Jared Johnson, Owner at Infinite Real Estate Group, What a Succesful Team Rebuild Looks Like - Systemetizing Without Hurting Productivity - HD 720p.mov
Zac Muir: [00:00:00] All right, we're live, Garrett, what's up, man? Hey, how are you doing? I'm doing really well.
Zac Muir: [00:00:06] We've been wanting to do a webinar with you for a long time. And some it was just the perfect time to get it in there and chat with you. So thanks for me.
Jared Johnson: [00:00:16] I appreciate the opportunity.
[00:00:18] And you were promoting us like crazy. So I appreciate you getting the word out about the summit and everything. It's going to be a fun day. I've got my Jugg here. I showed this on the other one, but this is called eight hours of live streaming coming up.
Zac Muir: [00:00:33] And you've got to stay hydrated, right? Absolutely. Back to fifth grade football practice water.
Zac Muir: [00:00:45] So we got short sessions, Jared. We got 30 minutes with you, man. And we're going to dove deep on on. Really, you've made it I mean, we've been working with you for a few months now and you've made a pretty big change in your business, but, you know, I would like maybe to kick this off to introduce you a little bit.
Zac Muir: [00:01:05] Tell us a little bit what is your business right now and what's your goal going into twenty, twenty one? What are you what are you hoping to do in this next year or 15 months?
Jared Johnson: [00:01:15] Yeah, so we kind of got some big goals based upon what we've done in the last six months using our systems and stuff.
Jared Johnson: [00:01:26] So right now we're about seventy six deals closed. GCI, we're a little over two million and we have a little bit about us as we have a development inside of our company and a real estate side. So my wife is a master at developing projects and so she brings in a lot of the house sales and stuff for us. And so we're kind of grateful to have those development projects going on.
Jared Johnson: [00:01:56] But in twenty, twenty one is where we picked up a lot of that or 20 one is where we picked up a lot of the momentum. And so my hope is our our goal is to do about two hundred to two hundred and fifty bills next year. We're going to dial down that down right now. But I'm hoping to hit about one hundred this year, this year.
Zac Muir: [00:02:19] So I know you have an amazing coach. Right, which is Debbie Ontari.
Jared Johnson: [00:02:23] Right. And super, super blessed.
Zac Muir: [00:02:28] Yeah, that's that's a good touch right there. You and I had a conversation a little while back about this. And the topic of the session right now is what what a team rebuild looks like. And sometimes you've got to slow down a little bit so that you can go faster. And with all the teams I've been working at, I've just happened to notice you guys have done an amazing job and you rebuild. And it's I mean, now you're just cruising. So maybe you can talk us through a little bit your conversation with Debbie and what that rebuild has looked like so far or why it started in the first place.
Jared Johnson: [00:02:58] Yeah, absolutely. So when we first started, I actually my my background, electrical engineering and I managed a field service team. So Western United States, I managed and my job was to do the manage the workflow on how customers called in through tech support when it was dispatched, how it was handled, how our paperwork was closed. And I the biggest thing that frustrated me was, is there was a system for everything. I mean, even in a big we're a fortune one hundred company, we had five different systems to do our job. And so when I finally took the leap and went into real estate, the one thing I wanted to kind of do that I didn't do so well at the beginning because I was so involved in, like, just getting the transactions is I got stuck in this hole where I realized I was in the same place as my corporate job where we had like five different systems not talking to each other. No one's making anything happen. And there was a lot of frustration within the team that I had. And when we decided to get on with Tom for coaching and we've always been with Tom, very coaching, but we decided to take the leap and do the team plus team plus allows not only to continue our coaching, but to give my teammates the same exact coaching that I get. And what ended up happening was, is when we started analyzing our team and going over our numbers and she read me like a book and said, Jared, the tail wagging the dog right now and it needs to stop.
Zac Muir: [00:04:41] I remember that exact line. I thought, yeah, yeah, I love it.
Jared Johnson: [00:04:47] And I had a hard time admitting that.
Jared Johnson: [00:04:50] But the reality was, is every single time a team member had a commission or everything, like I had team members on different commission splits and different negotiations and, you know, it was always like what's in it for me? And it kind of destroyed what I felt my worth of my team was and what I was providing to what I feel to bring members onto my team and know that I'm providing a package in an environment that's going to make them kick butt. And it really destroyed. And so you're right, like when Debbie told me that, she said, we're going to get through this, we're going to make it happen and it's going to be hard. But I mean, you guys have what it takes to make it happen. So we ended up. Making a big change and changing everybody.
Zac Muir: [00:05:45] So was that the hard part? Was it was it personnel changes? I mean, what were some of those hard things that you had to do?
Jared Johnson: [00:05:52] So some of the big I'm kind of a guy that I had a hard time. Accepting the fact that somebody could do it better than me or like I have a hard time letting go of like the marketing, the, you know, the the the training, the office management. And she's like, you need to hire an office manager now. So next week. Also, I mean, what I love about that is she's no nonsense, you know, we we've got 30 minutes of coaching that she jumps right in and she's like, I'm going to send you a bunch of a bunch of job descriptions and I want you to have this posted. And by next week, I hope we need to have some interviews talking about that.
Zac Muir: [00:06:40] I think the other thing that's hot about that is you feel like you're slowing down in the moment, right. The facts of the person and you got to train them on this, that and the other thing. And it's just the whole concept that you got to slow down a little bit fast again, right?
Jared Johnson: [00:06:54] Yeah. One hundred percent. But it was really good. I, I was so nervous about that. But once I hired the right office manager and took my time doing it, instead of just getting a referral from a family of saying my friends looking for an agent or something like that, it was and I actually went through the interview process like I would in the corporate world and, you know, really vetted those people. I mean, I've got somebody that I feel like I could work with for the rest of my career.
Zac Muir: [00:07:26] Nice.
Zac Muir: [00:07:27] Let's ask, was there anything in that in the interview process, any any questions maybe or things that you did that you think helped you vet and find the right person? Or was it just getting getting more interviews and talking to more people?
Jared Johnson: [00:07:42] So I did interview quite a bit. I did I did have a lot of questions asking.
Jared Johnson: [00:07:50] A lot of it was based upon their success and their drive, like what's driving them to be in real estate if they are such, you know, incredible people like that they're hired, that they're interviewing for office managers. Things kept popping in my head is why aren't they selling? Why aren't they? Because this is a salaried position, you know, with some bonuses and stuff. I mean, what's bringing people to do this versus get out there and sell 50 homes in a year and, you know, crushed that salary type of thing. So there was a lot of questions that came up about their drive and their ambitions and what they wanted to see and their future three years, five years, 10 years down the road. Like I, I want to see some I want to see them have some goals in their mind, whether they're personal or business. I think that's important to really read and see what somebody drive really is.
Zac Muir: [00:08:53] Yeah. Or you were you how worried are you about being real estate specific hire hiring in real estate versus looking at other other industries, other backgrounds?
Jared Johnson: [00:09:03] For me, I was pretty specific about that because I needed the extra help. I personally was managing a team, trying to build the team, and I was also handling about seven to ten transactions a month. And I needed somebody else to offload some of that burden quickly. And I felt if I could at least eliminate the knowledge of the real estate world, then I could get that training going faster.
Zac Muir: [00:09:40] Oh, cool, man, so so you get this office manager in place and that sounds like that was part of the core of your rebuild. What else happened from there? Was it just documenting and processing everything out or how did all of that go?
Jared Johnson: [00:09:57] Yeah. So after that, I mean, ah I mean the thing I like about that, it was a very structured rebuild on stuff. OK. Next thing you know, she even spent some time with my office manager says hire her.
Zac Muir: [00:10:12] She she was actually not the Debbie stamp of approval. I did not. Yeah, absolutely.
Jared Johnson: [00:10:18] And and so and that's that's what I love about the coaching and know just they really care about what we're doing. But actually we got that done. We probably spent a week, week and a half building our policies and procedures. What is our company look like? What do we want to see happen? What is our vision? Where what do we stand for? Like things that I never really, I guess, that were in my heart and like what I really wanted to see as a company, but I never put it down on paper. I never said this is what my company does and this is what we stand for and this is who we are. And so we built those policies and procedures, which I really took as a lot of busy work at the beginning. But I now I realize how important those are, especially to maintain a structure, to maintain that discipline with the agents, to maintain my expectations. Um, look, if you're going to be on this team, you can be very successful. But this is what's required to be here. Right. So it helped me to find the agents I wanted on my team.
Zac Muir: [00:11:30] Yeah. And so then taking that into recruiting, I mean, there was a question here. How many agents do you have? I think you mentioned at the beginning you're up to 13 agents now.
Jared Johnson: [00:11:40] Yeah, I just hired more than we had before. Yeah. I was actually only running about four agents before. OK, I just I was running ten for the last couple of months. I just hired three more and I've got one more coming on next week, so I'll have fourteen total by the end of October.
Zac Muir: [00:12:03] Very cool. Do you, what do you feel like has made I mean obviously maybe you're more focused on recruiting now or maybe it's just easier to recruit with some of these new things in place. But I mean, do you have any insight on that as far as how this has changed the way and how easily you recruit?
Jared Johnson: [00:12:20] Yeah, so, I mean, again, the recruiting I mean, I can't say enough about the what, you know, Debbie has done for us. But, you know, I built a couple Facebook mastermind groups. I started offering those specifically with Utah about, you know, having agents, you know, providing them with the help of, like, how to succeed and giving them a tip each week. And the followers just kept coming, kept coming and kept coming. And it's just like the recruiting got pretty easy, even to the point where I didn't actually say, hey, we're hiring. I just provided the value to the point where agents were coming to us asking if I was looking for team members.
Zac Muir: [00:13:11] Very cool. Yeah, that's that's awesome. Had a hear here what part of the country how big is metro area we are what, Salt Lake, your south Salt Lake or.
Jared Johnson: [00:13:23] Yeah, so. So we're based out of American Fork, Utah. Anybody that knows Utah is I mean, it all kind of 80 percent of the population lives within that Wasatch Front ball.
Jared Johnson: [00:13:35] And so we don't do a lot of the northern stuff. But Salt Lake and Utah County is where a lot of our transactions are very common.
Jared Johnson: [00:13:45] Everything else north we try to pass off to. Yeah. Yeah. You don't like us up north. That's right.
Jared Johnson: [00:13:52] It's just a long drive and somebody up there would be more effective and I would be. And so I, I am one hundred percent like it's not about like I got to take that job, I got to take that job if I know I have a good client that I want to take care of for the rest of their life as an investing in real estate or purchasing and selling their primary residence, I want to make sure they're taken care of.
Jared Johnson: [00:14:17] And I can't give them that, you know, give them that level of service that I feel like I need to give somebody. If I'm driving an hour and a half to sell my home, I'd rather do something. I don't even know the area enough to say this is my opinion on things. I'd rather give them to somebody that I know is going to take care of them and knows the area better than I do.
Zac Muir: [00:14:42] Yeah, so. OK, so switching gears a little bit here, part of what we talked about was you're going to come in, you're going to restructure your team, you're putting all these systems in place. Now, the system is a lot of times this is a tough line, because if you put all these crazy processes and systems in place, well, now everyone feels like they're it's slowing them down. Right. And you're talking salespeople that they're really their main focus is let's go get the next cell. So what are some things I wanted to talk systems a little bit. I want to talk about how you've maybe navigated that right. Not getting system fatigue, not getting process fatigue.
Jared Johnson: [00:15:21] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this is what I love the most, especially with the engineering background. I'm I'm an operator at heart.
Jared Johnson: [00:15:28] I love building. And so when I restructured the team, I know this was something I was looking into and I needed something. I had a good CRM. I had a CRM that I felt could take us for the next five years, 10 years down the road and see where technology takes us from there. But I felt like I had a good CRM in place. But the problem I started facing was, is and this goes back to my career as a Western service manager is I didn't want to keep going from one system to another system. And I saw that very notoriously within the real estate market when I got here, that everybody was looking for the next thing that was going to make their life easier. But the problem is, is they'd have like five to seven of these new systems piling up so the bills pile up and then the system fatigue piles up. And so that's when when we started using Sisu. I mean, from an analytical standpoint, I was like, holy cow, this is like I'll no longer have to ask what Debbie says.
Jared Johnson: [00:16:46] What are your numbers or what are your what are your goals like? I'll never have to dig for that or prepare myself any more. Before I was like, I'd have to like really prepare and get those numbers down and watch Sisu. It's just boom. Everything is right there for me. It's right there for her. And then when you guys launch the transaction beta stuff, I was all over that. Me and my office manager spent a good two weeks building out our checklist. I actually remember working organized and yeah, we built out our our training manuals that included, you know, training with Sisu and stuff. And we sent it to you for feedback. And I really loved, you know, like how Sisu was able to kind of not only encompass a lot of the things that came with analyzing our business, analyzing our lead Pillar's tracking our lead track and just all the way from the track and from the conversations to what lead killers are producing, what and where should we be spending more of our time? And then to add the transaction, coordinating on to that which it has been a build out. But as I know, and it was a beta and it's getting better and better. And I mean, it's just amazing because it all just sinks and flows together like, yeah, process is very, very simple.
Jared Johnson: [00:18:12] We're getting questions about CRM too. And I think I think that's a big part of it because. Yeah, you know, for a lot of people on here don't know what Sisu is, a lot of transaction management. It's a lot of numbers tracking. But the the actions actually for you, you're right. It's interactive. Right. And maybe you could walk into how those two kind of work together.
Jared Johnson: [00:18:32] Yeah. So when we use the interactive tags are very important to us. That's how we search clients. That's how we track clients. So we tag on when we've been tagging them before we even met Sisu and it all just kind of meshed together when it was a conversation has been set, conversations been met by our broker has been signed like all those tags.
Jared Johnson: [00:18:58] I mean, I need to know where my clients are, what my agents are doing, and I need to know that at a glance, if I'm going to manage them and lead them properly and we're going to be successful as a team and they're coming to me for the accountability and for the expertize. And if I can't have that at my disposal to help them and manage and kind of guide them in a direction, then I'm not really helping them succeed. And so, yeah, the Sisu is Sisu has definitely been able to help me not only integrate and that's what I see are interactive. Definitely, you know, it was just speaking the same. Language like, hey, we're tracking these things off of tags, we're getting that data from one system and then transferring it over to the other system. And so it all just works like seamlessly. One of the biggest things for me when I analyzed, like, OK, here's my team. Here's what we're doing is how does one are the pain points just like we would do with a client. Right. One of the pain points and how can I take those pain points or lessen them or soften them or take them away from my clients to make their own buying experience better? I use that same concept with my agents, what their pain points, what are they hate doing, what's bringing them stress? What's going to make them a happy region? So most agents hate paperwork from what I gather together, because they're very cels personality can be very artistic and have a lot of a structure is very daunting to them. So if I can take that paperwork off their hand, if I can provide them a structure like, look, all you have to do is simply give me that recipe, put it in the Sisu, send it off to the manager and see, boom, you're done from there. All you have to do is now is nurture and maintain your client's happiness.
Jared Johnson: [00:21:04] And we'll take care of the contract to close and all the way from. And so when that couples will see with your interactive, it kind of just flows right through Sierra from the from the nurture process. And then once it gets under to the under contract, that's usually where the CRM is kind of, you know, take a back seat in a sense. And but it just carried the process carried right into Sisu seamlessly. And so my clients have an experience and so do my agents from contract to close with the transaction.
Zac Muir: [00:21:48] I love it, I think. One of the big things when we're talking about this, this topic, which is how do you systematize without hurting productivity? Right. If you can go to your agents and say, look, there's this one thing that needs to happen and that. Yeah, Nancy Cierra interactive job, that is the CRM. So Gerardus, this year interactive and when you can tell your agent Cierra or whatever CRM it is, hey, when you set an appointment, there's this one tag that you got to add. That's the thing that you do when this lead gets from this stage to the next. Right. And the more that that can happen, the CRM usually the better, because salespeople, that's where their leads are. That's where they're calling out. That's where they make business happen. And so if it can be, hey, do this one thing in our interactive or whatever CRM you're using, that's how I'm going to hold you accountable. That's how we're going to kick off this process in that process. That's powerful. Right? And now you're speaking a salesperson language. And I just do this one thing. And I know in your case you've got these leaderboards to that show when you do those things. So it came off as a little bit so that it does.
Jared Johnson: [00:22:57] And we love turning it into a competition in a fun environment, because if it's not in the suit and if it's not in your interactive, it doesn't exist, that type of thing. And if you want us to be doing your transaction work and you want us to be keeping that paperwork on task and keeping everybody communicated with, if you don't put it in the Sierra, then I don't know how I can help you do anything. So we really push that's one of my own requirements, is you have to use the systems if you don't use them. I don't know how to help you because you're the expert when it comes to the sales and converting the clients. If you're looking for my help on the transaction side and the leadership side and the coaching side, you know, we do a lot of that comes through data and I don't and being able to talk to you from an accountability standpoint and these are our goals. This is how many conversations you made. This is how many appointments you went on. I mean, if that's not happening, then it's hard for me to really narrow down how to make you successful as an agent.
Zac Muir: [00:24:12] Yeah, I love it, man. So this is this is all good stuff. I think a lot of people listening building teams, and there's always moments for you in any business moments where you've got to pivot, you've got to make changes and you've got to revamp processes. Right.
Jared Johnson: [00:24:29] So that happened for us. In twenty twenty, a business plan was done and we were ready to rock January and come into February. And next thing you know, Tom Petty is talking to us and saying, throw out your business plans. We're kissing on ninety days at a time right now. Yeah. And you have to be able to pivot. And that was so important. And I think a lot of our successes here is being able to, you know, throw out the business plan and reevaluate, evaluate what's happening and how we can serve the communities.
Zac Muir: [00:25:08] Yeah, I love it, man. Well, anything else you want to throw in there? Any any fun facts about a rebuilt business, maybe something you're excited about going into twenty, twenty one before we let you go.
Jared Johnson: [00:25:20] Yeah. So and I know it's something, please feel free to follow us and stuff, but we just purchased our first. It's actually kind of funny as I am a team within a brokerage and I just purchased a 5000 square foot building that we are making it very fun, sexy place to like its glass, which is a very nice looking, but I've got some really cool things that we're doing in that office. And I actually hired one of the best graffiti artist in the world painting the side of the building. I said, I don't care what you do. I just wanted to be tasteful and I want it to be a landmark. And you talk to me. And so I'm really excited to document that process and stuff. So if you guys like creative things like that, it's kind of unique about us as I am. And I love art. I love things like graffiti and things like that that really kind of bring attention to things. So I just really thing about me and what we got going on.
Zac Muir: [00:26:24] So it gives you it gives you a little style points on your recruiting tool. Right.
Jared Johnson: [00:26:29] I think that if you're ever in Utah. Yeah, we'll go snowboarding or mountain biking or boating, depending on the season I'm all about. I do some work and play at the same time.
Zac Muir: [00:26:39] Yeah, I love it, of course. So to recap here. Last year, obviously, everything goes haywire, you start going through this rebuild, you're at four agents, Debbie, your Tom Ferry coach, who's amazing, says look at the what she said at the tail wagging the dog here.
Jared Johnson: [00:26:59] We've got to make tails wagging the dog.
Zac Muir: [00:27:04] You go through this rebuild process, you slow down so that you can go fast. You start putting all these processes. And for you, it was sheer interactive Sisu a lot of automation happening between those that you have these amazing processes, but you're able to avoid a little bit of the system fatigue that that can happen in the process, fatigue that can happen now. You're building a super cool office.
Jared Johnson: [00:27:27] So excited for everything. I'm excited for twenty twenty one for sure.
Zac Muir: [00:27:33] Yeah. It's going to be a good one. We'll cool it. Jared, I think we're able to cover a lot here in those thirty minutes. We got our next speaker coming on. So thanks for thanks for joining us. And it was a pleasure. Yeah. And everything you've been great to work with. So we'll be in touch. I'm going to let you off here. I'm gonna bring Brandon on, OK. Thank you, Messager.