Inside Adam’s Real Estate Team Scaling | Real Estate Titans Ep. 2

Teams don’t struggle from lack of effort. They struggle from lack of structure.

In this episode of Real Estate Titans Podcast with Coach Bill Pipes, David Thompson, and our guest Adam Merrick break down how one of the top-performing real estate leaders in the country builds, scales, and sustains a high-output team through systems, discipline, hiring standards, and leadership clarity.

This is not about hustle.
This is about how high-level teams are actually engineered to perform.

In this episode, you’ll discover:
- Why structure, and not effort, drives consistency in real estate teams
- The difference between propellers vs anchors in hiring
- Why most agents plateau between 100–300 transactions
- How elite teams create predictable performance instead of chaos
- The real mistake agents make with lead generation thinking
- What leadership actually looks like at scale

This conversation goes inside the operating system of a top real estate organization and breaks down what most agents never see.

If you’re building a team, trying to break through a ceiling, or stepping into leadership, this will challenge how you think about growth.

👉 Subscribe to Coach Bill Pipes for real conversations with top-performing leaders in the industry.

And if you’re ready to take that next step and apply these strategies in your own business, book a FREE strategy call here:
https://calendly.com/coachpipesstrategycall/30min

Start your journey by downloading the 7-Figure guides: https://getcoachpipes.com/7-figure-agent-frameworks

Commit fully. Build your seven-figure mindset today with G3 Nation: https://www.g3nation.com/offers/FLLFEX9U/checkout

Connect with Coach Pipes:
instagram.com/coachpipes
facebook.com/coachbpipes
linkedin.com/in/coachbpipes
coachpipes.com

#coachpipes #realestate #realestatecoach 

Copyright © 2026. All rights reserved.

And if you’re ready to take that next step and apply these strategies in your own business, book a FREE strategy call HERE.

Start your journey by downloading the 7-Figure Blueprint guide HERE.

Commit fully. Build your seven-figure mindset today with G3 Nation HERE.

Connect with Coach Pipes:
instagram.com/coachpipes
linkedin.com/in/coachbpipes
coachpipes.com

#coachpipes #realestate #realestatecoach 

Copyright © 2026. All rights reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome, good morning, and good afternoon, amazing agents. Welcome back to Real Estate Titans Podcast, your source for scaling profitability, and really finding out what the badasses of badasses do. So you can R N D D, which is rip it off and duplicate it. I'm your co-host, Bill Pipes, aka Coach Pipes, here with uh wonderful partner in crime, Mr. David Thompson. David, say hello to everyone who's watching and listening.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Hello, everyone. So we are looking forward to speaking with Adam. Adam Merrick. Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Honored to be on this podcast. And I'm from Peoria, Illinois. So we're right smack dab between Chicago and St. Louis and a sleepy town called Peoria, Illinois, with a population of about 380,000 in our entire metro market.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Put us together, which I'm so grateful for, obviously. You know, I've had the chance to coach, and I call it be in the foxhole, man, with a lot of really wonderful leaders. I gotta tell you, for those that don't know Adam, he is the type of person that we get off a call and within 48 hours, if not 24 hours, the shit's done and it's executed on, and has built a business really on the fundamentals, the foundations, and just good old like Midwest hard work, which is so uncommon now when in the world of TikTok and social media and all that other stuff. So, Adam, just kudos to you on what you built and also on how it's evolving back to thousand, 1500 transactions. Peak peak of your business. What were you guys at in terms of total number of sales?

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Yeah, so our absolute best record setting year, we closed a little over 1,500 transactions, 205 million dollars and 500 million in sales volume. We were thumping it, we were just grinding, and I think our average transaction per agent was up to 64 units per agent on our team. So we've learned a lot over the years, Bill.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, absolutely. And we're getting back to a lot of the things that you've learned over the years, right? Which has been exciting to see. Hey DT, did you hear that number? Average per person productivity of we're gonna dig into that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

So, Adam, you look at so many teams out there, right? Where they have, you know, some agents doing four, some agents doing six, maybe a couple agents who are doing a lot more, right? And a lot of agents aren't even selling anything. And and often that's a team structure you see. Very seldom do you see somebody that's scaling agents at such a high level? Has that always been your business model? And how are you doing that?

SPEAKER_02 2:38

When I cut my teeth in real estate, right? I was 20 years old. You know, I really got started like most brokers do. My managing broker handed me a stack of cards, a couple temp signs, put me in the back corner room office with accounting and said, Go make it rain. So for about 30 days of my career at 20 years old, I'm wearing an olive green suit, tie, showing up every day, drinking coffee with the old timers. And, you know, realistically, I tried to be a sponge. I learned quickly was without lead generation, you don't have much of a real estate business. So my first six months, I didn't even have a paycheck. My first six months, I showed up every day. I listened to the mentors in the office and did a lot of open houses. At that time, we printed a lot of magazine home guides, local newspaper ads. And by the time I sold my first home, after six months of sitting on their roster, my check was negative. And so I went, uh oh. Right? I was invited to an event in Chicago, Roger Butcher. I don't know if you guys have heard ever heard that name.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Oh my gosh. Yeah, back away, so go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Oh, yeah. And so Roger Butcher had a system, it was his 30-day marketing plan. And so I bought the CD-ROMs and all the deliverables that they had. And when I got back, I looked at his 30-day marketing plan. I went, hmm, gosh, I think that would be a great idea. So at 21 years old, I decided to buy some radio radio advertisements, right? At that time, I think I closed like 20 transactions in my first calendar year. And so I had a little bit of money saved. And so I wrote I signed my first contract with radio, and it was like $10,000. That's all I had. And I advertised my 30-day marketing plan. And we bought a lot of frequency with unsold inventory. And that was the first time my Blackberry at the time, you know, Blackberry with the scroll bar went off. And it's the first time my Z57 website had an internet lead. I'd never seen one. I thought I said, When is this? It's broke. Something's broke here. I just got my Z57's trying to tell me something. That was my first listing lead at 21 years old. And the next thing I know, I had another one and another one and another one. I realized I had a big problem. I needed to learn how to run a listing appointment. So that second year we closed 60 transactions. It was just me. I realized quickly that in order to advertise, and well, first I advertised, generated a lot of leads, but then I realized that those leads didn't always translate into business right away. And I had to learn how to lead follow-up and systematize my business. So I've been a heavy producer since I was 22 years old. It's when we started figuring things out. And I think at 22, I must have closed out maybe 80 transactions. My best year in production, I probably closed 200. And so with that work ethic and you know, when you talk about blue collar, right? Like we're the we have that in the Midwest. I mean, I know so many agents like me, we have that Midwestern blue-collar work ethic. And, you know, we're not digging a ditch. We're following up in leads, we're helping people with the biggest investment and asset of their life. And, you know, we're problem solving constantly. But in order for us to get Asia productivity up, they emulated what I did. So my first buyer agent, my first admin, they witnessed what it took to operate at a high level, and it just became organic and it was just part of the culture from the ground up. So our productivity has always been pretty high, but you know, I led from the front. I didn't lead from the back, and I didn't expect to be a top-down leader or entrepreneur. And so from an admin seat to the marketing seat to, you know, I've sat in every seat that there is to sit in, and I had expectations of what could be possible when I replaced myself in each one of those roles.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Tell us about your team now, the the size of your team, how many agents, what the average age in production, where do you guys get your business from? Just kind of unpack what you're currently doing, if you would.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Sure. So our team size right now, we have 17 agents on our roster. Average productivity as of last year, I think we're at like almost 43 units per agent. So we did go down a little bit. You know, uh, leads and business. We're a heavy marketing team. So in a metro market of 380,000 people, we probably run 4,000 radio ads, two or 3,000 television ads, depending on time of year, what campaign we're pushing. We have 25 to 30 billboards up at any given time. Of course, we do a lot with uh PPC. We've got a big marketing optics on social media. So we kind of we cover a buffet of different strategies to get some of that business coming to us, but we're heavy in marketing, but we're followed up with prospecting. I mean, we're prospecting the hands for sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

I would even say it's flipped. I think you guys are skill and and prospecting based right now and enhanced with marketing, right? Like is what I definitely see is that like the when I come in and I speak to your team, and like at least now, they are on it, they are prospecting, they're almost self-managing to a certain degree now at this point, right, in terms of production expectation and behaviors. Talk to me about in a world where agents really you have to twist their arm to make calls, you have to stay on top of them to be able to actually follow up on leads, you have to grind on them to have the right skills. What is the process? I mean, because I even though you guys have slipped from 60 something down to 40 something in terms of per person productivity, that's still there are people that would give their left leg to have that, right? And markets. So how do you elicit greatness and have that expectation of higher productivity from your agent? What is that process? I think it's accountability, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:24

The highest form of love is accountability, right? I think you guys would agree with that. So, one, understanding where that line is. I mean, when we hold an accountability line, we know that we're trying to help our agents, our independent contractors, make a healthy living. And so creating those expectations up front, I think is one of the most important things. And then number two, for agents that start to get busy, you have to work through skill set. You have to show them the scripts and the tools on how they can obviously handle a higher volume of workload without feeling like they're always living in chaos, right? This business, as we all know, can be difficult from a life balance perspective. However, with the right systems, tools, scripts, and obviously skill set, that does make a massive impact for agents to be able to consider doing 40, 50, 60 transactions. I mean, my top producers have closed out and do close out upwards of 100 to 13, 120 transactions per year, but they're not the only one. And we do have an assembly line process, and that makes all the difference.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

What do you mean by assembly line process?

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Right. So let's say if you're a listing agent on our team, lead is generated, goes to an ISA. ISA prospects that lead to an appointment. Okay. Appointment goes to an agent. Agent runs CMA, confirms the appointment, runs the appointment, signs the appointment, hands it off to a listing coordinator. Listing coordinator's job is to get that property up and on the market. Our field coordinator goes out, they do professional photography, sign placement, lockbox placement that comes back. Photos are edited, uploaded. Listing is previewed by the agent, stocked home to the seller for their confirmation, and now we're live and on the market. Their duty at that point would be to service the customer, handle feedback, problem solve to make sure offers are getting presented in a timely fashion and negotiated. Uh, once it gets negotiated, it goes to a closing coordinator. The closing coordinator will take that all the way to repairs, and that license activity gets flipped back to a listing broker because they're familiar with the property. They negotiate repairs, it hands back to the closing coordinator, and they sock it all the way to the closing. Nine out of 10 times my listing brokers don't send it to a closing table. My coordinators do. So our team structure is around the agent on everything to support them so they can really focus on the one job that they're hired to do. And it's similar for our buyers' agents when it comes to the acquisition of the lead, to the negotiations of the contract, and all the way through the closing. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Absolutely. Yeah, that's and it gives you the chance to be able to actually drive efficiency and effectiveness of the organization because you can look at where it is and it's falling apart or where it is and it's actually strong. Question for you obviously, like a team breaks down like in terms of a can we drive PPP, which you're doing. Two, can we drive margins based upon the investment that we're making and being able to get that back? But three is the acquisition of other agents from the marketplace onto your team, the growth model. I would imagine you're not for every you know, like there's how many agents in your marketplace right now?

SPEAKER_02 11:31

There's 780 brokers in our local market.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

780. All right. Your model is one of you work, you put in the time, you put in the effort, etc. That's that could be scary, repelling, or like not attractive to a lot of agents. Talk to us a little bit about your recruiting model, how you attract the right people, and like in a small pool, how you manage that growth.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Sure. So obviously, our agent count across the country is is rather low for the number of transactions that we conduct. And we do outside of our four walls, it does seem like we have claws and fangs, and we're running a one of the things that you know we hear from outside brokers that we're like an army or the Navy SEALs, where you know, it's awful to work for us. When in fact, when you talk to agents within my company, they don't feel that way. They feel loved and supported and cared about and sheltered from some of the pitfalls that you find with a lot of other brokers. But a recruiting platform, honestly, the the number one recruit for us has been an agent, but someone that doesn't even practice real estate, right? So we use a lot of indeed ads. We pull out the laser pointer when we're dealing with hospitality, such as servers and people that are in the hospitality world or retail world, we will talk to them about opportunities when we see an amazing piece of talent. That's some of the best tires we've ever had. But we've also transitioned licensed brokers. For us, it just seems like that's been a harder hill to climb. And because of we're in a small town, there's a lot of myths about our team and our structure. So we really haven't unpacked too many agent candidates that we've successfully brought over. We home grow our agents for the most part. And one of the beauties in that is that it's a double-sided coin, right? There's a beauty in it. They don't know what they don't know, and they're willing to listen and be coached. So that there's a lot of beauty in that. If I tell them that they need to prospect 120 dials in a day, oftentimes they will follow our lead and they will do what they're told. They don't have this ambiguous idea that they just need to sit around and wait for the phone ring. The challenge that we find, and this is something that we've overcome over the years, but the challenge that we find is that the simple things when it comes to onboarding can be difficult, such as MLS access, the navigation of MLS, understanding tools like dot loop, understanding the tools like follow-up boss and the two-way integration with Zillow and things like that. We do have to really go from kindergarten to college pretty quickly to onboard an agent that's off the street. But we've been able to make that work and with the right talent, it happens rather quickly. In fact, we hired a 20-year-old gentleman recently that I think that he launched and took his first lead in January, and he's already up to 17 pending and closed units already this year. And what are we sitting here? The 27th of March, so first quarter. That's not too bad for a brand new agent three months ago.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

That is so wet behind his ears in terms of life in general. So I'm gonna ask one more question. How do you identify the talent that you want like a good hire? What are some of the key points on the punch list that you go? Oh, they've got this, they've got that. I know no one has a crystal ball, and we you know we can't predict, but what have you found is predicated? You know, you can use as this person has a high probability of being a great agent for us on the team.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

So, I mean, we really try to find something that's internal that's driving them. So, are you, for example, are you an athlete? At what level do you compete at? That's a characteristic that has served us well. Athletes do tend to be more competitive in nature and have more confidence. But that's not if you're not an athlete, it doesn't mean you're not good for our team. But that is one of those easy questions that you can identify. The next thing is what is your background and where do you come from? What we find is that people like myself, we can't, I came from nothing. My father's a laborer, my mother worked in a factory, we didn't have a lot, but I knew I was my purpose in life was a lot more. And so when we start to see some of these young men and women that started working at a young age, they had to purchase their own car, they had to put themselves through school, they had some obstacles in their way that they have overcome at a high level, and they're still sitting there to interview with you today. Sometimes you can find a little bit about their history and realize that they are a badass and they've got a burning desire to win. And that's probably the number one thing we search for is somebody that wants to win, right? Because let's face it, real estate's not for everyone, and this is a tough business. You really have to overcome some of those early obstacles to make it on the other side. And you have to have some staying power and some will to get there. Adam, what is your superpower? That's a great question, David. I think Pipes asked me that a while ago, and I've modified it. But honestly, I think it's my ability to just problem solve, to figure things out quickly, pivot, adapt, evolve if you have to. I mean, we've been in 20 years of practice in real estate, starting as a 20-year-old kid trying to grow a team. I've learned that you there's not just one way to do things, but if something's broken, you better fix it quickly. And if something's working, you better dump fuel on that on that fire. So we pivot and evolve quickly. I execute at a very high level.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

With the amount of transactions that your agents and your team and yourself are selling, you must be very effective with your schedule. Tell us what your schedule as the rainmaker, what that looks like, and then let us know somebody that's like a high producer in a team, what does their schedule look like on a daily basis?

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Well, do you mind if I kind of rewind that a little bit? So this is yeah, this the talking about my schedule, right? That was the number one catalyst for me to change my life. So information seeker. I was privileged to be in the Gary Keller 100, traveling back and forth from Austin to Peoria frequently. Quarterly, we'd go there, we'd have to read a couple books, go sit with Gary. It'd be a kind of a classroom style, like a college campus. And I was able to surround myself some really amazing people. And I remember one trip back home. I had three to four pages of notes, and they were all great, right? I was grading all my notes, I was trying to figure out what I'm gonna implement first, scoring the ideas because they don't you don't take those type of quality notes from eight one to twenty five. I mean, they just happen, and so you got to jot it down. I was on the plane, and it was back in the day when I had a Blackberry with the side scroll bar and had a full keyboard on it, and I remember trying to prioritize that list. It was a five-hour flight, and I'm trying to figure out what do I do first? And at the moment I stop and I look at my BlackBerry and it's full. Inbox is jammed up with 500 messages after three days. My voicemail was just jammed up, and I really started looking at my schedule that was already booked. Well, as soon as I landed, I mean, I was off to the races, three appointments a day. I'd run 18 listing appointments a week. And I really felt defeated there for about an hour. I was kind of crying in my beer about, oh, I don't have time to do this stuff. And at that moment, I realized hold on a second. Is it not that I don't have enough time or I'm not using my time wise enough? So I started really looking at my my personal schedule and how can I? And what I realized, if I woke up just an hour earlier, if I could really shorten up how much time I'm doing CMAs, right? To do three CMAs a day, conduct three appointments, have two hours of prospecting, two hours of lead follow-up, and grow my business, it was gonna take a little different approach and strategy than I've ever implemented before. I'm gonna have to get more focused and more dialed in. So I mapped out before I got off that plane what my perfect schedule was, and I stuck to it. I did that for two years. At that time, we ran up our listing count over 300 active residential resale listings. I hired three listing brokers at a time because we got really good at the little things, and that allowed me to implement. So my schedule as an agent was very simple. I had to have my CMAs done by 7:30 a.m. Right? That doesn't mean I can show up to the office by 7.30 a.m. I have to have them done, right? We had a huddle at 8:30 every day. I had to make sure that I had all of my inbox cleared, voicemails cleared, return calls made. So I go to my huddle and return to my desk by 9 a.m. to start prospecting for some my owners and expired listings. Two hours of prospecting, little break, return phone calls, deals repair amendments, other things like that, and then two hours of lead follow-up for all of the customers that knew who I was that I haven't earned their business yet. And then by that time, I had to get off to the races and run three appointments. My appointments were 2:30, 4:30, 6:30, five days a week. Saturdays I'd run three. So 18 appointments, 18 to 20 appointments a week. My best Saturday took six listings, six for six. I was pretty pumped about it. So as an agent, I had my schedule dialed in and I was able to show my team as I brought onboarded my team members, this is how it's done. Now, Sundays, I could pause, shut down. I was on just strictly growth mode. It was at a heavy pace, but I had big goals. So for my agents, we modified that to where they didn't have to run as hard of a schedule now that we had more, you know, at the time, more leadership generation was coming in. They didn't have to cold call and prospect nearly as much. It gave them a little more balance in their life, if you will. So my schedule to start with to grow my team was pretty intense. But what I realized was that the more intense I was about my schedule, the more family time and personal time I had. Because when I left for the day, I checked all my boxes, my workload was good. And if fire emerged at night, I knew before 7:30 a.m. I was putting that fire out the next day.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

You know, it's so interesting because you look at there's two types of leaders. There's leaders that do as I say, right? Hey, go take this hill, and then there's leaders that take the hill first and say, Come on up. You're clearly the second one, and still are that. I want to lean into something in terms of your leadership style. You're a hard ass, right? You got a background in wrestling, you're a competitor, you love to win. When I've spent time with your team there in Peoria, they feel loved, supported. I mean, it's not like a militant, it's got a component to it of just strong standards, but you balance caring and candor very well. Talk to us about that balance between caring and candor to elicit greatness out of the people on your team.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Well, some of my very best agents, they they would follow our lead, nine to eleven. The bell would ring at nine, they knew what they needed to do. Nine to eleven, you knock out all your heavy lifting with prospecting, they'd follow up, get your days structured, get your week structured. And, you know, I had a lot of agents over the years that would get caught up, they would be in a perfect place. They'd run to the grocery store, they'd run to Walmart, they would put something in the crock pot, and they'd go work for the next three or four hours and be able to have family dinners. And by us developing our team, having the assembly line process, that allowed them the opportunity to get their work done, right? There's some flexible time at a real estate agent's day. Many of them use it unwisely. So the regiment could be emulated within our company, whether it was me, one of our top brokers, or one of our staff members, everybody kind of knew what successful agents were doing. And it became kind of a bottom-up culture. You know, it would be nothing for a closing coordinator to see somebody fairly distracted saying, Hey, I know you're dealing with this, but you need to probably get back on the phone and prospect. Because they knew that if that person went down that rabbit hole, that wasn't really good for them for a long period of time. So, yes, care, candor, but honestly, it came down to, I mean, one of the best things we ever did was launch a daily huddle, which is one thing I love about G3. If you don't have a big team, agents that are trying to figure things out, it helps them with a regimen and a rhythm. And really, for me, as a top producing agent, when I was selling 200 homes a year, taking every Sunday off, finding ways to travel back and forth to Austin, Texas, go to massive real estate events, I had to have that regimen to give me some peace of mind and balance in my life. I'm the type of person that I'd rather be on my toes than on my heels. And so once I wrote the once I had that experience on that airplane of creating my schedule, I realized if I could stay on my toes, that's how you win, not on the ropes.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

So you have somebody sitting there in about 300 transactions and they want to scale to 1500 transactions, make that big leap. What are some of the pitfalls that you had? What are some of the challenges that you have? What kind of advice can you give to somebody that's trying to get to 1500 transactions?

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Well, the number one thing is make sure your schedule matches your goals. I mean, if your schedule doesn't match your goals, it's going to be impossible to get there, especially in our business, because you know it's going to be a little messy on your way up. Number two, you have to surround yourself with like-minded people with similar work ethic. And I think that's difficult, especially in the world we live in. With if you find somebody loyal, that means a lot. Loyalty and work ethic are two different things. There are people that you can train, hire and train that have both of those qualities. And when they have both those qualities and they can mirror and match your work ethic, that is a propeller, not an anchor. And I think a lot of teams that I've talked to as I've traveled around the country and spoke at events and things, they don't recognize that sometimes their staff is not prepared to grow with them. And I'll give an example. One of the hard lessons I had early, I had a transaction coordinator that was kind of like our office manager. This is what I was thinking, real small, but I was working really hard. And it was, she was an amazing staff member. But really, every time we wanted to do something more, there was a problem of, I don't think we should do that. It's a little, this is more work that I don't understand why we're doing this. Like there was always like a big drawn-out discussion. It was really an anchor pulling me back. And we finally had the conversation of, hey, this is the trajectory we're going. This is the rocket ship you're on. If you help me do more work, you will absolutely be rewarded for the efforts. And and it wasn't two weeks later she came in with her resignation and a two-week notice when I didn't have a small team. And I was defeated. She departed after two weeks, joined another real estate team, one of my competitors. And I just remember I was talking to another entrepreneur, and they said, Mark my words, this will be the best thing that's ever happened to you because you're gonna have to figure it out. My next hire was the propeller I needed. I had to go through about six messy weeks of doubling down on multiple activities that I really didn't feel that I had time for. And when we got out of that next six weeks and I had the right hire that was all in, willing to do the work, had an open mind, was right for my culture. It was like a rocket ship took off. So on the darkest moments for anybody that's growing, I understand there's light at the end of that tunnel. And you know, things don't happen to you, they happen for you in some capacity. And make sure you surround yourself with the right people that are gonna be a propeller and not an anchor. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 26:53

It's total sense. 100%. Yeah, 100%. We have a lot of leaders listening to this. We also have a lot of solopreneurs, individual agents. Some of them are probably less than 10 transactions per year with the goal of selling 24, 36, 50, eventually 60, which is gonna be on average like seven figures. What advice would you give to that agent that is like, all right, seven figures, I'm going for it. Adam, tell me the three things. And I'm gonna take the schedule piece off the table because you've already hit that. All right. So what are the three other things that you would say to that agent going for seven figures? So you get your schedule ironed out. That's check that box.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

The next thing you you need to work on is where do your leads come from? And some people are gonna be amazing open houses, some are gonna be a social media influencer, I guess, and they can figure out a way to, but where do those leads come from? You know, you partner with Zillow, or you are you go into op city? I mean, there's so many different categories, but master a few. Don't try to do 25 things. I've made that mistake many times in my career. Pick two or three lead sources and be amazing at those before you add something else. So lead generation, you need to have some leads coming in, lead conversion and prospect. And you have to, you have to follow up and you have to have expectations on your time that you're putting into that bucket. And if you don't, if you're not getting the proper return on time, you probably need a coach like Coach Pipes and G3 because you may not be using the right scripts or taking the right strategy to convert. And then last, I would say this make sure that you love on your past clients and your SOY constantly. That is it's something that we stepped over years ago with your help, Pipes. I mean, we've been really putting more pressure on that. And we've gotten our database so far this year equal to our number of like Zillow closings and other lead sources that are paid outbound costs just by focusing on it. So make sure you love on your SOI and past clients. I know a lot of agents don't like to do that, but it can make a massive impact, especially as you start to stack these chips and you're building a business worth having.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

So great. I love it. Now you just leaned into one of the key principles we talk about, which is you don't need 21 lead sources. You need a key three, just three that you actually are systemic and optimized in. So absolutely fantastic. I got one more question, but David, I'll turn it over to you before I ask my question.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

I think you're the number one team in Illinois right now. You're in the top 25, probably in the country, or pretty close to that. Comfort is the thing that kills a lot of businesses. I'm sure you're doing good financially. Are you growing still? Where's your next step? Where are you trying to get to?

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Yes. So, David, I'm a big believer. If you're not growing, you're dying, right? Many books and entrepreneurs that that talk about that. But yes, every year I create a hit list of activities and items that I want to accomplish. Last year I wanted to build several in Florida. I checked those boxes for vacation rentals. We also started a new construction division. But Illinois, and in the market that I'm in, we went from 3,600 active listings down to, I think we're at like seven or eight hundred right now. So we knew the inventory was a challenge. And it's like, how do you fix that problem? Why don't we start putting, why don't we start erecting some of these homes and position ourselves in a different place, right? Luxury. Luxury has been a market that we live in a community where there's a Fortune 500 company called Caterpillar, and Caterpillar ship their top end executive level workforce outside of our market, which really hurt our luxury market. What we noticed it's coming back, but no one's real been focused on it. So in order for me to succeed, yes, my foot is on the gas pedal, and we're looking for it could be small, and some of those activities that I mentioned are large and hard to do, but I'm always looking to grow. And honestly, where I stand right now, this business has done so much for me and my family. It's not really about growth for myself as much as it is helping people that have helped that have allowed me to get where we're at, my staff and my agents, it provide bigger opportunities for them. That's kind of where I'm at in my career right now. Is my push is a lot to do with some of the people I've surrounded myself with to make sure that they have opportunities that they ever thought were possible.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Bill question longevity, not longevity of you in this business, because I know you've got dragons that you're slaying and things that you're taking on. I mean 1500, baby, like it's coming. Like getting back to that number, but longevity of agents at the organization. A lot of people would think, oh my gosh, these agents are selling so many homes. Why would you know, do you have an attrition challenge? Do people leave? How do you extend the lifetime of an agent on your team and why don't they leave?

SPEAKER_02 31:38

So, you know, we haven't solved every problem in that camp, but what I can say, what I've learned over the years, is one, you have to create a system where agents feel like they have some runway. And not every agent's cut from the same cloth. And I think a lot of team owners kind of miss this. You're gonna have an agent that loves certain lead sources, you're gonna have agents that don't love those lead sources. But as a team owner, what I'd done for years is try to put everybody in the same box and the same can. Recently, we've been trying to figure out what our agents excel at, and let's dump some fuel on that fire. And there are certain aspects of real estate they're not great at, and they don't want, they don't want to. I've got a lot of senior agents that don't want to do open houses. When we were running our top peak performance, everybody shared their certain quota of open houses, everybody shared their certain quota of floor schedule, et cetera. And what we're finding is that now that we were asking more questions and helping lead them down the path that they want to go down, that's really allowed us the opportunity to have different conversations about past clients. I've got some agents that are amazing, absolutely amazing connectors that connect with past clients, SOI, and they love it. They don't love going to open houses or taking Zillow leads. And that's okay, right? And we have to find a way to help them fuel their fire so they they have some staying power on our team. The other thing I'll tell you is having a great support staff helps me tremendously. I can't talk enough about our closing coordinators or listing coordinator or operations manager, our field coordinator. That's somebody so simple as putting the signs out and taking photos. Like that makes all the difference. When our agents feel supported and that they get what they need from us as an organization, that makes a world of difference for their staying power. And then culture. Man, you really have to keep an eye on your culture and you have to address the hard things. You have to have hard conversations with folks that might be a little negative, they might be their mindset isn't right. And having those tough conversations frequently can be challenging for a team owner, but they're 100% necessary if you care. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Creates a stickiness. Okay, I got best leadership book everyone should read. What's the one? You know, you don't mean an avid reader. Well, what would you say is like, hey, if you're gonna be a leader, you gotta read this.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Honestly, I'm just finishing up kind of the whole series of traction, right? EOS. I feel like if you want to grow a team and you want to get your stuff right, I wish I'd have read that book 15 years ago. There's a lot of things in there that from the traction to get a you know, I'm on grit get a grip. Obviously, what was the other one in between? Rocket fuel. Yeah, so traction, rocket fuel, and and get a grip. I'm halfway through get a grip. That makes so much sense to me. And I I think as a leader, right? That helps you understand how big businesses are built, and it's simple, and it's something you can RD rip off and duplicate without a doubt.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

I love it. By the way, what's your body fat right now?

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Well, it's after the challenge of doing keto from since January 18th. It I don't know the percentage, but it's as I'm as lean as I've been in a long time.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Dude, I just had to give you massive props, man, because you have absolutely ripped it down. And you know how we show up in one area of our life is how we show up in every area of your life. You know what I mean? And you definitely show up as someone that is committed. I do want to ask you a non-business question. I think there's times in life when we're balanced and times when we're out of balance. Sort of in in the one thing which Gary and Jay created, they talk about counterbalance. What's your thought around balance in terms of business versus personal life? And just go deep on that, like if you want a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Sure, sure. So back in like 2000, probably 17 to 2020, I felt like I was very balanced. Lots of zen. Our team was humming, we're doing that, you know, thousand units, twelve hundred units, fifteen hundred units, but I wasn't challenging myself, right? And so when I felt like my business as an autopilot, it was actually doing quite the opposite. Internally, it was it was dying, it was not growing. But I personally felt like I could take care of the kids, I could do some of the things that I really, really wanted to do. I'm a big believer that you you have to counterbalance. There is no such thing as this perfect zen work-life balance. You have to have a little bit more gas than break. And if you want to grow a big operation, and if you don't challenge your team around you with different initiatives, new opportunities, I think that's where a lot of team owners kind of get stale. Education. Like if you're not reading books, like you know, Mark Spain is a dear friend of mine, dear, dear friend. A lot of people probably know who Mark is, and he's grown an amazing operation. But one thing he always told me when we travel was Merrick, he'd be like, Merrick, your growth will depend on the books you read and the people you hang out with. Those two things. And for years I kind of thought about that. And he also said another key term, Pipes, is millionaires work out before they go to work. Right. And I know that your coaching group is a lot of seven-figure earners, but for years I struggled with that because at young kids, and I kind of always thought that I should put that on the end of my day, not the beginning of my day. When you're successful, you're gonna choose leaving work early and stuff like that. And until I adopted that same mindset millionaires work out before they go to work. Well, it's hard to get up at 4:30 when you got sick kids at home and other things, but you accomplish that one thing when it's hard, to start your day to start your week, it makes the rest of your week easier. And then if you're hanging around with like-minded people that are challenging you, they're doing amazing things, they're picking the hardest hill to climb. Um, and they want to set records and you get in that mind space, man, it makes so much of a difference to personally grow. And if you're personally growing, it makes it all the difference to professionally grow as well.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

David, I'm sure you agree too. I notice when I'm growing, the revenue of the company grows, the attraction of new coaching members grows, and when I'm coasting, I had maybe you have that residual from like being on a boat and you pulled the throttle back on the boat, you're still up on planing, and then you drop down. But if we're not growing, we're dead, as you said earlier. Adam, I do want to say something. When I got the chance to be able to start to coach you, and I consider it a privilege, I really do. It gave me faith again that a big team based upon disciplines, skills, and leadership from the front could still succeed in a digital world with all the AI and everything else. You guys have an amazing foundation, fundamental, and you lead with your heart and your foot at the same time. So I just want to say thank you for you know in being your partner, your coach, being in the foxhole with you for the validation that it doesn't stop, right? You know, you can get to a thousand, fifteen hundred, even two thousand transactions just with some really great fundamentals and key components of leadership. So and it shows to the industry that you can have high person productivity and keep people on the team. So, brother, thank thank you for the hard work that you're doing across the board to be able to actually make the charge on that. We appreciate you being on this, all right. My friends, this is a go back, rewatch, listen again and again, okay, and be able to have the chance to rip it off, duplicate it, and deploy. All right, Adam, thanks again. Anything you want to say as a shouting part to the crew that's out there watching and listening?

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Yeah, well, one, Bill and David, thank you so much. You guys have really pouring into your customers, you're pouring into the G3 network. I'm a huge believer, I'm a big fan, love the work that you're doing, and you're leading from the front, you're leading with your heart, and you care about your customers and your coaching clients, and it shows in a big way. So, as a client, a fan of what you guys are doing, thank you. Keep it up. And for some of the listeners out there, I never dreamed in a million years that I was going to be able to sell 500, 600, 700, 1000, 1500 transactions in one singular year. I had no idea until I put myself in rooms where people were so kind to share and they were operating that type of level. You can do it, and you can do it quickly if you execute and you constantly surround yourself with like-minded people. So if you're not a member of G3 Network, I would highly recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

I appreciate that. And thanks for adding and contributing to it always. So, well, guys, there it is. Another great session with real estate titans. Adam, absolutely amazing. And you know what? Here you go. If one can do, all can do, as long as you put the time into effort and follow the line system. So, DT, man, anything you want to say to the crew as we're getting out of here besides get their asses to work? Adam, what a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Thanks for taking time with us.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Thank you guys. It's an honor.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Thanks again.