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Crafting a New Legacy in Real Estate with Heather Mansy

• Courtney Twiss

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Heather Mansy isn't just transforming real estate; she's redefining excellence. Join us as Heather, the dynamic force behind the Mansy Real Estate Group, shares her inspiring journey from Keller Williams to eXp Realty. Discover how she turned a historic 1930s bungalow in downtown Vancouver into a thriving hub of collaboration and community for her team. Heather opens up about her strategic decisions, driven by a desire for more space and flexibility, that have set her team on a path towards growth and success.

You'll gain insights into the business benefits of choosing eXp Realty over Keller Williams, as Heather candidly discusses the challenges and triumphs of this transition. Learn about her respect for industry leader Don Yoakum and the pivotal role he played in Heather's decision-making process. From battling limited office space to the lack of profit-sharing at KW, Heather's move was about creating a sustainable and rewarding environment for her team. Her story is one of loyalty, innovation, and a bold vision for the future.

Finally, Heather reveals the secrets behind building a motivated real estate team that thrives on collaboration and continuous learning. Her entrepreneurial spirit shines through as she describes leveraging partnerships with lenders and vendors to enhance team benefits and offset costs. Heather's commitment to "Service with Excellence" and her focus on nurturing talent ensure her team stands at the forefront of the real estate industry. Listen in to discover how Heather is setting a new gold standard and what the future holds for the Mansy Real Estate Group.

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Speaker 1:

You look great. You look amazing and we appreciate your time, so hope you had a good trip.

Speaker 2:

It was amazing. I just gave chocolate to my whole team the other day and it was really great. They had the opportunity to experience the very best of Belgian chocolate, which was really fun for them.

Speaker 1:

Yum, let's roll. All right. Welcome back to another inspiring episode of Now Making Moves in Real Estate. This is episode 49. I'm Michelle Roderick, aka the General, and this is my awesome co-host and bestie and business partner and all the things C-Twist. And today we have an incredible guest joining us, someone who embodies the very spirit of excellence in real estate and beyond. Please welcome, heather Manzi. Team leader and owner of the Manzi Real Estate Group, serving Southwest Washington and Northwest Oregon. With a passion for helping clients buy or sell homes, land or investment properties, heather and her team live by their powerful motto Service with Excellence. It's her mission that goes beyond transactions. She's all about creating customers for life, building trust and ensuring satisfaction every step of the way. In this episode, we'll dive into her journey, her strategies for success and how she continues to set the gold standard for real estate in her region. Welcome, heather. Standard for real estate in her region.

Speaker 2:

Welcome, heather. Thank you, ladies. I'm so happy to be here and I really appreciate the opportunity, and I'm just enjoying seeing your smiling faces today, because we don't often get to hang out on. So this is really fun and it actually reminds me that I'm very excited, uh, for the upcoming cabo exp thing. So I'm hoping that you guys will be there, because that's where we met and I yeah, I can't wait to experience it a second time around, but now on boarded with exp. So this is this will be fun well, actually definitely be there.

Speaker 1:

Action, yeah, like it's good it's. It's great that you bring up the Cabo thing, because that's actually what led me to think about having you on the podcast, but we met in Oregon.

Speaker 2:

You're right On a snowy day in Hood River.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that is true, justin and Stephanie's event. We met there for a bus. Back to this time last year, we met in Oregon. Like a vision, that's true, and you had no tell us what your business looked like this time last year.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's an interesting question. Yeah, so this time last year I was at KW. My team was there. I had moved them there from a regional brokerage about two years previous to that because I wanted space and I also wanted, you know, that recruiting opportunity that that particular KW was offering. They were doing, you know, monthly career fairs when I joined, and so this was very useful for me to find ways to, you know, kind of broadcast our mission as a team and then be able to, you know, bring more people into our world and I was teaching for them.

Speaker 2:

So I was regularly teaching Ignite and I was actually on the ALC at the time as well, and so I was just kind of like, you know, running all engines, I would say. And then my team, you know, was similarly sized. So I believe when we came over TXP we also had 18, you know about a total of 18. I would say we're still close to that number. It fluctuates, you know, so kind of regularly. It's like get one more VA, eliminate a VA, have another. You know I've had an agent who's, you know, gone off to have a baby. I've had another one who's moved to California, and yet we've onboarded new ones. So I feel like we're still kind of around that, but I will say that there's been a lot of really meaningful changes and I'm happy to discuss those with you guys as well, if you want to get into that at some point.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, I think when we met you, I remember you talking about the KW Center that you were part of. Like the building was like, didn't you say like the number one square footage Keller Williams building at the time Was that building?

Speaker 2:

Possibly. And it's funny because I'm not sure if that, you know, is was, you know my quote but it's a 60,000 square foot building and so you know one of the things is that you know, for me I went from renting a significant amount of little kind of pod offices which did not have windows, which did not. You know, I could kind of cram and I mean sort of cram with a shoehorn, you know, three agents into each one and I was actually limited on my number of capping agents as to how many offices that I could rent, even though I was of course paying that leasing fee. And this was becoming a sticking point for me in January, when Don Yochum and Stephanie Peck approached me at that Hood River event and it became an issue because I needed more space for my agents and I also wanted to bring one of my two partner lenders in-house. You know he was going to go off into Advantage Mortgage, which is more or less having his own sort of wholesale lines brokerage, and he wanted to. You know we thought it would be great to co-work they were already co-working with us for one day a week, different days for my different lenders, and the more that I was able to, you know, have them you know I call it like co-parent, you know the kids, or co, you know, co-teach the team is really our co-mentor or even just co-assist with everything they need from us, with their clients. Then that's really fruitful.

Speaker 2:

And so I was actually getting pushback from that, with just you know rules and structures that they had and I was in this big building. It also caused some of the, I believe you know I don't have a spreadsheet of it but it caused some of the kind of lack of downline distribution of income, because that building obviously creates a massive expense. It creates a massive energy expense, there's all kinds of things like that. A 60,000 square foot building is significant. It was a Kaiser clinic on two levels previous, so you know, really great piece of real estate. But again it, you know, was, even though a good portion wasn't rented out, that was not available to me to rent out more rooms for my team. My own office was somewhat crammed so it kind of even just space wise.

Speaker 2:

If I had stayed with KW I was going to have to come up with something else and maybe buy a building or rent a different building or do something. And so EXP came around at a time I wasn't really looking for that, but there were some other things with events. We were having some issues with some of the spaces that we were used to using and then recruiting. That career fair thing had gone away.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if they just weren't seeing an ROI from it or whatever, but it had actually been pretty fruitful for me and that went away. I was still very much enjoying teaching for them and all that and did as much of that as I could Because, again, people would then get exposure to the fact that I have a team and that that might even be a place where they could find themselves. Yeah, so it's really interesting because it is a huge building and it was not no longer helping me in the way it needed to help me. And then, yes, I think, the largest check I ever received in the two and a half years I was at KW for.

Speaker 1:

Let me guess. Let's guess Wait largest check For the year. Wait, largest check for the year.

Speaker 2:

For the year or for the month, Two and a half years for a leader of a team? Yes, Fluctuated between eight to 18 total members including back office during that time Team 18 for the year total, or like were we guessing on a month.

Speaker 1:

Biggest check I ever got check, I'm gonna go 475 dollars per month. No, I'm one month, she's saying a profit share.

Speaker 2:

What is your against, courtney?

Speaker 1:

like 130 dollars, I think you're. You're probably closer like 1.89 a dollar. I was way off Gosh. I was thinking like man I'm with like $75 or $50.

Speaker 2:

Okay, To say that that money, to say that profit in that concept of profit share was non-existent at that market center, you know, would be an accurate statement. You know, and yes, we're talking 22 and 23. I moved in December of 21. And so those were very hard years for real estate. But yeah, just every time I interview someone here that is interested in becoming an agent and we recently had one join from another brokerage and if they hear about this profit share concept through KW they think that's cool.

Speaker 2:

But I make the clear distinction. One is profit share, which means all the expenses had to get deducted before profit could occur, which then gets distributed on a formula versus revenue share, which is the actual amount, percentage you name. It is fully, you know, in that contract, because I certainly read it through and through before I signed to eXp with eXp, and so, irrespective of whether the corporation is profitable or not, we receive revenue, our own, the revenue that we're bringing in. We receive a portion of that. And anyone in our downline you know well, it's downline only, obviously but you know we're not paying into a system that is going to be different per building or market center or place that we're attached to. That is just a one and done concept and I think it's brilliant and it is a massive change. So and, by the way, I haven't made a ton of downline revenue since I changed because I actually deferred my entire team. So my existing agents, they got, you know, deferrals on their caps equal to where they were at, so if they were nearly capped or had just capped or whatever.

Speaker 2:

So I carried that through and it was actually one of the things that Justin Stoddard brought up in his podcast was, you know, it's my belief very firmly leaders eat last. You know it's not. You know that was kind of his phrasing, but for me it's always been. I will make money when it's the right time for that to occur and it will be because I have made it possible and I have made it occur that my agents and the people in my world are successful, and that's when I'll get paid. You know, I regularly will tell my team my expenses are vast, so I'm probably not going to make a dollar until sometime in, you know, june or July or some years. It's October. That's when I will earn the first dollar for my family that I can take home. And part of this is, you know, also because I've been out of production for a few years so it looks different, although I did go back into it a little bit to do some luxury stuff last year.

Speaker 1:

There's like a ton of sorry. Go ahead, no, no, no, I was just thinking. Well, I was saying, ooh, because of luxury, because I have joined the luxury division with eXp and there's a lot of awesome resources and the referral group is really robust and it's fun. You have to go At eXpCon. They had a really fun little gala there.

Speaker 2:

That was cool for all the luxury agents, little gala there, that was cool for all the luxury agents. Yeah, I did not get to attend EXP Con but the luxury division was one of the things that impressed me because you guys know that I went to a family reunion with KW the week before I went to the EXP. You know Brent Gove's organization, exp, bill Olive and I can't remember the name, but yeah, but you know, I got to compare and contrast, with only a few days gap between what those, you know what those two events were like and it was really an interesting, I think just a really fruitful contrast. And also I was able to learn about the luxury division they had done. They had a panel of speakers. They presented a really good case for that division and for that, you know for what is it? 2,500 bucks a year.

Speaker 2:

So I have luxury listings. I immediately signed up to that and I immediately marketed. You know some of what is available and I had two luxury listings One of them is still on market that we used all of their protocols and it's fantastic. Every week I get an email that shows on Mansion Global and manorhomecom, whatever all these, you know, the Wall Street Journal, everything that I can just forward to my clients. That shows the number of hits and clicks that they're getting on these. You know glorious, you know highly sought after. You know news or publications, that it's pretty impressive, I will say.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, I remember at Cabo, like the first day, we were all hanging out. I think it was the first day. It was the first day and you're like I'm not making any moves. I'm not, it was. If I do make a move, it won't be for another year, that's right. That's right. And then fast forward. By the end of the week you were making the move pretty much, or at least mentally. You were there, and so what do you think?

Speaker 2:

I see you like what you heard about luxury. Yeah, that was actually a really stressful week for me, though I wasn't, you know, like boogieing till dawn, although I definitely danced a little bit, but you wouldn't have found me with a drink in my hand during that trip and anyway, I just completed a 365. But it's you know. When you know, you know, and I've never been afraid to make firm decisions, pivot when needed, you know, change something. I'm always willing to be wrong. I'm always willing to be wrong. I'm always willing to be edited, corrected. It's like wrong is not even the correct word for that, because it's really just like evolve, and so I've always kept my mind open. This was an ethos from my mother, you know, many, many decades ago, that she would say always, you know, explore every opportunity, because you do not know what's behind that. You know that offer that door and to this day, some of what you know, some of the time that my ops manager has paid for, is to explore and learn about systems and apps, and you know services that I could be bringing to bear in this work. And so you know I came in on Monday she's already there on a Zoom with someone typing notes, and it's because I've told her go interview this thing. That sent me an email and of the hundred emails I got that were from different services that week, I told her check out these two. You know right, and it's like every week it's the same. So this has been going on for years and this is how I function. I need to know what I don't know, and so when I went to EXP, there was already a really compelling case for it. I have a lot of respect for Dawn Stephanie I had already met, and I actually met her through a bold in KW. Didn't get to hang out or really know each other, but you know, obviously she had a really clear case, cut and dry, of how she benefited from one organization to the next and she also has, you know, a really effective team, I would say, more successful in terms of total units over the last whatever her time in real estate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had said I probably wouldn't move. One of the biggest things was that ALC that I was in, and then I got to meet so many people who were in, in fact, alc at the time they moved I had, you know, I'm very commitment based, I'm very loyal, and so if I've made a commitment to do something I'm generally going to follow through. And so that actually was one of the things. The other I played out certain arrangements that I had and certain things that I was up to fully before. You know, before um, changing you know, changing over to a different organization, because with a team of 18 back office and all I'm really that's a really distinct destabilizing thing. I had brand new recruits. I had talked up KW's family reunion. I had talked up KW's benefits, so I was a teacher for them, you know. So it was to say it was like optically weird, you know, for them for me to do that is really saying something. And then, certainly, but by the end of the week I was like, well, I'm going to make the change, because for me it was just a no brainer with. It wasn't so much the downline, it was a bunch of things at once. It was me recognizing that the building I was at was no longer fit for purpose for what, the flow that I wanted to create with my team. I wanted an in-person organization and I continued to want to do that and actually make it more robust.

Speaker 2:

January 1 of last year I actually brought my entire team into the office and said guys, we're doing the thing, we're doing the 9 to 12 calling and we're going to consistently do that. And my calling month on month, from December because I track everything month on month, december to January, just for a two week period of time shot up by a factor of 1800%. So amazing, yeah, really true, and kind of pissed me off because I was like, guys, you know, I put you in office for three hours, five days a week and suddenly you're making 1800% more calls, what the heck, you know. But it's like I told them look, we tried free will, we're not doing that anymore. You know, like, you're still an independent operator, but if you want to be part of the club that gets the hottest incoming leads, you're going to be in the office. And then, and yes, and I brought my, my two lenders in office with us two days of the week because it was easy to go, hey, you know, here's this. I actually have my lender right here, you know, and so that's obviously what I had the team doing.

Speaker 2:

But I knew that I needed a better office space, not the one I had. And then I also saw that profit share was completely non-existent. And then I have a tiered team, and this is important because with the XP I saw a way to benefit them that I'm not seeing attrition at year two or three with once I've taught someone how to do real estate really well and instead have the opportunity to keep them. And that is because I had already, for about a year and a half, had created team leads where agents on my team had certain perks, like less fees. They only pay a quarter cap, not a half cap, so I'm covering some of these things for them less file fees, I cover their technology fee, and so I was already doing this inside of KW and their job is to be a mini mentor and a traffic director for those brand new agents I choose to bring in because we bring in people from outside of real estate.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of one of my I would say I'm one of my favorite, you know, segments is people that have never come in and learned bad habits, so I can just teach them from scratch and I will take people inside the industry too. It's just that. It for me it's actually just easier to take someone who's never had that experience, but maybe they've had a sales experience or they've had a lot of really good customer service experience. Bartenders are amazing, by the way, and the servers fantastically good at dealing with people of all types and doing a really good job of it, and they're self-motivated because they love those tips. But so, what you know, it came at a time it made perfect sense because I was able to take go from renting to owning, because I decided not just to rent space but to actually own it. So the building I'm in right now this is my office. I own this 1930s bungalow. It's got an attic above me where I've got, I think right now, eight agents making phone calls because it's still before noon and it's amazing.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know that the value add would be that it would be like a home away from home for everyone. So it's got like Christmas decorations and a little mini tree out front and everyone's got their little you know food in the fridge and whatever. It's really funny because it feels like you're going from one home to an actual work home and people take pride in it. All of my agents have separately told me how much they absolutely love working here. We planted a community garden out back as a fun thing in the first month, but so I was able to go from a building that made sense. I've turned that now into a benefit to my family. So it wasn't free, it wasn't cheap, it's in downtown Vancouver, but you know that half a billion dollar asset now belongs to the Mansey family and that actually helps my family move forward instead of paying for a chunk of, you know, a 60,000 square foot building owned by someone else.

Speaker 2:

So this was like a really big one for us. It also meant that I got to have the, you know, more light, more open areas, the kind of style of, you know, collaborative rooms that are bigger, more spacious and the agents can really listen to each other making calls and they can excite each other. So they created a desk competition. I think it was holiday desk decorating. So we, you know, we really have a real workplace here and, to be honest, I don't have my competitors listening in, you know, from the other door down the hall or cracking the door to the meeting room where we're having all of our big trainings. For some reason, every single time we have one, you know, like I don't have that anymore and there was some weirdness like that that we experienced and then being able to know for my tiered team structure that now my agents every time a new agent comes on.

Speaker 2:

We have a gal, sarah. She'll be passing her exam in a couple weeks. I just studied with her the other day, on New Year's day. We came in for four hours and I worked with her on the math portion, which is something I've I've always done to help people. And you know she'll get through that exam in a couple of weeks and I'll assign her under my team lead, daisy. Daisy will then have the, the downline from that, you know, from that agent, forever.

Speaker 2:

Now, yes, I want Daisy to stay on my team, but if she leaves she's, you know, granted she's still going to get some of that downline money, but so am I because Daisy's under me. But here's the thing Daisy knows that she benefits not just from Sarah the recruit, but any of the others that I choose to assign under her as one of my team leads. If she stays, and if Sarah one day has a second child and decides to take a year off, if Daisy has left my team and gone out in EXP or another brokerage or say in EXP, she might still have made money off of Sarah, but she's not able to capture a new person that I bring in. So I'm literally creating permanence for those agents who want to be part of my team. Sure, they might still one day want to go off, and that's fine. No harm, no foul.

Speaker 2:

But there's so many additional benefits that, by the way, I don't have to pay for simply because they're doing the same transactions, paying the same cap, basically the same 8K that I had with KW here. But now a portion of that goes to help incentivize my own team leads, and this is really significant because we recruited a few people last year that were under one of my team leads. They started cranking like right away and one of them did like a million, two like on her third month and everything. My team lead came to me and said I've earned 35,. She earned $3,500 so far, I think 3,500 last year from her little what we call podettes. She calls them podettes because I call it pods and they're all women in that group. But anyway, yeah it's, she's earned that money. I mean these are really significant differences.

Speaker 2:

Another one that I love and I'll stop and you guys can interrupt me anytime but another one that I love is that I was not aware I'd have to own a branch brokerage because I have a building and it's under my trade name and it's, you know, separate and it's in eXp. This was just like a side thing that happened. But you know, that's pretty cool because our address on our business cards now for our group in eXp is the one, the building that I own, and there's a certain amount I'm not going to lie of like, ooh, you know, ownership pride that goes with that. That, I think, is so exciting and so fun. I have another friend who did one as well. Her team is smaller but she has it nearby.

Speaker 2:

I mean, this is amazing, do you realize, and you guys probably both know, if I were to try to go own because I know you were owning an individual boutique brokerage, but if I were to go and try to own a KW, you know, I went in some of those talks and we're talking about a very complex, very costly endeavor because you're really buying into that franchise under all of their rules and what I love about any brokerage anyway, I always said I kind of wanted them just to leave me with my autonomy. I've been in sales for 40 years, I've been in business for a long time. Leave me with my autonomy. I'm going to get sued if one of my agents. I'll get named in that lawsuit if one of them does something wrong. I've got this I will call you when I need you, and I kind of had this arrangement with the two other brokerages that I had my team under.

Speaker 2:

But this is, I would say, a much broader expansion of that concept. I have no one in my building that is not in the Manzi Real Estate Group and it is really freeing for me because my direct principal broker or, sorry, designated broker isn't even in the same city as me. So there's something really freeing from just an entrepreneurial, managerial ownership kind of way of thinking that I have loved, and it's something just in the back of my mind but I love it and maybe you guys can talk about this too. But those are and that's not all the reasons that I love EFE over that, but those are some of the ones that that week, courtney, I just was like this is so obvious and I actually clued into almost everything I just said by like Thursday of that Cabo thing, and I was like oh my God, and I called my husband and I said I am so stressed, I am so stressed, I'm literally sick to my stomach because I'm definitely going to make this move and I think I should do it now.

Speaker 2:

And I have, I'm running, you know, I'm writing down pros and cons, lists of waiting and I and all of it is just oh, I want to check the box and say I completed X, y, xyz for Keller, but Keller wasn't even allowing me to take my lender and put him in the same office as me and wasn't allowing me to buy and, you know, even just pay for, or we were going to do it, but it was like nine grand out of pocket to pay a cap for an agent that hadn't yet capped for so I could get permission to like, rent another little pod. These things weren't working for me and I saw a vision for my team and we're nowhere near what my pinnacle of that vision is but I saw that I was dealing with sort of corporate rules and structures that were not allowing me uncapped growth.

Speaker 1:

Right. Well, I'd say we've experienced a lot of the same in Monomi. I have two. I also have branches, right, two offices. I think a lot of people think, with EXP being a cloud-based brokerage, that there aren't offices, but the reality is well one. We can use Regus for free or for a discount if you want conference rooms, and they're all over, and Michelle and I rented one in Orange County for two days or strategy sessions with some of our agents and it was awesome. But if you do have an office, what I like about something that you've done is your partnership with your lender is a great way to help offset the cost, and there's many vendors that people could partner with that I think would have a similar benefit, like we've even considered insurance agents, and I just think that's a great thing for people to consider, because you do want to watch your overhead.

Speaker 2:

I can speak on that briefly, you know, if you'd like. So my lender is actually on the other side of this wall. So what eventually happened is that he's renting a space from me. Advantage Mortgage sends me a check every month and it's for the rent of that room. So I started this building already with a tenant, so it's the 800 a month or whatever it is. So not only was I able to go from renting myself, but I'm already. I already have tenants and I don't charge my agents a desk fee. There's, those are my full-time agents that have desks, and then I have a remote, so I have tiers of agents as well, but just that ability.

Speaker 2:

So literally all time, nine to five, monday through Friday we have one of my two lenders on site and that has been dramatically beneficial for the team. It's absolutely wonderful, and we've actually wrapped him and my other lender into more of our kind of celebrations and even more. And then, yes, they do, both of my lenders offset lead expense. So you know we're able to share on a platform it used to be sync, now it's follow up, awesome Y Lopo. We're able to share on something like Zillow uh, which I do currently source some uh leads from in. You know, kind of a bitter, uh bitter, love, hate relationship I have there. Um, I mean, my reps are fantastic. I just hate the fact that the leads are that expensive. But the ROI is good at this moment but yeah, so they help pay into that as well.

Speaker 2:

And I agree with you you know my title. We are tapping them constantly to say, you know what can we be learning from you? And hey, show up here and train my team. And so in the living room is a big TV flat screen and you know we regularly will rearrange those chairs and create sessions. I try to have at least one guest speaker every few weeks coming from somewhere, whether it's like Dawn or Stephanie or someone, or it's one of my lenders.

Speaker 2:

We have multiple home inspectors. I've had them come in and teach classes, even together. They don't like to teach on their own, so they're not used to doing that, so they're intimidated, so they teach together. But yeah, exactly to your point, courtney, and I'm not just leveraging them to, like you know, let's share money on like a door hanger. Let's also learn from them and help be that direct dial, like hand-raised person that at any time my agents to look towards. But they have a whole village of people that I've structured around them. That know, oh, that's one of Heather. You know that's one of the Manzi group calling. Let me quickly take that call and help them.

Speaker 1:

So I think that one of the things I really I'm going to take away from this podcast is your comment around like exploring opportunities, like your willingness to lean into the event and like learn about eXp is what I think is impressive about you because you could have been I'm KW to the death, like I love KW and not that you weren't that, because you definitely were loyal, but you were open to learning about what was out there and on for you and your family and your team. But can you talk a little bit about, maybe, your clients? Like what do you think your clients are receiving over and above now that you're with eXP.

Speaker 2:

It's difficult for me to make the distinction, because what I can tell you is that we've always provided a high level of service that I have prided myself on. So to say that that was just like a black and white and maybe I'll just find it in the speaking. But basically we have two mottos. So one is service with excellence. This came out or came about organically with me as an individual realtor years ago. I treated every client how I would want to be treated. I was an investor since 2008 in properties I was constantly buying or even helping other people in other countries or whatever buy real estate, but I was not a realtor. I did not want that distinction at the time real estate, but I was not a realtor. I did not want that distinction at the time and my kids were little, so that wasn't something that I, you know. I kind of knew that I didn't, wasn't ready to commit those hours, and so it just came about organically. People would say you're absolutely excellent, you're excellent, whatever. So I started signing my emails with that and then, eventually, when I got a team, I said you, you're an extension of me. When I got a team, I said you, you're an extension of me, you're under my name and my family name and I need to make sure that you guys are embodying this motto. And so I said we're going to, like that's our team motto and we're going to use that. And then another one, just again organically, that came up through some training within a year or two so I've had the team almost eight years now is that I said we keep the dream alive until we hand you the key. And that one is really for me to drill down on the concept that my individual agents are each coaches for and dream keepers for those clients that they understand that this is about you're literally holding the dream or goals or financial future of your clients, because this is the biggest single financial transaction most people will make and they'll only do it if you literally change their life. It can change their life. And so, financially, we've seen this for a long time, just as investors and as individual homeowners, you know even what you pay down in a mortgage has almost no you know no competition with what that home does in just valuation over time. So we understand this and so those two mottos have been embodied and we talk about them daily.

Speaker 2:

I think if you want a motto to work, it has to be alive, and we talk about them daily. I think if you want a motto to work, it has to be alive. So we're always looking, you know so, at least once a week, twice a week, in our rap sessions and whatever we're able to. You know, talk about these or it'll come up, and I'm never going to miss a teaching moment to go, and actually what so-and-so said is perfectly to the point of one of our mottos, and you know, this is actually why we say this. So I'm really constantly tying back to it as well, to one or the other motto in everything we do.

Speaker 2:

But I would say one of the things first of all, every agent here is so excited about not just being here and maybe referring someone across the US to be in an EXP that they themselves could maybe benefit from downline income, but they're also most of the ones that I have now are so just hyper excited, and I've opened up the concept of being a team lead to, or pod leader to, more of them, and so I've got maybe, instead of the four that I had which one is in a different career now and now I have three. One of them I turned into my transaction manager. So that's two. So I knew I needed to at least have two more, or three or four more, because I'm in a push to 20 and over full-time agents. And so what I said was you know, hey guys, I'll open up this opportunity. So that is massive because they're you know they're now hearing, because of course they gossip in the back office, which sometimes it's very fruitful, because, you know, I tell my team mates, if you're gonna gossip, just don't do it on a down day. You know, do it when you're excited about something. If, down day, you know, do it when you're excited about something. If you're going to just be like up there chatting instead of working, like let it be something that is going to motivate your, your people, um, and so they're, they're very excited. I've got, I think, like I said, five or six people that are very excited about the concept of becoming a team lead, because they understand the money.

Speaker 2:

And one thing I didn't say is, before I joined eXp, I would give a $1,000 bonus to any of my agents that brought in a recruit. And because they would bring in this recruit, I would say I'll pay $500 on their six-month of the recruit and then the other $500 at their one year, and so that basically prevents me from paying money for someone who is just going to bounce in and out of real estate and is not going to be fit for purpose. And so instead, now that we have this downline structure without me spending any money at all, they have the benefit that if I decide to assign them under that team lead, they're going to get downline every time that person's in their capping period. So it's more money for them and a significant amount more money and it's sooner, it's more quicker and more reliable and it is very much exciting them because it's recurring every year. So it is my goal and it was last year was to go big or go home. So for me, I will push to 20, 25 full-time agents, and I know I've got the back office that we can do that and we've got the structure. I've got a good what I call recipe that I know that we can do it.

Speaker 2:

I feel comfortable that this is something we can do as an organization and while we're doing that, I need people to want to stay, and one of the biggest, most heartbreaking things for me, I think, as a teacher and as a mentor, is to have someone get to a point where now they're just like released into the wild.

Speaker 2:

And I've trained some incredible agents that are out there, you know, being agents, but I'm losing that knowledge power as an organization and it takes years, as you guys know, to create that in another human. So the fact that they have really, really solid reasons to stay because why would a brilliant, highly trained individual stay, if they have really really solid reasons to stay, because why would a brilliant, highly trained individual stay if they have capped growth, if they can't feel like they can move upward and that they're getting more accolade and that they're getting more responsibility, and so literally becoming this mentor is really huge, because now they get to feel the same heartwarming thing that I feel every time an agent comes to me and goes oh my God, heather, that thing you told me worked and I've got the signature. They get to feel that now because they're maybe giving a tip or doing a little role play or something and it's having a profound effect.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, that's amazing. Here's the thing, heather. We appreciate you joining us and we look forward to seeing you in Colorado. I just want to close by saying this If you're an agent out there, that's on a team. I don't want to like specify KW, but if you happen to be with KW, the thing with Heather. I think that you know you talked about a lot of things to just explore other opportunities having that location, the less liability, the ability for growth, all the things. Also the opportunity for you to have some ways to come over to eXp through top deferrals. There's all kinds of things that are options. So if you are interested, reach out to Heather or you know Courtney and myself and we'd love to see through what those might be and come to Cabo. We'll see you in Cabo in just a few weeks. Oh, not we, us. If you go to Cabo in a few weeks, you'll be there without us. That's like not that far away. March, march 11th.

Speaker 2:

It's soon. Yeah, we're booking our flights today, so that's…. I want to thank both of you for the opportunity to, yeah, just to have this forum, and I'm very excited to see you guys again, and it's just so fun to watch other women in business and other entrepreneurs who are literally rocking and just rocking their world and making change happen and, you know, creating waves in this world that we call real estate, and I just always, you know, for me it was amazing to meet both of you because I can tell that you're just fully upwardly mobile. Just, you know, you're out there moving and shaking and I just think it's so great that you guys have created this and that I have had the chance to know you, and I love watching what you guys are up to, you know, personally and professionally, and so this is really fun for me. So, thank you.

Speaker 1:

We appreciate it and you have a good rest of your day. Thanks, Ella.

Speaker 2:

Thanks guys, Bye.