Live Strategy Session: Scaling a $300M Real Estate Team with Michael Perna

Hi, Michael. Nice to meet you. Thank you for joining us today. So, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what

business it is that you work on, please? Absolutely. Uh, my name is Michael Prerna, like it says on the shirt. Uh, I

run a company called the Print Team. We’re a real estate agency with roughly 132 real estate agents at this moment.

Um, I’ve been a real estate practitioner for 24 years and I am stalling out on

growth in a couple of different key areas, which is what we’re going to be talking about and hopefully unpacking

and hopefully helping me dislodge today. But like a lot of business owners, you you you get to a plateau and you kind of

get stuck. My current business looks like 132 agents. I’ve got six people in leadership. I’ve got roughly 30 people

as far as backend staff between closing coordinators, listing coordinators, photographers, videographers, runners. Um inside sales people, I have 11 of

those. Um so we’re not exactly a typical real estate office, although we do service residential at a high level.

Right now we’re selling around,00 homes per year, around 300 million per year of real estate.

Cool. Okay. You’ve been doing it a while. You’ve got a big team. What are the predominant growth bottlenecks as

you see them at the moment then? Yeah. My my number one growth bottleneck

is quality real estate agents. That is my number one the quality agent that’s going to get out there do a five-star

job. And I need it to be a five-star job because we are a big company. We are a bigger household name in the in the in

the business here in Metro Detroit. you know, one or two bad reviews can can cost us 50 deals. It can cost us

50 people looking at our our reviews and saying, “Nope, this is not the company for me with my with my real estate transaction.” Because it’s a very

personal thing. Um, and finding quality real estate agents and bringing them onto the team

has been an ongoing issue for the last year. We’re doing it, but it’s nowhere near the velocity I need.

Sure. Okay. And what is the velocity that you’re looking at? Where are you at the moment, and where would you like to get with it?

Yeah. So, we’re at 132 agents at this particular point in time. About half of them are part-time, half

of them are full-time. Uh, we got about 60 full-time. I need to get my full-time base from 60 to 85 by the end of the

year. So, almost a 50% push. Okay, fine. It’s big. It’s a big lift. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. And first of all, why why do you why do you need it to be

at 85 where is it at 60 at the moment? Sure. Um,

can I get a little personal on that? Please do. Okay. So, going into COVID, uh, in the

three, four years previous to that, I was selling about 120, 130 million in real estate per year. And just to be completely candid, I was happy. I making

the money I wanted to make, living the life I wanted to live. Uh, my sister lives abroad. She’s in Abu Dhabi. And I

could go there 6 weeks a year, 8 weeks a year, see my niece and nephew, um, go spend a month in Barcelona if I wanted

to. like literally do. I was living the life that a lot of people dream of and and I’m very blessed. I’m very grateful

for that. And with that came some complacency.

Some of the other real estate offices and real estate teams in the area continued to evolve and grow and I

didn’t. M and then my sales started to backslide cuz they were going into lead programs

that I didn’t know I didn’t even know about because I was off playing in Europe or playing in wherever

or like traveling India for 3 weeks or whatever I was doing at that moment. Right. Yes. Um those were the first couple of years

of my life where I wasn’t in the grind for the first time in 15 years. I’ve been doing this 24 years total. So I

kind of went and played for two years and took my eye off the ball. And what ended up happening was um it wasn’t that

the sales backslid that that truly impacted my income. It did. It 100% did. And honestly, that’s okay

because it’s my income. But then it became it got to a point where I was considering doing layoffs.

Okay. And that’s where the problem came in because I firmly believe and and this I

think goes back to just the way I was raised by my parents. Um, my father was

a a union auto worker at General Motors for 37 years and I watched him just get laid off repeatedly by General Motors as

they made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision in the ‘ 80s and the ’90s and early 2000s. And in my

mind, I’m like, hey, he’s entrusting his time to receive a paycheck,

but also the security and knowing that whoever’s at the top at General Motors is going to make the key right decisions

to make sure my father stays employed. Otherwise, as an electrician, he could just go out and double his hourly wage

and be an electrician for himself. So, I transfer that into my company. My

people are making the choice in me as a leader. They can go to any of 100 real estate companies out there. They can go clos and coordinate as a W2.

They can sell real estate as a 1099. But they’re choosing me and my leadership

because at the end of the day, people are going to buy and sell real estate whether or not I exist. Realators are

going to sell real estate whether or not I exist, but they’re choosing me to make the right choices to protect their family

incomes and making sure that I continue growing to to play defense against the

other companies in in the field. And that’s when it all kind of changed for me, my perspective around why I need

to grow this company. Sure. And so you did 15 years, then you

did the two years where you had fun and you’ve been doing it obviously a while after that, right? postco I assume.

Yep. Are you now back to the grind like you were in those first 15 years? Is it slightly different? How does that look?

It it looks a little bit different. Um so I went back to the grind at day one of CO. Um back in 2020 here in Michigan

it was complete and total lockdown. Yeah. I mean restaurants were closed, businesses were closed. We couldn’t we

couldn’t close on homes. We had to close remotely on the deals that we were that were currently in process. And for two

weeks we couldn’t close at all because all the banking and the infrastructure there in Michigan was closed. Um and nobody knew what was going to

happen. It was a big time of uncertainty. And so as a company I called together my leadership team

literally first week of co and I said okay here’s what we’re doing guys. This is our new thing. Every single day we’re

going to be on a Zoom with our people is actually going on right now as we’re on this podcast.

And every single day we’re going to bring hope. We’re going to bring joy. We’re going to bring wins. We’re going to bring what is our one thing as each

individual agent we need to tackle today to make today a successful day. Even if we’re locked in our houses,

what is this look like to make sure that our agents are getting the income they need while the world’s on fire?

And we still do that today. We still do a Zoom 5 days a week, every single day. It looks a little different now because

the depression that was involved with CO isn’t there anymore, which is great. But then other agents started hearing about

this and saying, “Okay, my company is telling me to go basically take 60 days off.”

And what some of these broker owners didn’t see was they’re in their ivory

tower. They can take 60 days off and it doesn’t really impact them. But you got the guy that’s living

paycheck to paycheck who’s like, “Okay, where is my next rent payment coming in? I need to scrape together my next car

payment.” That guy hears, “Go take 60 days off and enjoy your family and stay safe.” They

hear the company’s going to fall apart. I don’t have any income. I need to go find somewhere where I can generate income.

Yes. And that word spread pretty quickly that we were still full force at work. We were doing virtual showings. We were doing virtual closings. We were doing

everything we could to continue the process of selling properties to keep the paychecks going into my people’s

pockets throughout that time period. So, we ballooned. We had just naturally

ballooned from 18 19 agents at that moment to 75 agents in under 18 months.

Wow. Okay. Rapid transformation. Very rapid. Very rap. Literally doubled the business in 12 months.

Okay. And so it sounds like the the backslide that was happening in those

two years where you were spending 3 weeks in India and having a great time, it got transformed as a result of co you

had a very different approach to your competitors and therefore you were able to grow very very quickly and recoup it

sounds like quite of the the losses in many ways that you had done. Is that fair? That’s fair. And I think also

leading from the front helped to and it seemed like the industry split into two two the leadership phases. Ones that

stepped to the front and led from the front and ones that didn’t. And the ones that didn’t lost 30 40 50%

market share and the ones that led from the front and leading from the front looked different for all of us. For me it looked like a daily zoom. For me it looked like I was

going into the office and telling all my staff do not come in. I’ll handle it. And it worked. and lead it from the

front. Save the company. Yes. And so I’m going to ask a really stupid question then, Michael. Right. So

you said that you went up to 75, you’re back at 60, right? And you say that you want to grow to 85. So I understand why

you want to keep everybody happy. You told a great story about kind of your dad and General Motors and the kind of

ambition and the desire behind that, which is great. But what is stopping you remaining at 60 or growing a little bit

perhaps? Just making sure that everybody’s roster is completely full. making sure that you’ve got the greatest

team in the world that everybody wants to work for you and just maintain incredibly high standards at that level.

Why? Why the need to continue to grow? So, two reasons that are not exclusive

and not competing. Number one, I don’t ever want to be in a back in a place where I backslide to a point where I got to look somebody in the eye and say, “I’m so sorry you don’t have a job

anymore and you can’t feed your family because I made poor decisions.” Yeah. I don’t want to have that conversation.

I mean, that’s obviously not what the conversation looks like when the business leader has it, but that’s effectively what they say.

And that’s number one. But number two, um, have you read the book, The Infinite Game

by Sam? No, I haven’t read the whole book. No, no, don’t worry about it. Here it is in a nutshell. Find a game that you can’t

actually win and continue battling that game every single day until you do. Mh. And the infinite game is not the

construct is not I’m going to battle my competitor because that’s a very finite

game. Yes. Cuz once I go and get to number one, great. Now what? I’m number one. Okay,

great. Yeah. The infinite game that we are choosing to play at my company is there are 112,000 children

that are food insecure that go to bed on any given night without a meal. Okay.

There are 130,000 seniors that do the same thing. I believe in this country we do a very

poor job of making sure our children and our seniors are wellmaintained and well well taken care of. There are different

programs out there that do it and they’re failing and they’re only failing because they’re they’re underfunded. They’re underst

staffed. So my company will solve both of those issues in the state of Michigan. And

that is my infinite game. Okay. Fine. Is to help 242,000 people to be sure

that they get their wellness check. They get as a senior, they get their wellness check from Meals on Wheels and they’re

able to get fed by great places like Forgotten Harvest as children. Oh, okay. Very honorable. Okay. Amazing.

And so how have you linked the two then? You have linked that growing faster,

right? Being the dominant player in Detroit, Michigan, right? Is that you

can then contribute in a greater way to do that? Do you directly fund the

charities? Do you run the charity? Like how does that ex exactly work for you? A little bit of both. Um, right now we

fund um not completely, but we’re a larger donor for what’s called Forgotten Harvest here in Michigan. Um, they take

they they take in food, they go get food that a Kroger or a Meyer or uh a grocery

store can no longer sell. They bring it into their facility, repackage it into meals, and then they get that out to

over 200 um soup kitchens, food pantries, uh things like that throughout the

community, churches throughout the community. Um, so we fund that with both dollars and time.

Um, sometimes you need a crisis needs money. Sometimes it needs time. It just

needs hours. It needs manpower. And sometimes it needs supplies, but that’s a different thing. Money can solve that issue. And I think that’s where we’re at here

in Michigan is we’re missing we’re missing both. With federal funding cuts uh coming in towards a lot of these charities, uh, we have $3.8 million

taken out of that budget. So, we need money, but we also need time. So every year I where every every

other month as a company we go physically volunteer and we package and we create 8 to 10,000 meals.

In addition to that I give everybody an extra week of vacation if they use that week towards some sort of volunteer work. I do not care what it is. I don’t.

You could literally volunteer at any any charity you want. Don’t care. But if that’s what you’re doing, I’m still

going to pay you. And with 100 people get an extra week, it’s a movable force

in our local economy, in our local market, with our local families. It’s pretty cool to get a call from

Forgotten Harvest saying, “Oh, by the way, you guys shipped 47,000 meals last year. How cool is that?” I was like, “No

kidding. That’s amazing.” Yes, that’s insane. Okay. Amazing. So, I understand the mission. I understand

where you want to go. I understand why this means a lot for you then. So that the biggest growth lever to make that more of a reality is being able to hire

the type of talent that you need to kind of continue to keep the high standards so that you are considered to continue

to be considered as like number one in the area. Right. So what have you tried to solve this

problem? Okay. So so far I have spent an exorbitant amount of money on Indeed.

Way more than I should ever have spent on Indeed. Um, and when I say exorbitant, I mean my bill last month was around $16,000. Uh,

I did scale that back quite dramatically because that was like a, okay, I’m going to test this for a month, see if this is working. It did not, by the way. Um, I’m

running Facebook and Instagram ads towards existing uh, agents that are in the market. Um, I have a full-time

recruiter that’s calling agents that are failing, that are that have seen their businesses drop 30 to 50%. Um, I’m

considering setting up a real estate school myself because hey, if I can get them licensed, they probably won’t go anywhere.

Getting a license is in real estate is very easy. Getting a license is not the barrier to entry to real estate. The barrier to entry to real estate is doing

the work. Um, so that’s where a lot of my issue comes in is is we’re we are hiring 10

people per month. However, eight or nine of them fail in the first 30 days.

Okay. What does failure look like in your mind? they either wash out of real estate or

wash out of the company. Okay. So, and what that looks like is is so a lot of people get into real estate

thinking the whole the whole job is showing a pretty kitchen and that’s not

it at all. We are in the lead procurement and lead fulfillment business just like anybody

else just like Jenna Mo, just like Pepsi, Coke, any restaurant up and down the street. If you have nobody eating at your

restaurant, you have no food to make. The the point is to make the food. But to do that, you have to focus on getting

people through the door. To do that in real estate, you’ve got to pick up the phone and actually call people. Yeah.

Like I can bring in all of the inquiries. I can spend all the money on Google paper click or whatever that looks like to bring the people through

the front door and say, “Hey, I want to eat here or what are the taxes on this house? What are the bedroom sizes? Uh

what would the monthly payment be?” I can have all those questions heat up. But if if the guy’s not willing to pick

up the phone 50 times a day and say, “Hey man, I’m giving you a call back because you want to know what the taxes were. Hey, the tax about 8 grand a year. Is this within your budget? Should we go

take a look at this? Hey, there are two other ones on the market by as well by the way. Let’s go look at those as well and then go show the house. If they’re

not willing to do that, they fail. They fail out of the business. Literally.

Okay. And success for you is just being able to pick up the phone 50 times a day or what what is your benchmark for then

success from a from the two that survive per month? Yeah. So my definition of definition

definition of success is anybody that’s closing more than three million in real estate per year

up to whatever their personal goal is. Okay. Okay. Because at 3 million per year, you are

actually living above um our Metro Detroit median income, which is great.

So I now have a have somebody that has a better income than the average job out there, which is great. And then top line

in this company that people are making 2, three, four, 500,000 a year. And then the question comes in, is that what you

want at this stage of your life? Like I’ve got a a fantastic young lady. She actually had left the company and came

back. She’s got four kids and they’re all in some form of sport. So she does not want to go make 250,000

a year. If she adds 75,000 to the household budget, that’s a game changer for her family.

Okay. Once you get past 3 million, you start getting more options and freedoms in life to be able to choose where your

time goes. Does it go to selling up to 10 million or do you just stay at three and you get to go do other things with

your day? Yes. And I would assume that you want do you want more people that are going out

there trying to get 10 million or it for you it doesn’t matter as long as the quality remains exactly the same for the

for the the home seller. Yeah, man. It doesn’t matter because you know Christina on the team, she sells

her three and a half million every year, year in year out. She sells about 18 homes and she gets me 18 fivestar

reviews. Okay. Which is great. Which is way better than somebody selling 50 homes a year. That’s just an absolute wrecking ball.

I just had to fire one of those. Yeah. Fine. Okay. Cool. Um, so once you get

past past the first month, what is the kind of the churn of people leaving within the existing business?

Yeah. The the next point is usually between month four and six where they’ve tried it, tried it, tried it. they are

not seeing success and they’re frankly running out of funds and getting frustrated and then they’re believing this is not

for not for them and there are there are a couple people where I pulled them aside and I said hey look I’ve been doing this 24 years guy

go do something else for another couple of years like not to be offensive this business is going to eat you up and you are going

to come out the other side of this thing with a bankruptcy and that’s not the right thing by your family because we are commission based there is no there

is no salary okay fine and So you mentioned indeed

you mentioned all the different avenues got internal recruits for all these different sorts of things right what is

you mentioned in the email that you have kind of a weekl long training is it where quite a large percentage drop out

I think it was 40% so is that included in the eight that don’t make it to the end of the month or is that addition to

that that’s included okay so what does that weekong intensive look like

it is our actual interview process so the interview for us the interview process is is

a treadmill test, right? I’m going to break off 100 leads in my database. I’m going to put them into your database.

And then your job is to call, text, and email each one of those hundred every day for 5 days.

At the end of the week, if you still showed up, awesome. Let’s continue on. If you don’t show up, that’s okay, too.

Yeah. Okay. Because if you can’t do that, you can’t do this. Yes. Okay. So yeah, because it’s just

you’re literally just getting them to replicate what you would expect from your average agent, right? That is exactly the day job is as close to

mirroring it as you possibly can, right? Yeah. What are your competitors doing in your perception? Are they having more success

with this, less success? They don’t have as high a bar. Like why do you think that or do you think that they have the

same problem as you do? So they do have the same problem that we do because we’re electively trying to

recruit against each other. Although many of us have kind of entered into this gentleman’s agreement that if you

got a great agent that works for you, I’m not going to go after them because at some point in time you’re going to go back and go after me. And

that’s a lot of resources spent trading people. Yes. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense,

right? But yes, they are having the same issues. Two of them are having a lead problem where they can’t figure out how to generate more real estate leads at

this time. Uh and then the rest of us are having an agent attraction issue or a hiring issue. Okay, fine. Quite

reminiscent of that email that I think it was Steve Jobs sent quite a long time ago saying, “I thought we agreed that we

would never poach each other’s talent.” Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So, okay. And so, what are the core

attributes that you’re looking for over and above literally just picking up the phone? Do you when you look at your very

very top performers, are there attributes that come out that you’re like, “We want to try and model this. this is what we’re looking for when

we’re going on Indeed, when we’re speaking to people. Is there something there that’s consistent for you?

Yes, absolutely. So, that goes back to our core values, which is how we form those as well. And part of what we do

with our daily Zooms, it is also our big awards. So, every quarter we do a quarterly all team

off-site meet and we give production awards which we just skim through like, okay, great. You sold 8 million of

real estate last quarter. Awesome. Here’s your award, buddy. Okay, great. We have a no jerks award. We

literally spend four times the amount of time on that on the core value awards because I believe it means so much more

than the pat on the head like hey I just sold a bunch of real estate. Like everybody knew every everybody in the company knows who number 1 2 3 and

four is like like that’s not a secret. We all see the names on the boards. But who is the cannonball kid? Who’s the one

that is not tiptoeing around the pool and just diving in and trying to make it happen? That’s a very big core value for us because we get a lot of these guys

out there that are just getting ready to get prepared to question to get going to get moving to get ready to and then they

never actually do anything because they’re seeking way too much information instead of just diving in and picking up the phone and making a call

or diving in and learning something or whatever that looks like. Um, no jerks is one of our core values. I will fire

to that every day of the week and twice on Tuesday. It’s number one thing that we fire to. I fired my one, three, and four producers over the last 15 years

because they were a-holes. And I can’t have that because it tears down the production of all the people

around them. It really does. Every time I’ve made a big fire like that, our production has actually gone up, not down. Even though

that person was a significant portion of our business, I’m talking 10 or 15%. You would think we would have lost 10%, we

didn’t. We actually gained 5% in every instance because people started showing back up to the office again. So, those are the things that we’re

really looking for. people are people that are willing to just jump in and just try it. People that are learning based

and not ego-driven, people that are egoless, but the ego stays at the door for everybody in this organization.

Yeah. And generally speaking, each one of those core values is the reason somebody leaves.

Okay. Or we we ask them to leave.

Yes. Okay. Fine. Okay. And so when you’re going on Indeed, how are you how

are you possibly screening? You’re spending you spent last month 16,000 you said. So how are you screening for those

core values, those four core values in Indeed? Is it literally putting up a job ad and then everybody that comes through

you’re then screening for that or is there some other mechanism that you’re using? Yeah, so there’s two screening a

two-step screening process. The first one is we’re getting them all onto one of our morning zooms. We invite

everybody that had applied. Um, I’ll say not everybody, that’s not a great word.

I would say 50% of the people that applied after looking at their resumes and seeing if they have some world experience or life experience. I’m

looking my recruiter is looking for something where they had to be self-sufficient at some point in their

life at some role. Okay? Not necessarily punching a clock because this is a very self-sufficient

thing. I don’t I my days of of my day of calling you up and saying,

“Hey man, it’s 9:05. Where you at? You’re supposed to be in the office making your dials. My days of doing that are done.

It’s not fun for me. It’s not fun for you. You’re either going to do it or you’re not. But if you do it, I’ll pour all my time into you. It allows me the

ability to say, “Hey, how can I help you achieve your goals faster?” Yeah. And that’s a better conversation. And

so, if you haven’t demonstrated something like that on your resume, we’re not asking you to the Zoom. Now, from there, we ask you to a Zoom. You’re

literally in one of our huddles for that 15 to 30 minutes. And then afterwards, we do a full-on group

interview. M and we do it that way for two reasons. One, another 10 or 15% of people will

literally say, “This is not for me. You guys are too hokey. You’re too happy. Like, I’m an angry human at this moment

in my life. So, this is not the place I want to be.” Yes. Angry and happy don’t go well together. Uh, and that’s great. That’s perfect.

That’s what I want. I want that those 10 10 or 15% literally just to hop off the Zoom and don’t don’t return. Perfect.

Um, and then from there we do a group interview where we talk about the company a little bit, but then we answer all of their questions about real

estate. And then another 10 or 15% will opt out because they don’t like this whole collaborative thing. We’re a very

collaborative company. Real estate’s a very lonewolf industry. It’s very lonely. So, we try to create that. We

try to create that straight out the gate operating that Zoom and that interview as a team.

And then from there, we move on to the individual phone call interview. Should they still be interested? So, of the 50

that hop on, generally half of them opt out at some point in time there, which is great.

Yes, that’s great. And then you whittle the 25 down to roughly 10 after that phone interview.

Yep. Okay. So, in your perception then, is it a case that you want to obviously you

want to get more at the back end, but is it a conversion rate from beginning to end that’s the issue or you’re just not

getting enough of the right people in at the beginning? I think it could be a little bit of

both. I think we might have tightened tightened the screws a little too much on who we’re allowing in the front door.

Um I think we probably could let another another couple in a month and that would definitely positively impact the number.

I think if we let too many in then we’re just going to break we’re going to overwhelm the system cuz I don’t have enough people to work that front end.

Yeah. And I I don’t know if there’s a different method that I can I can get just a few more a month of the right guy

or like Julie like that avatar like my kids are grown and gone and I just need to kill it for a couple of years cuz I need to fill my retirement account or

like a Christina where it’s like man I I got to add 75 to 90,000 to the family budget every year and if I don’t

our family is going to fail so I better damn well do it. Like that I don’t know where to go get that avatar

at this moment. So let’s let’s come to that in a second, right? because that’s filling up the bucket and that’s obviously a bit further up the chain, but I’m interested

in the in the you might have overindexed in terms of what exactly the type of

profile you’re looking for, right? So, and this is just a controversial question, right? if you were to loosen

that belt just a little bit to let in one or two extra people on the other end. So rather than the two people out

of the 10 making it through, you say three or four made it through, which materially over the next four or five months makes actually quite a big impact

in terms of getting to your your 85, right? What would be the downside for that?

Because looking at it from my perspective, you’re not necessarily paying them a salary um unless they unless they contribute and the

commission comes through. They’re picking up the phone and obviously you don’t want to burn leads. I completely understand that. Um, but I would imagine

the risk of you getting a bad review is relatively low at that point, assuming they’re not being a complete and

and swearing at them when they pick up or anything like that. So, what would be the downside in your perception of you

kind of loosening the belt just a little bit? Two two downsides. Um, one and you

touched on with the leads where not only just burning them but also if we do if

we do end up inviting them to go work somewhere else, a lot of them will take the leads with them. Okay?

And that’s potential sales that my current people could do that they’re not doing because they during the first week or two weeks they develop some sort of a

relationship with you as a lead. But then you switch companies. It doesn’t it doesn’t affect the consumer. The

consumer doesn’t care what real estate brokerage an agent works for. They work with real estate. You’re working with

humans, not companies. That’s the connection. And so if they formed a connection with somebody and that person still sucks and we let them

go or they opt out, they could take that sale with them. And so that could literally be hundreds of sales per year.

Can I just And that’s always a concern. Can I just pause on that one? How real is that risk though? Because if

I assume if they’re not making it to the next level, what is the likelihood that they’re building good enough relationships with enough people to

actually take them with them? It is probably more of an outside risk in my mind than than reality

now that you say it. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that’s a fair point. Actually, the ones that end up Now that you’re saying it, no, the ones that end up

taking the clientele with them are the ones that have been with me for 5 years, but then they decide to go somewhere else

because they’ve got 60 million worth of real estate, you know, in their bucket. They’ve got, you know, 500 transactions,

400 transactions in their bucket, whatever that looks like. And then so they can just go on their own and take all those people with them

because they’ve developed relationships, not me, not the company. Mm-

Yeah. Like we’re not like I Yeah. No, no, go ahead.

No, I was just going to say that’s a very different problem to solve for, right? That’s obviously retention at the very very senior or more senior level if

you’re looking at five years, right? Not not maybe not the most senior levels, but it’s a very different problem that you’re solving for. The specific problem

that we’re solving for here is how can you get from 60 to 85 and it sounds like

the actual risk is quite low um basis because you’re looking at that and

that’s quite painful and thinking oh it’s similar here realistically let’s assume if they flame out from you

they’re not really going anywhere or they’re not going to probably they’re probably getting out of business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They’re probably sending their

license back to the state literally. Um, the other the other hard part is Audrey

on my team who’s amazing. Um, I promoted her into being the boot camp and launch coach. So, that’s her.

She still sells she she still will sell 18 to 20 homes a year, but I pay her a very distinct salary.

So, there’s there’s a payroll there to handle those 10 or so that are coming through the pipe.

And the more I expand that, the less she can sell, which means the more I’ve got to increase her salary.

Okay. which that’s the hard cost. Yes, I understand that. But is that not

going to be a problem irrespective of whether you loosen the belt or not loosen the belt? Right. Because the 10

is I assume the 10 is still relatively similar. It’s only the two or the four out the back that changes. Right.

Yeah. And so for Audrey, um if you’re going to get to 85, you

still need to find a way of getting better people in. So she’s still going to be dealing at some point with the same amount of people. So, is that a

real issue as well? If we can get him out faster or

she works, she spends a lot of time with him. So, even when we weed 8 out of 10 out, like going from two to four is a

significant lift for her. Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s a lot of one-on-one time for her.

And going from two to four would definitely definitely take her sales down 30 or 40%. Yes.

Which means I got to pay her. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a significant salary. Yeah. Yeah. But my point is that you have to

go from two to four or five or six to get to your number in the time frame that you want to get there. You have to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point. No, that’s a really good point.

So, what you’re saying is I got to bite the bullet and write the check and bring around full time in that capacity so I

can get from two to six. Well, however, however you when you

loosen the belt and let more people in, or you just have a very high bar, but you get better quality people in, she’s

still got to get more people in. She’s still got to speak to more people. She’s still got to have that one on one time. So, she either her or someone else has

to give up deals. Yeah. Yeah. No, you’re right. And it it’s

it’s a hockey stick, right? It’s a it’s a

very traditional hockey stick. That’s what you’re talking about. just a temporary lowering in net company

income because I got to pay her a higher salary. But then if she could pop out more in 100 days, the salary is ne

negligible because I’ve got six more people actually producing deals. Yes.

So I just need to accept that I will make less as a net over the winter.

But my argument is that you’re always going to make less no matter how you square this, right? Because you want to get to 85. 85 is the only objective. So

yeah, you And I’m not being argumentative. No, no, no. No, I’m not. I’m not saying at all. I’m a self-discovering. Okay, good.

Okay. I didn’t want you to take it that way. I felt like I was coming off like a little rude. I was like, that’s not my intention. Yeah.

I’m British. I’m not that soft. Don’t worry. Where where are you from, by the way?

Uh from the southwest. So, a tiny little place called Plymouth. I don’t know whether you would uh you would know it.

So, I got to pilgrims pilgrims left to kind of discover America, actually. So, uh that’s the Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t know

that. Yeah. Yes, that’s cool. My my brother-in-law is from Leeds. Go. Okay. Complete opposite end of the

country. I meant to ask that at the beginning. I forgot to ask that. But yeah, to your to your point, I understand what you’re saying. The

only the only path to 85 is by putting more resources towards it in some form or fashion, which is going to mean I have to loosen

up more hours for her to be able to train as we bring more people in towards the front.

I need I need to open up the front door with I understand what you’re saying. So,

I need to figure out how to go I write this down is what I need to do. I need

to figure out how to go to after the right avatar, whether that’s through some sort of a different method through

a LinkedIn or other where I’m probably more headhunting, which means I’m going to

need somebody to actually headunt and that’s going to be a salary.

I need to let 15 through instead of 10, which gets me closer to Well, no, I

would need to let more than that. 20 through instead of 10, which gets me closer to the six I need, which means

I’ve got to increase Audrey’s salary. So, that’s salary number two, or

actually 1.5 cuz she’s already on the books. Um, but also some sort of a marketing spend

to make it a little easier on those guys. So, somebody’s coming in to us as well, being attracted to us. And as

we’re talking, one of the things I I did jot down is

nowhere in anywhere in my marketing, whether it is consumerf facing or marketing for agents to join our

brokerage, do I have anything regarding the vision of why we exist. And I’d rather have

people on the boat because they want to be part of that mission than, hey, I just want to make 100 grand.

Yeah. Yeah, because you could just do a, hey, I want to make 100 grand at a number of companies. And what is more likely? Who is more

likely to go make the 100 grand? Someone that wants to go make 100 grand just cuz they want to make 100 grand or because

they want to make 100 grand and make a difference. Yeah. And who’s going to be here 5 years later?

Exactly. Yeah. See, this is not the stuff we talk about with any of my coaching.

Not a bad thing. Not a bad thing. He he’s he’s an exceptional business coach, an exceptional real estate business coach, but this is just not

not the stuff that we talk about. Fair. Like one thing that comes to mind when you said about the vision was I

believe it was Henry Ford and he walked past an advertisement in his office and he pointed pointed at it and said to

marketing, “When the bloody hell are we changing the marketing from this?” And his marketing team turned around and said to him, “Um, Henry, we haven’t even

put it out yet.” The point being that the point where you become incredibly

bored about the rhetoric that you’re putting out is the point other people are starting to listen. And so you’re

probably not telling your vision to enough people enough of the time. That’s really good.

That’s really good. Henry Ford also said, “Why did you make a car when

nobody wanted a car?” And he said, “Well, if I ask people what they wanted, they would just say, I want a faster horse.” Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And

so, yes, sometimes you have to kind of tell them what they really want, right? You have to tell them that this vision exists.

Most people probably don’t even know the problem that you’re solving for exists, right? Well, that was the iPhone, wasn’t it?

Yeah. That was any number of products really, but yeah. Creating a market that did not

previously exist and crushing everybody with it. I mean, Open AI is doing it right now. Well, Anthropic and some

other companies, but who knew 5 years ago they would want AI every day. Yeah, exactly. But Anthropic is a a

perfect example in many ways which tried to poach many of their top performers and they offered them absolutely insane

wages to go and work for them and quite a lot of them said no because the mission and the vision anthropic is so

much more compelling. So go and repeat your vision as much as you possibly can.

Right. Yeah. Now, now I need to look at what the vision of anthropic is. Oh, you’ve put me on the spot, but it’s

essentially to use it for the betterment of human human mankind, basically.

Well, that makes sense. Yeah. And I I think as leaders like many of our many of the one of the most

important things that we can do is set that vision and be very consistent with that vision, right? Another classic example is Patagonia, right?

um people will join not for more salary just because they are so bought in in kind of saving the home planet. And so

you’ve got an incredible vision. I would be going on podcast and singing it from the rooftops that this is what we’re

going to do. This is what we’re solving for. And then I think you will find that actually the people that come and

interview with you are so more bought in with working with Michael. He’s got this great idea of what we’re going to do

even before you started talking about okay you’re going to make 100 phone calls or anything like that.

Yeah. No, no. And that’s a good point because 100 phone calls does sound rough and it does sound I mean it’s egregious.

It it’s a compared to an average real estate agent, it’s a high number. 100 phone calls in a week is a high

number. 100 phone calls in a month is actually a high number. Like but then it the number

of homes a little north of 70% of real estate agents in 2025 did not sell a single home.

Not one. Yeah. Now it took all the way up to 93% until people started selling 10 homes or more.

7% of real estate agents sold 10 homes. If you’re not selling 10 homes, you’re not paying a mortgage. You’re not putting food on the table. You’re not

making a car payment. You’re not paying your insurance. You’re It’s not happening. You’re poor. You’re broke. Yeah.

And you need to go do something else. Yes. And that that’s not an offensive thing. It just is what it is. At some point in

time, you got to pony up and say, “I got to do the work or I need to leave this industry.” Yes. And that is the absolute biggest problem

with real estate. Yeah. So, that’s a great point, right? That’s a lot of concerns that people have coming in, right? And obviously you

solve for that in your mind by getting them to make a 100 phone calls a day. You are doing that for many ways

obviously for you but also for the betterment of them because you know that the more inputs that they put in right to steal a Jeff Bezos and the more

inputs you get in the more the more realistic the output is right but they probably just come in and think wow that

is a higher number than I thought I was going to be expected to do. So yeah properly put it politely to be

honest. So you’ve got the the topline vision that I think is really very

compelling that you haven’t sold enough. I think there’s also another layer below

that that could be very compelling to sell. Like what are we doing? What is Michael doing

that makes you more likely to succeed than going to anybody else? I’m writing this down.

The second line vision is their success. So top line vision is what what we what

we’re meant to do in the world where we leave the world a better place when we’re done with it. The second line vision is how we’re uniquely

contributing to their success. Unique. I like the word uniquely. Um

through having a dedicated boot camp coach, which no one else in the area does. This person is literally on staff

to make sure that you succeed should you choose to accept the mission. The mission is do the 100 dials in the first

week. Yeah. Yeah. 100 hours per day in the first week. I would probably Sorry.

Go. No, no, no. Keep going. Keep going. I was going to say I would probably go a step further than that, right? I would probably want to know if I was coming in

and I didn’t know who necessarily your organization was. I was just joining because I wanted to be a great real estate agent. I would probably want to

know, okay, well, first week, two weeks looks quite brutal. I’ve got to make 100 calls a day. What does my one month mark

look like? What does Michael expect to make? 3 months, 6 months, 12 months. writing it down

because in my head a lot of that of course is clear but as you’re asking the question I know

it’s not written down anywhere. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

An old very similar to the kind of Henry Ford thing an old manager said to me that completely changed the way that I

thought about things. So in that role I was trying to it was I was trying to spread e-commerce throughout the

organization. So I worked there at Wreckit which was kind of similar to a unilver or a PNG in the US right and we

were trying to proliferate e-commerce throughout the organization which is quite a traditionally um brick and

mortar offline brand and I knew because I lived it in every day that e-commerce

was really important especially given the growth rate that it was it was going to change the way that the business was done and so I knew coming into

conversations when I talked to a senior VP or a general manager I would say okay well this is important but I wasn’t

saying it enough And the what my manager said to me was at the point that you become bored saying it is the point that

they will start listening. And so you need to kind of really get through the idea that actually just keep on

reiterating the things that you know to be important but you just haven’t told anyone really. You’ve been in the

industry 24 years. You know everything inside out, back to front, upside down. The people that you’re speaking to, it’s

their day one. Uh it’s a very different frame of reference that they’re coming into.

This is good. Gosh, it it this is good. And it reminds me of of

Have you read the book uh good to great? Yes. Yeah, I have. Yeah. Yeah. How he talks about I forgot which

chapter it was, but in the book he was talking about how leaders 90% of the words that come out of their mouth have

to be about the vision, only 10% about the tactical. Yeah.

Yeah. And he also firmly believes and I do believe that a great CEO or great leader of a large organization is really

getting paid to make three or four great decisions per year and other than that they cast vision. Yeah, for sure. 100%. Yeah,

that’s good. And yeah, and so I think that that subtier is like what is in it for them? Like you obviously they I would imagine

and correct me if I’m wrong, Michael, this salary or the compensation that you pay is not too dissimilar to your

competitors. Is that fair? No, we all have we all have very similar variation of the same thing. Yeah. So, if they are coming into your

organization at this moment in time, you haven’t changed anything yet. Why do they go to you rather than John down the

street? Right now, we have the reputation that if you make it past the first week,

you Well, let me rephrase that. If you make it past 12 months, you don’t make you don’t make less than 100 grand a

year. No one does in the or real estate that that’s

people. I would say some of them know it coming in because they’ve heard it from other

people and from other realators that they’ve just talked to or done deals with over time. And that’s also another opportunity I got to write down is co-op

agents. We’re very unique in real estate that if we do a thousand deals, it means we

probably worked with an additional 5 to 700 real estate agents that we should be talking to as well about our vision, our

team. That’s a whole pool of people that we’re not addressing right now.

Okay, I wrote that down, too. Yeah. And I don’t know your business model super well, but I would imagine that that’s quite lowhanging fruit. If

they’re already in the industry, if you’re already talking to them, if they already know about the 100 grand and

probably a little bit more about your vision and things like that, you switching them is probably easier than going to a pool of people that you don’t

necessarily know. Yeah. Nope. You’re right. And that is the number one thing that I need to be

talking about right there. Um, and I have a set of recruiting letters

that goes to people um that go to people when they get a license.

None of which talks about the vision. Yeah. Oh my god, this is

Can you send me back the first three recruiting letters? I of course need to re-edit them again because I just

realized I don’t talk about vision in any of them. Thank you.

That was not a voice to text, so he did not hear the intonation or the inflection of me being irritated with

myself. Cool. Yeah. No, those need to go in there, too. And these go everywhere. You’re right.

Yeah. Nobody knows. Nobody knows either of these two visions.

I do. I’m the least important person I know. Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s probably

right. Yes. Yeah. And so actually what does your so one the reason I asked this is because I

took over Emir for a global consultancy at one point and I rewrote all of the job descriptions that we had right

because men are willing to apply for jobs that they have I can’t remember the exact statistics but let’s say 30 40% of

the available skills for right whereas women unless they have nearly 100% of the skill requirements they don’t apply

and so to my perception what that meant was that I was missing out on huge sways of

the population, incredibly talented people, because my job description didn’t speak to the people that I wanted

to speak to. Writing that down because you’re right and I got to go and and reook over my indie job descriptions. I’m still going

to use Indeed because it’s still successful for us, just not at that level. Yeah. But I never thought about that from a

male versus female perspective. 30% versus 80 80 or 90%. M

and it makes sense because that shift alone right that could make I’m not going to do public

maths because that’s I may promise not to do that but like you would imagine that that would add quite a lot more to

your to your like your filter right you are going to then speaking to people that you’re not speaking to that

probably takes your 10 to 15 which by

changing nothing else other than the requirements that you have to kind of pick up the phone

to mail in a CV or anything like that changes your outcome. Yeah, it does.

I have a lot of work to do. Well, it’s good work, right? Because the great thing about this is how much money

does it cost you with Indeed nowadays? I’ve got to spend down to 3500 a month to do this. You don’t have to spend more

money there, right? You probably have to do it once, right? or iterate it a couple of times as you kind of realize

things as they come through, but not a huge amount. Um, and then you’ve got a different pool of

people immediately. You’ve changed nothing else. In fact, add in the vision on top of that and you’ve probably gone

from 15 to maybe 18 20 anyway, right? So, you potentially have changed 50 100%

the pool of people that you’re speaking to. Yeah. Yeah. For net nothing basically. A little bit

of work, right? But not a huge amount else. A little bit of work, a little bit of recasting,

little expense on the the training side, which is fine. M

I think you coach for a living or consult. Yeah, I coach. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. This all makes sense. Yeah. And you probably have a lot of experience doing it because you can

solve a business’s problem in what is now 59 minutes and a few seconds.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I want to get to what is the real crux of things rather than what we think the crux of things

are. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s exceptional. Thank you. I appreciate it. It it

most coaches and most business analysts don’t don’t scuba dive. They snorkel.

Cool. They don’t break it apart like this into smaller pieces or small enough pieces. M

so the immediate act what are the most immediate actions for you so far in this

conversation like what are you going to take away and implement today or over the next few days?

Um well my most immediate action was I just texted my director of sales who is in charge of my recruiting platforms and

said we are having a meeting in about 20 minutes whatever you’re doing stop. Um because we’re going to be talking about

our recruiting dialogue number one when we’re when we’re talking with recruits.

Making sure that we’re bringing forth the bigger vision and the second level vision immediately

like in conversation number one like hey I know you applied to this company cuz we already have recruits

coming in. I know you played this company. Before we talk about the body of work itself, we need to talk about

where we’re going, where this what this company will do in 1, 3, 5, and 10 years to solve for these

problems and how how dedicated Michael is to making sure that this is in fact

solved for because we can do this. Um, and then second,

how dedicated this company is to your success. As you may or may not know, our track record is no one with us 12 months

or longer earns less than 100,000 net to them per year. Knowing in real estate that the average

person that sells homes and sells two a year, the top 7% sell 10 a year and you’re still not paying your bills.

Which is what makes us different to your family. Yeah. I’m just kind of coming up with this on

the spot. I’ll I’ll feather it out and I’ll work it out. But this this needs to get there. And

then I need to add everything into all of our marketing around it. Whether it’s our recruiting letters, our

indeed job ads. Um I do a lot on social media.

Like I mean I’m averaging six to eight pieces of content per day. Um

yeah, between like like just Instagram alone is 6 to8 a day. Um and then two long form YouTube videos every week uh

that run, you know, 15 to 30 minutes. None of it addresses this whatsoever. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Even the general public doesn’t know like why use us? What is like Yeah.

A real estate company is a real estate company is a real estate company. But why us? So even our customers don’t know.

Yeah. You know, of course, we’re going to give you a fivestar experience. We have 3,100 fivestar Google reviews. Our next up

competitor has 600. We have that talk track laid out. So we don’t have a talk track around what happens next. Why use

us 10 years from now again? Yeah. Or why use this the first time? Right? Like that is a very compelling

vision vision, right? If you came to me and said, well, you’ve got John that you don’t know and Michael at that this point that you don’t know, but John is

in it because he’s been doing it for the last 30 years and he just wants to make more money and he wants his reps to make more money. Or you’ve got Michael who’s

been doing it for 24 years, but he actually has this mission that he wants to solve hunger for like the children

level and the senior level. That’s a pretty compelling reason to work with you, right? And again, it makes me think

of Tom’s, right? Buy a pair of shoes, give a pair away. Yeah, they grew very very quickly, like like

no company I’ve ever seen really in that space. I’m sure partly because people liked them, but also because they knew that

buying them made them feel good. And so I don’t what fees that you charge in exchange for selling someone’s home, but

I’d feel a lot better about giving that fee away if I knew on some way it’s going to make a meaningful difference for the world.

Also true. And so that one change for your organization, I would imagine just by

you putting the six or seven pieces of content out on Instagram and in the long form on YouTube, etc., and reiterating

why you’re in business, why you get up in the morning, what you’re doing, why you’re doing it,

that will bring in more people, right? But it also solves the other problem

which you don’t have as a problem, but it brings in even more business, I would imagine. So, the people that you do have

to sell your your your homes now have even more work to do because people are bought into working with Michael versus

anybody else. I agree with that. I agree with that. And you’re right. And it does. And

and as we get bigger, it does get easier. It does. Like when when we hit

60 million in real estate, it got easier. When we hit 130 million, it got easier. When we hit 200 million, it got

easier. And it gets easier because of the brand recognition because now like like especially now

like we have you know I’ve got two full-time editors. I’ve got a full-time marketing director and we can crank content that’s getting an average of 15

to 18 million views per month. No one else is performing at that level in Michigan. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it makes perfect sense. And so in your perception other than the

growth, what else are you doing that’s different to them that might be worth pulling out and using in your marketing

copy or in your conversations? The other the other part that I was

thinking of this is this is a very much what’s in it for them real estate agent mentality is

um I am actively using advertising methods that my competitors are not and it’s producing

lowerfunnel higher quality leads uh if you if you Google real estate

agent in Novi Michigan which is the the specific city I’m sitting in um I will come up number one on the map.

Yeah. Right. Okay. So, I pay around 12,000 a month to make sure that I have the sponsor position for 173 cities,

townships, and villages. When people click on that, because they also see my my review counts, and they see everybody else that I’m up against.

And when people click on that, that is a very that is a very I need a real estate agent right now to go show me a home tomorrow because I’m buying one next

week lead. That’s not a paperclick lead that’s 18 months out or a Facebook lead that’s 30

months out. That’s a now lead. That is I need to buy a house. And a lot of agents that join

us, they need to put food on their table. Now, I can give them a paper click that they have to call once a month for

18 months for it to convert, but they still need to pay the mortgage this month, right?

And then AI, a lot of people have not figured out the power of being cited in AI as a company. That’s literally how

somebody got to me a couple of months ago. So now we got all of that. Yeah. And chat ads, I don’t know if

they’re ever going to work. Yeah. But if you can find a way of doing it organically as well. I from my

perspective I get a handful of organic leads at this point coming through um AI

and similar to having someone pre-bought into a vision if someone comes to me

having looked me up on AI it is night and day almost between from any other

channel even versus social media it’s a completely different game because they have had a whole different level of

conversation with chat or or Claude whoever it might be in terms who they are, what they want, why they want it.

And so if it suggests you versus anybody else, you’ve got to do something pretty crazy to not get them to be bought in

already to to working with you. Yeah. No. And and that is it. And that and that’s exactly right. And on the

real estate side of it, um it was really interesting. There was two things that had me start going down this path a year

ago. It was that conversation where the guy was looking for his father and then it was also another one where and every

once in a while I kind of I I I personally go crazy and I go off the rails and so I did in May. um where like

you know as people that work for companies you complain uh which is fine

and complaining was sort of towards a very high like oh the leads suck the sales suck this is you know everything

sucks okay great well if everything sucks I’m going to go do it myself for a month and I did I cold started a real estate

business doing everything that we teach not taking the top two lead types even I

let those go and I still sold 5.1 million worth of real estate in 30 days which was way

beyond my number one producer. Um, and everybody’s like, “Oh, yeah, you’re right. We’re just not doing the work. We’re just complaining. The market’s

just harder. The interest rates are just higher.” Okay. And then they all go back to work and life was good. But during that time, I was door knockocking and I

went and door knocked an expired listing and a guy I was walking up the driveway and a guy the guy was at the top washing

his car and he looked at me and he said, “Hey, Michael, how you doing?

Have we talked before?” He was like, “No, we’ve never met. I just know who you are.” I’m like, “Okay, tell me about that.” He’s like, “Well, when my home came, well, as my home was coming off

the market, unsold, I asked Claude, this is the first time I heard of Claude. Um,

I need a real estate agent that is experienced at selling luxury homes in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Who should I hire?”

And as it turns out, I came in number four, not number one. Yeah.

So, there’s quite a few things there, right? We can The one thing I think is really interesting is in 30 days you

outdid your top contributor and you put aside the top two lead

quality bandings, right? Did you cuament that in any way? I did not. I should have. I’m wearing

that down. I I would imagine that that would be

for a real estate agent coming in to work at an organization. Not only does Michael really believe

what he’s telling me, he’s not he’s gone and done it, right? And he’s also done it with an equality that is below what

his top contributors are getting. So what is that signaling to them coming

in, right? You you practice what you preach. You’ve got a process that’s pretty well dialed in that those other

lead qualities must be bloody marvelous, right? If if you didn’t even want to do them and you still outdid it. Um, so if

I join this organization, Michael really cares about life because he wants to feed people. He really cares about me

because that’s the motivation for continuing to grow the organization. And he really has nailed in a process that

is repeatable in a way that if I go anywhere else, I’m not going to have. I’m writing that down. Got it.

Those are the three I need to weave in. Yeah. And I think that that is done by you

recording the process of you probably over the next 30 days going and proving that you can do it in any situation,

right? Yep. So now I need to do that again. Not to add more to your plate, but I

think it would be an unbelievable case study. One of my first jobs, I worked as an analyst for an inside sales team at

IBM. Right. Cool. And so I saw all of the numbers for all of the inside sales uh members

and you would see the top performers and you would see the bottom performers. And what do the bottom performers think? Oh, there’s some magic that the top have.

They’re more articulate than me. They understand it better than me. They’ve been in the industry longer than me. Do you know the only difference? You

probably know off the top of your head, right? The difference, right? The fact that they just did the basics better than everybody else. They made more

calls. They sent more emails. They followed up more. That was it. If you didn’t do it and you complained about

it, funnily enough, you didn’t make it. Yep. That’s really funny. That’s That’s

That is exactly right with real estate, with our inside sales team, with with all of it. All of it.

Oh, that’s funny. Um I have three pages of notes.

Yeah. So, with the three pages of notes, with the fact that you were on the phone call as we were joining the call together, I think you’ve got other

places to be. So, let’s put a pin in it for there, right? Um,

you always a great podcast, by the way. Like, like I I I am definitely listening to your podcast like cuz you’re you’re

doing this you tackle challenges with with people all the time like this. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We’re doing it. Okay.

Cool. So, I take from that this has been useful. Um, and you have immediate next

step. So, you’re going to go and apply, right? Uh, yeah. I’m going to walk out this door and apply it. and my director of

sales is ready. He is he is out. He is on the other side of my glass door. He is ready. Um thank

you. I appreciate it. And I might know a guy that that um right now if you look at all the real estate teams in the

United States, there’s probably 1500 of them. Uh we’re ranked number 12. Um there’s one guy that’s bigger than

me. He’s about 50% bigger than me that that could definitely use something very similar to this. I’m going to steer your way. Thank you.

That sounds amazing. Thank you very much. And the same for you. Uh look, it’s been great talking to you. For

anyone watching this, um, how is it best to kind of get in contact with you if they want to become an agent with you?

If they’re bought into the they just want to support or they want to list a home with you, what’s the best way of doing that?

You bet. Best way is reach out to me directly. Um, I can be reached at michaelperna pererna team.com. That’s

pas and paul e r na. The perern team.com is my website or just call me 248-425-5082.

And that is my direct cell phone, not an office line. Well, thank you very much, Michael. It’s been great talking to you.

Um, I’m looking forward to seeing how you implement things, but yeah, thank you for today. Likewise. Thank you, Ben.