Ep. 6 - Buying the Dirt: The Math of Adding Value to Land

Ever wonder how a “trees and a ditch” parcel turns into a dream property? We sit with executive broker Jeff Clifton to trace the real path from raw acreage to livable, lovable land, and how a modern team scales that work without losing the human touch. Jeff breaks down recreational properties in plain language, from lake houses with docks to working farms, and shares the simple improvements, access trails, clearing, small food plots, that lift both value and daily joy.

We get tactical about growth. Jeff’s mantra is database first: most clients convert only after five to twelve helpful touches, not one heroic call. He explains why his first critical hire is a database manager who coordinates emails, texts, light AI outreach, and clean response paths. We contrast brand marketing with influencing, then show how to stay top of mind by being consistently useful, specific, and memorable as “the land person” in your market. The hiring arc follows a proven model: admin support, then showing help, and eventually a strong operations lead to protect cadence, quality, and culture.

Tools matter, but only in service of time. Jeff shares how virtual assistants in the Philippines prep comps, packages, and routine tasks, while AI drafts avatars, campaigns, and checklists that humans refine. We map net-first planning for a bold 2026 target, working backward from income to units, average price, and conversion math, so goals feel actionable by week and by day. Along the way, Jeff reminds us that success isn’t a dollar sign; it’s the client who sends a photo of their kid riding a new trail or their first trout at the river place. Time is our real inventory. Use systems to buy it back, invest in more property over the long haul, and keep the work meaningful.

If this conversation sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs a nudge, then hit follow and leave a quick review so more curious listeners can find us.

Transcript

Meet Jeff And Recreational Land 101

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Real Mike Dooley podcast. I'm Mike Dooley, nationally recognized broker, bringing you real conversations, real strategies, and real insights into today's real estate market. We're here, the real Mike Dooley Show. I cannot, it's awesome. I love being live with the guest, Jeff Clifton in the house, one of my business partners and great friends. Thanks for being here, Jeff. Man, thanks. I appreciate you having me. Of course, it'll be a lot of fun. Tell all the audience. Yeah, I hear listeners are all the way in Australia. Listen, I know you like to like to hunt, you know. So maybe we go to New Zealand and uh fishing next time, maybe next year when we record this. How cool would that be? But tell everyone who you are. Yeah, a little bit about yourself. Jeff Clifton.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I uh uh live here in Rogers, Arkansas. I'm uh executive broker for the True North Realty team with Keller Williams. Uh we um do a lot of stuff outside the city limits, and you know, we we kind of specialize in in uh recreational and rural properties, and of course we do a lot of residential properties, so just uh real estate through and through.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

It's a mouthful. I know when they call you, they're like, What's your title again? What do you do? I know you got a lot of things going on, which is awesome. What's your uh favorite part about uh real estate?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

You know, I think it's the interaction with people, just uh being with other people and helping them find, you know, hit their goal, getting a property they want or they like, you know, and then and and as much doing that on the front end, it's seeing it on the back end too. You know, it's uh so I still have a lot of clients that have farms and recreational properties. And man, I tell you, I love it when they send me pictures of their of what they've done to it and what they've built. And uh I really get excited about seeing, you know, uh especially around deer season, turkey season, of people that have bought places on the river and they show me these these huge trout that they've they caught, you know. So it's really cool to keep interacting with people when they've when they've bought those recreational properties.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

U a city folk like me, what's a recreational property? It's not me jumping off my diving board in my pool, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, you know, so recreational property kind of has a it kind of goes along uh different avenues, I guess. You know, so a recreational property may be a lake house with a dock and a boat, you know, uh, you know, it may be a secondary home like that. It might be somebody buys 20 acres, 100 acres, 200 acres, and and they just want to get their kids out uh and get out on a four-wheeler or a buggy and just ride around and uh or hike, uh may want to put a bee farm, you know, they may want to uh do something out on the property, may want to hunt, you know, whatever it is, it's uh it's whatever they like to recreate doing. And so it it kind of takes different forms, different uh molds, and everybody, everybody's a little different.

Balancing Plates: Family And Team Duties

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Uh and that's what I love about it. That's awesome. Well, look like you're having fun, and I see you get to see every day. We office next to each other, which is fun. Today in this podcast for our listeners, you know, we're gonna be talking talent, leadership, hiring, all the things you're great at that I'm not good at. Well, I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

It takes a tribe, doesn't it? For sure. Absolutely. Yeah. So your organization, we're 20 agents or so deep right now, so people can get the mass of all the things that you're doing. It it's a it's a juggling act, isn't it? It's like, oh, I'm in Atlanta here, I'm in San Antonio here, I'm in, you know, Lubbock here.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, you know, it's a it's constantly spinning plates. I mean, you're just you've got one on 10 sticks and you're just h hoping one doesn't crash. And, you know, it's just you grab this one and spin that one. And so, and then of course you try to mix that with uh your family life, your your business life, you know, all of the things. And um we want to make sure that we're spending enough time with our family and doing them the the service that we want to do ourselves as far as um making sure we see our kids grow up and not missing out on that thing, you know, that one thing and you know, that one goal they made or you know, whatever it is we want to make sure. But at the same time, you have an obligation to your to the members on your team. And it's like, hey, I need to be there for them. I need to be uh at this property helping them, especially young agents, teaching them how to go look at places. So, so yeah, it's a juggling act for sure. As you well know, I mean, you're you're you've got uh you wear so many hats, I don't know there's a big enough hat rack.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Well, I talk about spinning plates. I always talk about a crane operator because I always picture them, you know, you're moving your foot, you're moving your hands, you're kind of going back and forth. I will go right into some of the questions too. If you think about 2026, 2025, what are you learning different that you know you you didn't, you know, 10 years ago you weren't learning? You know, before, like you said, you didn't have a team, you were an individual. Now what are you pushing yourself in?

From Selling A Company To Selling Land

SPEAKER_01 4:49

You know, my partner and I, when we started out 10 years ago together, he actually kind of got me in real estate, Chris Hinkle, and and Chris is one of the, you know, uh, gosh, I one of the great land guys that there ever was one. You know, my other partner, uh Daniel Short, another one. I mean, gosh, I couldn't be more blessed to have such good partners. I mean, those guys uh uh just do so well. And so 10 years ago, uh when I got into real estate, I got into real estate because I had sold a company that had nothing to do with real estate. Sold a company, and I was like, okay, what am I gonna do now? I'm not, you know, I'm too young to retire. I was 45 at the time. I'm gonna date myself, but I was 45 at the time. And um I was like, what am I gonna do? And so I went riding around with this guy that happened to be my partner now, Chris Hinkle, looking at land. I was going to buy land. I thought, man, I'm gonna buy and flip land. Uh I don't know anything about buying and flipping a house, but I'm gonna buy and flip land. You know, I'm what you're gonna buy. Well, I got into that, and the guy that was with me, a buddy's with me, he goes, Man, you would be great at this. You ought to look into doing this, you know, for something to do. And I was like, yeah, maybe. You know, I was kind of interested. Ride around in a buggy all day, show somebody property, hang out, and do this. How great is that? Of course, you know, you don't know all the stuff to do. But I was like, if I look back on it now and go, if I had done this thing then and for the next few years, how much better would I be now? Um I you know, I grew up in a small farming town in what we call East LA. It's you know, Southeast Arkansas, lower Arkansas, you know. So we didn't have to. Our LA hats today. We should have that's right, right? Flat bill. Um, but it's so I uh I grew up out in the country anyway. And I grew up farming uh, you know, in a farming community and hunting and fishing and all that stuff. And so it was just a natural thing for me to get into real estate with a well with a recreational type aspect to it. And um, you know, most of the, and people say, oh, well, you don't sell houses. Well, 80% of what we do has a house on it. So, you know, there's a housing, there's a residential component to a lot of it. But man, how great is it to be able to get out and just ride around. But if I knew the things, yeah, it's at least like all of us, right? Learn from your elders, if I could go back 10 years, what would I do different? There's probably five or 10 things I would do differently.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

We might roll right into that. What are some of those things? As you just mentioned, riding around in a buggy. Sometimes they that I heard someone say this. They said, Well, you dreamt about five years ago, you complain about today. Yeah. So, as you know, you know, you want to grow this big team, this big company. So I'm sure there's days you want to go back just to being the guy of the buggy. Uh, and you think about some of that stress and some of those. But what would you, you know, they say your your best poy is to teach yourself who you once were. So what are some of those things if you had to grab a couple of them?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Man, you know, I think one of it is one of those things is just keeping my database better. Uh, you know, from a sales standpoint, from you know I've been in sales all my life at, you know, with with different companies or doing different things, mostly uh my own company, you know, starting and and selling um some of my own companies. And but I think it's keeping a better database and keeping in touch with those people better than I ever had in the past. I think what we're all what we all do downfall is we don't we don't have enough touches with our customers, even with our past customers, you know, or they're always a client. If they're a client today, they're a client then. And if you sold them something or you helped them buy something, you didn't really sell them anything. Let me let me make sure that's clear. You don't sell anything, you help people buy what they want. You just show them here are the things, you know, here are the amenities.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

So if here's the data, here's the information, here's what I would do. I always say that, and I I hear you say it a lot too. Here's how I wear my, and it's probably helped you in your career too, because you've bought and sold many things. So, you know, you think about how much millions you're putting in other people's uh pockets all the time. Would you have, if you had to do it over again, would you be buying more property than you bought now? Or you feel like absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

I mean, you know, there's so many things. There's so many things that you look at and go, yeah. So, so back to the original thing I was planning to do, which is I'm gonna buy this, fix it up, and then flip it. So if you if you take the simple math, you can take houses, do the same thing. Whatever. You take the simple math and you go, okay, I'm gonna buy this piece of land. Well, let's make it, you know,$1,000 an acre. I'm gonna buy this piece of land for$1,000 an acre. And it's a hundred acres,$100,000 and we'll buy this piece of land. Now, it's okay land, it's not great, but I'm gonna put in, I don't know, let's say that I'm gonna put in um$50 an acre. But if I can put in$50 an acre and I can make that worth$100 an acre better, now I can turn around and sell that. Well, I just made money off of it. And all I did was take an asset I had and made it better and made it more fun. And I added, I'm, you know, I made 5% off of my investment in the whole time. I got to hunt it, I got to ride around on it, I got to play with it. Is that math right? Did I do math right?

Adding Value To Raw Land

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Well, I was safe for my audience in New York and LA and some of my friends in Tampa. They're like, what the hell is Jeff talking about? Yeah, how would I add value to land? What would that look like? Are you talking about trimming trees, landscaping, brush hogging? That's a good kind of thing. Yeah. Because I mean they're going, you know what? When I grew up in Miami, it's like you're on 0.17, you know, of an acre and you're touching your house next to you, you know, and they're like, wait a minute, this guy is driving around on thousand-acre properties. Hey, quick question on there. What's the largest piece of property you've ever been on, acreage-wise?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Um probably, you know, in all land differs. So me personally, the probably the biggest piece of land that I have sold is or been a part of uh is about 1,800 acres. Now, you talk to some of our friends, you know, in Texas, and they've got ranches that are 30,000 and 50,000 acres, and you know, it's just incredible uh how much land that is. In Arkansas and Missouri and Oklahoma, kind of where my in this little corner where where I live and work, 1,800 acres is quite a bit because you're up and down hills and you know, and not like Colorado Mountain, Rocky, you know, kind of stuff, but it's it's what we call the the Boston Mountains, the Ozark Mountains, you know. So it's it's up and down. There's a lot of terrain to it. So when you put together 1800 acres uh and you go take off and try to walk around 1800 acres in Arkansas, you got your you got your work cut out for you. So you better have a good Polaris Ranger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

It's got water, it's got, you know, some grazing, a little bit of everything. Somehow you must be feeding those to my Facebook. They're popping up all the time. 800 acres, 500 acres. I'm like, how cool would that be to own that? Be able to do whatever you want, drive whatever you want. Um a little bit to get to the grocery store, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

You know, so you know, it's so it, it's uh for somebody that that's not familiar with land, you know, look at it this way. You drive by, you're on the highway and you're driving by something and you see nothing but a ditch in trees. And all it is is a tree is a tree, right? For the most part. Everybody's thinking, oh my gosh, that's just a mess. That's a bunch of briars. If you can take a bulldozer, if you can take up and cut a path in there and make a trail, and if you've got 40 acres, so to give you the dimensions, this is an easy dimension. A 40 acre square is a quarter of a mile by quarter of a mile, quarter of a mile, you know, so forth. So think of quarter of a mile areas. So if you could take that 40 acres and you could put a bulldozer in there and for about oh$1,500 a day, maybe you're$4,500 into this 40 acres that you bought, you could make trails or you can make little areas for your kids to go and play. You can make a food plot for animals to come and eat, you know, the whatever. So, but you know, now all of a sudden you've fixed it. Right, right. You've taken, you've taken something that you can make better. So by doing that, you're adding value. Uh same thing with a house, right? You've got a house that's that's uh built in the 50s and it's you know it's falling apart, and now all of a sudden you need to do something to it. Unless you do something to it, it's not gonna add value. Well, that's how you add value to land is you make it more accessible, you make it better for the person that owns it.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

So that's awesome. I'm gonna I'm gonna go into something a little bit deeper for you, too. Uh-oh. What's one relationship you're most grateful for in your career?

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Um you know, there's a couple. I think there's two or three really. Um I think one of them is uh is Chris Hinkle. Uh I think that Chris, when I first started doing this, uh, he was really good about, hey, let me, you know, let me take you out and show you this. I'd like to say I'd been in sales all my life. So I'd been through all the courses and the sales and all that, and you know, and what to say and when to say it and how to say it and all that stuff. Chris was really good about showing me how you go show somebody land, how she go, how you go show somebody property. Uh it would be much similar, much it's the same way if I if I were, if Cody, your wife, were showing me how to go show a luxury house. You know, hey, here's what you do, here's what you say, here's how you put the promotion together. So I would really heavily lean on Cody if I were brand new and and wanting to know how to do that.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

So I think Chris Armous audience, I didn't have him plugged that up. So Cody, if you ever listen, she's like, I don't listen to your podcast. She needs to because we're bragging on our show, right?

Big Acreage Stories And Terrain Reality

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Cody's Cody's fantastic makes it happen. I think another relationship though is, and and um, and I'm almost hesitant to say this because we're sitting in the same room, but it's it's it's you, uh, it's Mike, it's Mike Dooley, because you've had have helped me see things in a different light than I saw for seven years. And uh, and then when we met when I started my own independent group out of a franchise I was in, you know, you kept saying, hey, you need to look at Keller Williams, you need to look at this, you need to, you know, what about this? What about that? And so I'm hard-headed. You know, it took me three years to kind of let it sink in, but it it it finally did. And I really, I really appreciate the the insight, the guidance, and the the coaching really that you have had with me.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

No, it's it's it thank you for that. As you know, we learn together and we're partners together. You're finding gaps that you have in your business. I know nothing about land. You know, you think about you sold a lot of companies before. I have not sold companies before. I've had companies I've dissolved before. I wish I would have sold them. Maybe I could have made a penny and told my wife I made a penny profit. But you know, I was thinking about too, you talked about what other relationships outside business are important to you. You talked about family was important, you know, and I know you're gonna go into a little bit of your personal brand and marketing, but we'll start with some relationships you think outside business that are important. If anyone's listening and they're they're you know starting new, or maybe they're in a rut, they're in a place they want to, you know, double or triple their business, what should they be thinking about?

Relationships That Shape A Career

SPEAKER_01 15:36

And I'm gonna always lean this towards sales because that's what I, you know, that's what I've been in and what I know. So I was listening to something just this morning, and one of the things that it it commented this guy, Jim Rifus, as you're very familiar with. Uh so um make sure we plug him too, right? Right, great coach, Jim. Jim, we know he's gonna listen to our show. Yeah, he has to, right? I think he gets paid to. Yeah, he's he's a good dude. So I was listening to something that he had I had a call a year or so ago, and one of the things that stuck out was lead generation. And the lead generation is uh two percent of the people buy or with uh two percent of the people buy with one contact. With one contact. So how many people pick up a phone, make a phone call, make a contact, talk to somebody one time and they don't want to buy? Okay, well, I'm done with that person, I'm gonna hold to the next one. Two percent. So it takes five to twelve times to contact somebody before they're going to make um that you're gonna make that sell, you're gonna get that that relationship to where it goes somewhere. So five to twelve, how many of us touch somebody five to twelve times intentionally with the idea that I want to help you do this thing, whether it's buying a car, buying a piece of land, buying a house, whatever it is, five to twelve, that's a big number. So what that made me start thinking about is my database, my database, you know, you pick up your phone, and I know you've got a gazillion people in your phone, but I pick up my phone and I look at it, and there's like 3,200 contacts I've had over the life of my my phone, right? Uh so how many times am I touching those are the am I touching those people enough? Uh am I just letting them know what I do? You know, so if I'm not doing that five to 12 times on a regular periodic basis, then they don't even know what I do. They don't even know that I'm involved in helping buy helping somebody buy a house over here at Pinnacle Country Club or helping somebody buy a piece of land outside of town. They don't have any idea. So I am not doing that. So I think one of the biggest things I would do if I were starting over is I would hire not a marketing person, not a not an assistant, as much as I would hire a database manager and and make sure that my database was being touched all the time. Emails, text, uh, AI, you know, AI now, AI phone calls, you know, things that would just touch them. And then having a way for them to respond to me, a call to action, and then having that ability for me to go, hey, I want to touch you. I want to touch you, you want to touch me. Let's talk. Let's talk. You know, somehow that interaction has to happen. So I think the database manager in my mind uh is super important from day one.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I'd triple that if I started over again and February is going to be my 10th year anniversary of having my license, which is crazy. Same thing if I did today, and I'm not even scratching the surface, I feel like today, but 10 years ago, if I would have communicated with my database, I think a lot of listeners are going to be driving or, you know, running or, you know, rucking and they're going to hear lead generation. I think some of them they're going to glaze over and their eyes are going to roll, you know, which I even do too. One thing I would say if you're doing it, having fun. And that's one thing that I love about you too, is like you're doing the things you like doing, whether it's hunting or being on the lake or recreation, you're getting paid for that as a service. So anything, anyone listening, I would say, if you hate hunting, well, then don't be selling hunting land, right? You know, if you hate luxury properties, you don't know anything about it, well, don't do that. But if you enjoy investment, this is one thing I did not know 10 years ago that I know today. And maybe I'd like to ask you, how many ways you can actually make revenue or make income from real estate? I think a lot of times people just see Phil Dumfey, you know, and they say, hey, I'm putting a sign in the art, selling a house. I mean, if you think about it in your organization, your company, how many different ways are you guys selling? From farmland to lake property to luxury property, how many different transactions? There's got to be 10 or 20 if you look at your team, right? And that's why someone should build a team is to have that, I would say, mutual fund, right? What mutual funds do? They don't invest 100% of their money in Apple, even though it might be working, they're diversifying.

Database Discipline And Five-To-Twelve Touches

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Yeah. I I I think that that would be um, you know, having your, like you said, having your tribe, having your people, having somebody that can help you. If if you can help them achieve their goals, they can help you achieve your goals.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

And and that's the what was the uh the the one of the Dale Carnegie, you know, things is help enough people accomplish their goals or something like that, help your or something like that. We need we get this together. Maybe the show notes could help us out on the bottom, right? So that's right. The good thing of AI and technology.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Uh no, I I I'm I am a firm believer in helping other people. Um if you help them get what they want, you will get what you want. I think that's the deal.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah. Well, and you said it. This is not selling. This is this is what I love about this business. It's really someone has a need if you're that expert to provide that need. But your database needs to know that too. So people think about database. To me, your database is your Facebook, your Instagram, your LinkedIn, all those things are people that have either worked with you in their past or trusted or loved you. So you communicate enough of what you do. And I see this enough too. I'm going to go into branding and marketing and social media. They talk about now, if I did a post today, I have 5,000 people on my Facebook, which is not that much. I mean, you you have relatives that have millions, but you know, if you look at it too, they say only one or two percent of the people actually saw my post today. So as you look at this new transition for you guys and growing your organization, what are you doing different in social media and marketing?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

You know, that's been a hot topic around my house, uh, especially here here lately, uh, as you know. So I uh Christy Hurley, my wife, uh is uh a social media influencer, uh manager of talent. And she does all she's you know, all these things, life coaching. I mean, she's got all these things going on. So when we have these conversations uh about how do you do this, she says, Jeff, be careful. You're not an influencer. You have to be careful. There's a difference in influencing and marketing your, you know, to for your brand. You know, you need brand marketing. You need to do this. So we want people, I want people to know that when they look, Up and they see me, they go, that guy is the guy that can help me figure out this on this land. Not that, hey, buy this water. You know, it's that is not me. So uh and it shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

We need to talk to Aquafine, isn't that Pepsi? I think so that when you'd done with a sponsor.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

So I I think it's a uh of it's more of your brand awareness that you're trying to get across. You're trying to, you know, through social media. I think that's important, uh, but I don't think it should be knocking that door down, uh, you know, hammering it all the time. I sell this, I've got land, I got blah, blah, blah, you know, because people can go numb to it. And if they go numb to it, that's how people go unfollow, unfollow, unfollow. And all of a sudden, all you've got are people that are not looking at it anyway. I mean, so from a brand perspective, I just want people to know what I do, but I want them to know it on an ongoing basis because this goes back to the touches. How many times do I need to touch somebody because everybody has a short memory? We live in a microwave society. And that microwave society says that if you, the next person that comes around the corner, I want them to see, hey, I appreciate you bringing that to my attention, but I got the best guy. Jeff Clipton's down the corner. He's gonna, he's gonna do this for me. He's he's he's the best at what he does. That's what I want people to read.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

No, that's awesome. And you know, I've been thinking about this too. We're in the time of 2026 planning right now. And I ask a lot of people and they say, How many deals do you want to do? And I start to tell them who's their avatar. So who do they like doing business with? So you, you know, you think about it, you think about your dream. You want to work with every client, but you think about the last several years and you just go, oh, I had fun with that couple. They let they trusted me to be a professional. They they chose what I what I recommended to them. Those are the best clients. I'm gonna change gears on you again and throw another little question at you. You got me curveballs. I do, I do like baseball. What how do you measure success beyond just transactions and sales volume?

Brand Marketing vs Influencing

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Okay, so I I tell my kids, I've told my kids this since day one. If you are measuring success with a dollar sign, you are measuring it wrong. You will never be happy. You will never be able to have enough dollars. So one of the things that I don't measure success by uh is dollar signs. Uh now, don't get me wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

It makes it a little bit easier to go on your trip to wherever, Florida, wherever you're going.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

That's right. It's a balance. It's a balance. I need to have the dollar signs, you know, and I need to have the the bank account to be able to go and do pay for my hobbies to do what I want to do, right? So um I think for um uh how do I measure success? Um I think for me, I'm a people pleaser. At the end of the day, I'm a people pleaser, you know, to a fault sometimes. Uh so I think for me, it's more about when somebody calls and says, uh, hey man, you know, like I said, and it's this is not for everybody, but it's hey, I was out on my farm and I saw this this animal or saw this deer or this, you know, turkey or whatever it is, whatever they saw, or did this thing. I took my kids out and we did this thing on the farm or on the ranch or you know, on my two acres I've got outside of whatever it is. That is a measurement of success for me. It made them happy and they felt so good about it that they called, they thought to call me or send me a text and said, man, I love my new house. I just, you know, I've got a guy I I was visiting with yesterday. He bought a lot down in downtown Bentonville, which, as you know, is is hot area. And and you got you got any more of those? Oh, almost finished building. So he's he was telling me about it last night. He's walking, you know, and and that's when you see the you know it's almost like a grandparent with a newborn, new grandbaby, right? You know, you see the gleam in their eyes, like, man, it's so close. Y'all see this, y'all see that. So that to me means I was successful in helping them get what they wanted, and that makes me happy.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

And I just say, too, you talked about it. We're learning, you know, we're both, I'm about to be in my 50s, and you think about it, it's fun if we had to tell our kids do something they love to do, you know, if they can make a good uh income and a good living, have their, you know, their entertainment, their sports, their fun, and enjoy family and enjoy traveling is big, you know. I would change, change, throw another little curveball at you too. So building a team, if some of the people are, you know, are building a company or building some things, you talk about database management, that was important. What else do you think is really important in building a team or a new organization that you guys are tweaking all the time? I know one of the things you're interviewing for director of sales or other roles potentially that come in. So it sounds like leadership and training and coaching is important.

Ideal Clients, Diversified Revenue, And Teams

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah, I think to start off to build a team, you know, the the first part you there's a there's a you know, I'm not telling you anything you don't know, we'll we'll tell it for our listeners, but you know, for the for the the millionaire real estate agent, the book, there's a model, and you know, and Gary Keller's done such a great job with so many things, right? You know, an incredible guy. I I hope I get the opportunity to meet him someday. But as he's put this model together and said, okay, follow this path, follow this model, here's the playbook. You know, just do this thing. And if you follow this, you don't have to follow it to a T, but if you follow this and you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna do well. And so we have kind of, since we've come over to Keller Williams, and uh we've kind of taken that mindset of, you know what, uh we still try to do it on our own for the first two or three months we've been here. We've been here, what, six months? And then we're like, okay, it's proven model. Let's do it. Let's follow it. So that's where we're at we are now. We are trying to follow the modeling back to when you're busy enough, you'll know it. When you're busy enough, you need to bring people in, bring an assistant in. When you're busy enough, bring that uh bring a buyer's agent in so they can help you go show that property because you can only be so many places at so many times, right? You know, you uh you want to be able to help others, but they will help you. So I think building a team for me is following that model and just going, okay, I'm busy, I need help. I'm busier, I need more help. And so I think building that team is very uh it's very important to know when you need that help and even setting that up ahead of time and knowing, seeing in advance, okay, I know March is coming. I'm planning on being smoking busy by March. So I better prepare for that today, not in March.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

I and I have a coach, Gene, he says this all the time. You're missing a person, a system, or a tool. So we just said you're kind of hit a ceiling. It's like, okay, now I need a showing partner. Okay, I'm hitting our ceiling. AI, yeah, I would love to get into that. Are you, you know, and AI is such a broad term, I think, you know. Is there some things that you're thinking about your organization that our listeners, you know, a tool or a system in AI that you started to use that you love and you're starting to see relief uh in your organization from?

Models, Hiring, And When To Add Help

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah, you know, I we have started tinkering with some of the things AI, like we even had a software system that would um, as we were doing marketing, and it would, as you called in or you it literally would talk to you and it would uh as it's you know, visiting with you, you didn't know it wasn't AI. And so it would talk to you. It wasn't the right setup and system for us for what we did, and so we kind of had to can it, but I think it's I think there's a good opportunity for it. It's just wasn't quite right for us. Uh so we've we are working with other aspects of it. You know, I use AI all the time, I uh, you know, for uh things that I never thought I'd use it before, you know. I I took my tax, I took a bunch of spreadsheets and put it in there one day and you know was like, okay, tell me all the things that are tax deductible and give me the percentages. Now, it's all about the prompts and how you prompt it and all this. And I was like, and of course it spits something out, you know, about 30 seconds. I'm like, you have got to be kidding me. So I try to think of ways that I might be able to use it. One of them, as you mentioned, is a client avatar. Here's what I like to do. Here's what I'm I'm good at, here's what I'm not good at, here's what I think I want my customers to look like, my clients to look like. Can you give me an avatar and tell me what that person is? Okay, now that you've done that, can you tell me where they live and what type of marketing I can do? So you you know it's own and own and own. So I think, I mean, what a great time.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

I'm I'm a lot, I know a lot of people are scared about it. I'm embracing it to your point. Social media posts. One of the ways I'm continuing to use it too is I think I know all the things about marketing and listing. You know, real estate has been around hundreds of years, but I really use it sometimes that comes up with an idea or something I didn't think of to help me think a little bit differently. And I heard a speaker say this one time use AI in this way. 20% is about your prompts. So the first 20% take time to get those prompts. So ask it the right questions. 60%, it does the work. Then the other 20, you implement what you learn from there. So that's really a good way to look at AI. I can't take credit for that, but I like that perception because you're not letting, if you say, tell me the favorite restaurants in the world. Well, as you know, you go down and it only has seven sources, it's only going to pull from certain places. So I think that's something important if you think of like AI. And I know we use that term broadly, it can mean so many different things, but I know you guys are even using a VA, a virtual assistant for some of your marketing. Is that something you ever would have fathomed five years ago? Oh my gosh, no, are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

We've got two. Uh, you know, they they're in the Philippines, which, you know, we have a call with them once a week, but the best thing in the world, oh my gosh, let me tell you something. If you're starting out in real estate, I don't care what you're starting out in. I was talking to somebody yesterday about, you know, they're not in real estate. And I was like, you really need to look into this. I mean, I send a text and go, hey, pull these comps, pull this, do that, whatever, send a text to them, email to them, what and and it comes back as I'm driving before I can ever get someplace. And, you know, it is great to have that type of assistant uh at your fingertips. And and the value, the value for the dollar is absurd.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Well, the book, if you have not read this, and I highly recommend to our listener buy back your time. And he says this all the time. He says 80% done, or excuse me, 100%, 80% done by someone else is 100% done. So you think about that. Can the VA get it to 90% or 95%? And then you make a few tweaks. What's your time, your dollar per hour activities? The VA can't take, you know, a multi-million dollar doctor on a hunting trip or say, hey, you should buy this land, but you can. Yeah. So if you think about your time and think about that volume, just going into another question, what other ways are you using leverage currently that maybe you weren't using two or three years ago?

Practical AI, Avatars, And Virtual Assistants

SPEAKER_01 32:46

If you look at your organization, um, you know, we are uh as we just did this morning, we are actively pursuing a um, I'm not quite sure what the name of it is gonna be. It's either, it's not really director of sales, because I I don't need somebody to teach our salespeople. That's what Daniel Chris and I do, uh, but it's operations, director of operations. That's probably where we're gonna land on the on the term, but it's really database management. So it goes back to what we talked about early on is database management and and making sure that we're getting those touches out. So using leveraging, I say using, I sometimes it kind of the connotation is not right, but leveraging that person uh to drive traffic back to us, you know, being proactive so that it is reactive is where we are trying to get it.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Um, well, you said the millionaire real estate agent book, you mentioned that. Gary Keller says 6% of your database is going to convert every year. So, to your point, if you added all three of your partners together, you said you had 3,300 contacts, say together you got 10,000 contacts. What 600 deals are happening every year with or without you? So, how do you get in front of those people? And you kind of talked about if you touch them five to seven times, that conversion that opens up, what's that revenue? If you look at your average commission, it's about$10,000. Not that I wanted you to hit me in this room or anything, you know, but look at the income opportunity that you have. And to your point about leverage, well, that's more jobs that you can provide. So I know we talk about AI, people go, my job's gonna be replaced. I think it's just gonna be different. You're gonna be in a different job or different role the way you you're utilized. Uh, you talked about coach or operations. So this sounds like this person's gonna be, if you know anybody looking, right? Uh this person could be remote, but for the most part, you want to be live in northwest Arkansas, correct?

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yeah. Ideally, they they would we would be able to sit down and work on things together. Because there are some, there, there are few, but there are some disadvantages to having a virtual assistant. Um, you know, there are things that you want to be able to sit in a room and and work on together. But AI is, if you're not, if you're not grasping AI, uh, I think you are you are behind the ball and you are missing out. It is it is going to be and it already is as important as anything that you that you any tool that you could use. It is, it is the the iPhone in 2007. It is uh it is here to I don't think it's it's not going to change.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Grab it and start using for sure. You talking about you had a planning meeting today, you guys are doing 20, 26. What's kind of your cadence for your leadership team? So somebody starting a real estate company or a team or a brokerage, do you guys have the same cadence every week, month? What's kind of your system for that? Ask that again. I'm not sure. Yeah. So so do you have a leadership meeting is every Thursday, a weekly sales meeting, a training? What does that look like as a cadence?

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Yeah, so we have a every Monday at 8:30, um, we have a sales meeting. And and you know, we're all contract labor, so we don't obviously require anybody to be there unless, of course, we're your salary. Should have said we're not uh we're not uh CPAs, we're not lawyers, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Take the advice, right? This is this is us, yeah.

Leverage And An Operations Hire

SPEAKER_01 36:07

So um we have a sales meeting every s every Monday. Uh we expect our people to be involved. We talk about um you know where we are, some things that might happen in the market. We talk about things that are um, you know, fails, you know, and and usually it's you know, I straight at me, you know, here's what I did last week that didn't work. And this, you know, I want you to learn from my mistake. Always learn from my mistakes. Uh so we we have a sales meeting uh and then about once a week, a lot of times right after that meeting, have a meeting with our virtual assistants. We have a Zoom call with them. Uh like I said, they're in the Philippines, so this is the easiest way to interact and get, you know, here's what we want to have happen this week. Uh what happened last week? Did we get these things accomplished? Let's make sure these things happen this week. And then we have, then we get together with uh Daniel, Chris, and I. We'll sit down and we'll go through things and say, okay, where do we stand? What's happened? You know, are we on track for this? And and just kind of follow up with each other. Um and um so that's Mondays are Monday mornings kind of kicks off the week. Yeah, and that's why we do it on Monday mornings, is because if we started doing that on Thursdays or Fridays, uh mercy, you know, travel things get scattered.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Solidays happen for sure. I know on our team we're doing it on Tuesdays, we're following the EOS model from traction to book. So it's an L10 meeting, kind of your leadership meeting. But I was I just want the people to know quite sure what that is, but it sounds good. It sounds really good. I just don't know what that is. Highly recommend if you guys haven't the book traction, which is uh EOS, which is entrepreneur operating system. To your point, we're all kind of entrepreneurs, and if you don't have framework or system, which I love that starts at 8:30, I hear a lot of real estate people starting at nine or nine thirty. Well, your organization is already gaining an hour every day on other teams and competing. And I want our audience to know you guys have a goal of over$100 million in volume in 2026. So they know the level of business that you guys have, which is huge. Uh, that's just uh, you know, if you look at top 1% in real estate business. So I know you're busy and got a lot going on. What are you planning in 2026? Either personal, professional, you know, we talked about over$100 million in volume. Do you have an agent count goal or transaction goal? What are some of the metrics you're looking at?

Cadence: Meetings, VAs, And Accountability

SPEAKER_01 38:23

So as we were going through the numbers this morning, you know, as you're looking at that, we're we put our numbers to a point to where you you at first look at it and go, there is no way in this world I'm gonna make that. There is no way we can get there. And um, and then you start breaking it down, you know, let's let piece by piece, you know, to the month, to the week, to the hour, you know, let's if we're gonna sell this hundred acres, uh, you know, let's break it down to how we're gonna do it. Let's, let's, let's get it right. So we're in that process now of how do we, how many agents do we need to get there? Right now, if we take our average, you know, we take our average sale, we take our average commission off those sales, we you know, and start looking at it and go, okay, we've got to have X amount. The biggest thing for us is I I take the net income. Uh, I start at the bottom. You know, you know, I've I've always heard if you're gonna sell something to somebody, if you need to get into a company and do this, you start at the top, work your way down, but start with the president. You know, if he tells you to go see the vice president, then okay, if you have to. So I do just the opposite. I kind of, I guess in a sense I'm doing that, but we start at our net income and go, all right, I want our net income to be here. In five years, I want it to be here. And I want to be, I don't want to be doing deals unless Mike Dooley calls me and says, hey Jeff, can we go look at this land? Yes, absolutely. I don't want to be involved in the day-to-day me going to show properties and soliciting businesses. I don't want to do that in five years. In three years, there's a there's a percentage of that I want to do. In one year, I'm still doing it and I still enjoy it and I really like it. So I keep wanting to do it, but in order to get our team to where we want to be, I'm gonna have to continue to do that. By the month, I break it down by the week, by the day. How many do I have to have? So it is, it comes down to you know, the the old adage, eating the elephant one bite at a time. So I want to make sure, and who really would eat an elephant? You know, now that you think I don't know where that's some Tabasco, maybe some barbecue sauce on there. But but that's kind of where we are right now is going, how many people, what do we need to do? Goes all the way back to the database. Um, just like you said, here's the percentages that convert. And it kind of makes me nervous when you said that. I was like, 600.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Wow, man, I got it. Well, it just tells you, you know, and Gary Keller and J Papazon say it's in the math. So I know what you're just talking about for some of our listeners, they call it goal setting to the now. So you're going five years out, three years out, one year out, you're chunking it down. And that's kind of what JPapazan talks about in the one thing is goal setting to the now. So I love this too. Jordan Freed, another great coach, he talks about your 10-year letter. So our 10 years from now, and then you work backwards. So I know Cody wants her toes in the sand. Well, one of the things that I need to do is I need to have my Florida license. So I have my Florida license. Well, how do you sell houses there 20% of the time? How do you have a beach house and work backwards? So that's that goal setting to the now. I love you did that. So for our listeners, one thing you can do right now is they can stop at their car or they're running or doing whatever, take a break in this podcast, and go ahead and write down 10 things that they want to do 10 years from now. And that's what you exactly just explained is how many agents do I need to have my net income? So, as an example, for our team, say we're doing 3.5 million gross commission income. The gross is about a 22% profit margin business. That's your net profit. So it's cool when you kind of look at that, you look at math. That's one thing I never thought when I got into real estate, I was gonna have to do a lot of math, right? If you had a big, if you want to have a big business, you need to do that because a lot of people are just selling and they look at their volume and their gross, they're not looking at what they're keeping in their net income, you know?

Big Goals, Net First, And Backward Planning

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Well, it and as you said something, it made me think. So one of the things that the guys and I went through this last week is as we're setting our five threes in ones and uh back to Jim Rifels, you know, going, all right, need you guys to do this, you know. So um we sit, we put these down and and for me, it was it's the why. You know, why do I want to not be doing this? Well, and I started thinking about it, it's like, what is the why do I want to make that much money? Why do I want to do these things? Why do I want to have that? And some of it is I want the people around, I want to be able to go see when I have them. You know, I've got one, but I want to go see the grandkids, wherever they might be. You know, I don't know that, but what I do know is how cool I want to go scuba diving in Costa Rica and in the Bahamas, and I want to go to Turks and scuba dive there again. I want, you know, there are things that I want to do at this point, and I want to be able to have the freedom to do that and not, you know, how a lot of times we leave, all of us, I think all of us, maybe it's just me. You leave and go, all right, I'm gonna go on vacation for a week. Well, you don't really. Right. You know, you don't ever leave. You just enter in a different place. And then when you come back, you have to do, you do twice as much before you leave and twice as much when you get back. So really, you didn't leave, you just put it in a different time spot.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Well, you were just talking, I was smiling. That's what I love about the real estate industry, though. We have no ceiling on income that we can make. It's all about our time and our brain, what we're reading, who we have in our organization, our leverage. And then we do have uh flexibility of our schedule, which I love. I I know you've been in a lot of other industries. This is one of the best industries in the world. Yeah, you know, I I think it is the one of the best.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

I wish I would have done this when I was right out of college. I and I did have a buddy that did this right out of college. One of my fraternity brothers did this, and and um and I called him not too long ago. I hadn't talked to him in a while, called him and I was like, uh uh Reed Weaver, hey Reed, I need I've got somebody in Conway, Arkansas. You know, can I refer you to this? He goes, Man, I gotta tell you, I quit selling. In real estate, a while back. I was like, What? What are you doing now? He goes, Well, I just have like 25 properties and I just kind of manage the properties and they pay me a good income. They're all paid for. And I was like, God, you're 50 years old. I said, This is fantastic. Good for you. And he goes, He goes, Yeah, here I hook you with somebody else. You know, so he he used his time. I wish I would have done that at you know, at the time when Reed did that, we're like, You're gonna be a real estate agent? Are you kidding me? So but it was great. And you know, the only thing our inventory is our time, right? As an as a real estate agent is time. So how do you use your inventory the best? Walmart has inventory all over the shelves, right? They want to move it, they want to keep it moving all the time. Our inventory is our time. So how do I maximize my inventory and how do I minimize the time involved in something when I want to maximize it with my family? And I want to go, you know, Christy and I want to take a trip to go see one of our kids somewhere where they're at, you know, wherever if they're in college or wherever our grandkids.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

You talked about it. If you look at it in this industry, read, which congratulations to him. That's awesome. That's what we all aspire to do. But I had a mentor and a coach say 25 properties at 400,000. Basically, the math it kicks out a$1 million a year. Who wouldn't want to live on that? So if I had to tell anyone listening, one thing I would have done coming up on my 10 year, I would have bought more property. And then they talk about insider training. We're one of the only industries where it's actually like promoted and they want real estate people to buy more. You know, the stock market, you obviously would be arrested for doing that. Yeah. So how great is that? You know, how how many times do you drive by? I know I do a property. I was like, should have bought that, should have bought that, should have bought that. Thought it was too expensive. Now you're seeing prices and appreciation the way they are now. As we wrap up these last couple minutes, what do you want the audience to know about you we didn't talk about, or your team, or your company? Maybe even what book are you reading or what podcast are you doing right now? Obviously, the real Mike Dooley. Thank you for listening and joining and subscribing. But what else are you doing these days to educate yourself?

SPEAKER_01 46:01

I listen to like I drive a lot. Um, you know, a lot of real estate agents do. And so I'll try to pop in something. And so uh I'm constantly going back to the MRA uh M R E A book, and I'm uh listen to that. I I've been listening to this book, uh reading a book called Winning. Uh if you're familiar with Type of Jordan's coach. Uh yeah. Uh what is it? Tim Tim Grover. Tim Grover, yep. Uh and I'm I'm reading that one and listening to his book called Relentless. Yes. Uh both of them, phenomenal. So always trying to, you know, and it's one of those things I've learned that I can't do at night. Like I can't lay in bed and read this book because what happens is I get amped up. I'm like, man, I'm you know, I'm I'm ready to run through the wall now. You know, I'm ready to go. So I I I do that. I I those are the books that I've I'm involved in right now. I've got a couple of them on the hit list next. Uh as you mentioned, traction is one of them. Uh so uh that's that's kind of where uh my reading level is right now.

Time As Inventory And Owning More Property

SPEAKER_00 46:56

And yeah, I would recommend, I might have told you this before, but my first million. I love the work they do. I awesome show, great podcast, highly recommend. Really good things. The One Thing podcast is really good. Jay always has some awesome people. I want to make sure, too, this would not happen without our sponsor. Want to thank uh Mutual Omaha Mortgage. Thank you so much for sponsoring us as we keep the show going. Our goal for you guys is to keep bringing leadership, talent, great people like Jeff. Once a week, we'll keep dropping episodes, but it's gonna be a lot of fun. Jeff, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. What a blast! Hour went by like that, you know. So it's crazy. So thanks so much, guys. We appreciate you listening to the real Mike Dooley. See you later. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for listening to the Real Mike Dooley podcast. Subscribe, share, stay real. I'm Mike Dooley. Until next time,