SHOW NOTES
Daniel Beer is the CEO/Owner of Beer Home Team of eXp Realty of California, Inc., one of the Top 150 Teams in the nation per The Wall Street Journal and Real Trends. While at Realty, Dan and his team were the #1 real estate team in Southern California. Dan and his team bring the highest class Real Estate service in the industry to sellers and buyers at every price point. The goal is to connect with the community, create a great place to hold real estate related conversations, and get to know San Diego sellers and buyers in a more intimate way than traditional websites allow.
In this episode, Brian and Dan take a deep dive into the Beer Home Team business and talk about the systems and tools that they useto be successful. Feel free to take this information with you and implement into your business!
In this episode we talk about...
- 2:00 - Meet Dan Beer!
- 10:15 - How do you respond to sellers who want to up the price of their home?
- 15:36 - The key elements of a marketing package.
- 20:31 - Keeping ISA's happy in their role.
- 24:00 - What is Dan's focus for 2020?
Show Transcript
Brian Charlesworth: [00:00:39] All right. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth, the founder and CEO of Sisu and your host of the show.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:00:47] And today, I'm here with Dan Beer. Dad is out of San Diego. I have not gotten to spend a lot of time with Dan. Like I have with most of the people that I've interviewed so far. But Dan is the CEO and owner of the Beer Home Team. Again, based in Southern California. The things I know about you, Dan, is you used to be, I believe, the top KW team down in that area and are now you've moved over to eXp and rocking it, crushing it still.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:01:18] I'd love to hear more about your business. Why don't you tell us more?
Dan Beer: [00:01:21] Yeah. So it is fun to be here with you and you have an awesome set of tools and software. So I know a lot of people very happy with it. So, kudos, you on what you built. It's it's it's a great service to people. So we've built know we've built this team. Right. Started this. It was such an individual agent. And then they kind of started it.
Dan Beer: [00:01:43] Have more leads than I can handle, and I went through that long process that most people go through. Oh, I should start adding people, but we start adding them all in the wrong way and the wrong structure and not really under any kind of business platform. And so, of course, we lose those people and we build and rebuild. And that goes on for years for most and with a lot of expense.
Dan Beer: [00:02:02] And my myself included, though, you know, I was real estate life.
Dan Beer: [00:02:06] Yeah. You know, it's it's that's just all a part of it. And so, yes, I did. I did what we did eventually, build , that became the number one team by production by GCI, I should say, in the Southern California region for Keller Williams. But I definitely was connected to something which is I wanted to make sure and always have my business in a place where I was around the people most incentivized to help me grow. And so we did make that shift to eXp. And that's just a whole different conversation around the financial model there. But since then, we've grown by another forty nine million in production in a short period of time. That's an additional forty nine million dollars in production. Have an awesome thing going here. We have 18 sales agents and I'm happy to share anything about the business you want. You know, we have everything from inside sales to showing agents to our company listing agent positions, you know, listing management, transaction management, videographer and runners and operations people and marketing all of it in-house. So I would call it a fully leveraged team and something that makes our team unique. Also, as you know, I'm not the producer on the team. And so what that means is my my I show up every day in the office. As you can see, I'm here at the office now. But my entire role, purpose period is just serve the team our team members is to work for them and is to build opportunity for them. So all of our entire marketing platform, which this year will be about $1.2 million of marketing our salaries. Right. Are all of our W-2 positions, all of the tech that we have in place. Everything that we that we're building and where I spend my day is in building opportunity for team members.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:03:51] Very cool. I love it. So you are number one as far as volume goes. What's your volume now says that you can share?
Dan Beer: [00:04:00] Yeah. Oh, we just closed out this past year at two hundred eleven million.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:04:04] Congratulations. In business.
Dan Beer: [00:04:07] So we have a goals and no plan to go well beyond that. So we'll see. This year is going to be. This year we're going really heavy in the brand to building our brand out much deeper, much further. We're just about doubling the marketing investment that we're going to make this year versus last year to that number that I just mentioned.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:04:29] And so you're taking marketing up to 2 million, which is huge. Most people know one point we want them to. Yeah. OK. Next year. So this year is going to be one way to say. OK. All right. Exciting. So being in Southern California, it's it's different in most markets. A lot of people listening to this or, you know, average price points are between two and four hundred thousand. What are your average price points down there?
Dan Beer: [00:04:52] So San Diego County is right at about five ninety six hundred thousand. We operate at around 7. I think last year was right around 7, 40 something in the time doing the math directly. So we are above the average. It's not like every deal's a million bucks or 2 million, 3 million dollars that way. Some people around the country assume that's not the case at all. And in fact, as a county, we're five ninety five five ninety six hundred thousand. So, yes, higher than most places. Not as dramatically high as some people assume it's going to be. And in fact, we have a terribly competitive market. We know. Yeah, you're talking about a market with roughly thirty five thousand transactions on a yearly basis. Twenty seven thousand agents.
Dan Beer: [00:05:35] So the degree of what we are competing with one another. It's crazy right now.
Dan Beer: [00:05:42] What we would do is to put that in perspective.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:05:44] One point two transactions per agent is, well, there's two sides to every transaction. Right. Right. Yeah. The seventy thousand or so sides. So to say. Yeah it's for. Right.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:05:55] Yeah. OK. It's data. So.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:06:00] Anything else you want to share about your background before we before we dive into your business a little deeper now?
Dan Beer: [00:06:06] You know, that's all I have. Let's think let's dive in and start to get people some actionable, detailed information that they could go back to the office and try and put in place.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:06:16] Love it. OK. So what are the things that really intrigues me as I look at what you're doing is you really market that you guarantee you're going to sell the house or else you're going to buy it from them at the listing price. Most people I've seen do that, do it at 70 percent. So talk to us about that. How do you do that? You're flexible commission model, all those types of things. I'm guessing I could be wrong here, but are you a listing focused business? Sounds to me, based on everything I've heard from your eye essays and your the way you've structured your business, you are listening. Focused is my guess.
Dan Beer: [00:06:55] Definitely. I believe in the method. The majority of the 1.2 million will go in to to all building. Our listening business is around two hundred ten and forty thousand about that goes on the buyer side of our business. The rest of it is all on the listing side. I believe in very much building the listening side of your business, which is, you know, equipment to building your brand, building your company. And then so many of our buyers come from our listings as it says this whole industry was designed to do anyway, right? Right. Yeah, we do that. We definitely focus. They're heavy into farming. We do a lot of media. We've been on radio for years. We're expanding our media package this year. One direction, though, I don't have any advertising that says that I'll guarantee to buy a home. So what you're referring to is that we'll guarantee you to sell your home in 100 percent of the asking price or we'll pay the difference. Now, of course, there's some terms and conditions in those terms and conditions are actually really simple and they're really straightforward. And the reason we do this program is because it's not one of these programs where, oh, yeah, we'll do it for 70 cents on the dollar. Yeah. Well, yeah, no kidding. I'm sure I have that program too. Right. Who wouldn't buy 70 cents on the dollar? So the reason we have this program is because it's straightforward and because it's genuine and because it's real. When we're at your home and we're assessing the fact that your property is, say, six hundred thousand and we want to list for six hundred, then that's my recommended list price. It's six hundred. Now you can at that point decide to do the guaranteed sale program or not.
Dan Beer: [00:08:33] And simply we just have a little bit of a guaranteed sale premium above the commission that we would normally charge. Not much by the way. It says it could be as little as 2 percent more, and that's a very small price to pay for certainty on the seller side. And so we'll pay up to the up to we'll pay the difference between the list price and the sale and the sales price up to the full amount of the commission that we earn as on the listing side of the business. And so it's it's as simple as this. It's we you know, we're the ones that recommended the price, by way. We recommended the price before knowing that you'd want the guaranteed so. Well on. A lot of people don't. And a lot of the reason a lot of people don't is they're gonna get the same marketing package, whether they have it or not. And that's just going to you know, they could save a couple of points by not taking the guarantee. Some people want the guarantee. They want the guarantee because for them, they just sleep better at night knowing that their downside is a much stronger protection. And, you know, mentally for them, they can go and do their numbers or maybe it's you know, they share it with siblings. It was inherited. They just want to kind of understand what the math is going to break down do on a worst case scenario. And it just makes them sleep better. So that's literally all the thing is. And it's it's easy and straightforward. And it's not one of these, you know, beaten, whatever.
Dan Beer: [00:09:53] I don't want to. I want to label other people's programs. But it's not one of these things where it's. Oh, yeah, we'll buy it at 60 cents. OK. Again, like I said, no kidding. Yeah. I'd be happy to buy it at 60 cents. Who the heck would it?
Brian Charlesworth: [00:10:05] So do you only do that if they choose to go with you listing price? Is that how you guys do that?
Brian Charlesworth: [00:10:10] You say there's our recommended list is price six hundred thousand. Could they say no, thanks. I want to try to get 640. How do you respond in that scenario?
Dan Beer: [00:10:19] Well, in that scenario, I'd say like I could. It's we're looking at data together. OK. So there's two things. One is the people that you're talking to there that people are smart. I operate under the assumption that people are intelligent. They see they see real life. That doesn't mean they don't have other aspirations, but they see real life in front of them. So when we're at your home and we're looking at the fact that the neighbor. Same for plans sold for five ninety. And that the other neighbor or same floor plan sold for 6 10. But they had a pool and you don't. And the other neighbors sold or say five eighty five and actually had a better lot than you do. But I believe we'll have better marketing. So I'm willing to do six hundred. And then we add the fact that you want six 40. So I'm doing the deal at six hundred in terms of where that guarantee kicks in. If you, if you're at 6:40, there's not a seller in the world that has an issue with that because they understand the data we're looking at. In fact I'd argue that if they can't understand the data we're looking at, that's probably not a seller reading to work with because that's not a person that's on planet Earth. And that only just, you know, one of our we would we'd like to work with people we'd like to work with. And so it's really not it's not any different than as if the program didn't exist. If the program if I didn't have the guarantee at all. And, you know, if it weren't an option and we we have a lot of different options. Right. But if that weren't an option and you had a six hundred thousand our home and you want seven hundred for it. Guess what? We're not working together. So it's as simple as it just sort of takes care of itself.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:11:54] So there are a lot of people that will go out and take any listing they can get. Right. So with you guys at, how many listings you guys take a year?
Dan Beer: [00:12:05] Last year was around two hundred and forty years, so roughly.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:12:10] Ok. So taking 240 listings a year. You're a little different than most. Right. I'm guessing that you guys do a much better job than most of setting expectations. This is where looking at the data. This is where it's going to sell. This data backs it up. Somebody somebody feels like I need to get this out of my house. You guys are gonna share with them, OK? Get that your needs. But this is reality, right? This is what this is what it's worth. Would you take that listing if somebody is like, I wanted it listed for more. Would you guys just say, you know what? Maybe somebody else a better, better option for you? Well, it goes back to the compromise.
Dan Beer: [00:12:49] You know, there's there's a few things to it. Right. There's. You've just been sitting in front of this person for maybe an hour or so in their living room.
Dan Beer: [00:12:56] So have you been talking to a sane, reasonable sense making person like you, by the way? They still could want more. That doesn't make them not sane and reasonable. But if the conversation you've been talking with a person that makes sense, right. A person who speaks English and you can communicate with them, OK? That's something that's good. Person seems rational. What's their motivation? Is their motivation just, hey, we want to see if we can get this number. You know, we're not so interested. Is their motivation. The fact that they just had a new baby and they're in a town home and now three kids in a three bedroom town home. That's great. Motivation is there. So what's the motivation is the first thing that it'll always come back to? What's the motivation? How did this seem to work with. Did they seem like reasonable people and even reasonable people want to reasonably go after more? By the way, we the Beer Home Team are reasonable people who want to go after more. In the example I gave, you were working on a home that I'm recommending six hundred thousand, even though the one with a better lot sold for five eighty five for wanting to go after more. But we also have to be conscious of the fact that we're never selecting the sales price or wherever selecting is the marketing number, the positioning of the home into the marketplace so that people see some degree of value and then show up to compete with one another for the house.
Dan Beer: [00:14:24] If you can have the best marketing in the world, but if you're completely disinviting, then with your price, with the way you've positioned it, if you're disinviting them by showing absolutely no sense of value, no one is going to be at home. Doesn't matter what you do or how many newspapers you put the thing in or Internet Web sites or how many countries you advertise in or it won't matter at all. Yeah. So. That's we're very conscious of the fact that when you're as an agent. Pricing a home. You're not pricing for the sales number you're pricing for where am I going to be able to establish a marketing number that will complement the rest of my of my marketing package for this client? If we back to business school, 101 where we learned about the four PS right. Product place, product placement price and some other people was at the headquarters. It was a three P's anyway. Price is one of those P's. Yeah, so it's only one ingredient in the marketing stack and it has to be congruence and complement the rest. Can't blow up the whole plant.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:15:33] Ok, so let's talk about your marketing package. Are there key elements that you feel need to happen to get a home sold from a marketing perspective? Again, I think a lot of people that aren't nearly as focused on listening as you. I see more and more teams and brokerages that are buying leads from Zillow. Right. That's how they're growing your business versus only radio and billboards.
Dan Beer: [00:15:58] Yeah. So when I mentioned, you know, of the 1.2 or so run. Two hundred two hundred forty of that going to buyer side. That's Zillow. Yeah, we love Zillow. Yes. Having said that, it's a great compliment to a listing focused business. Yeah. So the ingredient people need in their marketing packages to have to develop their story. You need to spend time really thinking about what is it that everybody else does and where the issues around those things that they do. And so here are the things I'm going to go through. And these are this the system that I'm going to create to solve the pain points created by the system that everyone else is using and therefore have a differentiated process. I'm also going to have a story built around it. It's great. Good salesmanship is good storytelling and storytelling in nonfiction. OK. Don't, don't, don't. Don't become a fiction storyteller. A nonfiction storyteller. But it is storytelling. And so when you can formulate that in, you know, in our case, we've even gone ahead and name that process, trademarked the process. And so when you can when you can create a system. Don't forget one thing, you're going to a listening appointment and competing against agents that went through as little effort to get license as you did.
Dan Beer: [00:17:23] Every one of us, very little effort to get license. It takes just about nothing. And that's an issue. And we could sit here and have the rest of this podcast focused around. What a terrible issue that is. And we'd be right. Or we could just say, hey, well, that's also a reality. So let's go ahead and use that as an opportunity. If that's the issue, I suppose. Remember, I'm operating under the assumption that the public is intelligent. And so I believe that they understand how low that bear, that barred entry. Right. Rather, the barrier to entry is into our industry. And so I believe that what the public is often doing is just scanning for whereas the professional, whereas the professional. So when you can show up with your package and your story and it has a name, in our case, it's trademark. And you can eloquently just go through it with confidence. Then you're really communicating something beyond the words you're using to the seller. You're communicating. You've you've found a real business operator. You found somebody who has an actual proven system. And I'm going to give you the confidence to know that we're gonna get to where you need to be. And it's all that the seller is looking for that because guess what? Everybody else all they've done is sit down in front of that seller and just sat there and looked at comps and tried and figured out price in 80 percent of the conversations about price.
Dan Beer: [00:18:46] And so I'll use that against you when I'm competing against you. I'm using that against you. I know that's what you're doing. And so what? I'm competing against you. That's exactly what we're gonna point to remember when you interviewed this other agents and remember how the conversation centered fully around price for almost entirely. Well, if the conversation is all isn't is virtually all about price, then the strategy is all about price. Where do you think the buyers in focus? We're also they love to focus, they're going to focus on price. And so we go down that path. Right. Yeah. So let me share with you why we know because of that observation. Let me share with you what we do. And here's what we've observed and here's a look. And so then we go down a different path. So now they've interviewed maybe two or three. That sounded kind of the same one that sounded different. So you asked what should people focus on in their marketing stack? It's having something different.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:19:38] It's having their unique story, a differentiator and create your story. What sets you apart?
Brian Charlesworth: [00:19:45] Great. Well, let's talk about ISA's for a minute. Your ISA's in-bound or other.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:19:51] Ok. So they're taking calls that are coming in from what what type of leads?
Dan Beer: [00:19:57] From signs from Zillow, from radio, from Billboard, from anything from our Web site. Like literally from anything OK for us.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:20:09] How long have you had ISA's in your business then?
Dan Beer: [00:20:13] Oh, man.
Dan Beer: [00:20:18] Early iterations going back to about two thousand thirteen.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:20:23] Ok, so about seven years, give or take. So so I know there's been a struggle with a lot of people to keep people keep ISA's in that role. A lot of people have them wanting to step up to be agents and that type stuff. What advice can you give us around getting ISA's who love to be in that role, who are going to stay with you and how long of your stay with you? How do you incentivize them and really keep them happy to be in that role? Because greater ISA's are going to make a major, major impact on a on a solid business if you can if you can do a great job there. So I'd like to help people understand how to do that better.
Dan Beer: [00:20:59] Yeah, well, one is, you know, on some I've seen teams I've visited with teams where their ISA's are.
Dan Beer: [00:21:13] Definitely. Just like I know. So it's just it's a second class citizen position.
Dan Beer: [00:21:20] It's minimum wage. That kind of thing.
Dan Beer: [00:21:24] You typically see these with the outbound groups, more so than with the inbound groups. When you have the marketing investment that we have. My belief is that the ISA's is our one of the most important people on team. And that's where all of that marketing investment is landing in their lap. For them to take to appointment and to nurture to appointment when they don't immediately go to one. And so one of the deals is you're going to get quite you the way you value. It's going to show up.
Dan Beer: [00:21:52] Right, in terms of if you think it's like the side position. So will they. Well, we think that's one of the most important positions in our business. And so we have long term people that we pay really well. All right. Our ISA's have aside from their base salary. They have incentives based on what they can control. Which is appointment set. Yes.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:22:15] On the close, they get it. Do you follow it all the way through? So do they get a percentage of each transaction? Those is that they've done or is just based on employment set?
Dan Beer: [00:22:24] Now we we do a flat fee, additional bonus on the closing that it's so small. It's just really that have them have a little bit of an additional celebration.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:22:36] It is still based on closing. Right. Still based on setting a solid appointment that it's going to go from the point that the majority of their comp is based on setting a qualified held a point.
Dan Beer: [00:22:48] Ok. When the appointment is held, they've earned money. OK. Because that's what they can control. And so they like that. Number two is we hired we again, we have they have a benefits package. They have health. They have a 401K profit share plan. They have disability. They have life insurance. All these things. And so. One of the keys is, is that don't forget, look, it's hard to keep people in any position, right? I mean, people's persistence and listing managers and marketing people and agents and everyone's moving everywhere. So the ISA's says same thing. You have to you have to show them a path to how their life is going to progress and develop. You're not going to be able to get great people there. They have a ceiling. There has to be a path. And that's going to just be true for anybody in the organization. So I don't really see it being any different from anything else in the organization in that we don't have a single position we don't value highly. And there's certainly one of a market type that came to the office. You might think that they're like everyone's manager or something like they are important people here. Love it.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:23:57] Ok. So I know we're short on time. Tell me what your main focus is this year. It sounds like maybe it's the increase in marketing spend or is there some other major focus that based on where the industry is going, that you feel is critical to really take your business to the next level this year?
Dan Beer: [00:24:17] You know, every year we go through an exercise, every quarter we go through an exercise, and then we of course, do our year one.
Dan Beer: [00:24:25] At the beginning of the year, we established what are our rocks for the quarter, meaning what are the things that we're gonna really need to accomplish, which of course should be in alignment with the amount of sales that we're looking to have over the course of that year, which of course is in alignment with where we're looking to be in three years, which is in alignment with intent. And but because we update this on a quarterly basis, we're always in a you know, if you've read Good to Great, get that flywheel really going and keep it going. So there's nothing terribly different we're gonna have to do this year except for to continue to find great people, make excellent investments and to who they are as human beings, not just as real estate agents or as employees. But when we do self-development budgets, we do travel allowance and we do all kinds of things is we want people to expand who they are going to continue to do that. We're gonna continue to do that all while doubling down on our lead generation investment this year.
Dan Beer: [00:25:20] And we're going to add great agents to the business. So we're gonna just continue to do a lot of what's gotten us here and do some of it. You know, double down or triple down on on aspects of it. Let's say, you know, it's it's simple, not easy. That's definitely not. And that's something that's I will say I made up by any means, but it's gosh, it's true. Yeah. And so a lot of our focus this year is just on conversion.
Dan Beer: [00:25:52] We are dialing much deeper down into having very clear visibility into, well, who's converting it take Zillow, for example, who's converting and who's not converting. And bless the answer rates and who has the meeting rates and who has the you know, who's getting the best customer customer satisfaction scores. And let's get that's just more more into them and the people that aren't so interested in that source of business. We love you anyway, but let's make room for the people that are. And so we're just optimizing we're all optimizing all of our lead sources for conversion and just really working on clarity around that.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:26:30] Great. Love it. It's fun to see how many team owners are really now shifting to where they are making true business decisions based on it, based on their our rely on those lead sources. This is this is who my leads are going to. This is how much I'm spending in each category because people are starting to understand that.
Dan Beer: [00:26:50] So I think you help people understand, which is a great thing.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:26:54] Yeah, we get to see a lot of that. Right. I mean, it's fun to see people's businesses change because of that. So you mentioned good to. Great. What? Is there another book that you would recommend that everybody everybody in this business should read?
Dan Beer: [00:27:09] You know, for me, when one of the biggest impact books for me was, was the Dean Kennedy's No BS Time for Entrepreneurs, and it's it was that book that just really brought a concept that we all understand conceptually. We all understand that you can't do $10 an hour work if you make one hundred and now you know, that kind of thing. We all understand it so easy. It's easy to comprehend, but very few of us live it or feel it and internalize it.
Dan Beer: [00:27:40] Something about that book, which, by the way, is a great read. There's something about that book just shifted my chemical makeup. And since then, I just find it very difficult. I'm almost incapable of doing anything under my desired hourly rate. And it's just so top of mind for me constantly. I mean, if you if I needed to go somewhere and you offered to pick me up that you were going to take 30 minutes to pick me up and I could just get an Uber and go there for 20 bucks, I'm doing the math. I'm thinking, dude, I'm meeting it there. I can't just sit around, you know, to try to save 20 to I can't do it.
Dan Beer: [00:28:14] And so in that book, tremendous impact for me. It's not guaranteed to, you know, treat that click that it did for me and everybody else who reads it. But I'd give it a shot. And there's it's just one of the best books on the subject than you. How if you want to optimize your day. Yes.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:28:32] Perfect. Love it. Okay. Well, how do people get a hold of you if people have more questions?
Dan Beer: [00:28:38] Yeah, you could. You could. They like you can find me on Facebook. Of course. I've just started Instagramming so I'm looking to build up right there. So I mean I'm putting up some good content even though I literally just started with Instagram, believe it or not, late to the game. My wife's been telling me for years. So is everybody else. So just find me there. You can email me Dan at Beer Home Team dot com. You can, of course, go to Agent Academy, dot com Agent Academy. Dot com is where I put up consistent video content to help you build your business. And it's all just free content and put one up just about every week. There's some additional premium courses there that you can check out or not. But the free content kicks butt. And I'm happy to connect with you. You're looking at joining the strongest mastermind group in the world. You know, dozens of million dollar GCI agents who we literally share everything with one another on a weekly basis. Then you can inquire about our group that we've built at eXp. Just happy to share regardless of where you're at or who you're with or anything else.
Dan Beer: [00:29:40] So thanks for having me on. And this is great. Yeah, there really are doing good things. I know some top notch teams that are operating at a much higher level than they were previously. Thanks to Sisu. Yeah, I love what you're doing.
Brian Charlesworth: [00:29:53] Thank you so much. Yeah. You know, one thing I just want to point out on that you just mentioned, I love seeing how people in this industry just give back. Right. You you post all these videos out there that people can just go consume for free. So people listening to this take advantage of it. Right. Dan has built an incredible business. Take advantage of that. That's free content sitting there for you. So, Dan, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. And have a great day. You got it man.
