Jereme Kleven is the founder My Home Group, the fastest growing real estate company company in the United States. My Home Group also has the biggest producing teams in Arizona. Jereme believes that the ultimate goal of a brokerage is to add value to agents. According to Jereme firms should be putting the agent in the spotlight (not the brokerage). Jereme discusses the importance of human connection every agent should have with their clients and how to nurture relationships beyond the transaction.
Click here for more information on Jereme’s podcast MyDailyDose.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Jereme Kleven can be reached at 480.685.2760 and Jereme@myhomegroup.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents. And for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide, and host through the show. And in just a moment, we’re going to be speaking with broker owner, Jeremy Kleven. Before we get to Jeremy, I want to first thank everyone who is listening to this right now. Because just by listening to us or watching us, you are supporting our show, and we couldn’t do it without you. So from the bottom of all of our hearts that make the show happen, we all collectively say thank you. And please tell a friend, think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers and send them a link to our show. Easiest way to do that, send them over to our website, keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done is there we even have different categories of episodes there so they can pick and choose whatever they want to listen to. And also follow us on Facebook facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod we post articles that we find every single day on that Facebook page designed to help you grow your business. So in a moment here, we’re going to be speaking with Jeremy clevon. And I’m really, really excited about this because not only is Jeremy a broker owner, he has 2800 agents at his firm in Arizona, including the number one team in Arizona, this Jeremy this guy, he knows the top agents in the state and most of them work for him. So he is going to be such an amazing resource to help you learn what is what is it that separates a top producer for somebody who wants to be a top producer. So without further ado, let’s bring on Jeremy clevon.
All right, today on the show, we have Jeremy clevon. From My Home Group real estate in Arizona. Let me tell you a little bit about actually before we tell you about Jeremy, I’m going to tell you why I am super excited before I read Jeremy’s bio, because this is a personally a very, very exciting episode for me, and I never stopped the flow, I go straight into the bio, and then we introduce the guests. But before we do that, I want to tell you why I’m personally excited. So I’ll pull back the curtain a little bit on what I do. Because I don’t really talk about what I do. Here in real estate. I’m not an actively producing broker, I am obviously the host of the show. But my day job where I spend 99% of my time is recruiting and retaining agents for the company that we have here in Chicago. And so in the last 10 years, our company has recruited we have over 700 agents here at our firm. And I’ve always thought hey, that that’s not bad. We’re doing a good job recruiting. And but but then it’s really, it’s everything’s subjective, right. And everything’s, you know, conditional. And so now I’m super excited to have Jeremy on the show, because this guy puts me to shame in the recruiting and the retention game. And I am going to, I’m so excited to chat with him because I’m going to learn so much. And also I think all of our agents are and our listeners are going to learn so much because this is not just about recruiting recruiting agents, you know, you might not be a broker owner, although a lot of broker owners do listen to our show. And the reason why a lot of broker owners listen to our show is because they want to learn how to recruit some of these top producers that we feature, but it’s not just broker owners that listen, obviously, the vast majority of our listeners are not broker owners, they’re just individual practitioners. Or maybe you’re on a team and you want to recruit more team members. Or maybe you’re thinking about joining a team or building a team. This is the podcast episode to listen to. It’s the only one we’ve ever done about this exact topic. So all right, I’m excited. Obviously everybody has heard me now. And now I’m gonna introduce our amazing guest who is the reason why I’m this excited. So this is Jeremy clevon. So Jeremy is the owner and co founder of my home group real estate, and he has been awarded in the Inc 500 For the last five years as the fastest growing company in the country as a licensed real estate professionals since 2001. Jeremy felt that their traditional brokerage model seriously lacked value to agents. Now his vision was to build a brokerage that allowed agents and teams to feel flourish by providing them with the best culture education and technology at unsurpassed value. Now this is incredible he is he has recruited and grown his agent, his company to 2800 agents. In the last seven years, I grew our company from zero to 710 years, he has like quadrupled what I have done in a shorter period of time and what he believes you know, he’s recruited all these people who have believed in his vision and now who call my home group their professional home. Now my home group has grown from 11 million in sales. This is incredible to 7 billion in sales in seven years 11 million to 7 billion. My home group has closed 18,000 transactions just last year, and is currently closing on average 20 door Sorry 2000 sales transactions every single month, that’s over 600 million in sales each month. In addition, he started six ancillary businesses to capitalize on all aspects of the real estate transaction. And to ensure a high level of services provided to the customer. Jeremy shares a passion for fostering the growth of his agents and teams first, which has helped him recruit more top 100 agents and teams than any other brokerage in Arizona. He prides himself not only on the production of my home group, but also on his agent centric culture, which has changed the real estate community for the better. Please find Jeremy’s website at my home. group.com. Jeremy, welcome to the show.
Jeremy Kleven 6:32
Hey, thank you so much really, really happy to be here. Appreciate the kind words out of the out of the gates and air. Let me also be the first one to tell you Well, I’m sure somebody else has told you a good job because hey, you know, 700 agents, you know, we’re all in different marketplaces, different challenges and struggles. And by all means, I mean, that is a lot of folks. I’m sure you guys are doing a lot of business, you got a good market share. I know that so you know, good on you as well, my man.
D.J. Paris 6:59
Well, thank you. And please do not open up an office here in Chicago. Please stay away. I need this job. I need to keep going you would crush us. Now we are really excited. Really excited to have you Jeremy. He’s a great guy, and so excited to bring him on the show. But before we get started, I really we know we have listeners from all over the country. And you are not only in Arizona, obviously anyone is listening. And you’re looking to join the number one firm in in Phoenix, Scottsdale area. My home group, of course, is a great place to explore. But you’re also in other areas. Do you mind sharing with our listeners in case they’re in other markets?
Jeremy Kleven 7:37
Yeah, so nine states total? Yeah, Arizona is the backbone. But California, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Florida, Michigan, Georgia, I think is nine. So I don’t think I’m forgetting anywhere. And, and yeah, but those are, those are the nine states that we’re in and we’re operating in. But like I said, you know, Phoenix Metro is really Home Base, where we have, you know, the most traction, this is where we are, we are at, you know, our corporate headquarters. So, again, where we birthed and then we’ve been, I’ll say slowly going around the country into various, you know, other marketplaces around the country, you know, really leading, you know, with talent and people that’s, you know, want to be a part of, you know, of our culture and our energy and, you know, our collaboration and our brand and really leading, you know, with talented hungry folks around the country and and, you know, by no means do we want to just go across the country, just to say that we’re doing it, you know, we want to do it with the right people. So sure.
D.J. Paris 8:36
Well, this is, this is a we’re really excited to have you and I know how busy you are, and your company is, especially right now with everything booming. I know here in Chicago, you know, activity is at a peak, I imagine in Phoenix and the other markets you guys cover, it’s also very, very busy. But let’s go I would love to go all the way back before all the success that you’ve had building this company. But you started yourself in real estate what back in 2001? Do you mind sharing with our listeners sort of your background and why you got into real estate and how that came to be?
Jeremy Kleven 9:08
You know, I was a failing college student. I grabbed my buddy. Well, at the time, he was my buddy my best my best friend. He’s now he’s my business partner here. And 2020 years later, Mark Hutchins, I grabbed him, I said, Hey, what do you think about going to real estate school? We need to make some money. This whole school thing isn’t really proving to be for us. But you know, it’s just one thing we knew how to do right out of the gates and we’ve done to this day that’s kind of helped us set ourselves apart. And anyone out there can do this. They can show up, they can be committed and they can absolutely work hard and that’s all we knew how to do it. But at the time we said hey, look, let’s go get our license. We have, you know, an opportunity here to make some money we needed to like I said needed to make some money and ended up opening our had, you know, had a little bit of success. Not much out of the gates. I actually have a podcast my own and I asked this to people all the time, like how long did it take for you to stop fumbling around, so to speak, and ultimately figure it out, quote unquote, or get get productive, right and, and so we were fumbled around for a long, long time, kind of just trying to learn this business and do a few deals kind of one to the next, didn’t really treat it like a sales business like we should have out of the gates, one of the one of the mistakes that we made early along, but I opened the brokerage, my home group in 2005. And we were really just a small team that was in the form of a brokerage or we were a brokerage that was a small team, you know, and operate, you know, in operations or in sales. We also have a mortgage operations for many years, Mark was a mortgage brokers were kind of a two headed monster, and back in, you know, in that day, oh, 506, I mean, the market was on fire back then, we were having some levels of success, then, and this will never end and the whole nine yards. So but it actually wasn’t until 2012, where we decided to, to, you know, rebirth ourselves, so to speak, and rebrand, create some tools and some resources and a back office and really create a, or make an effort, I should say, to grow out. And, you know, we don’t like to use that word recruit, necessarily. We like to use the word attract, you know, and really make make the goal to attract, you know, some agents attract some some producers and track the people that want to do good business that wants to grow, that wants to take care of the community, community. And we put that out there. We’ve always we also put out there that we’re an open book, we want to surround ourselves with other open books, people that want to pay it forward in this industry. Again, we’ve had a certain level of success, and we’ve never arrived. But we’ve had, we’ve had a certain level of success in this industry. And it’s been good to us ultimately, lots of bumps and bruises. But it’s been ultimately good to us. And so since day one, we’ve always wanted to create a brokerage, that led with abundance, right, that lead with, with culture and energy in collaboration, and celebrating success, and putting our agents in bright shining lights, because at the end of the day, that’s what this business that’s who’s really should be in bright shining lights, right. It’s not the brokerage. It’s the agent, you know, so, yeah, it’s 2012. And like you said, you quoted some numbers, I mean, the entire year of 2012, like I said, it was really just us, you know, doing our own business, you know, 11 million in sales, to, you know, 600 million that we closed just last month alone, you know, on track for, like we said, seven, 7 billion or so in total sales. So it’s pretty remarkable, you know, what’s, what’s what’s happened at the same time, we feel like we’ve just begun.
D.J. Paris 12:48
Well, it’s hats off to the success you’ve had. And really what our listeners and viewers might not understand about building a brokerage is that the hardest part, at least from a, from a attracting agents perspective, as Jeremy says he likes to attract agents is in teams, the actual hardest part in my experience is attracting teams. Individual agents are actually, for us not that challenging, although depends, of course, on their level of production, the higher producing agents are more difficult in our experience to attract to our company, simply because they’re usually being so well cared for at their own firm, that it’s difficult. So a lot of the agents who join us aren’t necessarily at the very top of the mountain. But Jeremy has cracked that code. And he has been able to attract those top agents away from all the other firms that are also competing for those teams and, and individual agents. And so I know, there’s a lot of our listeners who are maybe there, they have a team that are looking to attract more more agents to it, or they’re looking to build a team like you did, and ultimately a brokerage. And just curious if you have any general tips and advice and guidance for anyone looking to bring more people in,
Jeremy Kleven 14:04
I think that you have to take a really focused and committed approach to adding value. Day one and every day after, you know, that is our ultimate goal. Every single Monday morning, you know, just a little bit ago, I had, you know, a call with all of our staff and every single one of our staff calls, you know, one of the talking points or bullet points is, is, you know, how can we continue to add more value to our agents, you know, and, and, again, you know, I think for agents to, you know, bottom line, there’s three reasons agents will join a team and or join a brokerage. Right, three reasons, generally speaking, you know, number one, I don’t care who you are, I’m sorry, but it’s money. Right? Sure. And, and or opportunities, okay, that ultimately equates to money and in closely behind that, in my humble opinion, In his culture, right, people want to be a part of something, they want to be a part of a tribe. Again, we like to think that we have created, you know, a culture of collaboration, of abundance of giving, of sharing of ideas of strategizing together, our job now as leaders is facilitating growth and getting these top producers side by side, and providing that info and that content, and knowledge and expertise to, you know, the rest of our agent base, you know, what I mean? So, and then that third thing, that third thing is, is, you know, systems, right, any kind of systems or technology, you know, technologies and things like that. So, I think that those are the three reasons that agents will join a team and or brokerage. So, you know, for the folks out there, you know, and then why does an agent join or beyond that, why do agents then then choose to join a team and stay there. And I think that ultimately, they’re there that we’re all trying to backfill in need in our business. So we’re big believers, yeah, in providing a platform that our teams can run and operate in the independent, so to speak, and have a ton of full autonomy to go out there and operate their own business underneath our platform. But then, again, agents then need to, you know, what do we look to backfill in, in our business, and that’s what the team can provide to an agent or right, or sometimes a brokerage can can provide to an agent as well, you know, hey, look, I’m a, if I’m a single agent, and I’m not doing you know, A, B, and C, well, or maybe I just don’t want to do A, B and C, well, right, maybe I can look for a team that can it can help backfill that, that need in my business. So again, like I said, back to, you know, that culture piece, I would love to put that number one, you know, but at the end of the day, we have lives, we have livelihoods, we have families, or whatever it may be, and, and we need to make money and we need to make an income. But a lot of those things, again, culture and energy, collaboration, how do you hold people accountable? coopetition, right, things like that. Like that. Also, that also equates to money. And that can also get people more productive, you know. And so, we have been, we’ve had, again, we have more top 100 agents and more top 100 teams in the state of Arizona than than any other brokerage, we’re super proud of that. We’re super proud of our team, we have also have the number one team in the state of Arizona, it’s actually a top 10 team team in the country. But you know, we’re proud of the platform that ultimately we’ve provided them again, to have that autonomy and that freedom for them to run their own business just like an individual agent to run and operate their own business. And I think that that’s what’s important. So for the people that are out there that want to grow, you have to be an agent’s first, you have to, you have to look on how you can add value, and or shorten the learning curve for a new agent. Right? So again, we’ve we’ve done that as well, where agents can come into our system into our brokerage and shorten the learning curve in get more productive in a shorter amount of time. And again, what’s that equate to money? Right. So again, just one more thing on that note is that we like I said, we’ve been we’ve been big believers in putting the agent in bright shining lights. At the end of the day, this is about the agent. It’s not it’s not about the brokerage. So you know, we’re above our egos, we understand that. I think every day going forward in this industry, if it’s not already already here and your marketplace or wherever, folks right around the country, it’s coming very soon, where it’s becoming less and less about the brokerage. Okay. And more and more about the the individual, right? People work with who they know, like and trust, and that’s the folks that they’re going to work with happens all the time. Hey, you know, I ran into,
or, you know, you talk to somebody about real estate, Oh, yeah. My cousin’s in real estate. Oh, really? Oh, who are they with? Oh, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know, ABC XYZ. But that’s their relationship. And they’ll go anywhere that that agent is. So that’s what we recognize we allow agents to brand themselves. And you see this getting around the country, I think more and more, but you know, we’ve been doing that for seven, eight years, you know,
D.J. Paris 19:17
so Yeah, boy, you just said so much. I want to just you just actually brought up a couple of things that that I do as well on the recruiting side that that really touched on on some of the comments you made. So I’ll give everyone who’s listening just a simple example of something that literally anybody could do. Nobody does it at least in our in our To my knowledge, nobody does it here in our local or in the Chicagoland market. And it seems like such a simple and easy thing. So you know, Jeremy was just talking a lot about putting the agent first celebrating the agent. So one of the things I do this is very easy for anyone who’s listening, who owns a brokerage and is trying to attract more agents. You You’ve probably heard of a tool called broker metrics, Jeremy uses it, I use it. It’s basically a database system that pulls data from the MLS so that you can look and see which agents you think would be the best fit based on some of their production and various data points. Anyway, so most brokerage firms who are trying to recruit already have this tool, this tool is widely available, anyone can get access to it. It’s relatively inexpensive. And it’s a great tool. But for us, so I started thinking and Jeremy, probably appreciate this I started thinking about this, too, is how can we celebrate agents who aren’t yet with our firm? Right? So this is a great opportunity for everyone listening to think, How can I celebrate agents that I want to attract to my team to my brokerage? What can I do to to stand out? Well, celebrating their success is a great, great first step. So one of the things I do is, for example, whenever anybody does their very first sales transaction, I give them a while we have a we have a system where that gives him a call and says, Hey, we just noticed you closed your first sale. That’s amazing. Now, obviously, if you’re looking for a top producer, that won’t be that interesting to you. But you can also look for everyone that’s doubled the production they’ve done in the previous 12 months. So you get a list of everyone that’s doubled production Do you think most and I’m asking Jeremy, this, but just our listeners, most agents aren’t even aware when when they’re doubled their production or more than double your production, their production, they’re so busy, they don’t always recognize that or maybe they recognize it, but maybe their firm, the managing broker, or the brokerage owner isn’t acknowledging that right. So these are great opportunities to reach out to people that you want to attract, and say, Hey, I just noticed you did this. That’s incredible. We’ve got our eye on you, we would love to have you. And even if you’re not interested in moving, congrats, keep up the great work. And sorry to go on a monologue there. Jeremy, just got you got me thinking about some of the things we do as well.
Jeremy Kleven 21:45
No, I love that. I mean, that’s so so powerful. And the idea behind that is that you’re adding more value, you are congratulating them, you’re giving them that high five, it’s positive, it’s productive, it’s paying it forward, there’s so many good things that come out of that. And there’s a good chance that their own broker isn’t even doing the same thing.
D.J. Paris 22:07
100%. So that’s the feedback we get is, and we look, when we do that, what we don’t do is say, Oh, by the way, come join our firm, you know, we don’t do that, because that diminishes the message, we wanted to make it clear. And if they say, Hey, who are you? What are you all about? Then we talk about it. But typically, we just say, Hey, if you’re ever interested in looking at another firm, please give us a call, we’d love to chat with you. But this call is just to congratulate you keep up you know, and and you’re absolutely right, I cannot tell you how many people have reached out and said my own managing broker didn’t, didn’t reach out, when I doubled my production, or I just moved to this firm, I did my first sales transaction, nobody called to congratulate me. So there’s always it’s always little things that are value add. But you just boy, you just said it all. So I appreciate you letting me talk about
Jeremy Kleven 22:54
it. And we actually do, you know, have a similar process. And we send out a congratulations on every sale every to the cross agent, right? Every sale that we closed, right, which you can, you know, various MLS is you can pull that info on a daily basis. I mean, I know there’s some automated systems out there. But even if it’s an automated process for people out there to just export all the cross agents and just send them a quick Hey, congratulations on your sale, and then we try to come from a service perspective is, you know, is there a here’s a survey, anything that we can do to get better as an organization, we want to have the very best agents in the industry. So just another way to kind of add value and congratulate them and, you know, on their on their on their closings, you know, so at the end, the other thing you mentioned to that kind of leads me is, you know, when you talk about congratulating, you know, successes is being intentional. And that comes down to social media. And, and we like to use, you know, Facebook as a CRM as a tool, that when we for our own agents, right? That the positives and sometimes unfortunately, life happens and, and the negative things or the sad things or whatever it may be the losses, obviously have people as as a way to, you know, reach out and give our condolences and show that we’re here for the bad things that happened and then give the obviously for the good things that happened. The congratulations in the high fives for the good things that happened as well. And again, it’s not just going on to scroll and do you know, we go on we you know, we have a staff member that goes on and we’re intentional with that and and you can use these tools that’s another that’s free. It doesn’t cost any money, right it to go on, use it as a CRM and take the opportunity to highlight people celebrate that success. I think it’s powerful.
D.J. Paris 24:35
Yeah, it’s it’s funny after 10 years, you know, it’s talked about stumbling around for your first four or five years or so before you guys figured out how to do how to really, you know, create the brokerage. We have to 10 years, we just started realizing, hey, when we hire a new broker, we should probably feature them prominently on our Facebook page. You know, interview them a little bit get some Fun tidbits about their career and in their personal life, whatever they’re willing to share, and feature them and welcome them in a public way. So we have, I’m sure you guys have a private Facebook, we have a private Facebook group for our brokers, we have the public one, which you know, seen by other people. And so it finally dawned on us for like, we should probably be welcoming people publicly in both those forums, to celebrate their them coming on. And we were doing that in other ways. But with social media, we really weren’t. So for everyone listening, if you’re on a team, or you want to build a team, start to celebrate all your team members and introduce them to your social media followers introduce everything out
Jeremy Kleven 25:36
there, you got to put it out there to the world, right, you got to you got to announce to the world, if you’re looking to grow, you got it, you got to put it out there, hey, I’m looking for a handful of agents or I’m looking for some talented people that want to grow their business or go to the next level, or they’re looking for this or that, or whatever it may be, you got to put it out there, you got to make an active role on all channels. Right. And we’ve been doing that for years as well, in terms of celebrating when agents were agents come on. And obviously, at first, you know, an agent a day or whatever, it was kind of easy to roll out an image, you know, a day. Now thankfully, humbly, you know, we’re bringing on, you know, 100 100 agents plus a month are, again, very humbly are joining, you know, the brokerage. So you know, now we do it in groups. You know, what I mean? It’s, it’s, which is tough, obviously, we like to acknowledge every single person, and we wish we could do it individually. But, you know, we’re still at least putting out a, an image and tagging them and celebrating everybody that that, you know, again, is joining the organization. So got to put that out as well. Yeah.
D.J. Paris 26:36
100%. And now you you have some of the the top producers in all of Arizona, you have the number one team in all of Arizona, I believe, which you said earlier, and that’s beyond incredible. So I would love if you could share with our listeners and our viewers, what you’ve seen having, gosh, almost 3000 agents, a lot of them top top producers all over the country in the States, you guys service, what are some of those common attributes of for just agents that are looking to get to that next level? What are some of the things that you see that’s really separate people at the very top from people that are struggling that want to get there?
Jeremy Kleven 27:15
You know, I think that a lot of it I’ve we’re big believers in mindset, you know, in truly wholeheartedly making the decision that you’re going to do it head, heart and soul. When you turn back the clock again, when we rebirth in 2012. We didn’t exactly we didn’t go to some seminar, we didn’t get some self help, you know, book or any of those kinds of things. And, you know, obviously, I wish we had I’m a full believer and all those kinds of things. But we didn’t have some great awakening and say, Hey, we must know what we want to do. And we must be crystal clear about it. And we must be unrelenting and completely committed. But that’s what we did. Right? Me and my partner, like I said, we sat down and said, Hey, look, we want to grow this thing, we want to expand our brand and expand our footprint, we want to bring on agents, we want to bring on top producers and teams in the whole nine yards. And we are not going to stop right and and we’re going to be absolutely 100% committed and not that we’re not going to waver and beyond get off track because it happens we’re human, but we will we’ll we’ll figure out how to get there. And, you know, one of the lines I love is you know, commit first figure the rest out later. You know what I mean? And just in just going and making that again, making that decision that you’re going to do it you’re not going to be stopped because again a lot of times that’s the hardest part, right? Is really truly making that decision. And I think a lot of team leaders a lot of brokerage owners you see kind of get to that certain level you know of success and then kind of either plateau out because again this this industry is challenging. I think that you know it’s it’s an inexact science for a producer a producing agents to transition to a team and a team leader right? And you know on when do I make the move when do I not and I’ve always looked at it this as a two headed monster okay for the team leaders and sometimes for broker owners out there as well because we had to do this this as well. But again, a two headed monster are the right arm and the left arm, you know, the one arm is the is the sales business, right? building out that sales business because that’s the right here and now money and that’s the big money, there’s lots of opportunity right into it to build that out. And then that is its own business. When you talk about transaction coordinator, admin buyer’s agent, the agent whenever right, creating leverage on that, of course, but then the again that other arm is is you know, being committed to growing and attracting talent and growing the team providing value to that team. And then being focused on how you can continue to again retain keep folks around by again, creating collaboration, creating culture, having an energy you know and creating Some, some competition or some coopetition. And, you know, but again, a lot of that decides that you’re, or a lot of that comes down to, like I said, deciding in your head, heart and soul that you’re going to do it and you’re not going to stop. And when times get tough, and you’re saying, hey, look, the team’s not growing as fast as I thought it would be, or you see tons of brokerages around around my marketplace, I’m sure around the entire country, they get to that, that 4050 Agent kind of plateau, or maybe around 190 or 100, you know, and then they just say, oh, man, but I’ve got to shift more of my time back over into into sales, right? Because I need to be making more money. It’s just not happening on the on the on the, you know, attraction side or the on the, you know, the agent side. So they kind of get caught in this, this, you know, no man’s land. But for us, it was a means to an end with with the production we, we sacrificed that production, our own personal production, knowing that it’s going to take time, it’s going to take years to grow this right, Amazon and all these other systems and technologies. They’ve programmed us to things happen overnight, I click the button, it shows up on my doorstep the next morning, it must happen immediately. What’s wrong with me if it’s not happening immediately, right. Yeah, you know what I mean? And so it’s like any other business on planet Earth, whether you’re opening a flower shop, or you’re creating a real estate team or a brokerage, it’s not going to happen overnight. Right, you have to understand that it’s going to take going to take time again. 2012, we brought on 37 agents the entire year, and did 11 million in sales. You know, this year now we’re bringing on 100 agents a month doing 600 million in sales a month, right? So it doesn’t happen overnight. This is a long game play. It’s a long industry. Again, it’s it’s an industry where again, it’s a long game, but
D.J. Paris 31:50
so it’s it’s funny, you mentioned Amazon, because we all now are so used to purchasing. In fact, while we were chatting, I just got an alert saying something was delivered for me I ordered yesterday, which obviously we most of us are probably Amazon Prime people. So this is like yeah, we expect that we know that. It’s not that unusual anymore. But what a lot of people don’t realize, and I don’t have the exact number in front of you. But Amazon wasn’t even profitable for the first few years or 18 or 20 years. I forget what the timeline, but it was almost 20 years, but it wasn’t 20 years before they actually turned a profit. Right. So they just just like Jeremy said, they stayed hyper focused and committed to their particular model, seeing that, you know, a big hole in E commerce and obviously, you know, the the results are all real evident now, but yeah, but it takes time. And Jeremy’s absolutely right. I mean, I remember to when we were first starting, thankfully, I, my boss was able to put resources to me that probably should have been going to him personally. Because when we first started just just like Jeremy was saying, you know, and a lot of our listeners who are trying to build a team, or are trying to build a brokerage have been through, which is, oh my gosh, I have to produce, and I have to try to build a brokerage at the same time, which is extraordinarily challenging, and my heart go and hat goes off to anyone that can can do that. And we had to do the same thing. And my boss took too, he was nice enough to take the hit. So that I could focus exclusively on helping build, build the business. But it took it takes years and years and years. And But Jeremy, you’re so right about just focusing and committing, and just trusting, trusting that it’s going to work out if you provide as much value as possible. And it’s so funny. So when I was talking to Jeremy, just even before we started, you know, I was I was asking him about his business, because I’m so impressed with what he’s done. He’s all about adding value. He has a podcast as well. In fact, let’s let’s promote your podcast. Jeremy, can you please for sure.
Jeremy Kleven 33:45
In the same thing, I don’t know how long you’ve been doing your podcast here, but we this is this is something we actually, you know, about five, six years ago, and that’s the very reason that we wanted to create that and I love that you’re doing this as well. Because again, the idea is, you know, how can we you know, reach agents on what platforms can we can we reach them? What’s the easiest, right? So you know, so we did a, like I said, five, six years ago, we created ours and we call it the daily dose. So ours rolls out every single day. Well, business Monday through Friday. Hence the daily dose, it’s quick, you know, strategies, Insight tools, you know, to grow your business. And really, it transcends any business or anything surrounding you know, the real estate industry, but then they go outside the box to you know, we’re talking mindset, mental wellness, health and fitness, you know, all kinds of different things, anything that we can do to to provide some value to people’s lives. But again, it’s quick, it’s hard hitting, every single day it goes out actually we push it we like to push it out via text message just so people can, you know, play it from their phone whenever it’s convenient for them. So people tell us if they use it as their alarm, it goes out 730 Every morning I know you guys are back east in Chicago, but you know, some people use it as their alarm Get up some people play at different times throughout the day. But again, to subscribe to our podcast if you don’t mind is repose a tech a compose a text to the number 77948. And then in the body of the message, just write daily dose and that’s all one word, no spaces. And like I said, Yeah, we we’re not going to spam you or do anything crazy. It’s not to like, you know, lead capture, like I said, we’ve, we’ve had over 1000 episodes that we’ve done, actually, I think we’re coming up on like, 1200, or whatever it is. And again, we bring on top producers from around the state, we’ve had a few from around the country, we’ve had some from, you know, even up in Canada, you know, and again, it’s just another way for us to try to hope hopefully add value to people’s lives and people’s businesses. And, and, you know, one of the other concepts that we’ve always believed in to kind of transition obviously, in the back to business is, you know, we have to be omni channel, you know, what we what we’ve always called omni channel. And that’s the same thing for an agent and their business for their clients. You have to be on every single channel where people expect you to be right. We can’t always, you know, we can’t expect the consumer or we can’t expect the agents out there that we’re trying to attract right? To come meet us wherever we want. We have to meet them, we have to be on the channels where they operate. And so some people want to watch a video some people want to go on social media, a text, some people want to get an email some people deserve and want a phone call. Some people want to listen to an audio podcast whenever it’s convenient for them. So we’re just, we’re just trying to be on all the channels, it makes sense for people and ideally for them to to get the content that they need to grow their business.
D.J. Paris 36:37
And that’s, you know, I want everyone listening to subscribe to the Daily Dose. Could you provide that number one more time?
Jeremy Kleven 36:43
Yeah. 77948. So compose a text to that number 77948. And then a body of the message daily dose, but it’s all one word, no spaces.
D.J. Paris 36:51
Awesome. Yeah, it’s it’s one of those things where, you know, and this goes to whether maybe you’re not trying to build a team, and you just want to, as Jeremy said, meet try to attract more clients to your personal production. And Jeremy’s right, you have to go to them, you know, trying to, you know, if all you’re doing is posting a hey, newly listed or just sold post on Facebook, well, okay, that’s something. But is that really going after and going to, more importantly, maybe all of your clients or the agents you’re looking to attract, maybe they all are also on Facebook, and they only see you posting things about yourself, promoting yourself or congratulating yourself, you know, are you really providing value? Right, so So Jeremy’s, you know, this is a perfect example. So yeah, we’ve been doing our show for about four and a half years, and we’ve done over 200 episodes. And our whole objective was to provide value just like you would with daily dose. And that’s what if there’s one thing we could get every agent to walk away from this, this conversation with is provide value to the people you want to support. And what you’ll find is that law of reciprocity where you’re providing value, you’re not asking for anything in return, you will be shocked and you have to commit to it. And you can’t do it once in a while. It has to be as Jeremy’s case, five days a week, he knocks out daily dose. That’s incredible. I don’t think I couldn’t do that every day, although I probably should step up my game. So maybe I’ll try to do maybe four days a week. But I won’t,
Jeremy Kleven 38:22
I won’t. Or I will tell you that we you know, we record once a day, or I’m sorry, I’m sorry, we record once a week. And Martin, we kind of make individual episodes and we roll roll them out. You know what I mean? Yeah, it’s not a daily daily commitment, we act and pretend like it is. But I love that you said law. Reciprocity. That’s, that’s so powerful. We’ve been talking about that for so long. And, you know, give first, right, and we’ve always got to compare that to a bank account. I’m sure many of us have heard that that analogy. But you know, the relationship is like a bank account. You know, you can’t just walk up to the ATM and say, Hey, I haven’t seen it since high school. And you know, going for a withdrawal Hey, look at the virus cell, you know, anyone you want to refer to? Oh, right. If you if you go up to the if you go to the ATM, and you’ve made a whole bunch of deposits, right? It’s a lot easier than going for withdrawal. And and some people are at some point as salespeople, we do have to ask for the business. I think a lot of times we we don’t always ask for it. But again, if we’ve made countless deposits, if we’re adding value, if we’re giving first then you have the right ultimately to ask, ask for that, you know that withdrawal in return. So Law of Reciprocity is powerful.
D.J. Paris 39:29
So many agents, I think, learn to ask for the business first and they go okay, so you have this your contact list, you have your sphere of influence, and these are the people most likely going to want to work with you. And that’s likely true. Yes, we agree with that. But the question is, how do you actually earn it even beyond them just being your buddy? You know, these are your friends. What can you do to provide value? Are you calling everyone right now and saying hey, by the way, interest rates are at historic low, and I don’t know your current more, drink more Your situation, obviously it’s none of my business. But if you have if you still have a mortgage, and if you haven’t run the numbers for a refinance, you haven’t called your loan officer, now’s the time. That’s value and that costs like Jeremy’s cost nothing. And and you do you think other real estate agents are calling that person and suggesting that probably not right? Or,
Jeremy Kleven 40:19
or are we calling people right now coming from, you know, with empathy, with everything that’s going on in the world right now. And that, to me is current, its current in the marketplace, its current and society and all of our world and hey, how are you doing? Right? Like, are, you know, how are things going? Are you getting through? How’s the family last time I talked? A, B, and C happened, right? And in that is another one of our responsibilities as salespeople, right, you know, we have a responsibility to get into relationship with as many people as we possibly can, and how do we move that needle have from a relationship to professional trust, right, and so to be there, to check in on people to add value, we’ve said for a very long time around here. This is a human connection, and human resource business, right? Like I said, Before, people want to work with who they know, like and trust, right? So human connection, human resource, be a resource for people and, and it’s beyond just the sale, you know, it’s beyond the sale for people. That’s where, as we all know, and recognize in this industry, I know, there’s a ton of stats out there, and you know, how many agents, you know, close the deal, and then they never had the client never heard from them again, or never use them again, because they never followed up, right? You know, there’s something we’ve been caught like, and something we’ve been using around here for a little bit now is, you know, microtransactions, yes. Okay. So the macro transaction is obviously that sale, okay. That’s where when we that’s how we make a living, that’s how we, we feed our families, right. But the micro transactions that go on beyond the sale, right, and, you know, inserting yourself into the center of that of the transaction and all the transactions that go on beyond that. And, you know, I don’t know if you guys have a whole lot of ibuyers going on in your in your community or in your marketplace. But that was what people like to talk about for a long time when they’re when the the technologies the Zillow is in the eye buyers were coming around with it’s heavy in our market right now. But we were saying, hey, look, you still have to insert yourself into the into the middle of the transaction. And we’re not to say that you shouldn’t ever go that route. Because sometimes they provide a need in the in for the homeowner, right? To do A, B and C, right? So there’s a need for them. But you still have to insert yourself in the middle of the transaction. So when they think about real estate, they still think about you when they have a you know, a referral, they still think about you right? But now it’s the same thing. And it’s more, I think it’s more powerful than its than ever before, but to insert yourself into the center of the transaction, and then the micro transactions that go on beyond that. And as business owners, which every single person that’s listening to your podcast right now is a business owner, okay? We all need to be CEOs, we need to walk talk and act like CEOs because we are it’s our business, right? We should all have an entity set up and we should pay all of our bills and do all those things and then pay ourselves a salary and whatnot from there operate like a business. But what do CEOs do? Typically, they get into relationship with other CEOs, okay, so other people that have and or the ability to make decisions, which includes a vendor list of anything and everything that a homeowner, a buyer or a seller might need to have referred at any point you mister agent, Mrs. Agent out there on the other end of this need to be in the center of that space, right? Again, human connection, human resource, you know, who are your favorite, you know, vendors, right? You need to you need to be able to tell folks that and refer them so and how
D.J. Paris 43:57
exciting is that to have a list? You know, it’s one of those things whenever anything goes wrong in our lives where we need to hire a service professional. It could be related to real estate or unrelated it could be your car, you know, blew a tire and you need a good tire place. Obviously any place can fix your tire but do you want to go to any place or do you want to go to a place that you know you know is excellent and so if you’re if you’re right now if you’re thinking hey, you know I don’t know the best plumber out there I don’t know the best contractors I don’t know the best lenders or title companies or attorneys or auto you know, repair shops. You can ask other top producers you can ask friends and family you can ask people and I am I for example we have there’s an auto repair shop just down the street I’m very fortunate to be by this amazing place. I found it just randomly I was searching around online. They are so incredible that I tell everybody I know if you because you know I know with with auto repair I’m always worried that my getting screwed as is this is this you know you never know these guys I trust know maybe they’re screwing me but I don’t think so. I have earned my trust over over years, I tell everybody, because I know how stressful it is, for all of us who are real estate agents think about that. And look, most people probably have an somebody to help fix their car, they probably don’t have a plumber that they that they know or use, they probably don’t have great, you know, the, you know, interior designers or anything related, you know, a roofing guy could be anything, you need to create that list. And then you need to consistently go out and tell people about these people and say, Hey, by the way, if you ever need this, I’ve got the, you know, and create a list provided by that is so important. And what that does is Jeremy says, it inserts you into every part of real estate and makes you invaluable to people and beyond the sale, you know, five years out, they say, Okay, it’s time to get a new roof, you know, and that’s by the way, agents, you know, everyone listening, you should be staying in touch with all of your buyers and sellers, of course, well after the transaction. But this is a great opportunity to say, Hey, how’s anything going wrong with the house because I have an amazing vendor list. If there’s anything you need, you call me first, I will get you the right person that is so powerful and also free, that’s a free thing that any one of us can do.
Jeremy Kleven 46:09
Now you’re a resource, now you’re top of mind. And again, as CEOs, okay, now put the strategic partnerships together, as we start to produce a little bit more, right, we have a little bit more, you know, weight that we can carry around, so to speak, and get into these relationships with these vendors make it a win win, guys, there’s lots of different ways, and I’m not trying to talk, you know, compliant versus non compliant. I know every state around the country is different. But there are many, many ways that we can legally Of course, you know, consult with your broker consult with your, you know, your attorneys, of course, but there’s so many different ways that we can be compensated beyond that macro transaction, right? That are perfectly legal, you know, and so along with getting these vendors, we’ve been helping a lot of our agents, a lot of our teams. And again, I know every marketplace is very, very different when it comes to vendor vendors being able to contribute towards agent business issues to your business as an agent. But as we produce again, I don’t think agents think about that enough, you know, on on, the folks that we get into relationship with need to be it needs to be a win win, right, it needs to be a give and take, we’re not compiling that list to solely give out, you know, referrals, but also to get them in return. You know, we’ve been focused a lot of around here, we’re really seeing this, this divide, especially when it comes to teams, and then many, many top producing agents as well on on the folks that are going out and obtaining what I like to call a channel account, okay. And a channel account could be hundreds of different things, whether it’s a divorce attorney, a CPA, whoever it may be, you know, of course, like a RELO account or something like that has always been considered a channel account. But it’s, it can be much smaller than that your your kids classroom, right is is a potential Channel account, right?
D.J. Paris 48:02
Your financial advisor, your account manager,
Jeremy Kleven 48:05
right, it goes on and on and on. Right. So but again, ultimately a single source of business that has the opportunity to turn into multiple transactions, because again, we’re all we’re all spending time working for that that one buyer or that one seller, right? What would happen if we spent some time going after that single source of business that has an opportunity to turn into multiple transactions, right, and in nurturing those relationships, and creating, you know, a program, you know, so to speak, that can be a benefit to them. So, a quick a quick approach that I’ve always loved for that is, you know, you reach out to the CPA, or you reach out Hey, sadly, but true. We all know divorces are happening. Right? You reach out to the divorce attorney. Right? How many transactions can the average divorce attorney refer you? Sadly, a loss? Right? I think, yeah, tons. So I mean, it could be 20 sales every month. And it could be what’s that 40 You know, purchases ever every month, right? You know, if you’re able to get a fraction of that business, but the idea is that, just like you’re saying is that you reach out to this person, the divorce attorney or the CPA and say, hey, look, I’m looking. Sadly, my clients, you know, it’s a numbers game. Sadly, some of them are getting divorced. I need a good divorce attorney that I can believe in and refer to. So I need to learn about your business. I would love 1530 minutes. understand who you are, understand your business. You’re not asking for a thing beyond that, right? You’re just solely going into the meeting, to learn about their business, to ultimately be able to refer them you said law of reciprocation. If you start referring, we’d like to think that it’s going to start coming back our way. If you create a program that adds value to their clients, whether it be a discount or closing costs, or whatever it may be right now you’re continuing to add value to them, right so it’s kind of this give this give and take and nurture that like any other you know, relationship that you want out there then ideally If, if you can create a couple of these channel accounts, I mean, my God, that’s life changing.
D.J. Paris 50:04
Yeah, it’s boy, you said so much. And so a lot of times I think, as individual agents, we might think about the client being the hub saying if I do a really good job, they’re gonna tell their friends and family and yes, absolutely, yes, yes, yes. go above and beyond and hope and pray that they tell everybody they know about you. Jeremy’s talking about doing this in a different level, right? Coming from a different approach. Yes, do that and start to think about people that might be able to send clients your way beyond your existing just your sphere of influence the people you’ve worked with, in the past, go to places that are like, for example, my accountant is always asking me, there was a period where I’ve I’ve owned properties. And then there’s times where I haven’t, and I’ve been renting, and I kind of you know, go back and forth sometimes. And she will always say, when you need to buy a home, you need to buy a home. And so finally, I’m in the process of doing that right now. But there were several years where I wasn’t. And she was like, you need to do that. Now, if I was, if I was an individual practicing agent, I know she’s telling that to other clients of hers. And then my thought would be how can I add so much value to my accountant and have that conversation about? Hey, you know, you’ve been telling me to do this, I imagine you’re having this conversation with others. So obviously, if you you know, you could always send people my way. But what can I do for you? How can I send more people to you first, right. And so Jeremy is so right about finding those people. And it might not be even an individual person, for example, if you work with, if you help somebody buy their first home, they were renting, and now they’re buying, you know, and I used to work at a tech company. And I was one of the first people we had about 100 people at our company, I think I was one of few people that owned a property at that time I was in my 20s. And, you know, most people were in their 20s. They were renting just because that’s what people do in their 20s. And I bought a home. And then people started asking me who how’d you do that? Well, how’d that work? And I realized, boy, all of these super smart tech, people just didn’t really know anything about real estate. And so I referred them to my agent. But if if an agent was smarter, they would have called up like the human resources person at my company and say, Hey, can I come in and do a seminar about why people should make the transition from renting to buying? So that’s a channel opportunity, guys, that is so huge. So Jeremy, I’m so grateful that you brought that up?
Jeremy Kleven 52:12
Oh, well, hey, thank you very much. I mean, I, I again, and it’s, I think, no matter what we’re doing across the board, it’s it’s, it’s leading with abundance. And you said multiple times, Hey, how can I add value? What can I give, and we just, you know, when society be a little bit better off, if we all just kind of gave first and expected nothing in return, you know, and, and the more we gave, I think that it’s just you hear so many people out there that have had success and, and they lead with, I was filling a need in the marketplace, I was looking to add value I was hoping to, you know, help somebody, you know, bridge the gap from A to B, whatever it is, right people, generally speaking, that that are having success, they lead first, with, with the heart with with abundance, you know, and again, that’s just that’s just across the board. If we if we give first, you know, good things good things happen.
D.J. Paris 53:02
Well, I think that’s a perfect place to wrap up. Because I think you just said maybe the most important thing in this entire hour that we spend together, you know, lead from the heart, give first, don’t expect anything in return because the law of reciprocity will likely take care of you. And if it doesn’t, and if all of a sudden you’re referring business to someone and they’re not returning the favor, then maybe reconsider that relationship and find someone else. There are plenty of people that that will, that will will send business your way ultimately, but just lead from a giving perspective, as Jeremy said. So I also want to touch on at 100% 100%. I want to tell everybody who’s listening please if you are in the The Arizona market and you’re a broker or realtor rather and you’re looking to maybe you’re thinking point, maybe my firm’s not really giving me everything I deserve. Or I want to join a really vibrant, exciting culture of top producers and not every producer at Jeremy’s firms a top producer. So it just because you might not be at the very top of the mountain, they still would love to chat with you and see if it’s a good fit for both. So and not just in the in the Phoenix area. Jeremy’s company is in nine states. So go to their website, which is my home group.com. They’ve got an incredible website that really showcases a little bit more about what they offer agents and see if it’s a great fit for you. If you’re a solo practitioner, if you’re on a team, maybe it’s time to consider you know, what is your company offering you? What are they providing to help you grow? You know, Jeremy’s company does that. So go visit my home. group.com. And Jeremy, thank you so much. Once again, this was incredible hour. We are so so grateful for your time today. I know how busy we are with 700. Brokers, you have four times that number. So I know how busy you must be. You still found time to jump on our show here. So on behalf of the listeners, we want to say thank you and thank you. Yeah. And on behalf of Jeremy and myself, we want to thank everyone who’s either listening or watching this episode and we’re going to ask everybody to do Just two quick things for what three things First go visit my home group.com for things, but it’s at my home group.com Second, sign up for the Daily Dose 30 Yeah, sign up for the Daily Dose. And then third, tell a friend about this episode. Just think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from having heard this great conversation with Jeremy and send them a link to our show. The easiest way to do it, just go to our website, it’s keeping it real pod.com If you’re a podcast person, just look it up on any app you’ll find us keeping it real podcast but our websites keeping it real pod.com And the last thing the fourth thing we’re asked everyone to do follow us on Facebook please find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod the only stuff we post there is we post an inspirational quote we also find an article that was written specifically every single day we find an article that was written specifically to help agents grow their business we promote that there and then of course these episodes, so please again facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. Jeremy Thank you. This was awesome. You are like you’re my Michael Jordan. So I am so excited.
Jeremy Kleven 56:03
Oh man that those are some big shoes right there, my man but thank you so much appreciate the kind words and you know, you guys are obviously doing great things as well. So you know, hey, there’s a lot out there for all of us to be successful. So that’s all we want everyone to win.
D.J. Paris 56:17
Agreed. All right. Well thanks Jeremy and we’ll see everyone on the next episode.
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