. Okay, we love to they may match a little bit. Yeah, okay. The first one is discipline is diligence, okay, value people over profit, lead through uh service, not self, and build legacy through integrity.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

So I'd say they they go in the probably the exact order that you have. My first, and listen to this, this is gonna be kind of creepy, maybe, but not creepy, but my very first core value is embrace discipline and accountability. Yes, right. So to me, that's everything, right? The discipline and the accountability, it kind of trumps everything else, right? The second one that you said uh really resonated with me. Value people over profit. Yeah, which we talked about already, right? Like we value people over profit all day long, and all you always have to. Yes. Uh, because it is so Zig Ziggler said this. This is my favorite, probably quote ever in the history of time. But he says, if you help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want. That's right. Yep. Right. So that so I live in this place of like, you know, Gary V, value, value, value, value, right? So he's like, you know, it was the um uh provide value, provide value, hit him with the right hook, right? Ask for the referral or or the whatever, right? And and that's just kind of how I was like, you put enough value in the world, you don't even have to ask for the business or the referral. It just organically happens. Yeah. And then the the leg, I love the legacy part, but when I think legacy to me, it's like kind of like that's you, you're kind of at the end of the rope, right? Right. You're you're at the end. So the legacy part to me would kind of fall at the end. And then what was the one in the middle?

SPEAKER_01 42:26

So uh lead through service, not sales.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Lead lead through service, right? So for me, I show up every day, and mine is lead by example, right? Lead through service, lead by example, lead by my agents. Can see I'm the first one in the office every day. Yeah, right. They see what I'm doing all the time. And as long as I can continue to lead by example, hopefully, right? And we always say trust the process, guys, trust the process. Like, I am living in the process. You're watching me do this. Why do y'all have to try to change everything?

SPEAKER_01 42:53

So I'm gonna push back on the legacy. Yeah. Okay. If, and I I certainly didn't think about this whenever I was younger. I'm sure you didn't either. I'm sure you didn't either. Uh, Jace is still young, and I'm sure he's well, he might be thinking about it. He's a little older soul than we probably were at that time.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Well, he gets all this really good wisdom every week. That's what I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Yeah. Um, I think the sooner you start thinking about what's my legacy going to be, the more intentional you'll be about what it ends up being.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

We we talked about that earlier, right? You know, and that that's like me. So, like part of my legacy, which I told you, like I want to be remembered as the guy who was always right incredibly optimistic, always full of energy, always brought like a tremendous amount of energy to the building, always was super uplifting. Like, do you feel that when we're together? Absolutely. That's what I want to do. So, like, I I guess I'm thinking about it now. Yeah. Um, but you're you're absolutely right. It's just as part of like your decisions that you make as like the dis is the legacy that you leave. And for my kids, right? Like, you know, I'm a parent. I have two children, I have a 16 year old and a 10 year old. And like, man, I number one, I want them to be incredibly proud of that. Father, yep, right. And and and I really want them to be like little real estate professionals, but if they choose to do something else, you know, that's okay. But I do want them to look back and say, you know, like my man, my dad worked really hard, you know. Whitney and I date, my wife and I, we still date all the time, right? I I want them to see my mother and my father loved each other and they sh they display that love inside of the house, right? So those are those are some things that like I hope, you know, to me to leave as a legacy for those guys or for those girls. All right.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

The word success, what does it mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Super basic. You know, for me, it's it's tough because the old success and like I get an ego just like everybody else. And like my wife puts me in check sometime. And I think like she's like, Trey, like sometimes you're in a room and you'll talk and like you, you you want to talk about the you know, what the success that the W group has had. More of that is just out of pride. You know, I had like a rich dad and a poor dad, and my poor dad was my real father, and my rich dad was my uncle. Um, and and I and I there's just like this like pride of like, I didn't come from anything, you know. So like when I step into a room, like I'm proud that I've like worked from nothing to get to a point. But at the same time, like, you know, success to me honestly means number one, um, I can do what I want with whom I want, right? Did I say when I want? Nope, that's the last that is success to me, right? Like, like I'm I'm following all the the um the processes around like my retirement, my investing in in index funds and all the like I literally like I just you just tell me to do something and I just do it. But at the end of the day, like I just want to do what I want when I want with whom I want. And a lot of that is I really want to spend more time over on you know, on the coast at in 30A and around water. Water makes me just feel yeah like you know we got some coming out. I know that's uh that water does not make me feel any kind of way. That make that water makes me want to go take a nap. Uh but no, I mean I I think that's important to me, and I think that's success. You know, I I don't like most people, they um I think the biggest issue most people fight about, specifically in relationships, is what? Finances? Yep. So I have probably I'm a hoarder, and I think that's because I come from a place where money was very scarce growing up. So I have that scarcity mentality around money. Um, and then no matter what, and I know they always say it's like you never have enough, and like you continue to move the goalpost, right? Like, like, oh, I'll be successful when I'll be successful when. And I've realized for me, like I feel successful, right? Like I wake up every day, I feel like you know, I take care of my body, right? Which is something that's incredibly important. Most importantly, I probably take care of my mind. So I just I don't I don't have to go through those kind of things and then like I take care of my finances and my family, right? To where those aren't really a big issue. So it's putting me in a position now, and I feel pretty much now like you know, I'm not gonna abandon my business by any stress because I have all these people to take care of, but you know, we can do, you know, we're going to Italy in a couple months for a wedding, going to Lake Como and doing all these other things. Like, man, that's pretty awesome that we have the the capacity, you know, to do something like that. You know, we just got back from Florida. I took my wife uh for our 40th birthday. We were in Florida the week before that for spring break, and like I just like, man, we can do some pretty amazing things. So, like, yeah, that makes me feel successful. Well, really, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Last question.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Yeah, okay, wow.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

Last question. Let's yeah. Um, and I I'm glad I have a reference here too. Oh, you're the first time we ask every, we ask every um guest that's we're talking to the DJ right now. Yeah, let's go. That's 100% we're fixing to do. So you currently, Trey Willard, yeah, are sitting across from DJ Trizy. Yeah. Okay. And you know what you know right now. Yep. And DJ Trizy knows what he knew back then. Yep. And you can offer him one piece of advice. Only one.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

What is it? Belief. Like, believe. I think belief is like the foundation of everything, right? So, number one, I think you have to believe that you can achieve certain things. So, like, just believe that you can achieve the things that you're gonna set out to accomplish in your life, and you're gonna be successful. You're gonna look back and you're gonna say, like, I'll give you an example. Um, so this is something Gary Keller said that I love. He said, first, you have to learn something. So it's learning plus knowledge plus confidence equals motivation. Okay. So I'm gonna say that again because I think this is like a formula for success for anybody. First, you have to learn it, meaning like you got to learn it, whether you um read it, you whatever. And then when you learn something, you know it, right? You've done it a couple times, right? And when you know something, you start to feel confident in that thing. And when you feel confident in that thing, you start to feel motivated to go do that thing. So whether it's teach it, do it, whatever it is. But at the end of the day, I believe like the foundation is do you believe in yourself, most importantly, that you can achieve whatever it is that your your goals are. And I think like tell that dude, that dude was a believer then, and just know that if you just keep putting forth the effort that you're putting forth, because like I had standards.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

I wanted to be the best DJ. I didn't want to be any DJ, I wanted to be the best DJ. So it required practice. It required me to put myself out there. When I got into real estate, I didn't want to be a real estate agent. I wanted to be the best real estate agent. When I built my team, I didn't want to build a team. I wanted to build the best real estate team. Well, you know, when I go and train, I'm 44 years old. Like I want to be at the beach and I want to be like, like that dude right there puts in work, right? I want people to see me and look at me and like that guy puts in work, right? He's gonna take care of me. For for my industry, these are this is the biggest financial decision most people ever make. Right? They need to have confidence that I can help them achieve their goal. Right. But at the end of the day, like if I didn't believe in myself, and that's what I always try to tell my agents, is like, look, first it starts off at the foundation of just real like belief. So just belief. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Love it. I believe you. Uh Trey, look, I can you know say this with uh wholeheartedly when I think of Proverbs 27 17, uh iron sharpening iron. You're one of the individuals I think of. Uh really appreciate your friendship, really appreciate your time coming on here. Uh, looking forward to seeing what the W group continues to do. Uh, don't be a stranger. Um, with that, we're gonna sign off uh for everybody here at TLW from Sean Owens. Go get it.