Kyle Whissel has been in the real estate industry for almost 2 decades now. He worked in all aspects of the industry including property management, commercial real estate investing, distressed sales (REO & short sale), flipping and residential real estate.
Today, he is the CEO and team leader of Whissel Realty Group brokered by eXp Realty. They’ve been recognized as the #1 real estate team in San Diego by The Wall Street Journal and the #6 team in the state by Trulia and Zillow. He’s also a National Speaker and the #1 Real Estate Video Influencer by Bombbomb.
In this episode, we talked about:
(01:11) How to go big in 2021
(01:50) Why we need to have a different approach for different kinds of leads?
(05:57) What activities do we want our agents to focus on
(06:09) How does the 3-Part Funnel work?
(13:33) The advantage of setting up a lot of appointments for agents
(15:54) How do you find the right ISA and how to keep them around
(18:09) What are “exempt” or “non-exempt” employees?
(19:40) Why you should start paying ISAs based on closings and not on appointments set
(23:03) How much does an agent/ISA need to earn before they consider themselves successful?
(27:11) Kyle’s #1 source of hiring
(27:40) How does the company make money as a whole
(28:38) Why “speed to lead” is just as important as “speed to respond”
(28:50) What’s the only thing better than a new lead?
(30:23) What program does Kyle use to train his team
Episode Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 0:35
All right, everyone. Kyle Whissel the man the mystery the myth is in the house. What's up?
Kyle Whissel 0:41
Are you exhausted yet?
Brian Charlesworth 0:43
Not yet, but you know, it's a.m. still right?
Kyle Whissel 0:49
Here this is gonna be fun. Yeah, follow Quinn, that's a big act to follow.
Brian Charlesworth 0:54
Hey, I love the monopoly back there. You creating monopolies that was that symbolizes is that what I'm saying?
Kyle Whissel 1:01
Something like that yeah, I mean, that's what we do. Right? Like we grew up playing Monopoly. And now it's like real life monopoly. So yeah, I'm a big fan.
Brian Charlesworth 1:09
Yeah, those are cool. I love that. So Kyle, we get to hear today about you really creating your monopoly, which is going big and 2021 doing over 500 transactions? How are you going to do that? Yeah,
Kyle Whissel 1:21
I think something that's big to look at is volume to 500 is cool. 500 in some states is normal. 500 in California, is extremely, extremely difficult. We're in San Diego, there are about 30,000 licensed agents in San Diego and there are 36,000 transactions a year that happened. Obviously, there's two sides to it. So there's like 70ish, 1000 transactions for 30,000 agents. It is hyper hyper competitive in San Diego. But I think the big thing that we're really obsessed with that we've been obsessing over this year and kind of retooling our systems to prepare for next year, is really going deeper and understanding leads, I think far too often people just want to apply like a blanket approach to all leads. They treat a Facebook lead, just like they treat a Zillow lead, which is a huge mistake. And then even within Zillow, which is one of our highest performing leads right now. They treat a Zillow nurture lead, the same way that they treat a Zillow live transfer or Zillow connection call or flex lead, however you want to look at it. And we can go even deeper. And we could look at just within Zillow, they treat a Zillow nurture, that doesn't respond the same way they treat a Zillow nurture, that responds and says, I don't want to talk to an agent. But yet, we're applying the same approach to every single one of these leads. That's what most agents are doing. And on top of that, what most agents are doing is they're just whatever CRM they're using. There's some pre-built plans within that. And a lead comes in and they just hit the lead nurture button, right, and they just hit a button and apply the same approach to every single lead that comes in. So the first part of what we're obsessed about is really understanding the journey of every lead before it gets to us. Because the journey of the Zillow lead, that's a live transfer. We've got to know that that lead landed on the Zillow website inquired about a specific property was followed up with by Zillow ISAs got to the point they said, Hey, I'm interested in this property, I want to talk to an agent that can show it to me, can you connect me and then they connect you with that lead? So on that lead we can have a very direct approach right that lead has been worked through the funnel, let's go hard at them and let's go straight for the appointment. We've completely thrown a pee mama out the window. We fought kicking and screaming with Zillow when they started telling us about ALM, which is just appointment location, motivation. We fought hard when they first told us that's how we need to approach our leads. But we realized if we get that lead that's connection status, then ALM that's the approach that we should be taking on that lead. But then there's the Zillow lead on the other end, that's the nurture lead, and it could be that nurture lead that specifically says like, I don't even want to talk to an agent. Well, we got to apply a completely different approach. We can't that lead that inquired, but then completely ghosted, Zillow or even said like, Hey, I don't even want to talk to an agent. We can't talk to that lead and hit them with ALM because they specifically said I don't even want to talk to elite. But yeah, we're coming at them with the same script we used on that live transfer connection Lee, they said I want to talk to nature, like these leads are so far apart in the process, why the hell are we having the same conversation with these two different leads? So
Brian Charlesworth 4:44
You're a super smart guy. I have a quick question for you how many agents are on your team now?
Kyle Whissel 4:49
We're at about 35 right now.
Brian Charlesworth 4:52
35 agents. So how do you train 35 agents to be so aware of this? That seems Like the real challenge, I mean, even as team leaders, it's a challenge. But then how do you train your agents to actually be self aware enough to care about where that lead came from?
Kyle Whissel 5:10
All the leads away from them? You understand having done this for 18 years, now, you realize you cannot give an agent, the nurture lead that says I don't want to talk to an agent, you can't do it. It's like a, you know, an 18 year old at their first frat party, like, it's not gonna go, Well, they're just gonna go in and try to go for a close as soon as they get there, they're not going to like assess the situation, figure out what's going on and handle it in a mature way. So we've learned that we've really stripped away a lot from the agents to just let them focus on the stuff that they're best suited to work. So the second part where
Brian Charlesworth 5:50
I can't throw everything into a shark tank anymore, is what you're saying?
Kyle Whissel 5:53
Not now. So what we're really obsessed with right now is all we want our agents focused on is stuff that's at the bottom of the funnel, we want them working the live transfers, which they're great at, and we want them working the appointments. So we look at it as a three part funnel, there's top middle bottom of the funnel. So what we like to do is the top of funnel, we're just utilizing automation and AI at the top of the funnel, like when you're generating Facebook leads, Facebook leads are converting at like, one in 500. On average, I would venture to guess some people will bullshit, you know, mine converted 10%. Okay, well, you generate a 10, you convert in one, that's cool. But let's talk at scale. I don't know very many people that are converting even at one out of 100 on Facebook, most people are converting about one out of 500 why in the hell are you sending those two agents? Like, do you think your agent is excited to get a lead that converts a point .02 percent, like that's not going to excite any agent.
Brian Charlesworth 6:53
And the reality is AI is actually more effective now than an agent at follow up. I mean, exactly, they're not good at follow up
Kyle Whissel 7:00
They're not going to make all those calls, it's just not gonna happen. So top of funnel, we're using automation, which would be drips, but much smarter drips, right, like if, if you're just bombarding people with like the preset drip plan that's in your CRM that just hits him with like an email every few days, like, that's not going to work because nobody emails anymore, everybody is texting, I just went through the process of buying an RV and buying a desert toy and a trailer and all that stuff. Like the people, the salespeople who texted me are the ones that got my business, because that's how I prefer to communicate with and that's how the majority of people prefer to communicate with. So we're using very smart automations. We like that. All action is our favorite, I love them, because they have such detailed plans that you can build out and build out like long two year plans, but I can have it to where I could send my v card to somebody, I could send an animated GIF, I could send a video, I could send an image, I could send all kinds of different things to them. If you're just sending text only stuff, I don't think that's going to be super effective. So we can really, you know, use mixed media with those drip campaigns that we're using and call action. So top of funnel, half of it is automation. And the other half is AI. So we recently made a move over to why lopo and follow up boss. A big part of that. Is that why Lobo has some killer AI technology built into it to where when leads take action on a website. It's not dependent on any human to do something about it. When a lead goes on the website and looks at 123 Main Street eight times in a day. Do you want to wait for your agent to log in the CRM and like click a link to see that somebody looked at that property eight times and then your agent to actually do something about it? Or do you want to have AI engage with that lead? and say, Hey, Brian, I saw your checking out 123 Main Street? Are you interested in seeing it? Did you have any questions on that I'm like, let's utilize something that's going to automatically engage that person in conversation. So the whole goal at that top of funnel is just to engage in conversation via the automation or via the AI once they're engaged in conversation. Now it's time for human to step in because now we've at least made it through the top of funnel, we're at the middle of funnel. So there's two parts on that middle of funnel, we have our channel partners, which would be like op city from realtor.com. That would be like flex from Zillow or some of the other companies that are doing live transfers. They're taking the lead that comes in then when the lead says hey let's talk they have there is a connect with them. And then ultimately that ISA transfers that over live to an agent. So half of that middle of funnel is those channel partners and there ISAs and then the other half is our ISAs, which we have in house. I know people like oh can I outsource it like you could? For every one person that I've talked to that has a successful outsourced iisa I've talked to 100 that have a successful in house I say
How many ISAs do you have in your Now Kyle,
we have three and we just hired two more.
Brian Charlesworth 10:04
Okay, so you're up to five essays now. Yeah,
Kyle Whissel 10:06
Yeah, we because everything's going through the ISAs do you. Now. So now like when that when AI engages that lead or automation engages that lead, it comes to the ISA do you. Now, ISA do you, engages in that conversation, and ultimately sets an appointment for the agent. So we go from AI and automation at the top, then we are channel partners, ISAs do you are our ISAs do you are engaging in conversation, and then ultimately pushing those through to the agent who now instead of the agent having to talk to the Zillow leads that are one in 500, that convert now the agents working that appointment that was teed up for them by one of our essays, or they're working that live transfer that was teed up by one of our channel partners, where now they're at a conversion rate of one in five, as opposed to one in 500. So what then ends up happening is that the agents are actually having fun now like, we nobody got into real estate to cold call for like five hours a day, if that's what they wanted to do. They had gotten a job being a telemarketer, they got into real estate, because they want to go meet people, they want to go show cool houses, they want to write offers, they want to negotiate. And at the end of the day, they want to cash big checks. Nobody wants to put a headset on and make dials for five hours a day because it's not if they do, they're not trying to get into real estate, they're trying to get into some other industry. So now our agents are just focused on that bottom of funnel where all they got to know how to do is how do I deal with a live transfer? And how do I deal with an appointment? And now
Brian Charlesworth 11:32
what are your ISAs? I Oh, that makes total sense for an agent because I see agents all the time that are I mean, that is the challenge for them. How do you find the ISA with the right mindset you're up to five now which because they're on the phone, how long are your ISAs on the phone every day?
Kyle Whissel 11:48
So here's what's funny are ISAs in an average day maybe make 50 dials in an entire day. And people like in an eight hour day they only make $50 Yeah, but you know what they're having like 25 conversations, because again, they're only dialing people that have asked to be dial, right people who've engaged at that automation, or at that AI level. Those are the people that they're calling because those people are looking for that conversation. So we're not on the phone dialing 500 people who have no desire to be talked to. And now we're dialing 50 people who have a desire to be talked to. So now what happens to is the ISAs, they actually are having fun because they got in this because they like to have conversations with people. So a lot of the day they're in their texting right and call action. They're constantly in conversations with the leads. And now when they actually do pick up the phone is to talk to somebody like our ISAs love talking to people, they get a high off of it. You have a ton of fun talking to be a huge personalities. And they do a fantastic job with it. They're very high S's and they're very high I's. So hold their high I's, they love to talk to people, they're high S's they love to support people. They really love to tr agents up, set them up, and then watch the agents close the deals.
Brian Charlesworth 12:59
So any any action and sounds like whether it be I'm guessing whether it be Zillow as this question says or whether it be something that your AI is doing a drip campaign, anything coming in your ishs are really focused on getting back to those inbound actions, and they're not necessarily email leads. But there are people who have taken action on something Is that right?
Kyle Whissel 13:21
Yeah, the ISAs are in taking virtually all of our leads. Now. The only leads the agents are really taking is the live transfers, we've really tried to strip away all the other stuff from the agent. Our objective is that we set them so many points, they don't have time for anything else. Like I just want my agents out running around, showing properties writing up offers, like our next evolution because our agents are getting to that point where they're so busy, they don't even have time to write offers is that. Now when an agent's finished up with an appointment, we automatically call them and hit them up and say, because what's happening is they're leaving one point, they're going straight to their next appointment. So now I'm calling him like, hey, Brian, I know you just met with the Smith family, you're telling me how did it go? And just let you kind of puke all over me, right? Like, tell me everything that happened on the appointment. And now I as like a league coordinator, the manager, whatever you want to call that role, I can go into the CRM in the Follow Up Boss, I could log everything that happened on that appointment for you. Because we know that that information is fresh in your head as soon as you leave it. Let me extract all that info from you while it's fresh. And now I take all that info. I throw that into the CRM. And then I'm asking you questions, right like, Alright, hey, Brian. I know that you just showed him like 123 Main Street. It's a $600,000.03. Two, is that still what they're looking for you and then you're like, No, you know what they actually they're willing to go up to 800 they need at least four bedrooms and they want to cool cool. I'll go in all update the search and my logo for you.
Brian Charlesworth 14:48
Okay
Kyle Whissel 14:48
You need to write an offer. Yeah, can you write me up an offer? Cool. And then they have a checklist like what price what terms well block that person that lead coordinator is now taking care of all that stuff for them. So that now while you're on your way from appointment A to appointment B, I'm handling all that stuff for you, so that you could just focus on appointments all day long.
Brian Charlesworth 15:09
So your ISAs are really 100% inbound, they're not making calls out to expired or anything like that.
Kyle Whissel 15:15
Now it's do that that's so hard in San Diego, like, we've got Tom Ferry, who's down here coaching all the time. And Mike ferry, I mean, all the coaches come down here all the time, if you call an expired at eight o'clock, which is like the earliest you're supposed to call them, you're probably like color 100 like he's,
Brian Charlesworth 15:32
Are they're still expired. So I mean, that's the question too, right.
Kyle Whissel 15:36
That's the thing. Yeah. If you're getting appointments from expireds right now, there's a reason it's expired. It's a crack house in the middle of nowhere, or it's a crazy ass seller who's super unrealistic? Like, you don't even want that appointment anyway.
Brian Charlesworth 15:48
Yeah. All right. So there are a few questions, Kyle about ISAs always bringing up questions that I think every team owner is trying is as internal external, and probably fell three or four times. So there's some questions about you know, how do you find the right high ISA? How do you? How do you pay them to keep them around those kinds of things? Have you figured that out? Yeah.
Kyle Whissel 16:10
Yeah. So here's the thing, you've got to change your mindset, we actually don't even call them ISAs internally anymore, I'm just using that for because that's the the generally accepted term for this position. We call them SDR sales development representatives. If you look at fortune 500, companies, you're not going to find an ISA in a fortune 500 company, you're going to find someone who does what we have called an ISA. But they're going to be called a sales development representative. So if that's what the fortune 500 companies call it, that's what we call it. So our ISAs are now called SDRs. And we value them, this is to us, this is not the entry level role. This is not the pion roll, this is not the grad roll, it's not the bitch roll like this is one of the most valuable roles in the entire company.
Accept that, like you will not be successful.
Brian Charlesworth 17:10
So that means that Kyle, I'm guessing they are not on a career path to become an agent.
Kyle Whissel 17:15
No, I do not
Brian Charlesworth 17:17
I think that's the biggest mistake I've seen is people bring in these ISAs and say get to this point, you'll become an agent. Well, all you're doing is training people how to be a prospecting agent, keep people in their lanes. So okay,
Kyle Whissel 17:32
And you got to pay them though. Because here's the thing, if you're trying to pay somebody like 40-50 grand a year, there, and now there's teeing up appointments for the agents or the agent closes a deal and makes 10 grand. They're like, I had to work that hard to get that one appointment. And this guy goes and shows one house and makes 10 grand. And I'm making 40 grand all year to work my ass off every day and follow up with all these leads, like screw that. So my ISAs when they're clicking on all cylinders, they make 100 plus thousand
Brian Charlesworth 18:04
Per transaction, is it? Is it like a base plus commission? Or what are they?
Kyle Whissel 18:07
Base plus commission? Yes. So this is something that I've learned to that's really important is, I believe it's the same across the country, you have employees who are exempt, and you have employees who are non exempt. And non exempt employee is somebody who has to clock in clock out, they're on an hourly pay, right? They're making like 20 bucks an hour or whatever that number is in your market. That is very, very difficult for an ISA. Because here's the problem, if you have somebody who's clocking in clocking out, let's say their shift is from 8am to 4pm. Well, what happens when that call comes in at 6pm? They're gonna answer it right? Because they want to get that right, you're gonna have some sort of incentive tied to setting appointments or closing. So if you have somebody who's clocking in and clocking out, and they answer that call at six, guess what they got to clock in, because they took that phone call, like, and then that call comes in at eight o'clock, they got to like clock back in again. And I don't want to deal with any of that. So there's an exempt salary. Now, that's typically like two times minimum wage, you'd have to look up what that is in your particular state in California, it's $49,440. Today, depending on what happens to the election, it could be like $80,000 in a year from now, but currently, that is $49,440. So we pay ours a base that is right at that $50,000 makes it easy for us. And then base plus 5% of the GCI they're paid based on the closings not based on setting appointments, not based on appointments that meet they're tied to the same outcome that the agents are. I've tried a lot of different models in the past and if you start paying people based on setting appointments or appointments that meet, they're gonna set a ton of shitty appointments for your agents and your agents are gonna end up resenting them because they're sending them on these appointments with you know, with that expired that owns a crack house in the middle of nowhere. wants a million dollars for it when it doesn't even have a roof like they're getting a bonus to set that appointment. That's stupid. So they're tied to the outcome. And what becomes cool when they're tied to the outcome is it's not over once they set the appointment, they stay on that all the way through. And they want to see that that client through the finish line. So what's great is they are part of my accountability system now to where when they said an appoint for the agent, they're following up with the agent. I don't have to be the one who's on the agents back. The ISA is the one who's on the agents back because one they know way more about the situation than I do. And two, they're paid based on that, that appointment turning into a closing so they're gonna do whatever they got to do to stay on that agent and help that agent take that thing across the finish line.
Brian Charlesworth 20:43
Kyle, one thing you said you said 5% I want to key in on this. You said of GCI. You didn't say of 5% of the agents commission. It's not like the agents paying them out of the post splits This is coming off the top where you and the agent are both paying them
Kyle Whissel 20:58
Yeah that the split with our agents adjust with I give my agent a lead versus I give my agent an appointment set by one of the ISAs the agent split adjust 10%
Brian Charlesworth 21:11
Okay, so an ISA
Kyle Whissel 21:12
Is 40%
Brian Charlesworth 21:15
And they're getting 40% instead of 50%. Yep. Okay. Someone's asked will is asking is 5% enough. I would say that may be different every market but figure out what is going to to motivate your people to want to stay is as they need to make six figures just like agents need to.
Kyle Whissel 21:35
Yeah, if they don't make six figures, and the agents are making six figures you just lost and ISA
Brian Charlesworth 21:41
Yeah, Kyle are these people working from home are they I'm gonna call them my SDR is actually but are your SDR is working from home or in the office?
Kyle Whissel 21:51
Well, they are currently for for reasons that everybody's working from home. Additionally, ours are working from the office. Like having them in the office, it's hard to replace that culture of being around other people and we have like gongs and stuff in the office when they set appointments, and there's a lot more energy. And when you're, you know, on the phones a lot and you're you know, sitting in front of a computer constantly having other people around is very beneficial. Obviously, we don't require anybody come in the office during COVID. It's completely optional, but we prefer that they'd be in the office.
Brian Charlesworth 22:27
Okay, just so people know, people are trying to figure out what's the right pay Kyle, what is your average price point in San Diego now?
Kyle Whissel 22:36
We're about 600,000 average price point, okay. They got to be able to make 100 if they're doing a good job. So in our area, right, we talked about 500, 500 in San Diego is way harder than 500 in Houston, Texas, where the average price is 200. And something 1000. So if you're gonna do twice as many transactions in a different area, maybe you got to pay, you know, a different percentage. Like, ultimately, though, this is a thing, agents, I essays, everybody has this like bar at $100,000. And if they're making 100, they feel successful. It's just this bar, even your agents, it's really hard like we have a
Brian Charlesworth 23:15
matter no matter where you live, it's it's crazy a
Kyle Whissel 23:18
blessing and a curse in San Diego that our average price is 600. The problem is an agent only has to sell like a handful of houses to make that kind of money. So people will only work as hard as they need to to hit that bar, which most people's bar is at 100. So that's what you got to understand is if you want your ISAs to crush for you, they got to have the ability to make that 100 because that's a very important number to a lot of people. And if you're not giving them the ability to make that 100. But the agents are making 100 they're going to move from being an ISA to an agent because they see how much work goes into setting one single appointment. And then they give it to the lazy ass agent who doesn't do any work and makes $100,000 a year, you're gonna lose them. So you've got to give them the ability to make 100 plus $1,000 a year if you're not, it's not going to be successful, you're gonna have turnover. And people in your agents aren't gonna value them when the agents know they make a lot of money. The agents value them especially like the rebrand within our company to them being SDRs. Like we had to do that because we need to make sure they understand these aren't the ISAs of old like, but we can't like they're not the old is a new ISAs. That doesn't work. They're SDRs so everything even internally rebranded part of the business.
Brian Charlesworth 24:29
Yeah. Okay. That's, uh, yeah, definitely. It seems to me that these people are probably harder. The SDRs are probably a harder hire to find than the agents as well.
Kyle Whissel 24:40
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we we've got such talented people like we just brought to it both coming from out of state, because, you know, they want to come out here and they want to live the California dream and we're providing them the opportunity to do that. We have to offer a reload package to one of the guys who's starting up next week. So you know, we definitely had to do a lot of recruiting the Find talented people. But again, we're not bringing them into a telemarketing job. Because that's what most people do in this industry is they bring an ISA in. They're like, here's a headset, there's a phone, like go dial all day, like, tell me when you have an appointment like, that ain't gonna work. But if we can make it fun, and we can provide them a system, and they can follow the system, and that system is going to yield them 100 plus $1,000 a year, and they're not having to cold call all day long. They're actually in conversations, which is fun for them. High I's want to be in conversations all day long. And they want to set up agents for success. So you find that high, high s, you put them in their wheelhouse, which is talking to people and setting people up, they're happy, just like we talked about that funnel with agents, agents tend to have that higher D they want to close the agents having fun when they're closing, the agent doesn't have fun when they're calling through 500 people a day. So now you're putting people in the position where they're actually enjoying what they do. Now you keep your ISAs stays longer because they're being well fed financially, and they're doing what they enjoy doing. Same thing with the agent.
Brian Charlesworth 26:02
Yeah, I think the industry has been trying to figure this out Kyle for the last 10 years. I know longer than I've been around. They've been trying to figure this out. So it sounds like you're cracking that nut and just exciting to see. So let's talk about the bottom of the funnel these agents, they are only getting appointments scheduled, are they scheduling any of their own appointments? What does that look like?
Kyle Whissel 26:24
Yeah, so they're taking the live transfers, via the channel partners. And then they're working their sphere, past clients, stuff like that. So the majority of their time is working that stuff. But then again, we're using technology like we love Ylopo because Ylopo is taking all those old leads, and it's engaging them to where they're coming back to the site. So now I know who I'm talking to like my past clients and stuff. Now they're like, Oh, well says Debbie just looked at this property three times, like, I should probably talk to Debbie, oh, she's been in her house for five years, maybe it's time for her to move into something new. So I was doing a lot of that reengagement for the agent, so that the agents having good quality conversations, even with their existing database, their sphere, their past clients, all of that stuff.
Brian Charlesworth 27:08
Okay. Again, there's so many questions around this. Kyle, where are you finding these SDRs? Do you have a recruiting company? How do you find these people?
Kyle Whissel 27:16
We typically use indeed. So Indeed, has been our number one source of hiring.
Brian Charlesworth 27:21
Okay. All right. Kyle, any key points you want to cover? There are some more questions, but is there anything else that you want to make sure we hit on in the next four or five minutes? Before you bounce out of here?
Kyle Whissel 27:35
I was just trying to read some of the questions, see if there's anything good in there. And Leslie was asking, if you're paying the agent, 40%, and str five, that means the company's making 55% on every deal, that works really well. The other thing that we're seeing too, by having the SDRs take all the leads that are coming in is the conversion rates increasing dramatically on all of our leads. Because these guys are programmed for long term, they're programmed for nurture, where the agents are programmed to close. So now when that zillo nurture lead comes in that Facebook lead comes in that pay per click lead comes in, it's converting at one and 101 and 500, they understand how to apply the appropriate amount of pressure, where the agent just doesn't get it, they didn't just wants to close, that's what agents are good at. So that's where our system is just put the agent in the position to do what they do best, which is to close. Let's let these guys do the long term nurturing and they can because they're not running around out in the field. They're not having to juggle a million conversations while they're running around and trying to get back to people when they can. Because I think one of the things that people underestimate right now is speed to Leeds important. But speed of response is important as well. So when you do get that lead, Barry Jenkins had a good quote recently, it was like, the only thing better than a new lead is the old lead that became active again. When that old lead becomes active again and says, Hey, I'm interested in seeing 123 Main Street, your speed to respond to that is very important. Yeah, that's not a new lead. That's an old lead. But it's an engaged lead, you better have a high speed to responsiveness on that when they do text you, right, you better be able to text back. But that's the problem is the agents they're running around out in the field all day, it's really hard for them to be on top of both speed the lead and speed their response. So by having people dedicated in the office, they can be managing a lot of conversations at once because they're not driving out here to you know, Northern San Diego in the morning, and then Southern San Diego and then Eastern San Diego, San Diego all day long and trying to respond to in between appointments that I essays are just sitting there in the office. They're responding as soon as these things are coming in. So that speed of response, I think is something that people underestimate as well, because it's hard to get a lead to text you if they do text you and it takes you four hours to respond. That's not the type of experience somebody is looking for.
Brian Charlesworth 29:51
Yeah, I just want to clarify, you're paying the agents 50% if it's an agent transaction, in this case, you're paying them 40% plus the SDR is five percent. So you, in reality have an additional 5% to help cover the salaries of those SDRs. Correct?
Kyle Whissel 30:08
Yep. Okay. And the agent don't have an issue with it, because they're not having to follow up with 500 people to get that one appointment if the work is done for them. So now they don't have to do that they can go show more clients properties. I think this is where a lot of agents struggle, Kyle, how do you train these guys? If you're an agent? You've been a successful agent, you're actually a closer in most cases, you're not a prospector?
Brian Charlesworth 30:30
How do you train these guys to do this?
Kyle Whissel 30:33
So my guy, Chris Vander Bach he ran in ISA team before coming over to join my team. So that's been another part of this, it's been really important is having somebody manage this whole thing? Because I can't manage it. I'm the guy who's like, here's your headset, go in the back, make 500 dials. That's what would happen if I was managing and what has happened in years past when I've managed it, having somebody who's fully entrenched in it and managing these guys on a day to day basis, who actually has a time to go listen to the conversations, and listen and be like, Oh, let me talk to you. Let me coach you through this. Because when they are ishs, or SDRs, whatever you want to choose to call them. When they're making calls through call action. It's recording the calls and it's tracking talk time versus listen time. So we can see, are they talking too much? Or are they doing a good job and listening a lot? Like we can track all that. So he's taking the time to go listen to every individual call. He's coaching them through every conversation he's very, very hands on. That's been another crucial part of this being successful. is there's a dedicated person managing that department, not me.
Brian Charlesworth 31:35
So surround yourself with the right people. And don't think that you can manage a team of essays in your spare time, because you can't, you can't effectively do that. For sure. Okay, Kyle, it's been great catching up with you excited to see your business growing like it is congratulations. Those are some big numbers at that price point. So congratulations on all of your success. Keep it rolling, because I love seeing it seems like every time I talk to someone from your team, you guys are just elevating it to the next level. So keep it up. We love having you as a Sisu customer. And thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it, bro.
Kyle Whissel 32:09
Have a good one.
Brian Charlesworth 32:09
All right, you too. Thank you.