Being a real estate team leader and leading your real estate agents to a successful career is not as easy as it sounds.
Real estate agents joining a team are typically looking for mentorship.
Watch as Danny Garcia talks about how real estate team leaders can become the leader that agents need.
Transcript:
Chris Bounds 00:02
I love that team name to your business name. Yeah. Whenever I saw you put that on there, I remember was a year or so maybe there’s a little alarm go on. Love it. So, alright, you’ve been all over the real estate spectrum. But you’ve been an individual agent, now you’ve got a very successful real estate team. You’re just crushing it. You’re doing real estate investments as well. How should agents make that transition? If they really want to make the transition, how should they make it from individual agent to growing a team?
Danny Garcia 00:35
Well, in the beginning, when I was on a team growth and everything when I started, teams were not that common and if they were that was usually husband and wife teams. But as time evolved, you start seeing the teams set up kind of becoming more and more and more common. One of the biggest things, I mean, what I was kind of hesitated was about, I’m kind of like your previous guests and I’m more of a visionary versus a systems guy.
So to have a successful team, that’s probably one of the components you really have to have the whole systems and everything to backup your team because obviously not communicating on the phone on a daily basis or primary transaction. The systems is probably the most important thing when you are transitioning to a team.
If you’re going to start, doing that now and think about building a team, you should start looking to get heavily invested into systems right now. Because when your team comes on board and you really don’t have any systems in place, I mean, really, you just have a lot of agents doing their own thing and it’s gonna dissolve quickly.
Chris Bounds 01:37
When you made that transition, so there’s a couple different ways you can go and it probably evolves over time but you can either immediately move into the manager role and start pouring leads into your agents or you can start the team invest in more leads while still working your own individual personal business. I’d imagine most team leaders start out with a ladder, but how did that work for you?
Danny Garcia 02:05
Well, when you talk about team leaders, number one, you have to be able to lead. I mean, I know guys who have teams but they never pass one or two people over. I tell people, you need constant to improve on what you’re doing. Sometimes, you’re a big investor who’s well known in the industry and a lot of your products and a lot of different ways to get on creative financing in every term.
I think a lot of times with the seasoned agents, you might think, “Oh, I really don’t have anything to offer.” But a lot of people usually nowadays are looking for more of a mentor. They don’t really just want to come into a team and basically, “Hey, plug in and do your work. Let’s figure this out along the way.” I know like with our team in the beginning, I was like, “Okay, what am I gonna do? I’m really not the systems, guys.” Let’s put it that way.
But I had a lot to offer on the table and I found a lot of agents wanted somebody with the experience and does the word team leader. You’re gonna need them. A lot of people kind of missed that all the time. It’s like, I got a team but nobody’s really leading. I think if you want to get to that point, It’s you really have to develop those skills and leading other people.
Having people become attracted to you and that aspect of, “Hey, he sincerely wants to help us grow the business. He wants to help me grow the business.” Because that’s probably the core what I’ve seen, even along with friends who have very successful teams is you bring value to the members in your team.
Chris Bounds 03:33
Yeah. I mean, ultimately, the team leader and also this. Anytime we talk about team leader, it correlates very well to independent broker owner for small 5, 10 or 15 agent brokers. Bu I guess what I was trying to say, you’re either pouring leaves therefore driving money to them.
Danny Garcia 03:54
Correct.
Chris Bounds 03:55
Or skills. But preferably and the best ones are both. It becomes very difficult to do that. When you’re on six appointments every single day. In that situation and there’s nothing wrong with it depends all depends on your dynamics and how you want to set up your business. Everyone’s different. But in that situation where the broker owner and the team leader is out there on 6 appointments to 10 appointments a day and do all this other stuff.
You’re competing with your sales agents. It’s like the sales manager in corporate America on the floor actually taking sales calls. While all their sales agents, they’re competing with their own agents. But you still have to eat. Right. It’s a dichotomy. How do you balance that?
Danny Garcia 04:46
How do you know the balance goes in this as you know, we’ve been in a lot of leads. I still service some of my old longtime clients and I’ve let go some some of understand the structure. But when you start a team in the beginning, it’s very difficult because somebody who’s done a lot of production the past years and you’ve run solo all your life. You kind of just have a hard time letting go of things.
So I remember I experimented two years ago, I brought in a buyer’s agent. And I just cashed right in some clients go and we’re doing the whole 50/50 split to fully approve everything. And then, finding out it actually free a little bit of my time. I was able to make money and still service other clients that I was leaving behind. So that year, I ended up taking a three week vacation because now I had realize how this works. And it was okay to let go of things.
But that’s probably the hardest thing is as a team leader is letting go of some of the clients and letting your team work and taking the lead on some of these leads that you have. And one thing that I did realize was, I was leaving a lot of business on the table. I wasn’t servicing every single lead that was coming in as an individual. So I was really just missing out on money.
At the same time, you kind of find that balance where you like, “Okay, here’s a couple $100,000 worth of clients who bought because I missed them or I couldn’t service them.” So what do you do? You realize you have to start leveraging up and annihilating people to help you with those particular clients.
It’s like one of my previous broker says, “Man, if you really want 50% of 100,000? or do you want nothing?” Well, I could do a lot with that kind of money. You’ll realize that you start realizing just trying to be that greedy mindset. It’s just kind of hinders you from making more money.
Chris Bounds 06:32
I love it. I guess this probably would be the last question in 60 seconds. Nobody wants a team member to leave, especially a very successful one. Same thing in corporate America. You got a rock star employee. You don’t want him to leave. But it’s gonna happen eventually in this vicious business.
How can team leaders and independent brokers cheer on that agent that has grown under your wing, taking the skills and gone out there and built their own business been really successful and then decided, “Hey, I’m ready to go off on my own.” or “I’m ready to start my own team.” How can the team leader handle that where the relationship actually thrives after that moment? Because you’re not gonna be happy but you should be happy, too.
Danny Garcia 07:24
Yeah. The biggest thing is I’ve always been in a leadership position where there was leading youth departments or big banking groups or even with my construction team. So one of the things I’ve always seen it in the beginning was when they’re ready to move on, it’s almost like a parent, you did your job. You should be proud of your product.
So going back to this particular agent that I hired, she was the first one to move out. She says, “Hey, you need to take your business to the next level. I’m gonna have to go somewhere else.” She challenged me and I’m where I’m at now because of that challenge. She moved on and now she’s a big agent. Everywhere I go, she’s always introducing me as her mentor. The reason I’m in this business or vice versa. It kind of hurt in the beginning.
She said, “Hey, let’s pull out of this brokerage and start your own team what I have now.” and I was kinda, “I’m fine. I’ve been doing this. I just needed one buyer’s agent and not the full blown team.” And when she moved on, I was extremely happy for her. Because I tell people from point A to point D to avoid all stuff in the middle.
And she’s crushing the market now a year and a half later. Honestly, was a proud moment because I like watching people grow. I like watching people move on. It hurts. But I think that’s part of maturing as a leader is knowing you can retain everybody. If somebody moves on I feel like that’s a sign that you’ve done a great job.
Especially, when they’re producing and they’re not going back to a job. It’s a 9 to 5. I’ve learned to deal with it over the years. I’ve see some friends of mine who struggle with it. Obviously, they grow out of it. And as you start growing up, I don’t use that word. As you start growing and leadership and maturing, you learn it’s part of life and you actually become supportive of them.
Chris Bounds 09:11
That’s the law of reciprocity. It all comes back to relationships over transactions. Preserve the relationship especially one that’s very positive, where they’ve been able to grow under your leadership. You’re going to get the rewards may not be financial. It may not be transactions. You don’t know what that’s going to look like. But if nothing else is just knowing that, “Hey, you’ve touched someone else’s life.” That means they’ve got family and that ripple effect goes beyond generations.