Episode 3: The Rainmaker Blueprint

In this episode of One-on-One with Awesome One, KT Temple sits down with team leader Erin Leff to break down the real blueprint behind building a thriving real estate team. From mastering emotional intelligence to creating a culture people actually want to be part of, Erin shares powerful insights on leadership, scaling, and staying profitable in any market.

If you’re thinking about building a team or leveling up your business, this is the conversation you don’t want to miss. 🚀

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome back to One on One with Awesome One. I'm your host, KT Temple, and we have another incredible guest from our leadership group. We have Erin Leff on the podcast. Thank you for coming on. Woohoo!

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hi, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Erin is our star millennial team leader. Uh, and she has come on today to talk about how she helps other real estate agents build teams. And it's it's, you know, one of the most important things that I think we have here at Keller Williams is the opportunity to really build a business within uh our infrastructure. And Erin has had a lot of experience doing that. And we have a new event coming up, Agent to Empire, which I think is really the antithesis of building out a big team within Keller Williams. So I wanted to come on, but before we talk about that, Aaron, just tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

So um I um hi, my name's Aaron. I am team leader for the Northwest Market Center. I also own my own personal team. Um, and my trajectory up to this point and something that I'm incredibly passionate about is building organizations that have great culture and a great environment where people can actually be productive and they're excited to be there. And so um I previously worked for Lifetime Fitness in Club Recovery and building sales teams for them, and then I moved that into real estate and I've had the opportunity to build several teams um and rewrite their environments as I stepped into leadership uh through that. So um that is really the thing I am actually the most passionate about. It gets me excited to learn about people and figure out how to help them be successful.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I know me and Aaron really connected because our spouses are cooler than us, but um no, we pull through. So all right, let's get started. So, what defines the DNA of a rainmaker and how do they cultivate a win-at-all-cost culture?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So I think this is gonna be edited, right? We can edit this.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah, we can edit this. Pretend like it's not though.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know. Uh, can you ask the question again? Because I missed the back part of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

You're not very loud on my side. I don't know how to make you louder.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

I'm not very loud.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

There we go. Is that a little bit better?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Perfect. So, what defines the DNA of a rainmaker and how do they cultivate a win-at-all-cost culture?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

So, I think the DNA uh of a rainmaker is somebody who is incredibly emotionally in tune. And I don't think that most people would think that that's really the best place to start. But if you don't know how to connect and read the people that you're going to be bringing into your organization, or uh maybe you're a little bit more on the high D side of things and warmth is not something that uh you usually consider. I actually really start there. The Rainmakers who do the best, in my opinion, are the people who are emotionally connected to their people. And sometimes that can lead us down roads that may hurt our feelings, but that is part of building an organization and getting into business with people. They want to know that you actually care and that you're gonna be invested in their success in the same way they're joining your organization and investing in yours. And I really believe that the it starts there inside of those relationships. The win at all costs has to come on the other side of their love tanks being full. Otherwise, it just simply feels transactional. And then that becomes really hard to build something meaningful from. So I would start with emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So, what specific strategies does the rainmaker use to command the market and ensure the pipeline stays flooded, regardless of economic shifts?

SPEAKER_00 3:47

So this was something uh important that I learned in uh leading teams, being a director of sales, and then I was president for a large organization that hosted 65 agents inside of it. And we were, I mean, we were in the thick of it when the market actually started to shift. And the first thing that I would say is visibility on the numbers. It was something that we talked about every day, and we were in a place with our leadership team where we could talk about the numbers, but we saw that shift coming. I mean, we went from setting a really crazy amount of appointments with the Legion methods that we were having, and then all of a sudden it just took a nosedive. And it wasn't because we didn't have talented people on the team, and it wasn't because our ISA department wasn't actually working, it was truly a change in the market. And so it was important, it was really important at that moment to shift to things um that were working a little bit better, and that really became the in-person stuff: events, open houses, things that got our people eyeball to eyeball and built trust a little easier. And so um it's really keeping like your thumb on the heartbeat of what is actually coming into your organization. And it's also incredibly important at that point to make sure that your team doesn't necessarily feel like they're failing and they understand, hey, we can get better here, but this isn't necessarily a reflection of how talented we are. This is the market of the moment, and we need to figure out how to win and shift inside of it. And so it may be looking at other Legion sources um or other opportunities. Um, and yeah, when that when that give me give me business kind of went away, it became it did become really challenging. And there were definitely agents who decided to opt out. And at that point, it can totally change the culture of your organization. So you just want to be careful of that, but don't ever leverage keeping your eyeballs as the rainmaker on it. Keep your thumb on it, know your numbers, and make sure that you're monitoring your expenses at that point because it could really get out ahead of you if you're not paying attention.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah, I'm making sure that I'm glad we finally got past that hangover of the COVID era of real estate because it really did it made us a lot of us lazy. Like we were so used to just like, I mean, you could have a pulse and sell a house for a little bit, and then suddenly we had to try again. And we were like, oh no, we we got to get back in the gym, basically. Like we got to go back and do those reps again, like we used to. And I think it's so important to remind people that you can only figure these things out if you're tracking your sources. You know, where are these leads coming from? What is working, what's not working? If you're not tracking that, you're just kind of you know grinding your gears until you eventually fall out.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Yeah, and I know some of the, especially some of the larger teams got caught in the pitfalls of being in significant contracts with other third-party vendors, they're paying a lot of money for leads. It became really challenging during that time period to pull out of some of those, and or then they had the aha that maybe this wasn't the smartest decision. And I believe that during that shift, there was a lot of things learned. There was a lot of lessons during that time period, which is why the faster that you can understand what the crux of the problem is, uh, the faster that you're gonna be able to triage and make sure that you're making the right decisions. But if you're not, again, if you're not looking at it or you have that leveraged out to somebody else and you're expecting somebody else to care about it the same way that you would as the rainmaker, that's just simply not true. It's not their business, right? And so it was a challenge to figure out how do I continue to still provide value while scaling back on some of these things that didn't make sense for ROI anymore.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

So, how do top-tier rainmakers leverage their personal brand to attract? I wrote whales here and open up doors that remain closed to everyone. You can you can tell when I get gamer brain sometime when I start writing whales in my questions. So, how do we attract people?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

So, inside of that, I think that emotional intelligence part is is again, I just want to bring that back to the forefront. But the other part of this is that if you're an attractor to your clients, you're also gonna be an attractor to agents. If you are an energy that somebody wants to be around, um, I think that that's actually one of the most underlooked and most powerful pieces to building an organization and starting to find leverage for your own business. Um, so for example, if you put yourself out there and you have a business that you're really, really proud of, branding that you're excited about, a mission that you're excited about, and you know why you're in business and you're able to explain that, people who are like you that will connect to that mission, they're automatically going to reach out to you. And yes, do we always need to be recruiting? Of course, but it typically starts in a more natural, organic way because of who you are and how you're putting yourself out there. And so I always tell anybody who's looking to launch a team, I always sit them down and go, okay, what's our mission, vision, values? Why do you work so hard? Why are you in business? And let's exploit the heck out of that because that's really where it actually starts. And if we can nail that, then we're gonna attract the right avatar inside of your business versus trying to go at it just to get humans on board. It doesn't, it's it may work for a minute, but it's not actually gonna be sustainable or anything that people feel really connected to long term.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

So we didn't talk about this question, but it just came to mind. So to stop me if I'm throwing you off course. When do you tell people it's not the right time to be building a team? Like you've got you've got some stuff you got to work on first.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

If I if number one, it what they were chasing it simply just for the money, because the the money can kind of come and it it and it'll go too if we don't establish it correctly. And so it's important that that human being is really passionate about other human beings. If they're really in it for the money, then that's not gonna make sense. And I I stop them and I say, hey, we need to find a deeper meaning here before we actually launch an organization. Um, the other part to that too is that if they're already overwhelmed and they have struggled in creating leverage sources for themselves previously, it also may not be the right time to leverage a team. They're probably gonna need an admin first or show proof that they've been able to scale their business because they went and got some piece of leverage inside of their organization. So we usually start there. Um, and then after that, we go, okay, what kind of person do you want in your business? Are they actually directly leverage for you? And is it a buyer's agent or a listing agent or showing assistant or something like that? Um, but really it's important that we lay a strong foundation to make sure that they understand what actual leverage looks like because otherwise it will be very, very overwhelming to bring another human that you are now responsible for into your world and not actually have the tools and resources to take care of things. And then the second part to that too is that once we start that, we have to ensure that whatever Legion methods that they currently have in place, they have to be scalable. Because if it's not repeatable or it's something that's incredibly personalized to them that we can't go grow and scale, then it's not going to make sense to start a team and build uh build that organization around it. And so we have to be really cognizant of that too.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Oh, all right. Wake up, everybody. We're not talking about systems and processes. We won't do that to you. We won't do that to you.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah, I won't do that to you.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

But I think a lot of people take for granted the the responsibility and the that that you feel every day when you make that first hire. And then you go, oh my God, it it was okay if I only said sold one house instead of four houses this month. But now I'm responsible for this person. If I don't sell four houses, they don't get a paycheck. And I think that's where people they they really stop. So tell me, like, if I want to start a team and I come to you, I say, Aaron, uh, this is this is my my plan. What should I bring to that meeting with you? Like, what should I show up with prepared to show you to for now you to coach me and say, all right, here's here's how we're gonna do this, KT.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah. So I usually slow them down and I actually have a questionnaire that I send our people that are thinking about starting teams because it's pretty heavy to unpack and a lot of times things that people haven't actually considered, right? So think about it from this perspective. Let's talk about marketing, for example. Who is responsible for the marketing? Do they have to operate underneath your brand in your marketing? Are you cool putting their face on a sign? Do you need it to be your face? And there's different choices and different reasons for different things, but I really again slow them down and walk them through things because when people choose us to be their Rainmaker, when they tie their businesses to our businesses, we change the trajectory of their career. And I agree with you that a lot of people don't actually take that seriously enough. They just go, oh, I want more agents and I want to go do the thing and I want, I want it, I want to build a team. And it's a very ego-driven thing initially, which is why I like to slow my people down and just make sure we're doing it for the right reasons because it's important to care about those humans that are attaching into us, and we have to get it right, and we have a responsibility to get it right. And we may not know everything, and we're gonna make mistakes, of course, but we want to do the best that we can with the knowledge that we have, right? So um, I walk them through how how are leads routed, what does that marketing look like? Um, and I take them through the different pieces that they probably haven't considered, and a lot of times it is actually their value proposition for launching these teams, and like well, I we know what the value that you provide to the client is, what is the value that you are providing to the agent? And we talk through what those points need to be and what makes the most sense for where they're currently at and what they're already doing.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

So, what did I ask you that we should have talked about today?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Man, you asked some really great questions, KT. Um I don't know. I think I think anybody who feels called to launch a team, if if you feel called to be a leader, if you love pouring into other human beings and you love connecting with people in that way and you love coaching and helping, I mean, you should be building a team. Those are all of the right reasons to want to start an organization. And I will say doing so changed my life. Uh, it's one of the biggest reasons that I have stayed with Keller Williams is that entrepreneurial factor. I look at it kind of like Legos where I can build whatever I decide that I want to build. Um, and it gets me really excited at the end of the day to go, okay, that was so, I mean, it was hard, right? Like there's definitely some hard moments, but it really like gets me out of bed in the morning to get the opportunity to do that. And so for me, uh those are all of the reasons, like those are the things that make you a leader and should be the reason that you want to launch an organization is making an impact with other human beings. And um, you can do it really well and you can do it at scale. And a lot of times, um, I will say that I meet with rainmakers who have a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like, why would somebody want to join my organization? And I was like, people need you, like they they need you in this business, they need you in this market, they want to know how to do it the right way, and talent will make your life easier if we hire the right people and we actually have a process here. Uh, so that's it's something that I'm just the most passionate about and I get so excited about when I watch somebody go from like being on the fence of starting a team to going, okay, Aaron, I'm all in, I'm ready to do this. And so uh the other side of that is really, you know, it's so cool to watch that trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

So oh my God, Aaron. If I wanted to learn more about this, what event should I go to to become that person? To create this, I don't know, let's call it an empire.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, I love that. Thank you, KT, for the tee up. Uh we have uh Agent to Empire coming up on April 28th. It starts bright and early at 9:30 a.m. at Abor. We're gonna be talking about team empires and individual empires, we're gonna be talking about some unconventional empires, and then Jay Papazon, the author of The One Thing um and also co-wrote the MREA book, uh, is gonna be with us to close out the show. And so we are so excited. If I will say this, if you have not gotten your ticket yet on Eventbrite, go ahead and do so. We are expecting it to sell out. We are more than halfway there to having a full room. So uh, and we're still a few weeks away. So if you have not gotten it yet, I hope there's still tickets left for you, but you should absolutely go ahead and grab one.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Awesome. Thank you, Aaron. How should people get a hold of you if they wanted to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Uh, email address is Aaron Leff at KW.com.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

All right.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

You can follow, follow me on Instagram too, dokind Aaron uh at dokindarin.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Awesome, great. Thank you for coming on the show. Guys, we'll be back again next uh when do we release this? We release this on Mondays. We'll be back again next Monday with another episode. If you found this enjoyable, if you learned something, uh leave us a review, you know, give us a give us a rating. It really does help us out uh in getting us in front of more agents to hopefully change their lives as well. So we'll be back again next week with another episode. Thank you, Aaron.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Thanks.