We're Not Saving People in the ER: How Richard Berman Sells 150 Homes a Year Without Losing His Evenings

Guest Bio

Richard Berman is a real estate agent with RenoSparksHomes.com in Reno, Nevada. He got into real estate eight years ago after a mentor showed him his GCI and Richard asked, on the spot, how to get his license — leaving a $140K/year B2B sales job in the process. His first year netted just $14,000 after expenses. Eight years later, he closed 120 transactions last year and is on pace for roughly 150 this year — with a lean team of himself, one buyer's agent, and three full-time assistants, no additional agents under him. He's built his business on a rigid, professional's schedule and a hard rule: after 7pm, the business day is over.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Richard Berman, a Reno, Nevada agent doing what most agents chase but rarely achieve: 150 transactions a year, run by a team of four, without sacrificing his evenings or his marriage. Richard traces it back to an early lesson from his mentor Alan, who caught him doing handyman-level tasks on a listing and asked him point blank: "Is that how much your time's worth?" From that moment, Richard organized his entire business around a small number of money-making activities — prospecting, lead follow-up, appointments, and negotiation — and delegated everything else, starting with hiring his own wife as his first assistant.

The conversation goes deep on Richard's follow-up philosophy (motivation and timeframe decide everything — the 3-3-3 method for hot leads, quarterly touches for everyone else), his original vendor-partnership strategy for building a database from zero, and the FAQ system he built by simply writing down every repeated question he ever got asked. But the most memorable thread is boundaries: Richard runs his business on a fixed schedule, tells clients upfront exactly when he's unavailable, and lives by his mentor's warning — "we're not saving people in the ER." Nothing he does after 7pm moves the needle, so he doesn't do it.

In this episode:

• The "Wolf of Wall Street" moment that got Richard into real estate
• His brutal first year: $58K gross, $14K net — and the decision to keep going
• The handyman lesson: "is that how much your time's worth?"
• The handful of activities that actually generate money — and why everything else should be delegated
• Why Richard hired before he "needed" to, based on self-belief in his business plan
• His original database-building strategy: cold-calling small local vendors for coffee, not big companies
• Richard's follow-up philosophy: motivation and timeframe over "the hot lead"
• The 3-3-3 method for high-motivation leads, quarterly touches for long-term nurtures
• Why Richard tells clients his exact hours upfront — and why almost no one objects
• "We're not saving people in the ER" — the boundary that protects his marriage and his evenings
• The FAQ system that eliminated dozens of repeat questions before they're even asked
• What would need to be true operationally to double his business in 2 years
• Where AI genuinely helps (transaction management, more human-sounding follow-up) — and where his own system still falls short

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hey there. Welcome to Under Contract, where I sit down with some of the top real estate agents and team leaders in the country to talk about how they've built their businesses, what's working right now, and where they see the industry going next. Today I am joined by Richard Berman from Reno, Nevada. Richard, thanks for coming on. I'm excited to have you.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Yeah, thanks for having me, Tim. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Really excited to have you. So I always like to start from the beginning, right? So I always think understanding someone's journey gives context to everything that came afterwards. So I gotta ask you, how did you get into real estate? And at what point did you realize this could become like a serious business rather than maybe simply a job?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

So uh it's kind of a funny story. Have you ever seen the movie like Wolf on Wall Street? Of course. Yeah, it's kind of like that moment where he's like, Show me you made $80,000 uh last month and I'll quit my job. So I was working in sales, I was doing business-to-business sales for an automotive chemical company. I serviced all the dealerships and independent garages in my market. And my wife was an assistant/slash buyer's agent for a top producer in our market. And I was thinking that I would like uh save up money and then buy like a franchise business or or uh uh more rentals to get out of like necessarily working all the time, right? Like past and so she was like, You got to talk to Alan, which was her boss, and um, and so then I met with Alan and we started talking, he's like, You don't want to do any of those things, you need to get into real estate, and I was like, Can you make any money in real estate? And so at that time he was selling about 150 homes a year. So he showed me like his GCI, and I was like, How do I get my real estate license? Yeah, so that was it right there. Yep, got right into real estate after that.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Okay, so how long ago was that?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Eight years ago.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Oh wow, wow, okay. You you kind of have a quick ascension here. Um, so let's let's fast forward eight years. Um, I typically see that most entrepreneurs they have one or two moments in their journey where they point back to and they say, like, that's kind of everything where everything changed. Well, do you have a turning point you can look back in the last eight years where where things the trajectory really changed for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

So well, my first year in the business was terrible. I left a job where I was making like $140,000 a year. And um, instantly when I got into real estate, Alan made me join a coaching program. And so I was paying for coaching, and at the end of the year, I had made $58,000 before expenses. After expenses is like $14,000. And so that first year, I really had uh a turning point as far as like, am I gonna do this and get to the next level, or should I go back to my old job, you know? And um, I really my wife and I really bought into the idea of like, no, we're gonna build the same business that basically Alan and my coach had taught us to do, and so um I just dug into like a productive schedule and just kept doing it. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

And did Alan kind of give you a little bit of the playbook um as far as yeah, I was very fortunate.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

So Alan um basically let me copy everything he had. Like I walked in, it was funny because he like fired my wife from being his assistant. So we went from like maybe having one income to no income. Oh wow, yeah. And then, but he gave me the whole playbook to his exact business, and then as I was getting my real estate license, I basically shadowed him. So I became his assistant while I still have my other full-time job. And so I followed him around, I took all his notes on listing appointments. Um, I took all my vacation time while I was going to real estate school. So I quit my job the day I got my real estate license and went full into this thing.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

That's I mean, and now uh if you don't mind uh sharing what level eight years later, I mean, how many deals are you doing a year uh with you and uh last year was my first year over a hundred transactions.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

So I did 120. Um, and this year we're right on pace to do about 150. So I think we're at 90 clothes and pinning so far this year.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Nice, nice. And uh how how big's the team at this point?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

It's me, and then I have a buyer's agent, and then three full-time assistants.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

So you are pretty much doing the listings uh yeah yourself, with obviously with the help of the team, but it's not like you have a bunch of agents under you per se. No, uh uh wow, that's that's that's impressive. Uh so I gotta ask you, like uh, you know, there's uh somewhere between a million, two million agents in the United States, yet only a small percentage actually build a truly exceptional business. What do you believe is the biggest thing that differentiates your business from someone else? Because like, I mean, this trajectory is pretty insane, especially, you know, kind of coming from you obviously did sales before, but there's gotta be a little bit of a secret sauce, if you will. Um, or maybe not so secret, maybe it's just hard work and and following the plan. But I, you know, you are in the upper, upper echelon of agents in the in the country. And so what do you think is the reason for that?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Well, I'll tell you what I see because I get like agents in our office that come shadow me for the day. Um, but basically, Alan taught me this very early on. I'll never forget, I took a listing and it needed some handyman repairs. And so I drove out to this listing and I get there, I meet the handyman, we walk around, talk about like the paint and everything that needs to be done. And I get back to the office and Alan sits me down, he says, sit down. And he's pissed. And he says, Uh, how much does that handyman make? And I was like, I don't know, 15 or 20 bucks an hour. And he says, or is that how much your time's worth? And he goes, If you're gonna get really good in this business, it's because you're gonna see yourself as a professional. So there's only really five things that you'll do that ever generate money. And he's like, prospect. So you have to call people all day long, right? And then he says, Go on, um, lead follow-up, like you have to be following up with all your leads. Appointments. The only time you're making money is if you're on an appointment or you're negotiating a deal. So if it's not, you know, prospecting, lead follow-up appointments or negotiation, you shouldn't be doing it. And so basically, my wife became my assistant out the gate, and that was kind of the secret sauce is having her be able to take on all those other activities. I was able to stay in in like money-making activities, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

So it's a good question for like solo agents. Obviously, there's always the balance of you know, you experienced it in the first year, you netted like 14 grand. It's like, what's the quicker you can get to the point where you could hire an agent or an assistant to be able to? I think your I see this in all businesses, your income can dramatically increase because you're focused on those five things. But do you do you have any recommendation for like is it as soon as possible, or is there a number, maybe like if you're doing this many deals?

SPEAKER_00 7:30

So I would say, like, if whatever you set your goal to be, you should have your business set up for that, right? So, like for a long time, my wife and I we kept waiting. Once I hit this level, then we would hire another person. And one day I was like, you know, um, if you have faith that you're gonna do it, then you would just hire that person, but you don't think you're gonna get to that level, so you never hire that person. So I came home and I actually hired a person, and then I went home and told my wife, we have a new employee, and she's like, Excuse me. But I was like, No, our business plan requires us to have these people, and so I do think like you have to have self-belief, you're gonna get to that level. And then, two, I don't think you have to dive full-time into like a full-time assistant. I think that's where a lot of agents get hung up. You can, you know, hire, like, we do this all the time in my office. I'll find an agent that's not as busy. Hey, can you, you know, do these activities? And then I'll just pay him like piecework, if you will. Um, that's how we got our first full-time assistant. Was like they were an agent in the office, and I was like, Can you help me out on some of these files? Yeah, it just kept growing like more files, more files, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:45

And then they just worked here. That's a great point, too, because I I do hear, I think a lot of agents think that I have to hire a full-time assistant. Like, and I and it's why, right? Even if someone could save you five hours a week to start, and you're spending those five hours on those five things that you mentioned, your business will grow. And uh, to your point, you're not spending you know, doing 10, 12 hour tasks.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

So well, and that's the hardest part is you see like these agents, and I this was me in the beginning, is like you work really hard to find a transaction and somebody to help buy or sell, and then you get that person that's buying or selling, and you spend all your time there, and now you don't once that closes, you have no more transactions to help buy or sell, so you kind of do this roller coaster the first until you get and really stick to like a productive schedule, and kind of even time blocking would be a huge help for some of those agents. Like, don't do your transactional work first thing in the morning, save it for the afternoon. Like, I don't know a lot of people think in real estate that everything's so time sensitive, but it's really not.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yeah, yeah, there it feels like there's a lot of uh urgency or the feeling of urgency in the agent's day-to-day life. But um, you know, there's I don't know if you ever heard of the Eisenhower matrix, uh, which is basically like there's urgent, there's important, there's not urgent. It's like the the top line is the urgent and the important. Like that that's the thing, but you gotta be uh honest with yourself. Is this urgent? And is this important? Like, and you know, I think that's a really powerful uh mindset to look at. Um I love this. So you're obviously trending for way over a hundred sales uh this year. I've gotta ask you, because you know, I mentioned before, big lead generation guy. So um what is your strategy for uh getting leads? Because I I get a slightly different answer with everybody I talked to. Um, and so I love to hear kind of what your you don't have to tell us your secret sauce, but what's your approach?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Uh there's no secrets in real estate. I do think like we're all doing the same thing. We might do those things differently, right? Um biggest thing for me really is like uh I'm pretty old school, whereas I still spend, you know, about three hours a day uh prospecting over the phone. I might be calling around a brand new listing or calling around an area where I want to pick up a listing or somewhere where we have buyers. Um I call expireds and cancels, uh withdraws. We do now uh do some like Google paper clicks.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Really the best bang for your buck is like calling your database.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Mm-hmm. How but how, for instance, if I'm a newer agent, then obviously you let's have a year two, I've got a smaller database. What how would you say is the best way to start building up that database? Uh adding more.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

So, like I can give you an example of something we've been doing recently. It's like, you know, hey Tim, um, this is Richard, your realtor. I'm just calling. Uh, recently we've been helping a lot of families downsize. Do you know of anybody in like your circle that's been downsizing?

SPEAKER_02 12:06

And people are pretty open to to to share that, huh?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah, well, like you know, like they're like, okay, well, I don't know of anybody downsizing. It's like, okay, well, we have a lot of people are afraid to downsize because they have this big house and they got to make it smaller, and so they might be putting this off for a while. So we actually have vendors that are like estate planners, handyman, junk haulers, those types of people that can help them come through and systematically downsize the property and then move it into the next house. So, do you know anybody that would benefit from those types of services?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

And and do you uh partner up with those services? Meaning, like, does it go both ways? Meaning, yeah, if if they find people that may be looking potentially to downsize because someone reached out to them, they say, Well, you should talk to Richard.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

I mean, is it a bit of a very beginning? I didn't have vendors, you know. And so what I would do is like I would get out, well, now it's not the phone book, but you would get on Google and you would like Google like best painters or whatever, right? And then I would look for little painters, not like the biggest painters in my market, the little guys, because they would have a Google page and you could see that they were doing something, but they're not this huge company. And so I call them and say, Hey, I have a growing real estate business and we actively need good painters. Are you looking to take on new clients? Well, good. I take it a cup of coffee and just kind of learn more about your business and how we could better refer you. And then when I would sit there, I would talk to that business owner and figure out like, what is the challenging part of being a painter? And then how could I help him through my real estate company? And then how could he identify people that might need me and be able to refer back to me? And so our vendors are great referring partners, yeah, yeah, but they also helped grow my business, and then typically a business owner does have a higher net worth, and good, like most people that have a higher net worth are better referrals, so I'd say, Hey, who do you know that can use my services, or hey, I'm actively looking for this in my business, like an estate sale company or something like that? Who do you know that does that?

SPEAKER_02 14:23

I love that. Speaking of the the net worth uh thing that you touched on, do you did you start at a lower price point per house and then it gradually uh went up? Or did you have a strategy to maybe you know, obviously, you could sell X amount of houses for a Y amount, you can increase both of those to you know to make your income?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

I never really focused on price point, although like in the beginning, right eight years ago, homes were a lot cheaper, so they were sold a lot less than today. Um but yeah, they they were kind of I think in the beginning, like lower price people trust you more, and then you kind of gained that experience. But I don't know, I like my second or second year, second year I had a few listings above a million bucks.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Wow, yeah. Yeah, well those listings are probably two million at this point. Uh yeah, yeah. Um, so okay, we talk about lead generation. One of the biggest pain points that I hear from agents is uh follow-up. Like when I ask the average agent, maybe not the Richard Bermans of the world, but the average agent, like score your follow-up, it's usually closer to one than it is 10. Um, and so talk to me uh about your philosophy, like what happened in the first five minutes a lead potentially comes in over the next six months, year. Because obviously there's a study um that that was done that was generally speaking, that 90% of leads are not going to do a deal within the first 90 days. So, but I hear a lot of agents that are like, I gotta find the hot lead, the hot lead. But I'm thinking to myself, well, but there's a huge opportunity over here. Um, and obviously there's a striking of a balance, you can't just be continually waiting for people that are waiting. So, how do you kind of manage that bucket, those different buckets? How do you manage the follow-up? What's your process there?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah, great question. So the first thing, and this happens with a lot of agents, they'll say, I have a lead, but then it's like, what is the motivation of that person? Right? So, like anybody's gonna do something depending on what their motivation is, and then how that motivation plays into their time. So the very thing that I'm trying to do on the first call is really identify what their time frame is and what their motivation is. And if they're further out, then it's a longer term, they're further in, it's like shorter term follow-up. Um, and I really generally only focus on people that are gonna do something within the next few weeks. So I'll sift through leads, but I'm really looking for somebody that has high motivation.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Um, and then basically our follow-up is like the minute we find them, call them aggressively, right? Like where you I don't know, have you heard of the 333? Three times the first day, oh yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yep. So you stick to the three three three method. Um, so you are really you are focused on the people that are highly motivated. You're like, if I have a set of this many leads, I'm gonna determine who I think is serious, and I'm gonna really focus my time on on the on those folks, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, if you're like, hey, uh Richard, you know, we're like a year out. Sorry. You get um, we're a year out, like I'll calendar calls for you basically once a quarter to follow up with you then, but really I'm not gonna even consider you like a lead, you're gonna be like a longer-term nurture.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Sure. No, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

And then those people are just trying to like you know, they they're in follow-up boss, and we use that as our CRM. And then we call, text, email, we have all the drip set up. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Um I want to make sure one thing I like to always ask is like something a little tactical. So I want to make sure that the agents listening walk away from these conversations with something they can actually put into practice. So uh, though you've you've shared a lot of amazing uh approaches here, especially at like some of the filters that you're looking through, I are kind of unique that I really have enjoyed hearing. But if you were coaching an agent who's already doing some business but wants to significantly grow over the next 12 months, what's one specific thing you'd tell them to start doing this week?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, so this is like the the thing that I think again, most agents, like kind of going back to our conversation earlier, get wrong. Is really I would build out a productive schedule, right? And have all the money-making activities up front with like the servicing activities at the end of the day or in the middle of the day. And then I would follow that schedule as if I were working for somebody else, right? Like you come here to my office, I'm in the office at the same time every day. I pretty much leave the same time every day, and a lot of times I'm the only person besides my staff in the office, and we have about 50 agents in the building, so it's like if you treat it as if you worked for a corporate job, sure had that schedule, and they were saying, Hey, we're only gonna pay you if you do these activities, and they would write you up or fire you if you didn't, you're gonna be successful.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

That makes a lot of sense, and I do think that is definitely a challenge of newer entrepreneurs is to treat it like a job. Uh, you know, the freedom is great, but a lot of times you got to earn that freedom. Like uh you have to have the systems in place and be making the type of money that says, well, Richard decides, you know what, this week we're we're gonna go on vacation. Uh, how do you, by the way, I'm curious, uh, because you're obviously clearly a driven person. Uh, how do you balance that? Um, with like, okay, I've got this, I'm treating it like a job, I've got this schedule, but also sort of enjoying the fact that you are your own boss. No, I'm talking about a little aspirational for some. If you're early on, you this is not free. There's no free time. Yeah, there's no free time.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I was talking to my wife. We used to sit here and eat takeout in the office, you know, exactly late nights. Uh, one night we're uh this is years and years ago, but I remember watching the fireworks for 4th of July from the office as we were writing. We had been on a boat for an hour, came back to the office to respond to offers and ride a few. And it was like 10 30 at night, and we're sitting there, and I was like, We have got to get like I can't wait for a few years from now.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Um, yeah. So the biggest thing, and this is one of the things I do. So we do a buyer consultation and a listing appointment with all of our clients. Um, and we we actually sit down to them, we don't just run out and show them houses. Um, and in those buyer booklets and our listing packages, we actually have our schedule. So I show them exactly like you know, I'm in the office at this time and I get out at this time. And after this time, you're not gonna be able to get a hold of me. And I had to do that early on because Alan, my first mentor, he saw an email from me at like one in the morning one night. He came to the office and he says, If you're gonna have a marriage, it's not gonna be because you work 24 hours a day. Nope. That's uh that's what he he taught me early on. He's like, you know, we're not saving people in the ER. All this stuff after this hour can be responded to the next day, and so really on a daily basis, it's how. An off time where it's like my clients know, like, don't bother me after this time, um, because our business hours have stopped, and then the other agents in the market also know that we have auto responders on our office phone and everything. Um, and then when I do go out of town, um, now of course I have an agent on my team, they cover me, and then we have the the three time like three assistants, and they'll cover all my emails and everything.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Love it. You you you make a great point because what you just said really resonates with me, uh, because I'm a look early on in my entrepreneurial career, I just work, work, work, work, like barely slept. I mean, and that's just part of the game you play. Um, but then you get a little wiser and realize, like, you know, there's especially if you get some leverage and you can invest in people uh to help you or whatnot. But I actually have surprisingly a lot of the successful agents I've talked to, still have a little bit of like um like nope, I should answer my phone at any time. And I'm thinking, and I'm trying to be polite, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, I don't like I'm surprised that you're selling hundreds of uh homes, and that's like you're they think that's why they're doing it. I'm like, and it's kind of refreshing to hear you, someone that's selling hundreds of homes, also having some systems for your life outside of being an agent, which is I think this is great to hear from for newer agents because like I think there's a little bit of a fear that like I'm just gonna keep getting more successful, and then it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse. Uh so it's nice to hear someone actually that's like, Yeah, I'm having a lot of success. But by the way, I have a schedule, I manage client expectations. So I've actually asked that specific question like, How do you manage client expectations up front? And they're like, Well, the I just tell them I'm available all the time, and I'm like, Yeah, it doesn't resonate with me, it just that's to where I'm at in my life, but I'd feel like no thanks. Like, but so it's it's nice to see that it's possible.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah, I had to have a hard stop on that, especially like once I had kids, because my wife and I, two years into our journey, start like had had our son, and now we have another one, and it was like, if I'm gonna be a dad, I can't be a dad while I'm just sitting there on the phone. But like the schedule became even more important to separate it. Not only that, but like there's nothing I do in the evenings that really make a difference in my business. Like, if you actually track your evening activities or those phone calls, a lot of the time they're not really driving revenue, they're not increasing your customer service. And those same people, they couldn't call their doctor at that time, right? Sure, yeah, their attorney's not answering the phone, your C is not doing it, like none of the other professionals. And so if you want to be paid like a professional, I think you got to act like one.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Wow, that's good. I like that. That's a a writer-downer for sure. And I like I mentioned before, I I think you I'm pretty impressed by the filters that you look at things through. Meaning, like uh, I like that um, you know, you are thinking like in this case, hey, if I want to appear as a professional, like I can't people that are in high demand aren't available 24-7. Like, you can't get a hold of them. And and so, but obviously, this is a people service business, so there's a a balance there, you know, you can't be completely unavailable. Uh, but I I think saying, hey, like, here's here's what I'm available to. I love the idea of like, here's our hours, you know, and create that expectation. And I'm guessing, I'm guessing based on your numbers, you aren't losing a ton of business by people being like, Well, you're not available at nine o'clock at night. Um, so yeah, that's uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

I tell my clients, like, you can call me, you can text me, you can email me, you know. Basically, my workday stops at seven after seven, and just know that I'm gonna respond to that because I want you to reach out so you don't forget what you're gonna sure, yeah. Yeah, but then the next business day I'll get to it. And most of them are like, Oh, we yeah, you need time with your family. That makes sense. Like, nobody's ever been like you're not available, and if they are that person, typically they're not the person you want to work with, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

And I I like that you have that that filter of looking through like where these are the items that move the business. Um, and like you hinted at that typically the stuff you'd work on later in the day, it's like that that isn't really the thing that's gonna move the needle, anyways. But I think one thing I if I could just I wish I could help ages with this more, but is like there's always something to do, like you have to get over that. You have to get over the fact that there's always gonna be something to do. That's entrepreneurialism in general, like it's a baby, it's you know, it need but unlike a real baby, you can actually you can let it, you know, you can leave it in the car, that's it. Perfect, yeah. You can leave it at the office in the car.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

So um yeah, once you set that phone down, turn it off, it's good to go. And that and that's again, it goes back to that schedule. Like, I time block uh about an hour uh a couple hours a week in my schedule to build the business, which is like building out those systems to make the other things more efficient, you know. Like what we did in the very beginning years is I would take and write down all of the questions I got asked all the time. Like, oh, they just asked me when the appraisal is happening. Like, this is the seventh time I've been asked for that. Okay, can we generate an email or something that goes out and lets them know when the appraisal is gonna happen, how to prepare for it, and what are the next steps, right? Got it. Okay, they've asked me when do we transfer the utilities? When do we do this? When do we do that? And then basically, like eight of the same questions always came up, and so we built systems around doing that. So, like now, a lot of the calls don't come in, and that's all automated, you don't even need an assistant for that.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

I love that. Well, I love the finding that sort of 80-20. You you find those questions that are that are asked repeatedly and have a system where you're not having to be the one to answer it because I I've heard that from agents. They're like, Yeah, I always have to tell people XYZ. And I'm like, Well, you if you had a system that was proactive about uh answering those questions, you you would have to spend a lot less time answering them. So that's good.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

This might be crazy. I know we're wrapping up, but like uh I send out like a the common objections that I get on listing appointments ahead of time as FAQs, you know. So it shows up what's our commission? Why would we pay this? Like, you know, you're interviewing a few agents, this is what we'd ask, right? Why would you hire us? And then typically when I get to an appointment, it's pretty easy because they've already answered like the objections have been already answered for themselves.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah. Do you mind if I ask a couple more questions? Sure. Um because uh you know, as businesses grow, the bottleneck usually changes from getting business to building people and systems. So let's just dream for a second. If you wanted to double the business over the next two years, what would need to be true maybe operationally before that could happen?

SPEAKER_00 29:21

And our back end. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Well, just in generally speaking, if if I were to say, Richard, how do you double your business in the next two years? What would have to happen? It doesn't have to be on the back end, it'd just be what needs to be true in order for that to be the case.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Well, I think you know, really, you have to become like the number one looked at source, right? So I do think building a brand is really important to be like to grow in your business. In the beginning, it's just you, but like if you look at any of the local dealerships in your area, they're spending a lot of time marketing themselves to be the number one trusted auto.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

So I do think like to double your business, you do have to have more of brand awareness. Um, and then the second thing I think is you gotta make sure you are diversified in your pillars of business, right? Like sometimes we get kind of pigeonholed, like last year, mainly on chasing down expireds or something, right? That's a good source, but like what about all the other sources and where are you spending your time?

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Yeah, and are you are you constantly sort of zooming out of your business and saying, okay, we're doing a lot of that, but is that the best use of our time? Should we maybe allocate some of let's test this over here? Uh, because I my the the one number that I track every year is my dollar per hour.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Yeah, like so.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

I'm just like, all right, I worked this much, this is how much I made. That number needs to go up, and I'm always thinking about what can I do? How do I get more leverage? Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Uh so yeah, we look at our sources of business, like where did the business come from? How much time or activity or money did we invest in that source? And then basically you'll take and figure out our dollar you know per hour productivity, and then we say, Did we get like a good return or where was the best return on that? And then can we make other ones more efficient? So yeah, and then I do think like more systems, like or more leverage in the business would help double it.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Yeah, I mean, uh, there's a a system that a mentor told me once that he always thinks through, which is when he thinks of anything they do in the business, first is kill can it be killed, like the can it be automated, or then it could be delegated. It's kill, automated, delegate, you know. So I I'm constantly thinking through that. Uh, and uh I think that it's it's served me quite well. So I got I gotta ask one AI question because AI is impossible to ignore right now. You know, we've built this platform, it's given me a lot of opportunity to have a lot of conversations with people about where AI might be creating real value and sometimes where it might be hype. Where do you think is the biggest opportunity for AI inside a real estate business today?

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Well, I think a cuss a couple things. One, like um AI can start doing a lot of tasks. I do think like in the future we'll see more of the transaction management be uh handled through AI.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

I've heard that a fair bit.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Like 90% of your transactional tasks are duplicatable and repeatable through email and text. So I think you can do that. Um, and I do think um our lead follow-up could be better because it could start kind of custom tailoring responses to be more human-like. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

And are you are you guys using AI in your business at all right now? Or yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, but you're you don't think the follow-up is human enough at the moment? Is that is that kind of what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

We well, I don't have a system for the like an AI follow-up.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Got it, got it.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah, no, it's out there, and some people are doing it at an exceptional level. I'm not one of those.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

I love it. Okay, well, Richard, by the way, this has been fantastic, man. You you have crushed it. You're uh you're instantly one of my favorite guests because I just think there's so much applicable information that we just jammed into like a half an hour. Um, I think this is one of those episodes. If you're listening, you should listen to it and then listen to it again and take notes. Uh, because there is a lot that you can take from Richard that I think if you implemented, uh, I think your business is gonna look very different 12 months from now. So thank you, Richard. Before we wrap up, where can people learn more about you and your team?

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Well, I do have like a personal social media. It's Richard Boomer Berman on Instagram. Um, and then we have a website, reno sparkshomes.com.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Awesome. Richard, thank you again for joining me on under contract. I really enjoyed the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah, thank you.