Although Andrew Franklin’s father had a successful real estate business, he was against the idea that his children would follow in his footsteps. Somehow, he believed that the real estate agent will be eliminated in the future. So Andrew worked in investment banking for 6 years, primarily on mergers and acquisitions.
But real estate runs in their family’s blood and Andrew didn’t just want to be his father’s son. He wanted to try and grow their business and not screw it up. This is why, eight years ago, he, his sister, and a third partner decided to buy his father’s real estate business.
Today, Andrew Franklin is the owner/partner at The Franklin Team where he has helped grow the business from having 3 to 4 agents doing up to 600 deals with $150 million in sales, to having 25 agents that will sell 1,800 homes for more than $600 million in sales this year. They have also successfully created ancillary businesses as part of their growth.
In this episode, we talked about:
04:52 How Andrew and his partners acquired the business from his father
06:50 What sets The Franklin Team apart
07:11 Why Andrew considers builder leads a very warm and predictable listing lead
15:30 Why it’s okay to rip off and duplicate business models in real estate
16:42 How The Franklin Team took out 99.99% of their competitors
24:55 What made them decide to start their own title company
26:54 Why they moved from REMAX to eXp
29:26 Where's Andrew thinks the industry is going over the next 3-5 years
32:23 The great thing about having ancillary businesses in real estate
32:49 Why Andrew thinks the real estate agent will continue to be around in some form or fashion in the future
34:13 The most important investment we can make.
37:23 Why Andrew’s father changed his mindset about coaching
43:41 Andrew’s one piece of advice for those who are striving to grow?
Here are ways to get in touch with Andrew:
Phone: 281-248-8520 ext 107
Email: andrew.franklin@thefranklinteaminc.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-franklin-7482952/
Podcast Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 0:35
Alright, Hello, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Grit podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth, the founder of Sisu and the host of the show and today, we are here with Andrew Franklin. I actually met Andrew in Scottsdale, we were at a Brett Tanner mastermind. And I think that was all about wealth building. Yeah. And Andrew actually took me to his favorite restaurant, which is now one of my favorite restaurants. Steak 44 down in Scottsdale. That's what I look forward to when I go to Scottsdale nowadays is going to a steak party. So thank you for that, Andrew. But Andrew is with the Franklin team. These guys have been operating with 10 agents for quite some time doing huge numbers, like 75 transactions per agent. And they're just now scaling up from 10 agents to 2530 agents. And I mean I think that's a growth phase that everyone goes through at some point. And there's a lot of change that happens in that time. So I wanted to have Andrew on the show today. Andrew is with eXp made the move over there a few years ago. I'd like to dive in and find out why you made that move. Actually, I think you were an independent brokerage before that right.
Andrew Franklin 1:54
No, we were at REMAX for 32 years.
Brian Charlesworth 1:57
Oh your REMAX. Okay, so anyway, Andrew, that's what would you like to add to that as far as your background goes, and you're in the background?
Andrew Franklin 2:06
So yeah, my background, I come from real estate family. My dad started our business in the early 80s, before I was born, and he sort of tried to talk me out of getting into real estate. So I started in on Wall Street in investment, banking, mergers, and acquisitions. And me and my sister and third partner bought the business from my dad about eight years ago now, at the time, he had three-four agents doing and he was heavy in production up until the point we bought it, it was doing 500-600 deals with that amount of people with 150 million. And we've wanted to not just be Jimmy's kids and try to grow the business and not screw it up. And we created some ancillary businesses around that. But now like you said, I think we're approaching 25 arrived 25 agents will sell about 1800 homes for north of 600 million this year.
Brian Charlesworth 3:03
Okay. I mean, I think most people hear that it's almost not comprehensible. comprehensible, right to read, you're saying 25 agents you're going to do how many transactions?
Andrew Franklin 3:16
We're going to be flat, I can talk about while it will be flagged, we're almost never flat. But we're gonna be flat this year. We did 1800 for 600 million last year. And I think we're gonna be right at those numbers. So
Brian Charlesworth 3:30
Okay, so I think everybody on the show knows 1800 transaction. Those are huge numbers. So first off, congratulations. But I think that's a cool story. So you, you went on Wall Street, you were in investment banking, it sounds like you were doing an A, you learned everything you need to know about m&a in order to acquire your dad's business. So anyway, congratulations. And I think it's fun because, you know, it used to be even when your dad started his real estate company. I grew up with a dad who was in real estate least a portion of my, I think he moved in real estate when I was in about junior high. But real estate didn't use to be what it is today, like real estate used to be someone who goes out and sells homes. Yeah, and there are still a lot of agents that do that, right. But today, you almost have to be a part of a team to really be successful in real estate. So you're either on a team or you own a team. If you're really, in my opinion, that's the future of real estate. People who don't do one of those two are going to be in trouble. Let's talk about that though. You acquired this business. It had four or five agents, your dad's in full-time production. I mean, how much is that business really worth?
Andrew Franklin 4:45
Well, so and I did a podcast with john kitchens earlier today, and I just sort of told them, we structured it. It was Hey, what does Jimmy my dad want to give us the business because he didn't need to sell he Have we the three of us that bought the business me, my sister and my third partner, Andy, we could have continued to be in production. And he could have done a lot less. And so he did us a favor. So basically, we did a five-year seller notes where we paid him a fixed amount every month. It was one of these, like, I want this number. I know what, and maybe it'll cripple you guys, maybe not because we've never done any of this. And the funny thing is, I joke about it, but it's actually true. We did so well, three years in four years, and we've put in the agreement, I was the only one that saw the agreement. I was the one that talked with the attorneys on it. So no one knew what it was in there. But I knew what my dad wanted him there. We put in there that he could renegotiate or come back if it wasn't working or didn't work for his lifestyle. And he came back not because of that in the agreement, but he basically said, Hey, I want to continue this on, it's working well for all of us. And he did lower the payment. But it's eight years in, we still are paying him a little bit. But the amount of value he gives us, he still, although semi-retired, still helps with a lot of our big builder relationships still helps with a lot of the visionary stuff. So he earns it for sure. But it was supposed to be a five-year seller note that would end and it still hasn't ended eight years later.
Brian Charlesworth 6:25
Wow. So good for him. I mean, he's, he's semi-retired, he can work when he wants, do what he wants and continues to receive a paycheck works great for him. works great for you guys, you now have a business doing 1800 transactions plus a year. And we all know what kind of money you can make with that kind of business. So works well for you guys, obviously, too. So you just mentioned something about builders. Let's talk about that. Because I think I'd like to know what sets you guys apart like, I think my take based on conversations I've had with you in the past is that you guys have a tremendous amount of large amount of home builder relationships.
That's 60% of our business. And when I say builder business, I always clarify it's not we're not going to the builder and saying we want to list your inventory homes and in our market that's very competitive. And the big guys do that at no cost or very little cost and it inflates numbers. And we do do some of that. But when I say builder business, I'm saying you walk into a model home as a buyer, you don't have a realtor, you have a home to sell or a lease. We're trying to get that builder salesperson to refer us to you as the client. So we have programs around getting that salesperson refer us those clients so they're there they're listing leads because they're buying a new home, they have a home to sell, they're very warm listing leads and they're very predictable. So we have salespeople that send us 20 deals a year we have builders that send us 100 deals a year. Our best builder clients about 100 deals a year we've been their preferred realtor for 15 years so it's basically a couple of programs that we offer to help create incremental sales for the builder and eliminate bust out so if the house doesn't sell way before the word ibuyer existed we've had a buyout program for 20 something years where we'll buy it from the client so they can close on the new house. So we've created these programs but then we've created a system around building these relationships with builders so we get these referrals
So that is genius by the way, congratulations.
Andrew Franklin 8:51
That's all my dad
Brian Charlesworth 8:52
Alright Are there any tips you can share with others that say like what I say that's genius like if I was in real estate today I would myself personally or I would hire someone to just work on builder relationships after hearing that
Andrew Franklin 9:06
I think the my I think the biggest thing is a mindset shift. So one of the starting thing is a mindset shift. Let me let me correct myself so a lot of realtors think that they're the client of the builder, right because I have the buyer I'm bringing the buyer to you. We look at it exactly opposite we look at you and I say you as if you're this you as a builder salesperson like at lunch or happy hour I'm the one picking up the chat because you as a builder salesperson, you're in a model home for five days a week, your assistant your sales assistant is for the two days that you're not there. So combined. These people are in a model home 60 hours a week and they're constantly seeing buyers who have a home to sell. So they're buyers and sellers that don't have a realtor and So to me, it's the most predictable referral source that you can imagine right? If you could have the best fear person and they send you two deals a year, and they're killing it for you, right? They send their co-worker and their family member that's one of your best spear people. My best builder salespeople send me 20 deals a year because they're constantly seeing sellers and buyers. And at least in our market, the builder salespeople are not realtors, they're employees of the builder. And if they were a realtor before the builders in almost all cases make them make their license inactive. So it will correlate to any market in my opinion that has that dynamic. Like if you're competitive if the builder is not a big enough builder to have an on-site salesperson and they have a realtor sitting in the model home the whole time, you're probably not going to get that business but most big production markets have an onside salesperson that works for the builder and they have a friendly Co-Op and relationship with the realtor. And so what I would say to get that business is you have to have something of value that you can give the builder to make their life easier make them make more money so when they do have someone that has a home to sell or needs a realtor in any capacity they're thinking of you
Brian Charlesworth 11:22
Is it the builder you're going to or is it the salesperson?
Andrew Franklin 11:25
So it's a lot easier to get in with the management first and then go get the salespeople so that's what we do. So we go to the VP of sales or sales manager even the division the local division president and we talk about our programs how we can help sell more homes how we can eliminate bust out they tell us we had 20 bust outs last year because of the home not selling this program works great come present to our sales team then that's the manager giving the rubber stamp of these guys you can refer because what we're asking for is we're asking to be put on the new home contract and we're not procuring that sale so if we are john smith is walking into a model home and we're wanting them to put us on that new home contract even though they're the one referring us john smith so you do need some management buy in there but the real work is going to to get the relationship and because you can be approved by the manager if you don't have the relationships with the salespeople you're never going to get the referrals so you really need to do both if you want to do it at scale.
Brian Charlesworth 12:37
Okay, so you said you need to bring something of value to for them to work with you Like why work with you? Yeah, I'm trying to get into this space. Why are they going to work with me? Like what do I need to do to make me special so they’re going to work with me?
Andrew Franklin 12:53
So our programs are pretty simple This was created the first program is two programs and one the first program was created probably in the 90s by my dad were in Houston there was not a lot of equity that people had in their houses and so the sort of makeup of new construction in our market even back then was the builder understood they were going to co op with the realtor and so they were sort of resigned to the fact that there's going to be a realtor on the new home contract so in our market now there's like new home contracts 90% of the people that buy new homes have a realtor in some form or fashion or they end up having a realtor and so the builder in our markets like hey I'm gonna pay that 3% and so my dad went to the sales people to start and said hey, you're gonna pay the 3% this consumer doesn't have a lot of equity in the house so pay me the 3% put me on the new home and I'll go and sell their house at no charge. And so for my dad, he's getting back then he's selling $150,000 resale house at no charge. The way we do it is we charge 6% than we reimburse but let's just say we charge we don't charge it to get paid 3% on the more expensive new house he's not doing anything on the new house right they've already found the builder the builders referring us and so he's getting credit for two transactions that's why if you look at our numbers 1800 homes 600 million we did 10 million in commissions that's why it's not that 3% because we're getting credit for two but we're really getting paid 3% on the more expensive new house so that that's how it started like put us on the new home we'll sell the house at no charge and so he was big relationship building with the salespeople like you're gonna
Brian Charlesworth 14:50
All of sudden their marketing is hey, you know what? You buy a home with us. We will sell your house at no cost.
Andrew Franklin 14:57
I have a guy I have a guy that will sell your house. And no charge. I know you're probably skinny on your equity. And so then that more so he started, he started networking with builders. And the next sort of thing that really put us in an atmosphere no one could compete with was one of our best builders Pulte Homes at the time, I think it was 2000. Or maybe late 90s. They came in and said, Hey, I have a guy that's guaranteeing the sale in another market. So we didn't even come up with it. And that's what real estate is rip off and duplicate man. Just take what other people are doing and make it your own. But we had a,
Brian Charlesworth 15:37
That's why we have you on the show today. So you know.
Andrew Franklin 15:41
And I'm an open book, man. And so a builder brought it to my dad and said, Hey, if it Yeah, we're referring you these clients that have a home to sell, and you're selling it at no charge, and we're paying you on the new house, it would be great if you took it to another level. And if you don't sell the house, because some of them don't sell not in this market, but in every other market. somboon don't sell. We would love if you had a guaranteed buyout program and we have a guy doing it in Dallas and my dad's like, Man, I'm just starting to be a successful agent like I'm doing well. And maybe I can buy one at a time. But that's scary. But he, you know, ambitious wanting to do it. He said yes. He added some attributes to it. We base it on an appraisal we give a certain percentage we also reimburse profit if we do have to buy it. So now we go to the builder and say, Hey, we'll sell the house at no charge, if you refer us and put us on the new home contract. And if the house doesn't sell, we have a plan B option, a home buyout where we'll buy the house so they can still close on your house. What that did was it took 40,000 realtors in Houston were competing with and it eliminated 39,998 of them because another team copied us and that's who we can now. Now if you try to get build her business in Houston, the salesperson goes, Hey, do you have a buyout like the Franklin's do and this other group does. And so it really eliminates people from being able to compete with us because they don't know how to do it or they're scared, they don't know how to finance it. So that sort of made us a local, we were a local where we lived kind of realtor, and it brought us into the entire city of Houston.
Brian Charlesworth 17:33
Okay, so the buyout was kind of like the cream on top that just sealed it for everybody.
Andrew Franklin 17:38
That's what really took us. To me, the buyout program is why we have a title company, why we have all the ancillary businesses because it took us from being a very good producer. I mean, he was a very good producer before that, like, I don't know the numbers, but he was top Oh, 1%. But then it put us to be, you know, top 10 Top 20 in entire country because we could, you know, build a, we can build everything around those referrals, and they were their listing referrals. And we all know, that's what we all want to do at scale. And that's why we're able to do so much volume is because we do a lot of listings.
Brian Charlesworth 18:21
Yeah, that's incredible. So the one question I still have around this model, and then we'll move on from this, but it's fascinating. It's very cool. So if an agent let's say I'm a buyer's agent, and I've been working with a client, and I've shown them, you know, 10 homes or whatever, and now all of a sudden they find this builder and they're like, hey, show me this. So I go in and I try to negotiate this deal with the builder as an agent, what happens in that scenario?
Andrew Franklin 18:48
So when we're presenting in front of the builder, we say hey, you have to rely on your realtor relationships if someone is working with a realtor, we don't want to be involved. So do not refer us so we tell them, they have a home to sell they have a lease to lease and they do not have a realtor in our market. Most people start shopping for new homes well before they're gonna put their house on the market. So what usually happens is the salesperson says, Hey, do you have a realtor? I have some very good programs and the person's like, I know a realtor but I'm not married to them what do you get? And so we get a lot of those referrals but if the agent is bringing them to the model home, we don't get those referrals and we don't want those referrals.
Brian Charlesworth 19:38
Okay, so that's a great point, though. If they come into a model home and they're like, hey, I've got this great program. We'll sell your I've got a guy who will sell your house at no cost. They're gonna go for that every time over their cousin, right?
Andrew Franklin 19:54
Dude, it's funny you say that because I've had those cousins and brothers say hey, I'm A part-time realtor I was going to work with them to build her store to mentioned it to my sister, I can't compete with that, will you still offer these programs to my cousin even though I'm a realtor like a weep, I get 10 deals a year from a realtor that is asking me to take their client because the house didn't sell, or they're doing it part-time so that you're exactly right. But so everyone knows a realtor. But are they willing to use that realtor they're not married to if they have these programs that that other realtor can offer?
Brian Charlesworth 20:36
Yeah, such a powerful business model. And I'm shocked that more people haven't adopted this, I feel really stupid that I didn't come up with it. Well, we didn't call your dad. That's, that's just amazing. So very cool. So let's talk about it sounds like most of your business is coming from there. So or at least 60% of your business. Is that right?
Andrew Franklin 20:59
60 now, but as the builder world has eight homes and 20 people for those eight homes, they're not really worried about their house selling so our referrals have come down for the first time in a long time. We've been pivoting away from that being our major leg for a while, but COVID put that in overdrive. So our builder referrals are down because they're not worried about their home not selling so that that cell cycle of someone shopping for a new home being three weeks or a month is now three minutes. And so that referrals not happening as often. But we've been pivoting away, not away from it, but it has gone down significantly. And that's why we're going to be flat this year is because we've been pivoting other parts of our business in case this happened and COVID made it happen overnight. So but we're already seeing it come back a little bit as the market slows down.
Brian Charlesworth 21:59
Okay, so let's talk about what you have. And this is so great as well, you have 1800 transactions. And I think this is kind of over the last two or three years, I've seen every team owner start to think, Okay, how can I monetize on this in other ways, right? I've got 1800 transactions that I control, why am I giving that all to a mortgage company? Or why am I giving that all to a title company when I could benefit from that and I could control the experience and make it even a better experience for the client? So let's talk about that. What are you guys doing in the ancillary space?
Andrew Franklin 22:46
Yeah, so my dad owned a small ownership in a title company when I started and as we went from, you know, controlling you know, being able to refer a title company, his time was like 15 deals a month, he was just a passive shareholder, so we'd already been in that space. But once we scaled the business and added agents and really went from you know, 150 million to 600 million or really, you know, at that time was probably 400 million. I started really studying the title space of like, Okay is what we're making from this passive opportunity, the best opportunity and I started taking meetings like I'll always take meetings here opportunities, very open-minded. And so I started shopping our deal we had from our title company, and what I realized was we should have our own thing, which It's good you don't know what you don't know, because the first six months were terrible starting a brand new title company when you had a full-time job and finding the right people talent and title space is hard. We didn't have the right people in the right seats and the right people in general. But now that we've smoothed that out over the last three years, like we'll probably net close to the same amount of money if not more this year from title from our independent title company, as we do our 40-year sales business. So we have a top independent title company me and my sister own 85% of it. And then we started because of Brett Tanner and how we met, we started a hard money lending business just because it was quiet and we could capitalize a lot of our relationships in the space and then what I saw what these investors were doing and making and creating wealth for them. We started a real estate investing business and we bought nine homes in the last 60 days through that so those are our biggest ancillary plays besides eXp.
Brian Charlesworth 24:46
Okay, so the one thing that stands out for me on this title most people I know that have done title have done joint jayvees So how is it you guys decided we're going to go start our own title company. Because I think most are afraid. If that so I just want to key in on that for a minute.
Andrew Franklin 25:02
Yeah, I was dumb and young and I started doing pro formas with people in the title space and seeing what we could make, and like I can, I can do that. And that so that was basically the reason we did it was we were big enough to be profitable very quickly. And none of your own transactions on our own transactions. And now three years in our own transactions only make up about 30% of the business. So we've been able to grow around that. But for a long time, it was like we didn't have reps while we work through the service piece. And you know, my agents were going to use it, we were going to use it. But I mean, the first six months are hard. I think for a lot of people going the JV route makes a lot of sense. Because title is a beast. It really is. And Had I known it was as big of a beast as I did, I might not have done it. But it's also been the, maybe the best decision of my business life to do it. So
Brian Charlesworth 26:09
Yeah. Okay. It's fascinating. You've done you guys have made some really smart decisions that have accelerated your growth beyond what I've seen a lot of so. So you guys made this move. You just mentioned ESP as being an ancillary as well. Let's talk about that for a minute. I think the industry you know, I think kW kind of, you know, they kind of came in and with their profit share, kind of between that and training people on how to build teams. Yeah, really, like took the industry by storm in the early 2000s. And now you have people that have said, well, we're going to pay more than that. So you guys were at REMAX How long ago did you make the move over to the eXp and why did you decide to
Andrew Franklin 26:57
First this year was our three-year anniversary at eXp. We were REMAX for 32 years so we're not a big brokerage hopper. But man it was one of those things it was it was my investment banking, p&l driven mind, like what we were getting from REMAX versus what we were paying in my head didn't match up. And so we weren't we didn't leave REMAX to go to eXp we were leaving REMAX to go somewhere and we were we had made that decision and on a random coaching call you know these guys but my first coach, Fred Weaver, Kevin coffin, and Fred Weaver now very good buddies, I told him, we're gonna leave REMAX, I don't know where we're gonna go. And he said, Well, we haven't announced it, but we're leaving kw, you should look at this, we saw the model. And it just, it changed our opinion, because we're going to go independent, if everything else we looked at didn't make sense at the time. And then the eXp gave us a platform to have the upside of an independent without all the issues of owning an independent, like we can use our relationships, we can get paid, we could build relationships with people on this platform and in have them use our ancillaries, which has been a big piece to help grow our ancillaries is the eXp and you know, through the revenue share program, we could get paid to be at the company and what I've made at the company compared to what I've paid is far exceeded at REMAX. It was I paid 90 grand a year and it goes out the window right there. I'm never getting it back unless I went and owned a franchise. And we had my dad owned a franchise and sold it, you know, 20 years prior. So we know we knew we weren't going to go that route. So it's been a our eXp Rescher group is has helped our ancillaries it's helped grow our business. It's built a lot of culture and collaboration. So it's been it's not for everyone. But it's been a game-changer for us.
Brian Charlesworth 29:06
Good. All right. So where's the industry going? In your opinion over the next three to five years? You know, teams came in? My personal opinion is teams have really like teams like you guys doing 1800 transactions that didn't exist. Yeah. And that's hard to compete against. So what's your opinion of where is the industry going?
Andrew Franklin 29:30
I think it's going toward, it's got to go toward less agents out there. And I think it's getting more and more competitive. And then you factor in all the disruption that's bringing commission compression into the store into this, that I think there'll be less agents and still I completely agree and bigger teams and bigger producers. And I think eventually it's got to go to be more expensive to hold your license. And then what's going to happen is more of these part-timers are going to get out. But I completely agree with you I think it's super hard to compete. I mean we're, we spend a lot of money on improving our craft tools like Sisu, we're about to, to go on your platform, we can spend 100 grand a year on coaching. And so it is very hard to compete with the resources these big teams have. And I think it's going to, you know, it's going to grab more and more market share and push more and more people out and I think all the disruption in the space is going to do the same. So that's my opinion of it.
Brian Charlesworth 30:44
Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. It's an interesting observation that I've been watching and some of these new brokerages come around I mean, eXp and real both have the same model. They're both focused primarily on bringing teams in they have solo agents but it's really more so large teams going there. And then you have companies like Compass and you know they basically paid teams to come in and bought their growth. And but they focused on teams right? Not brokerages, their every single one of their 7000 plus brokerages is a team. And then you have companies like side Inc, they've done the exact same thing. They went and got teams to come in to become their brokerages. And so the new brokerage is a team. And you know, again, I said kW kind of started that you came from kW Spring, my wife came from kW, or you know, you guys didn't come from kW
Andrew Franklin 31:42
Remax Yeah,
Brian Charlesworth 31:43
Yeah, you Kevin and
Andrew Franklin 31:46
Yeah Brian, Kevin and Fred came kW.
Brian Charlesworth 31:48
So, so anyway, it's just gonna be interesting to see so. But you know, I think the exciting thing for everybody in real estate is everyone tried to prove that the realtor is not going to exist. And everyone failed at that. And it's been proven the realtor is going to exist. And the great thing about being in real estate, is the real estate team controls, which ancillary businesses get used right now because you get to control that experience. I just read an article this week, last week that talked about how the real estate companies real estate teams, both are, are getting into, you know, the mortgage and title industries. And so now you have the mortgage companies all trying to get into real estate. So it's gonna be interesting to see how this all plays out. But I think the upper hand the advantage is definitely on the side of the realtor at this point.
Andrew Franklin 32:46
Yeah, it's funny, it's a big reason why I didn't join real estate is because my dad even thought the realtor was going to be eliminated. And then when I graduated, no, eight is the first year he ever went down. But then nine was better than eight, four and 10 was better than nine and then he was like, maybe we aren't going anywhere. Yeah, it's gonna look a little different. But it's just and that's why these massively big like, brokerages that try to create these ancillary mortgage title from a national level, it's like man is still a hyperlocal game, man, it's still about the relationship. People want to be able to pick up the phone to someone they trust and talk to them at 7pm on a Saturday, and that is why I think the realtor will continue to be around in some form or fashion.
Brian Charlesworth 33:36
Yeah, I think it's that I also think it's, you know, getting somebody under contract is half the battle. But if you have too emotional, these are not business transactions. These are emotional homeowners trying to keep a transaction together without a realtor. Good luck, right?
Andrew Franklin 33:55
I tell people, we're counselors and therapists more than anything else.
Brian Charlesworth 33:58
Yeah, for sure. Okay, um, so you know, you said you pay $100,000 a year for coaching. I want to hear more about that because I think so many of us don't invest enough in ourself. And I think that's the most important investment we can make.
Andrew Franklin 34:20
I was that way and not because we knew any better I think we were at a place where it was just head down blinders on. And really when i got connected with Kevin and Fred through their next level agents Facebook group and started building relationships with them, what I realized is there are a lot of smart people in this industry and they're doing a lot like someone can sell 10 times less the amount of homes is you and they can do a lot of things better than you and, and what I realized is I can learn a ton of stuff from other people doing big things around the house. country. And so I remember I was at an early Kevin and Fred event and they told me, they had spent like five grand a month or something ongoing to conferences or masterminds. And the numbers are way wrong. I'm just saying it was a number to me that was mind-boggling. And I'm like, Why in the world are you going and spending five grand a month to go to conferences, I've never been to a real estate conference. And when I hired Fred, and then got a ton of value from him as a coach, and then I went to Glenn Neely, who is the kW maps coach crazy, like I had a five-year goal to be out of production, I told him that I was out of production in three months. Then I hired Brett Tanner, he's the reason that I have a hard money lending business and a real estate investing business. Kevin and Fred are why I am at eXp, and it's been a game-changer. Now I'm coaching with john Shep lac. And so what I just realized is that man, if I go to an event, or talk to someone doing something, and I go to, I spent three days, I might get two or three nuggets, but those two or three nuggets are worth like 10 times the amount of what I paid. And so that's where I get all my information, man, it's all r&d rip off and duplicate, like I, I have these coaches because they're connected with other people, like your wife that are doing great things that I can learn from. And so once I got entrenched in once I saw what that was doing. I'm like, I got to do more of it. And every year, I spend a little bit more on coaching, because the return of what I spend on it is 4 or 5, 10x of what I spend.
Brian Charlesworth 36:38
So I think 10x is probably the real number there, or 10x plus, so I challenge anybody out there listening, like if you're having a hard time with this, okay, I'm going to spend 100 grand on, you know, investing in myself, well, that 100 grand, like, we just heard from Andrew for different businesses that he started because of a coach. And I guarantee you, several of those businesses are doing over a million dollars a year in net income. So that being said, Is that worth 100? grand a year to pay for? Right? would you pay a dime to get $1? Right? That's the question. So So anyway, thanks for sharing that. I think that mindset is just something that I believe that top people in the industry have that mindset. And there are a lot that they just haven't, haven't had the courage to really go out on that limb and say, I'm gonna do this.
Andrew Franklin 37:37
And that's why I did it. I saw top person after top person. And when I told my dad, he's like, why do you need a coach, I'm been your mentor. And guess who has his first coach ever at the age of 65? My father, so he went from what are you doing? Why are you wasting money to seen what it's done? And if a 65-year-old can change his mindset on what a coach can do, anyone can and so you're exactly right, I just saw top person winner after winner doing it. And I'm like, I I’m not marrying my coach, right? Like I'm committing to three months of whatever it costs, Fred used to cost me $1,000 a month. So I started with a $3,000 commitment three months, I was gonna give it a try, I would know in three months if it was valuable, and then I would part ways and, you know, five years later, I've had a coach the entire time, and I've gone through different ones and I still have relationships with every single one I used to coach with. So that's one of the biggest things that has helped me in business and just life in general. It started getting me to read more started really expanding me as a person.
Brian Charlesworth 38:44
I'm glad you brought that up. You said you had five different coaches and you know, why would you have the same coach for five years in a row, because that coach has you have this much knowledge and that you add that coach to it, you have this much again. But if you just have that much now you're limiting your growth again. So expand that to a new coach where you can learn other things. And you'll constantly be elevating your game. You know, most people that are in real estate don't have a college education. Right? You do your, you have an investment banking background, but most actually don't. I know that spring does not. That's my wife. And she, when I started Sisu, she had a team of like five agents doing maybe 100 transactions a year and now she's up to you know, well, she was at 25 a few months ago. She's actually 35 agents as of today. So it's just, it's just crazy to see the growth and that comes from putting the right systems in place and having the right coaches, right, all of the other businesses that go along with it, right.
Andrew Franklin 39:58
We just signed up for EOS, if anyone from the book traction and rocket fuel my coach told me to read this book, he told me to talk to EOS, Kyle and Dan, I think they do Eos. If anyone doesn't know what that is, look it up, we're paying an EOS implementer 50 $500 a day, we're going to meet with him four times a year, roughly. So you can do the math, but I think it's going to be a game-changer for us. So on that 100 grand is continuing to scale up as we scale. And, you know, you're right. I know what I know. And I need smarter people to help me out
Brian Charlesworth 40:37
Spring as well down that road as well. She's in the US. So yeah, I didn't know that. So you just mentioned rocket fuel. One of the things I wanted to ask you about other than coaching, what is your favorite source of learning? And I mean, there are some amazing books out there that just mentioned rocket fuel. But is it books? Is it a podcast? What is it that you do to learn in keep you're looking
Andrew Franklin 41:02
Both of those. You have both of those, I used to not be a big reader. And school sort of came easy to me. And so like, the only time I would read was like when I had to do I read a book for school. But now I'm always reading a book or listening to a book and then these kinds of things, man, there's, again, you're gonna listen to a podcast for an hour, and 15 minutes you won't care about, but that five minutes that you do it can be a game-changer. And so like I like dicted to finding that five minutes. Um, and so I think the same with a book, right? There's a lot of books, I'm like, oh, that book wasn't great. But I got some really great value out of those 10 pages. And so that's what I try to consume podcast people I like and trust that are doing things that I want to do. And then I'm just following them. So
Brian Charlesworth 41:55
I mean, a great example is this podcast today. I can tell you if I was running a team, there's a lot of stuff I would rip up from this podcast today. I will make sure spring listens to this, even though I know she already knows your story. Yeah. Anyway, what's your favorite thing to do in your personal time, Andrew?
Andrew Franklin 42:13
So I just had a baby. A 10-week old baby when you are Yeah, we did everything backwards. We moved in together, we got engaged. Then we had a baby and we're getting married here in a month in Scottsdale. So a big family person, obviously, all these businesses I mentioned, one of my family members is a partner in one or multiple of those businesses. So family means everything but then like to golf. I'm a golfer so not a good one. But I like it.
Brian Charlesworth 42:48
Good. Well, Scottsdale is a great place to spend time if you'd like to go Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so your favorite place to visit is is that Scottsdale, and sounds like or
Andrew Franklin 42:59
Probably Telluride, Colorado so my dad has started to get out of the summer heat so Houston in Texas, and this summer he spent 75 days in telluride had it not been for COVID it would have been four summers in a row so it was two skipped one and then this was his third and I visited every time so I have a big why Sunday to get out of the Texas heat and be in a place like that whether it be you know Utah or Colorado or just somewhere so tell you rides out there Scottsdale up there the wine countries out there so I like traveling in the States.
Brian Charlesworth 43:36
Yeah. Nice. So my last question for you is just what is the one piece of advice that you would leave to listeners of this podcast that are out there striving to grow
Andrew Franklin 43:50
So man I think it's there are so many things I've done to grow because I had an open mind about something learning that I did not know what I didn't know and that there are a lot of people smarter than me maybe I was smarter than them and one thing but they were smarter than me and three other things and so one of the biggest things was check my ego at the door and mimic those that were doing something where I wanted to be and be around those people in some form or fashion, whether it not be hiring them or going to the same brokerage or anything. And I used to get made fun of by my dad and sister because I would always take those meetings at work leading to anything and what those meetings a lot of times lead to his knowledge and I think everything I've done in business has been directly related to being willing to learn from others and then go and implement that so that's it sounds cliche, but that's been life-changing for me.
Brian Charlesworth 44:54
Yeah, no, it's obvious that that has been a big part of your growth and your story. So yeah gratulations on doing that and opening your mind and taking these meetings and going on going and paying for coaching that your family thinks you're crazy for doing. Not anymore. Not anymore. They know that they did at the time. Yeah, yeah, that's when it's hard right now it's no longer hard because everyone knows the results. But yeah. So last thing, Andrew, how do people best get ahold of you if they have questions for you and want to learn more?
Andrew Franklin 45:29
Yeah, I'm super responsive on social media. So you can add me, send me a message. My cell phone, you could Google my name and my cell phone comes up. So feel free to text call or send me a message on social media. So I'm pretty easy to find.
Brian Charlesworth 45:47
So there is another Andrew Franklin out there and real estate. I found that out prior to this podcast, so when you Google this Andrew Franklin, Google the Franklin team, that'll get you to the right Andrew Franklin.
Andrew Franklin 46:00
Yeah, yeah. Or Houston. I'm sure there's not a ton of major Franklin's maybe in Houston that are real estate agents. But yeah,
Brian Charlesworth 46:07
Yeah. All right. Well, it's been a great hour. Thank you so much for joining me today. And we are really looking forward to having you come in to see Sue and, again, I offered to help any way I can. I'm excited to help elevate your business even more. So. Thanks again for joining us today. Thank you to all the listeners for joining us again this week, and we'll catch you next week on the Grit podcast.
Andrew Franklin 46:33
Thanks, buddy.
