Buyers Box Podcast

EP 20: Time Blocking and Systems: The Foundation of a Scalable Real Estate Business

Secure Home Finder

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0:00 | 28:53

In Episode 20 of The Buyer’s Box Podcast, Suneet Agarwal sits down with Ally Burnett, Co-Team Leader of Secure Home Finder, to break down what truly separates agents who scale…

👉 Trust, systems, and client experience.

This episode dives into how modern real estate success is no longer just about leads, it’s about building a high-tech, high-touch client journey that creates long-term relationships and consistent referrals. 

If you’ve ever felt like:

You have leads… but struggle to convert them consistently
 Your follow-up feels random instead of structured
 You’re building a business without a clear system

This episode will help you rethink your entire approach.

Ally shares how top-performing teams grow by focusing on:

• Building trust before the client is ready to buy
 • Creating structured CRM systems and follow-up pipelines
 • Using consistent nurture instead of one-time conversations
 • Leveraging team environments to deliver better client experiences
 • Aligning roles and strengths to scale faster
 • Combining technology with relationship-driven service

You’ll also learn why:

👉 Consistency — not pressure — is the real secret to conversion.
 👉 Systems and structure create predictable pipelines.
 👉 The best agents think like concierges, not just salespeople. 

👥 WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR

• Realtors struggling with inconsistent lead conversion
 • Agents building or scaling a team
 • Team leaders wanting better systems and structure
 • Agents who want predictable pipelines and long-term clients

🎯 WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS

In today’s market, leads are everywhere.

But trust is rare.

The agents who win are the ones who build systems that nurture relationships — not just chase transactions.

Get the Free Ebook now of this podcast! 

https://joinshft.com/free_ebookep20


#realestatepodcast #realestateagents #realtorlife #leadgeneration #crm #realestatemarketing #realestatetips #buyersagent #listingagent #realestatecoach #teamgrowth #followupsystem #pipeline #salesstrategy #realestatebusiness

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SPEAKER_01

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Reside Platform Podcast. I'm your host today, Sunita Agerwal, and I'm super excited to hang out with Allie Burnett today. She's the co-team leader of the secure home finder team in South Carolina, which she runs with her husband, who'll be on soon, Andrew. So the Burnett's have built their business around technology, taking care of client privacy, which is big, and creating a more secure, relationship-driven home buying and selling experience. We're going to talk about building trust online, especially in this crazy online AI world we're in, leading as partners, and how to create a client journey that feels both high tech and high touch. Let's jump right in. Allie, what's cracking?

SPEAKER_00

You know, doing that work thing or at the office, and I'm excited to be at the podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. How often do you go to the do you go to the office?

SPEAKER_00

Uh honestly, like four or five days a week. There was a time where we were working out of our home office and we still have one. But as we have grown our team with Reside, we went from five agents to 15 agents in like six months, maybe less. Uh, we had to get an office space.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. How's that growth been for you?

SPEAKER_00

It's been good. Um, I'd be lying if I didn't say it was a little stressful, but have all my friends at Reside that you know have helped support us along the way.

SPEAKER_01

Listen to all those shout-outs in the first minute. All right, good. You even got the shirt on, good, and that's why I'm a favorite. Yeah, you guys, this episode is gonna be a lot of fun because me and Allie are homies, so good. Right, there it is, Allie. Now I said it twice.

SPEAKER_00

And it's recorded, and the world will see it.

SPEAKER_01

All right, all right, let's get started. Um, how did you and her husband end up building this team together?

SPEAKER_00

Good question. So um, Andrew and I, fun fact, we got married in 50 days from the time that we met until the time that we got married. So he already had the team before we even got married. Um, I was actually working uh full time, and it just kind of came to a point where um, just with like family life, and as the team started to grow, and Andrew was buying, I don't know, like 300 leads a month for himself, um, it became too much. And so I ended up kind of partnering with him, and um, I don't know, it's happened really organically, honestly.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Um how do you guys, because and you know this, there's lots of husband and wife teams in real estate and in reside, right? Um, how do you guys divide roles? This is gonna be a funny answer, so the business runs smoothly without stepping on each other's toes.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, great question. And you know, we've actually talked to um some other people that are thinking of maybe, you know, doing it with their partner, and we always tell them, like, test it out a little bit, like, don't quit your job. So it took me, I don't know, like a year and a half of us being married before like we felt like we were at a good spot where we could both work together. You know, we both have different backgrounds, and so because of that, like we kind of just um we play off each other, right? So, like, yes, we're working in the business collectively, but we also kind of have like our own separate silos that we're doing things, and then we come together. But I think the main thing is you have to have alignment on the top, right? So we may not always know what our goal is, but we know what what we want, like somewhat what we want our outcome to be. And we're very aligned on how we want the team to run, how we want our day-to-day to look like, and what and what we need to do to get there. And once we kind of have that roadmap, like that is what has really helped us become successful, I think.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Um, it's funny, right? I mean, I've been married, well, it's not funny, uh, it's interesting. Um, my wife and I have spoken about her coming into the business, and we've never been able to find alignment on a way to make it work. Here I am, this fancy coach, coaching couples in business. But uh yeah, like what do you think people get wrong there?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know, it takes some humility, right? Because when you are already, and I give Andrew like a lot of credit for that, right? Because when you're already running a successful business, and then now you want to grow, but like you could do everything. Like, Andrew doesn't need me, like I'll be the first to say he doesn't need me, but like there are parts of the business that like he didn't enjoy doing, so it's like okay, like what do you enjoy doing? What do I enjoy doing? And like, lucky for us, they really weren't the same things.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes, I love that. So find your lane and stick to it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And where your strengths are what's that? And where your strengths are, yeah, good point.

SPEAKER_01

How often does work come home with you guys? Oh, define come home, define that laying in bed about to go to bed, and can you believe so-and-so did so-and-so?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, every day. That's always every day. Oh, yeah, every day. But it's never like, you know, sometimes we do argue about work, and I think we argue about more work more in the beginning. Um, but more it's just like us laying in bed and we're like, hmm, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Oh, I looked this thing up, we're watching videos, we're watching, you know, watching your content. Hey, did you see this? Did you see that? Like, it's more of just like a conversation. Like, I think for some people, um work is work.

SPEAKER_01

Right. I remember maybe my second year as an agent, I was crushing, and my eldest daughter was a baby, and like work-life balance, work was like a big buzz topic. First time I heard about it, and I really went down that journey until I found Tony Robbins actually that said work-life integration. Because I mean, I don't know about you, but my favorite hobby is working.

SPEAKER_00

It's funny you say that, yeah, because someone asked me the other day, well, babe, how could you, you know, share your hobbies with your clients? And I'm like, well, they're not real estate agents, so I don't really know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly. Uh something that stands out about you guys is like your intent, your strong intention to protect clients' privacy online, right? You talk a lot about building relationships before someone's ready to buy. Sometimes like nurturing leads, which is building the relationship, fancy talk, right? For months or years, which is hard, right? How do you nurture what's the secret to effective nurture without a bunch of pressure?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Um, I don't think there's really any secret. It's the only secret is consistency. So um I think that the main thing is you got to have your systems and structures, right? So, you know, obviously making sure you have a CRM, making sure you're cleaning your database, making sure you have good stages, that people are staged properly. Um, so like that is a key to it, right? Because you want to make sure that you and your agents are identifying things uh properly when you're talking to them on the phone. Because um, you know, if someone's buying next week versus three years from now, the cadence is not going to be the same. Um, so I would say one, making sure that your pipeline is good and making sure that you're managing that like within Fallout Boss, or if you don't know how to do that, hire someone that can help you manage it within Fallout Boss. Um, making sure that like you know your cadence, right? Like it's not just like random or like oh yeah, singing a sneeze. Like, let me call them. Like it needs to be very, very thought out, methodical, and on a on a good cadence, really.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love that. Um so you guys are like have this like ecosystem, right? Where you guys want like to envelop the clients with their resources, right? How did he go about building like that network that you can trust to refer to people?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Um, you know, sometimes we kind of think of ourselves as concierge. So I like that. Yeah, so concierge. Um, so you know, from start to finish, right? Because we're in a second home market. And so when you're in a second home market, sometimes people are just coming down here on vacation. So like the first step is finding out when are you coming here again? Um, can I meet you while you're here, even if we don't look at houses, setting up like that first buyer consult, putting a face to a name, then from there, you know, you could do um virtuals and also too, like leveraging your team. So for us, when we talk to clients, we tell them we have 18 agents on our team. We can serve you from Wilmington, North Carolina, all the way down to Georgetown, South Carolina, all the way out to Tabor City, North Carolina. And so if like we have a lady right now, she's in town for three months, and so she has no clue where she wants to go. So we're gonna set up an itinerary for her um in like basically like one hour pockets. And she's gonna meet with one of our agents in each one of those pockets, and we're gonna have to work out the money later and see who who wins the deal, right? But um, being able to give that service because a lot of agents, you know, if they're if you're just a single agent out there in the world or you're a small team, like you probably can't do that.

SPEAKER_01

Totally. Yeah, that's really good. What other like what other challenges do you think is it that come about from being in a second home market? Because I'm not anyone.

SPEAKER_00

Um, a few things. Uh, not a lot of urgency because a lot of people that are moving here, it's a um either a second home or perhaps a retirement home. So we have kind of talked about people, you know, talked with people about this uh it's this buzzword, I don't know. It's called pre tyrement. So we've talked to people about this retirement, right? Because if, you know, our appreciation here is really good. And so it's one of the top five places in America to retire. So because of that, like waiting three years could cost you 40, 50 grand. Wow. So when you break that up over a mortgage, like it probably wasn't worth it. Like you probably should buy now. Um, so I would say um lack of motivation is part of it. I would say the other part too is like, you know, there's a lot of agents in markets that can do open houses, um, and that could work. But like here, the person that's buying their house is in New York, uh, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, those places. So, like, really like getting ahead of it. So, like, Andrew does a great job on like coming up with those long tail keywords to try and get that person that's thinking about coming down here before they're even here. Because by the time they're here, they're probably already working with an agent. So that's part of that that building the trust over the course of time because sometimes we don't meet people till three, four years later. Um, but we've been talking to them that that whole time on the phone, they feel like they know us. Um, so I I hope that it kind of answers it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, that's that's super good. Um for the team leaders out there listening. What advice do you have for them to create a business like yours growing and able to manage multiple places and working with your spouse? Although we already talked about those tips, but but about just the team leader listening right now.

SPEAKER_00

Well, um, step one, stop doing it on your own. You need to uh connect with people that have already done it before. Um, but we realize and what we tell people all the time is like we wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars, like an embarrassing amount of money trying to figure out different things on our own. And I think most of it was good, a lot of it was right, but was it the quickest and most effective way? Probably not. So plugging in with people that know what they're doing, having a coach, or like in the case of Reside, having multiple coaches, multiple different, you know, professionals leaning in different ways. Like that's one thing I love about Reside because you know, like you have a bit a different background than John, and John has a different background than Mia. And so being able to kind of like listen to everybody in like Brooke and Lauren, I mean TC background. So it just, you know, like they are in the weeds, like they've been in the weeds. So try to connect with people that have already done it. And that would that would be my number one suggestion. And then on the marriage thing, you know, we kind of talked about it, but I think making sure that you're in alignment. Like there are even some teams that are like two um like two different, you know, like I know I think out in Arizona, uh, Kathy and Kathy and Anna, yeah. Like, you know, they're two women that are working together, you know.

SPEAKER_01

But they're mom and daughter, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So they have alignment. So the main thing is having alignment because that's what's going to equal success.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, and for everyone listening, I did a great episode with Kathy Courtney uh a while back. So if you want to hear what Kathy had to say about working with with her daughter, make sure you go back and listen to that episode. There's now now, mom, motherhood. How many kids did do you have?

SPEAKER_00

We have four.

SPEAKER_01

You have four kids. So let me get this straight. You run this business and you're a mom of four kids.

SPEAKER_00

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Do you sleep?

SPEAKER_00

Uh not that much. And no nanny. No nanny people.

SPEAKER_01

What's the secret?

SPEAKER_00

Uh time blocking, time management, um church? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Church. Pray a lot.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, like, look, so time blocking and time management, is that really like something that really helps you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, for sure. I have I have to because, you know, like and one of our kids, like our youngest one, she's chronically sick. Like, I have to take her to therapy five to six times a week. So, like, on top of working, on top of the other three kids, I have to take her to therapy. So, making sure like in the morning, you know, I'm doing I'm doing our recruiting calls, I'm doing all of our uh follow up boss follow-up, I'm meeting with our agents, like everything is pretty much to a T.

SPEAKER_01

Good. And that's the secret to life, ladies and gentlemen, is have a plan and stick to the plan.

unknown

Right?

SPEAKER_01

I don't know. For people listening and watching of this who have followed me for however many years, or maybe it's new, like I talk about this a lot because a lot of my success comes to time blocking and actually doing the shit. Uh let's talk about recruiting. What's your favorite part about recruiting agents?

SPEAKER_00

Uh, when they sign the contract and they're really excited to join the team.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

Aren't you making a bunch of recruiting calls?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean at least a five a day for sure. Um, you know, I will tell you that, you know, we're pushing and pushing our agents to make calls and call leads. And for people like Andrew and I, it comes naturally, it's no problem. You know, it's very comfortable. I feel like the recruiting calls have been uncomfortable. Um, but you know, like what has continued to drive me is like I know that we're sitting on an abundance of leads and way too much opportunity and not enough agents. And there's agents out there that like need to feed their family and need to, you know, like sell property. And so like that's what kind of keeps me going. And it's really exciting, like when we have someone that you know, and we're honored that somebody trusted us to help guide them into real estate, it's a huge deal.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's a big deal. Like, you know, as leaders, we have a fiduciary duty to the people that we lead, and that's such an honor, number one. And number two, like there's a lot of trust, and like we don't want to let anybody down. I feel the same way about people like you, right? Is we got a big fiduciary duty and we want to see the best for people, especially if they're doing what it takes. How is making the calls? How long did it take you to get used to get comfy and calling, making the recruiting calls?

SPEAKER_00

Work in progress. Like, I'm still not comfy with the get comfy, like it's still slightly awkward, but you know, I mean, yeah, because it doesn't come natural, really, and you know, like it works, there's a cadence to it, there's a reason why you do it. There is I understand that there's like a way higher methodology psychology behind it that's like way past my pay grade, and so I've just kind of trusted in it. Um, yeah, I'm still not comfortable. That's the truth, that's the honest truth.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I mean, all that means is reps. Yeah, right. So, as you're as also your coach, here's a coaching moment. So, do you have the darn GPT I made for the get comfy calls?

SPEAKER_00

I do, I do.

SPEAKER_01

Do you ever use it?

SPEAKER_00

I have, you know, I was actually gonna ask Andrew if he can change the voice because I kind of don't like the voice on it. Can you do that?

SPEAKER_01

I think that's like such a petty thing, but I mean, we got some other people in Reside, probably many people in Reside, many people, period. Let me just change that, who don't like making calls. There's phone aversion, maybe some fear, maybe some discomfort, right? And I get it. Um, so several of them have told me that before they start a calling block, even if it is five calls per day, they fire up that AI, make a couple fake calls, get the get the heebie-jeebies out, get loose, and then get on the phone. What do you think about that, Al?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's a good, like, you know, it's like a warm-up before the game. Another thing, too, like, I don't know if we've ever talked about it, but we're in a brokerage with 600 agents. So, like, me just sitting here since we've been on this podcast, I've had three people knock on my door that are not on our team. So we do have a little bit of road traffic near our office, so that does help. And sometimes I do count that into my five calls because it's a face-to-face and I'm having the conversation.

SPEAKER_01

Count it, count it, and that's one of the things for everybody listening. I discovered this when I first started my team, and I was at a uh larger Keller Williams office at the time, and like a lot of my recruiting was done for people who just joined the brokerage, right? There was a lot of opportunity there. So if you are uh in a larger organization, even cloud-based, like there's opportunities within your own company to recruit. Um, you just have to use the same principles that we teach every day, right?

SPEAKER_00

Agree, agree. And one thing I will say that has been mind-blowing for me, I never thought until like the last couple weeks that people from other brokerages and other teams would refer other agents to our team through recruiting. And like, um, one thing that I have started doing too, like when I'm calling my leads and they've already bought a house with someone, I ask them, Hey, who did you buy a house with? Were they a good agent? Like, tell me about that person. And at first they're a little skeptical, and I say to them, Listen, some of the best people we've recruited are actually from leads that we weren't able to close. And then I call that agent and I'm like, hey, I just talked to ABC person, and they said you were an awesome agent, and I would love to get to know you. And then you know, I jump into the Git Comfort script, of course. But you know, like I tell them, like, hey, I love that, Ali.

SPEAKER_01

You never told me that. That's fire.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, good. Um what do you think? I'm just bouncing questions off you, okay. So what do you think clients value most when working with an agent on our team? When they're looking to work with an agent R team, I would say collective knowledge.

SPEAKER_00

So, like in our market, there's lots of small towns that encompass one general area. And each one of those small towns are very, very different. And so I think clients really value, because especially because those people are coming from, you know, that that northeast area and they may not know the difference between the different towns, like they really value working with people that know a lot of information about each one to make them help them make the best decision possible.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Good collective knowledge. I love that. And for people listening, like lean on your team or brokerage, right? It doesn't you don't have to be the solo person, no matter if you are solo, right? Like I remember when I was new, I would say, yeah, we sold however many tons of houses because I was leaning on the brokerage, leaning on the team. So just so don't forget about that. Can I just mention I love Myrtle and I love Charleston? I haven't been to Carolina in almost two years. Really? Wild dunes. Have you ever talked about wild dunes?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, so before I was full-time in real estate, I was um on the executive team at the largest HMA management company in North America. And that was part of my territory, but that's like way far away. That's like two hours from us. Like that's not even we don't even have access. Yeah, we yeah, we don't even have access to the MLS where Wild Dunes is looking at.

SPEAKER_01

How much mini golf do you play?

SPEAKER_00

None. Only if the kids like beg. Or like sometimes, you know, like I'll get coupons, like the you know, like one round free with the purchase of a round. Like then we may go, but like outside of that, no people.

SPEAKER_01

Are you from Myrtle? Yeah, born and raised.

SPEAKER_00

Yep, born and raised. Yeah, how is that whole family? Um, I mean, fine. I feel like I've never really lived anywhere else other than here, and then I went to the University of South Carolina, which is only a couple hours down the road, but I guess fine. All my family's here. Like, I even still have a great grandma that is alive and lives here.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, dude, that beach in Carolina is so awesome.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, send me to Aruba. I need clear water, I need to see okay.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not saying I'm getting in the ocean, I'm saying that the beach is super nice.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I just we don't we don't get out there, and then the other thing too with kids, it's stressful. The beach is like the most stressful place with kids, especially middle kids.

SPEAKER_01

Right, and then they get sand everywhere, and everyone has to get a shower. Yeah, you're right. Long hair, sand in the hair, sand in every sand everywhere, right?

SPEAKER_00

It's yeah, and like you know, this the six-year-old, she's way smaller than our other kids that are 14, 12, and 11. So she's trying to go like way out in the water with the stressful.

SPEAKER_01

That is okay, good.

SPEAKER_00

So it's enough for me.

SPEAKER_01

You gave me some advice for team leaders. What are some what's some advice you have for agents?

SPEAKER_00

Um, good question, good question. You know, agents, if you're listening, it's okay to be a really successful single agent. No one is taking that away from you when you join a team. Joining a team is taking what you already have and amplifying it. And so I think if more single agents sort of thinking about teams in that way, or like one thing Andrew kind of says to agents, they're like, hey, he's like, hey, how much are you spending every month on your CRM and your dot loop and buying leads and whatever? And like a lot of times, like the amount of money that they're putting in versus the amount of money that they're making, it's not it's not a 50-50 split, I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_01

Totally, right? People forget that. Good, good advice. So second to last question What's next for you guys and the secure home founder, secure home finder team?

SPEAKER_00

In what way? Do you mean as far as our team collectively, Andrew and I?

SPEAKER_01

What are you excited about?

SPEAKER_00

Well, one thing I'm excited about is we started our own podcast, the Buyer's Box Podcast. And that has been really exciting for us. We have some awesome people that are gonna be in our podcast. Hopefully, you'll be coming on our podcast. And we have lots of people. Um lots of people from Reside are coming on our podcast. Um, that's ex that's exciting for like Andrew and I, and as far as the team, you know, we're continuing to grow. Um, we're really looking for some North Carolina agents because we have like literally thousands of leads. You'll laugh at this. So I decided I was like, hey, let's try our system in North Carolina. So I was like, I'm gonna get my North Carolina license. Let's start from zero. Let's see how quickly I can close I can close a deal while doing everything else. Well, within 60 days I have pending. So then we were like, okay, this works. And so Andrew was like, okay, I just bought 2,500 leads. And I was like, I'm only one person, dude. What are you what are you doing? So uh we're definitely gonna be expanding into North Carolina because we have uh way too many opportunities, and right now only uh myself and one other agent who's she's one of our top agents, so she's already busy here. Um, I think that's probably the next exciting thing is North Carolina and hopefully coaching. We're we're we're working on our way to coaching.

SPEAKER_01

Good, good, good. She keeps that putting it out there, you guys. Allie does not stop. So that's one thing that I love about you. Um, if somebody wants to send you a referral for business or talk more about you or find out more about your guys' new podcast, which I've been watching you guys, sounds awesome. So, way to go. Where do they go?

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's a great question. You know, we're we're still in progress. Hopefully, our coach Sunik can help us come up with a really good landing page um for our collective efforts here. Uh, but for now, you can just email me A-L-L-Y at securehomefinder.com, and I can get get all the resources. And if we're on Facebook, feel free to message me, follow us um on our buyer box podcast page, or we do have a secure homefinder page um website to like a secure homefinder team.com and our Facebook page, and we give 30% referrals.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So make sure to send all your referrals in the Carolinas. I don't care where it is in the Carolinas, send it to the brunettes. How about that?

SPEAKER_00

Good with me. We have um referral partners, like agents that we work exclusively with in literally every corner of North and South Carolina.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome, love that. Well, guys and Allie, thank you so much for being here today. This was a lot of fun. We didn't even talk that much smack to each other, so we kept it professional.

SPEAKER_00

It's recorded.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it is evidence. Um, if you enjoyed this episode, everybody, make sure to like, subscribe, and leave a review so you never miss a future conversation. Be sure to check out the links in the description to learn more about Ali and all the cool stuff they're doing at the Secure Home Finder team. My name is Sunit Agrawal. Thanks for listening to the Reside Platform Podcast, and I'll see you next time. Peace.