Jeff Quintin started his career in real estate in 1992. He established the Quintin Group in Southern New Jersey and since then it has expanded into Cherry Hill, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA, Jupiter, FL, and Outer Banks, NC. Jeff is considered one of the most successful real estate agents in the country and was recognized by The Wall Street Journal as #44 out of 1.2 million real estate agents for selling over $139 million in volume in a single year.
Today, Jeff is the CEO and Team Owner of The Quintin Group of Keller Williams Realty. The Quintin Group continues to sell over 250 homes per year amounting to over $120 million in sales. As a leader, Jeff is a firm believer of committing to your goals through discipline, hard work and passion.
In this episode, we talked about:
01:50 What is a “super team”
02:54 How do you motivate your team into having the discipline it takes to be a successful real estate agent
04:33 The 4 qualities Jeff looks for in an agent
07:22 How to turn your work into your passion
08:49 How to enforce positive accountability
15:21 What you need to become to win in today’s market
18:23 What Jeff thinks an agent should be doing in the next 12 to 24 month
21:12 How having the right skills can affect your income
22:20 How to identify weaknesses in the team and how to deal with it
40:12 The one book everyone in real estate should read/listen to
Episode Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 0:34
Alright, everyone, welcome back to the Grit podcast. It's Brian Charlesworth here. And today, I'm here with Jeff Quintin. As you all know, I'm the CEO of Sisu, the growth automation software for real estate. And Jeff Quinten is the CEO team owner of the Quintin group. And, you know, when I met Jeff, it was about probably two and a half years ago, it was at a KW event, Frank Klesitz was gracious enough to introduce us at a dinner. Anyway, since then, we've come a long ways together. So yeah, Jeff is a great customer of ours at Sisu, and I'm looking forward to having him on the show today. So Jeff, anything you want to add to that?
Jeff Quintin 1:21
No, I shouldn't say it's an honor and pleasure to be here, Brian, I appreciate it. And for sure, your system, your product has come a long way. And we're very grateful to be part of that. That journey, and, and also customers well, so thank you for that.
Brian Charlesworth 1:35
Yeah, our pleasure. We always, we always love seeing people grow with us. And so it's been a lot, it's been a fun journey for us. Yeah, for sure. So on your website, Jeff, you talk about you have a super team? What is the definition of a super team? What is that? Tell us more about what you have?
Jeff Quintin 1:55
Yeah, you know, I would just say that the super team itself, you know, is, is I think a group of agents that we have are very highly skilled. When you take a look at some other teams, you know, you have a lot of large teams these days. You know, we look at our team, as far as average per person productivity comes from, you know, just being good at what they do, I think through scripts and skills and being dedicated to a schedule and just being a lot of discipline in their world in their life, it comes real estate. So that's what a lot of times coach and train on and you know, the word super, I think it's something we just we throw in there's as almost a tagline to what we do. And, you know, I guess I would define it that way. It's just a group of individuals that just, you know, they're kind of just dedicated to their craft, you know, and, and they practice a lot. And they, and we coach on that a whole bunch.
Brian Charlesworth 2:48
Okay, so you just hit on some points that I think are so important in today's market. Let's talk about discipline first. Sure, I think so many people think they can get into the market today. And they can just, you know, start selling houses. And they don't need to have the skills. And I mean, if you look at an NBA player, any professional athlete, how often do they practice and I take an NBA player, just because I've heard so many of them talk about shooting 100, free throws a day, and you know, you watch them in warmups, they'll take the same shot like 20 times, and they'll move to the next but 20 shots next, but 20 shots, it's so important in real estate, but most don't do that. So talk about how do you motivate your team to do that? How do you get them to really want to do that? And if they're not willing to? Do they squeeze themselves out of your team? Or how does that work?
Jeff Quintin 3:41
Yeah, I mean, so I guess a few thoughts on it. You know, I think that when most people get into real estate, or when they thinking about getting into real estate and look at real estate agents, with, you know, agents, preferred they're perceived, I guess, is that they can kind of do what they want, when they want how they want, and not really have a boss or have a schedule or have any real, real discipline, right? They weren't going to be free. And the challenge is all the reasons why they see or perceive that they want to get into real estate business is all the reasons why those agents are actually failing out because they're not being disciplined, right? All the reasons. They say, Oh, I know, I want to get in real estate because I don't want to, you know, have to be, you know, I don't want to schedule it. I want to do whatever I want. I don't want to have a boss in any way or have this, like a real job. Well, all those same reasons why they want to get in and they don't treat it that way. It's all the reasons why they're failing out. And so, you know, when someone joins our organization, they're going to notice right away that, you know, discipline is a big part of it. accountability is a big part of it. There are a few pillars that we we will make sure of so anyone joining us one they've got to have the drive, right they got to have that Tiger in the eye, they got to be motivated to want to make money because that's what we're gonna focus on is, is what money can do for them, their goals, and so forth. To there got to be somebody that's going to seek structure and accountability and discipline, right. They want to have they need to have that, you know, in their life, because we're going to coach around that as part of our other pillar. Thirdly, you know, they're gonna have photography, Accountability discipline, they got to be coachable, right, there's got to be coachability like really willing to have, you know that blind faith and willing to listen to other successful things that are that have led in the past. And lastly, it's just being a team player. So there's kind of the four things. But you know, ultimately, I think, in all of this, it comes down to discipline of doing those things every day that you typically sometimes don't want to do. It's the discipline of the repetitious boredom, of doing something over and over again, and doing on the days you don't want to like those basketball players do in the free throws, they're probably before they get on the court going, Oh, my gosh, I've got to take another 100 shots from this position this spot. And I did this day in and day out, like, it's a grind right to them more or less or may start to be like, you know, I think that they might in there mentally say, God, I gotta go do this. Again, however, they understand the benefits, and they understand how to win. And that's the discipline part that they have to go ahead and do it, whether they want to do it or not, right. Almost every professional person out there, professional athlete, professional, actor, actress, whatever, maybe they are studying, they're practicing, they're recording, they are writing, like they're, they're viewing themselves. You know, the same thing, if I use the analogy of an NFL football, right, NFL, football quarterback, you know, NFL quarterback, right now, the average time that an NFL quarterback holds the ball during a game from the time it snapped into their hand to like actually pass it, the average time is holding up all for 11 minutes. And yet, they'll practice lm was 11 hours a day for six days a week. And you know, they'll show up at 6am and leave at 5am. But what they're going to do from 6pm to 5pm, they're gonna run those plays after play, they're gonna watch videos or the workout, they're going to study other teams, they do all those things. And yet, they're going to practice 60 hours a week for 11 minute presentation. And then we have realtors that don't do any of that they have no discipline, and they have an average income of 25,000. But then you have the average NFL player that makes 25 million, but you got to see the difference between how much time they spend practicing. So, you know, that's the thing that we do, we put a lot of emphasis on the discipline and practice.
Brian Charlesworth 7:16
I love what you're saying. You said one thing that I want to, I just want to discuss it a little deeper with you, you know, you talked about the grind, if you will, and you know them going out on the court and being like, Oh, I have to take more shots or something. And I think some have that mentality. But then you have the people like and I think this is where Kobe Bryant stood out to everybody. Because he was always the first one on the court and the last one off, because he was passionate about being the best, right? And so if you can, if you can shift that from being a grind to being a passion, and you know, as the money starts flowing in, it's pretty easy to make that shift. But when the money's not flowing in, it's a grind. Right?
Jeff Quintin 8:02
Yeah, for sure.
Brian Charlesworth 8:03
So, so anyway, I'm glad you positioned it like that, Jeff, because I think that's so important.
Jeff Quintin 8:08
We always do as we look at and say, okay, really understanding and strengthen that link between the goals you have and the the activities that you need to get to the goals and making sure that you have a burning desire to achieve something greater than you are to achieve those goals. Right, have that passion of wanting to do something whether that is winning the game or more as you continue to win the real estate game. Because of that financial, I'm able to do this right? And striking the link between what's out there. And then actual the daily disciplines.
Brian Charlesworth 8:37
Yeah, no, I'm certainly not having you on here today to promote Sisu, but I do want to drill into that a little bit deeper. Because not Sisu but what I want to drill into is okay, how do you do that? Because what you're doing is you're actually finding out their why you're finding out what it is they want. And I call this positive accountability. You're working with them and coaching them towards their goals, not your goals, right. So that's positive accountability. I think a lot of the world thinks of accountability as a negative thing. In fact, if you look it up in the dictionary, it has a negative connotation. Sure, but that positive accountability that actually gets these guys there. So if you get an agent that comes in a new agent, or maybe once a month, you shift goals with your agents or once a quarter or once a year. I don't know how often you do that. But maybe you could walk us through Jeff, what that process is like for you in your leadership team.
Jeff Quintin 9:32
Yeah, certainly. There's an, Actually, it's interesting. You bring that up because I do this all the time. And I mean, now this year, but basically, I recently sent out to the team, six different questions, right that were asked. And the six questions were about really kind of what makes them tick, right? Like the six questions about, you know, who like questions like, why them not achieving their goals, who does it affect by them not doing what they're supposed to do? who suffers and getting a little more deep, a little bit more beyond really what, what's, you know more than what they are? Right? So we give an example, I've got a couple new agents that are just new into this type of thinking, you know, in this type of thoughts and you know, one of that one, I've got several agents doing things. But you know, one of the agents on my team is young guy, 21 years old, just for the first year in the business this year so far that he's closed six units he's got, I think it's eight units closed-ended, His goal is 24. So he's tracking in the first quarter, he's done, done. Right, done very well. And he's getting there. And so, you know, with him, we sat down and you know, 21 year old dude that still lives at home, and so forth. Is that, okay, so I get into a little bit about us why. And so what's driving you, and if you made this kind of money, and you make 150, or $200,000, this year, or this income goal that you have, what are you going to do with it, what would be the most important to you about it, you know, and instead of getting into like, with him about, oh, I want to go buy, you know, a new car or something, all these different fancy things, he and I kind of got deep into it, what came out of it was, you know, my mom lives with her brother. And she's not in the best in-home environment, and she lives out of the area. And so by me earning this money, I'm going to then rent a property for her to move closer to me. And I can spend more time with her and get her out of the, out of the environment that she's in with her brother. And I said, Okay, that's awesome. So let's, let's talk about some structure around that. And so what he's doing right now is every single month, he's putting $1,000 away, regardless, whether he sells a home or doesn't sell a home, like he's forced for savings, I met him, go to the bank, get a separate account for his mom, call his mom and say, Mom, here's my promise to you, I, here's my goal for the year 24 homes, I'm going to sell this is my income goal. And every time they get a check, I'm going to take a certain amount of the check, I'm going to put it towards your account. So you can move out of this house and go to a different rental I can put you in, at the end of this year, I'm gonna have the money saved, to move you closer to me. And anyway. So that type of structure like that about getting a little more deeper, that's really going to fire him up, get them out of getting him out of you out of bed in the morning, see our agents right now, a lot of them have, they're very hard workers. But we're trying to connect between the hard work and heart and really figure out what's inside of their heart that's going to drive them right, we got a lot of hard like, they're there, they got the grit, like I love the name, your podcast, I've got that. Now let's figure out the heart inside of them, like really what's gonna push them through, and motivate them and pull them towards their goal. So that was that's something like that we're doing with one of our agents, they got several different stories like that, you know, that where we connect those personal things that will drive them? That makes sense.
Brian Charlesworth 12:43
So yes, you know, if you're an agent listening to this, take this to heart and do this exercise by yourself. You know, if your team leaders don't do this, it's definitely something you need to understand, like, why are you in this business? And it's not because you like to look at houses, because that's not the business you're in, you're in the business of sales. So, Jeff, you talked about failing out and you talked about the average your average agent produces, you know, at a certain level, what what is the level if you don't mind sharing what is your average agent produce a year, and then I'd like to get your vision of you know, what's in the future, for the next few years. And personally, I think the market is at a place where, you know, it's different than what happened in Oh, eight, it's basically, there's such a lack of inventory. I don't know if it's like this where you are, but such a left inventory, that agents need to be more skilled to be buyer's agents. And I think it's going to weed out a lot of those agents. I'd like to get your perspective on that.
Jeff Quintin 13:51
Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, you know, so so our agent, you know, average agent productive per agent for your productivity is hovering around 3032 units, you know, if they're with me about 18 months, or longer, and the first ramp up time, you know, it's not uncommon in the first 12 months, or in the first 18 months, they'll do 24 units, and after 18 months started getting, you know, two and a half to three units a month is good. Now, we have some agents like this year Frankie's already at 35 units or something like that already in the first you know, through the almost the end of April. So his goal is 60, right, and he's on track to do 60 I mean, this dude, right now, Frank Smith needs really a long time. But his goal is now he's an agent on my team is going to 60 units at 500,000 in income he's already earned this year more income, paid in close what he made all of last year. Right. And then you have David on our team and David, you know, His goal is 120 this year, right? And we've now brought him on and I say personally in another personal assistant of VA for him outside of our other right there, you know, he'll normally do like 8090 units or whatever annually. And this is a guy that you know, also that he makes, you know, right now last year, he made over 350 1000 bucks. 31 years old, right? And then this year, His goal is to get to 400, you know, over 100 units aren't 20. So, long story short, is we have these agents that they're young, and they're hungry in there, they're doing it, but they've got to put the time, and that's putting in for the first 12 to 18 months to get themselves ramped up. You know, it's all about skills to win in this market. It's the skill of skillful agent. And I think that right now, you know, for us, the way our team is designed, we don't just have just a listing agent, or listing division, or listing side and the buyer side, we just have salespeople. So all of our agents right now are focused on always getting listings, we need inventory more than ever, right? Because inventory is low in all of our markets. But it's all hands on deck because we understand it's the leads and listings, the leverage lead, if the listings that come in generates business, that's the gasoline, it's the fuel that will continue, to make it roll. So our entire team prospects every single day, a minimum of three hours, at a minimum of 30 contacts a day, for seller listings, right? That's the focus. Now some of them, you know, aren't as skillful as others. So their business might be 70% buyer sales, 30% listings, right? Could be, but a lot of them are going to be, you know, 5050 or even 6040. The other way 60 listings 60% listing sold. But so the answer the question on that is just that we have listing-focused, you know, agents all going for listings. And so we always continue to work on those skills. How do we get listings? What do we say? what's our objection handlers? How's our presentation, understanding all about the markets, how to position themselves on these presentations, understanding the how to interpret the market statistics, and what's happening in the market, where it's going, where it's been. So it's that whole entire skill set? You know, it's all focused around seller listings is the main number one kind of priority.
Brian Charlesworth 16:50
Yeah, which I think is definitely where everyone should be focused today. And that'll the buyers will come automatically based on that. I mean,
Jeff Quintin 16:58
Yeah, you got to think about right, in this market we're in. But if we always say like, yes, like, there's a difference between being an employee or an employee, and, you know, if you look at the business, who typically makes more money, the employee or the or the employee, with the employer, right? Well, it's the same way in the real estate community, real estate business is, when you have the listings, you're the employer, and the agents in the MLS, the agents in your real estate community are your employees, they're actually working for you, they're showing your listings, right to bring new offers, if you get that inventory, you get that listing, being on the buyer side today, man, it, it's hard, it's like think about it, like, every single deal you're going up against is multiple offers, you know, cash deals, it's just, it's, it's a tough one, right. And if you don't, if you don't have the skills on how to learn how to win with multiple offers, being a buyer agent, and you haven't gone through that, and yet, you're not able to be confident enough, you're gonna continue to lose. So I think that the industry itself looking out the next Well, next 24 months, if they just don't get skillful on the buy side, understand how started winning these deals, there, you're gonna see them all it's going to clear them out, you're gonna have to step up the game and learn how to get listings, which means also you got to get the skills on how to go be a listing agent, right? So I think that you know, it's like anything, I think that this next 1224 months, you're going to see that the, you know, more skillful agents are still going to rise at a top and the other ones are going to go out and get out of the business. And just my opinion.
Brian Charlesworth 18:32
Yeah, so the message I'm hearing, Jeff is, you need to sharpen your skills, and you're either going to choose a, you're going to choose to sharpen your skills around being a buyer's agent. So you can actually get people under contract and learn how to communicate better with agents and learn how to say the right things and how to submit the right kind of offers. Or B, you're going to have to become a skilled listing agent, which means you're kind of starting over and figuring out how to how to set listing appointments and how to go out and get those listing appointments, right, and then how to effectively sell listings. And for those of you new in the business, it hasn't always been that a listing sells in the first weekend, right? What's going to happen when that changes, and it becomes you know, that it takes six to 12 months to sell a listing again.
Jeff Quintin 19:16
Yeah. I mean, you know, again, a normal market like a normal market. Normally, you could say, Okay, well, you know, your fastest way, the fastest way to make money quickly is you can take a buyer out this weekend that was pre-qualified, ready to go get them under contract and close in 45 days and you get a paycheck, and a normal market, that can happen. It can happen that quick working with a buyer, in a normal market, you get a listing, you put it on the market, then it actually might sit on the market for 90 days, 120 days, 150 days, five months and a normal market that's normal that properties would sell for free for months, right? That's just a normal thing. So if you're a good listing agent, even if you've got a good well-priced listing, it still might not sell for three or four months. So that's when you would pay jack would show up. So you have a choice as a new agent, normal market buyer's agent, take the buyer out, sell them closing 45 days get paid quicker. That was the way we're coaching, right? Today, it's completely different, right? Today, you can't get a well, you can get a buyer get them under contract, but the chances of you getting them under contract is the key. Right? Like, that's the problem. That's the challenge, right? So you got to be very skillful to learn how to do that. Otherwise, if you could get the listing match your paycheck in 45 days now. So it's a different timeframe of what's going on in the market. And I think that it's going to be this way for a while until inventory starts to rise. But look, you know, it's called bc right before COVID. Even in all markets, inventory was low. Anyway, markets were thriving and good anyway, markets were still in an upswing seller's market. So you know, even if it were down 50% and inventory right now, or even, you know, down two-thirds of inventory, downside markets are, even if it comes back to where it was before COVID, the market was still good. It's got a long way to get there. But anyway, I think it's just, either way, it these agents, right now has, you have to work on your skills. And that's, that's the bottom line. I mean, you know, it's interesting, because we did we do this exercise, right, we weren't, we write down on a piece of paper, Agent a and agent B. And if you wrote agent a and agent B, just picture this, right agent, Agent B on a piece of paper with a line in the middle, and then write 100 on each side 101 100 and then below 100, if you write on this side, 80 and on the other side, right, 50 Okay, and then below that, right 5000 on both sides. Well, what this is basically showing us this, Agent a goes on 100 appointments, and converts 80% and basically converts 80% makes $5,000 each deal, ha makes 4000 bucks, baby over here goes on the same amount of 100 appointments, but it's only a 50% conversion. And each deals worth 5000 bucks, he makes 250,000. Well, agent, Agent B actually both went out on 100 appointments and spend the exact amount of time and your agent a because their skills that converted between up to 80% versus 50. And they made $150,000 more in income. And it was all because of the presentation and the skills he had versus ATP. But they both spent the same amount of time.
Brian Charlesworth 22:19
Right. So So let's say somebody doesn't have the skills, how do you discover that? How do you know that? And how do you work with them to get their skills up? Right? And how do you identify those weaknesses? Jeff? Let's, Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of the key right, you were you're bringing in these brand new agents, and you're having to see, okay, where's the breakdown?
Jeff Quintin 22:41
Well, I think that number one is, is we're in communication business. So the skill of communication, the skill of understanding what to say, and how to say it, the language of real estate, understanding the objections. So starting out first is understanding, okay, if I'm going to present or run a prospect for a buyer or seller, what's my conversation? What are the objections? They're going to give me? Right? How am I What should I say if they say this? So understanding what to say and how to say that is first and foremost is learning the skills of, you know, the language, the communication, next part, I think is you got to then take that and learn the inventory, you got to learn the market, you got to learn the product. So you know, when someone comes on board with us, we put them through a, a basically a script masterclass, that, you know, that I teach on, and we do that twice a week. And then at the end of that class, we go from a typical regular, you know, regular call just listed or an expired call, all the way into a pre qualification only to the presentation of a full listing presentation. And our agents have to do that in front of the agents. And they present we do a mock up presentation. And in that there are throwing objections to them, you know, we're, we're making it as real as possible. At the end of that, you know, they're going to be judged on 10 different things, they're gonna be judged on everything from their tonality to their body language, to their, to the rate of speech to the mimicking mirroring and matching the client, they're going to be on their presentation of the material, the CMA presentation, like all of that, and we're going to rate them from one to 10. Right? And if they score anything less than seven, and then they have to go back through the class. Right? So we're working on these skills all the time. So we judge them on that we're putting them through a master class, and then they have to present to us you know, as team members.
Brian Charlesworth 24:33
So Jeff, I know you run an extremely successful business. We've been talking about how you work with your agents, how do you work with your admin team? Like how do you make sure they're doing what they need to be doing?
Jeff Quintin 24:55
Well, you know, I've got great admin, you know, so we got Scott on our team who's our CEO and And I'm and Jessica, who's our executive assistant. And then you know, they break down from there and they've got a lot of backup behind them, we have a listing manager, we've got five different v A's right now that Jessica runs and manages. So you know, we get first have a very, I guess, clear job description on what they should be doing, and what's most important to them, and where their focus should be where their time should being spent. And then we break down like, you know, we do an exercise this other day with our executive assistant, Jessica. And we wrote basically did the exercise of the more of the less of the start doing in the stop doing exercise, right, so we take a, you know, basic a plus sign, or four quadrants, horizontal line, vertical line, horizontal line, and you got four quadrants, and up top, and each one of those you put less and more up at the bottom, start doing and stop doing. And I have them write down all the things that they want to do less of it's not important, or they want to delegate or they're just not happy with, what should they be doing more of it's more production, they write that down. What do they want to start doing? Like, what do they want to bring on? What system? What process they've seen, it's broken, but I need to start that and write that. And then absolutely, what are they gonna stop doing, like, draw the line in the sand no more. And then we basically take that and we look at it and say, Okay, well get the less of and then stop doing that becomes someone else's job description, and go find and hire that most time, that's going to be to a VA, and then they just spend their time in the start doing, and then to do more of, so they can move forward. So we're coaching on those, those type of things on a, you know, weekly, monthly basis, that makes sure that they're focused on what's most important and the other things that aren't worth backing them up typically with a virtual assistant that can take that off their plate.
Brian Charlesworth 26:38
Great. Okay. You're part of this. You're part of Gary Keller's mastermind. You have been for a long time, like, what kind of stuff are you guys hearing right now? And just not necessarily from Gary, but from, you know, that's a big group of teams that are super high producing teams? Like what is the outlook of real estate based on what you're hearing from people like that? And what you see?
Jeff Quintin 27:03
Yeah, well, I appreciate bringing out in fact, we had a mastermind meeting today, literally, okay, it's morning this morning. So it's very, in the forefront. So, you know, I think that overall, when we look at some of the information that Gary provide us this morning, who's giving us a little bit of the data of the market, between like, what interest rates look like, how that's affecting the market, the GDP, how that's affecting the market and basically you know, the overall consensus is Look, the remaining part of 2021 is still going to be very very good. Right? People are spending money that's we looked at today like about you but if you go out to wherever you go to right you mountain bike right, IBM, I bought a new BMX bike in December, I searched around the country, there was like two of them the one I wanted. Yeah, by the way, I broke a pair, I stripped out a pair of my cranks, I caught up the company, and they warranty them, but the but the color that have black on my bike, they're like we don't have them. They're backordered for two months, like the actual factory, they're sending me a new pair, right. So the point which I make is the reason why that will happen, because they're sold out as people are buying it. People are spending money, they're spending money, they've got the money they're spending it. So that the GDP overall people are spending, you know, the stock market right now is is doing tremendous doing very well, people are making money in the stock market. So between the stock market, and interest rates and money being so cheap to borrow this, this is still going to be strong, I believe, you know, for the next 12 months leads remaining of 21. Now, you know, Gary says no one else is thinking is by 2022. Who the hell knows? Nobody knows. Right? It's such a crapshoot, we just don't know. But I think that the remaining of this year will still be strong, just like it was 2020 as the overall consensus. One other thing that we talked about today is there's you know, that as real estate agents, if you don't have a good relationship, or consider getting one with some of these large developers and home builders, and because the affordability of homes, new homes, affordability in the states is just, it's not existed, like, you know, if you have a track home and your average price point of 250 3000 to build in a typical marketplace, every one of them sold, they're gone, they can't keep up. So, you know, one of the odds were okay, go out and start finding land, you know, because we're gonna we don't have enough homes, for homeowners to want to buy these houses right now. That affordable houses, right, new new construction. And that was one thing that was interesting. So but overall, you know, that the consensus of our meeting today was it's going to be a strong market, you know, but come 2022 we don't know.
Brian Charlesworth 29:35
Yeah, okay. That's, that's interesting. Glad I asked you that question. Yeah. You bought owning a real estate team. You bought a real estate brokerage a few years back? Yeah. Can we revisit that how you made that happen? where that is at today? And like, I know you last time I spoke with you about that you had just made the purchase. You were just transitioning things like Was that a good move? Is that something you should be doing? Like what?
Jeff Quintin 30:04
Yeah, I mean look, I think that the ability to buy a real estate team real estate business, whichever i think is awesome, in fact, I'm in I'm in negotiation, and with two that I'm looking at right now, we're not in negotiations, yet we're in the phase of the due diligence.
Brian Charlesworth 30:20
Discussion basically,
Jeff Quintin 30:21
Yeah, basically just going over and trying to figure out the valuations and so forth. So, so this deal, I didn't per se, buy it, where typical purchase would be where we establish an evaluation based upon the multiple and say, okay, it's worth x, and I'm gonna pay you x over a period of time, what I was able to do was, I was able to go into an existing independent company that is also the resort secondary market and the Outer Banks and they have a rental division. And then they have their sales division and the sales division at the time and about 30 agents. And the company's been established for 30 plus years, but their real focus was on their on their, you know, their summer rentals, right, their vacation rentals, their weekly rentals, and not so much on their salespeople. But the salespeople that were there were salespeople, they've been there a long time, and some loyalty to the company. But the average was the average agent, there was, you know, probably the end of their or towards the end of their career. So they're the veteran agents, you know, been around for a while, I took over the sales team. And basically, the first year just came in and power them, give them the ability for our CRM, give them some leads, been able to take on their current database of the rentals, and they'll and the tenants in this in this company, and promote them, and get their interest and then send it back to the agents. So that was the typical model and coaching and train them up a bit as much as I could. That was for the first year. And so we structured a deal out were certain amount of the company dollar coming in, you know, went to me and then certain percentage went back to the company, that that these agents came from. And basically we kept it and kept the name we did bring more with Keller Williams, but we just called the company resort realty that came as reserve realty team under kW. And so I just managed that part. I went down there about once a month once, you know, once, you know about AB every maybe five weeks,
Brian Charlesworth 32:11
How far away was that from you?
Jeff Quintin 32:13
It's about it's about a strong eight hour drive, you know, seven hours, seven to eight hour drive? Yeah, I mean, I leave it, you know, not in the morning, I'd pull in there, you know, five o'clock. And I mean, and then so it's an all day deal.
Brian Charlesworth 32:26
It sounds like it's worth a flight, Jeff.
Jeff Quintin 32:29
Probably will for sure. I would do it a minute. The problem is there's no if you would actually drive there quicker than you can get a flight because there's nowhere there's nowhere to fly into. Oh, really fly, I would have to fly to like Virginia Beach. And now I'd have to get go to out of Philadelphia, which is an hour and a half ride and flight there. It's just two hours and then drive another three hours. You know, like it was just like, same thing. Yeah, just you know. And then rent a car and stuff. So anyway, the the deal itself was a good deal. But I might my deal with them was was in September of 2020, that I had to make a decision to where do I want to go with this? Well, the agents themselves weren't, I'd say, you know, the pillars I talked about earlier, the structure, the accountability, the hunger, not whether or not those none of them weren't, weren't those agents that were going to fit my model that I could actually bring them in to my value proposition that I normally would do with agents there
Resort real estate is significantly different than the prospect real estate that you run, right?
It's a totally different and you know, you have these agents that are veteran agents, and, you know, I can provide them a lot of leads and provide them a lot of services and value. And ultimately, they were like, you know what, I'm doing four or five deals a year. And I'm okay with that. I don't need to do 10 or 12? And are your goals of getting me the two a month, right? They were okay. They were kind of much complete. They're just comfortable where they were. And but yet the problem was I had 30 of those all doing four deals each, right. So it's 100 plus transaction business at a great sales price, you know, an $18 million business, but yet same time, you know, it just wasn't the model. So what I did was September was I said, Okay, those agents that want to come over here, and great work with you on our model, those adult, then we're gonna be you're gonna become an independent agent inside kw, and almost 90% of them went that direction. So I've got other agents now that we're working with that are more or less different model, but still working under us through our CRM and our leads, and paying us referral fees off of it, but we're not giving the full services. So anyway, that deal ended at the end of March. So that was an 18 month deal. Okay, so that's where we're at. So we're sitting right now.
Brian Charlesworth 34:43
Okay, so it sounds like you are looking at even though you had that experience, you are still looking at possibly buying a couple of other teams right now. For sure. Yeah,
Jeff Quintin 34:54
That was that was a little bit different that cuz that wasn't wasn't ultimately a team per se. It was an actual off That seems natural, you know, rolling on full on brokers I just merged into our team. And you know what the deal was for the first year like they weren't coming on my splits, I still had to keep them on their splits. You know, it's like any other independent brokerage, a lot of these agencies are paying these agents 70 80% splits? Well, if you only have 20%, or 25%, and company dollar, they take on all the expenses of no money leftover. Right, right. So so the deal, the deal itself wasn't as profitable as you might look and say, unless you can bring them over to the real true team model. You know, where you have more of an expansion model?
Brian Charlesworth 35:33
Yeah, that's brokerage model and team model are two different things. Right? For sure. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Jeff. Well, it's always fun. I wanted, I have a couple more questions for you on a personal note, but before we go there, I'd love to just get like, what's one piece of advice that you'd like to share with everybody based on where we're at today? Other than other than Of course, learning your skills, because we've, we've dug into that deep, deeply, but, you know, what, what's something that you'd want to make sure that everyone knows, today, in today's world?
Jeff Quintin 36:11
You know, there's so many I guess, there's so many things. Um, if you're, you know, if you're a brand new agent, let's assume that there's a new agent listening this or you're getting in the business, make sure you have enough money saved, right? I always tell all agents, you have six months, money saved, put away. And, and so you can focus on the business 100% dive into V. You know, that's for the new agent. It's always hard. If an agent's part time and bartending at night or waitress or waitressing, here or there. And, you know, they got to be at another job at three o'clock or four o'clock, and they work. It's just hard to get going. Right. Yeah, takes a long time. So that I think that's something that you need to know there for the veteran agent, or the agent that's out there right now, or agents that are already in the business. You know, what do they need to know? I, you know, I would just say that, look, you know, I can look in an agent right now. And two things, if I looked at your schedule, and looked at your bank account, what would the storytel In other words, you know, is your, are you earning the income that you want. And one of the reasons if you're not earning the amount of income you'd like to earn, most likely, it's your schedule, your calendar, is off on the activities that you're doing. So I would only share if somebody really analyzed the time you're spending and make sure that you're spending the right time on what matters most. And we talked about that being in your top 20%. Right, spending your top 20% of activities that will generate you the 80% of results. And that's the two things I would just, you know, just share.
Brian Charlesworth 37:40
Great. Thank you. Thanks for that. Jeff, what what would you attribute your success to like, how long have you been in this business now?
Jeff Quintin 37:48
29 years,
Brian Charlesworth 37:50
When you were younger than that, I mean, I saw a picture of you on a BMX bike with a trophy in your hand just a week ago. So yeah, you've been in business for 29 years.
Jeff Quintin 37:59
I'm like a grandpa man. Like I've been around this thing forever. Jesus. Yeah. 99 I got in 1992 when I was 19 years old, right out of high school. Oh, I know.
Brian Charlesworth 38:08
Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. So obviously, you've got grit, you've got the, you know, you mastered the skills you've done everything you needed to do. And that's probably how you became a team leader, and decided to just share that over. So thanks for doing that. So, just on a personal note, like, as far as learning, like, Where's the place that you go to learn? It's,
Jeff Quintin 38:31
I mean, I'm learning in so many areas. I mean, every single day, there's not a day that I don't learn. So my day, I read a lot, or I listened to audiobooks a lot. I listened to podcasts, your podcast, other podcasts. I'm a junkie when it comes to that. And I have been a long time. I mean, back to the cassette days, and for cassettes and CDs in your car. So I learned a lot from there. I learned a lot from others, studying other people and masterminding. And, you know, spending the right time around others, I asked a lot of questions. And so that's some of the skills that I've learned about learning. I mean, you know, every morning is just something want to get personal. I'll just tell you, I listen in the shower every single morning to a book or a podcast or an interview or something like literally, I think my phone put it up on the ledge, shampoo, shampoo, let you know. Yeah, in there. Right. And I turn it on now. You know, if it's 15 minutes or 10 minutes, I'm in the bathroom right by myself. It's my time. My wife knows kid knows, like, they all know not to come in the bathroom. Because if you can hear it, right, like, because then they come in and just start talking to me. And I'm like, geez, I gotta put pause on there. Like I get a little annoyed. But that's like my little time while I'm getting ready and I have a walk in closet and I put my phone up on the shelf where my shoes are as I get dressed, right? So, you know, it's just a time frame that I can block out. That's my little 20 minute time or whatever it may be. And many other times during the day, but that's one place I learned
Brian Charlesworth 40:10
So obviously read or listen to a lot of books. What's one book that you would recommend everyone in real estate? Listen to or read?
Jeff Quintin 40:21
Well, gosh, there's so many of them. I mean, okay, so I mean, just,
Brian Charlesworth 40:23
There's gotta be a standout I mean
Jeff Quintin 40:27
I mean, one that stands up as we speak, is it's just my focus kind of right now is Yeah, I think it's a great book. It's called wealth, ability, and wealth abilities written by Tom wheelwright, I'm sorry, not with Bill, excuse me, that's a man's company. But Tom will write a book called tax free wealth, tax free wealth. And he owns a company called with ability. But But Tom wheelwright, the author, and Tom is one of the nation's best CPA, best CPAs. But basically, what I learned on this book is just tax strategies, how to reduce your net taxable income, how to get your tax rate down, understanding the IRS code, where you should be investing your money for passive income, and also getting the greatest tax benefit See, getting into real estate, if I had learned the strategies from this book, or you're teaching back when I first started, gosh, I would have, I would have saved millions of dollars in taxes. And that's our biggest, biggest expense. So that's one thing. I think that anybody right now can learn from anybody new getting the business is getting your, your, your tax structure, right, and understanding where to invest and how to get your, your net taxable income down, you know, so you're not paying up, I know, as much as we do, because we all pay to, that's our biggest expense
Brian Charlesworth 41:43
That's just goes up. I love that you didn't go to a book that was just about real estate or motivation, but it's about wealth building. And I mean, I think real estate, the industry has been known forever. And the industry is different. But it used to be that it was full of real estate agents that worked for a brokerage. Now you have all these team owners and people on teams even like some of the agents on your team, they're making 300 500 grand, right? It's a different world, you can sell more homes now you can actually build a business. So there's an opportunity to really create and drive wealth versus spending everything you make. So I think that's equally as important that everyone learned those strategies and skills as well. So thanks for sure.
Jeff Quintin 42:29
Yeah, I mean, it's one thing one thing you make money, but then we also next thing is, how much do we save? You know what after, after all said and done, how much do we have left to invest? That's the key.
Brian Charlesworth 42:40
Yes. Yeah. Okay, so in your personal time, Jeff, what's your favorite thing to do?
Jeff Quintin 42:48
Um, yeah, I mean, I'll be spending time with my wife and kids and stuff. That's always fun. I mean, it's always good to do personal stuff. You know, like I mentioned earlier, I'm back into BMX bike racing right now. I'm just gonna hire that right now. Did that as a kid, and I got back on the bike, literally, my first race is March 20, this year after 33 years. So that's been spending time there. And you know, go to the with the jack last night and practice race every Saturday, sometimes twice in the weekend. So that's fun, you know, and then I actually Sunday night, I played roller hockey, so I'm getting I play roller hockey. I do that for fun I surf and you know, when, when we're warms up here, so I'm very active. As far as those kind of things not of extreme kind of sports, I guess you would say, you know, in your typical ones. So that's fun. That's about it. Really?
Brian Charlesworth 43:37
Yeah. So you love extreme sports? So what is it? What was it that drove you after 33 years of not doing it to get back on the BMX bike? And not only get back on it, but to compete competitively?
Jeff Quintin 43:50
Yeah, I mean, you know, so I would always I stayed in touch with it with a couple of guys that got back in it right like so guys that were racing with us in the in the late 80s, and so forth, and then went and got back in some in fall on Facebook and stuff like that and see what they're doing. I stopped off the track last couple years and like, Man, you know, what, what would it be like, if I got back in and I was always thinking like us as a kid thing. Like, now there's, you know, teenagers, little kids and stuff. And I would ask, like, you know, literally, if I get back in the 46 to 50 group is there anybody racing? They're like, dude, you have no idea. There's a ton of guys in it. And surest to there is, I mean, they know, the I'll show up, there are eight guys are just 12. Guys, I mean, there's not just to, like in the United States, when you go to Nationals if there's 100, you know, the mean, like, and this and that. And by the way, I'm starting back to the novice, there's, that's just novice then it goes to intermediate and goes to expert, but if you look at the whole entire group, there's a lot of riders between 46 and 50 years old right now, believe it or not, so it just inspired me to do that. You know, and, you know, the COVID thing I was I was getting a little bit lazy and, you know, I'm not that guy. I don't like going to the gym, good. Working out and stuff like that. It just gets to be boring. I'd rather go out and do something right and bikes have always been a passion of mine and I just said in December I told my wife I'm buying myself a Christmas present for myself and getting back into BMX bike racing. So went full and bought a bike helmet, the gear everything, and then I would just grab the chalk. So practice riding, you know. So now here I am, you know, five months later.
Brian Charlesworth 45:20
Yeah, I think it's awesome. I am a mountain bike rider and getting out the fresh air and doing what you love to do is nothing, nothing like that. It's a great, great way to stay in shape as well. So, Jeff, thank you so much for being on today. I really have enjoyed our time together. As always. I do want to just ask how, what's the best way to get a hold of you for people who might be listening that may have some questions for you as a follow up?
Jeff Quintin 45:48
Yeah, sure. I guess the easiest way is to email me jeff@thequintingroup.com. That's about jeff@thequintingroup.com. You hit me up on any social media @jeffquintin, is probably the best places to reach me.
Brian Charlesworth 46:06
All right, Jeff, congratulations on all of your success. listeners. Thank you again for joining us on the show this week. And if you guys will go click that subscribe button. And also just give us a review that will help us be able to get you know more people like Jeff on the show. So, Jeff, thanks again. And we'll talk to you soon.
Jeff Quintin 46:26
Thanks, Brian. It’s pleasure to be here. Appreciate it.
