How to Understand People Better Through Understanding Yourself First with Jon Cheplak
What is the single most important factor to a real estate business’ growth? Is it having the best leads? Or having the best sales managers on the planet? How about having the most amazing systems and tech?
While having all these would be great, none of them would matter if you don’t have people. That is why focusing on human resource, human development, and human attraction is crucial for scaling a real estate business.
Brian Charlesworth joins Jon Cheplak, Real Estate Broker/Agent Speaker, Coach and Consultant at Cheplak Live and CEO of The Real Recruiter as Jon shares how he discovered that his superpower is understanding human behavior and what it takes to be a true leader.
Top Takeaways:
05:21 The 2 types of operators
08:45 Jon’s mission statement
14:12 The difference between Jon’s coaching organization, Agent Academy, and Cheplak Live
14:46 The good thing about anxiety
21:31 The value of giving
23:29 Why you don’t want to recruit based on your company’s culture
26:12 What Sisu is empowering team leaders to do.
29:42 How to overcome the challenge of getting yourself out of production
30:45 Why you should get into rooms where you don’t belong
34:03 The worst question to ask the person you look up to
34:34 What does “trust equals capacity” and “control equals fear” mean?
35:35 Why understanding must come from the heart
38:33 What should real estate business owners do to prepare for the impact of high inflation rates?
43:51 Why leaders should change their interview process
46:07 Why the future of the traditional brokerage is in trouble
49:58 Jon’s final piece of advice
Get in touch with Jon Cheplak
Website: https://cheplaklive.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joncheplak
About the guest:
After many years of success in his real estate sales and leadership career, Jon had a vision to change the real estate industry. He observed managers were thrown into a leadership position without proper training. The few training that existed then never focused on the growth of the leader as a human being and discovered what got in the way of their success.
Through his own growth process, Jon realized that growth has to come from the inside. Managers need to develop skills, but without doing the work on the inside first, results will fail to show on the outside.
This was when The Real Estate Recruiters was born. It is a company designed to serve, lead, and inspire leaders that want to have a positive life experience in the real estate industry and transfer that experience to their agents.
For the last 12 years, Jon Cheplak has served as a speaker, coach, and strategic leadership consultant to CEO’s, managers, and agents who are operating a highly successful real estate business throughout the US, Canada and Europe.
He is also an author in numerous publications including Real Estate South Africa, REM Online, CRB Magazine, Brokers Insider, Real Estate Professional, Realty Times, Frogpond, and author of the book Interrupt The Pattern.
Podcast Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 0:35
All right. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the Grit Podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth, the founder of Sisu, and the host of the show. And today, I'm really excited. This is our 100 and first show, John, so was 100. Yeah, so yeah, you're following Spring.
Jon Cheplak 0:54
Cool.
Brian Charlesworth 0:55
So anyway, super excited today, you guys to have Jon Cheplak on the zoom with us and on the show. And John, I don't know what it is out there. But like I hear about you everywhere now. So I don't know what it is you're doing to make a splash in this industry. But I want to learn more about it. So John is the CEO of The Real Recruiter, and I think you have a bunch of businesses right now, John, so we're going to learn more about that today. But anyway, welcome to the show.
Jon Cheplak 1:24
Awesome, it is totally a privilege, great respect for the work that you do. And I get to hear about it all the time from my clients. So thank you.
Brian Charlesworth 1:35
Yeah, yeah, we're super passionate about this industry, as I know you are and that's it's fun, that just that passion can connect people like so. So anyway, Jon, tell me what's up. Maybe we can just start by just hearing about, like, why are you making such a splash in this industry today? Like, what's going on with you?
Jon Cheplak 1:56
Well, you know, I woke up in 2002, so 20 years ago, and it was an overnight success as they all are.
Brian Charlesworth 2:05
Yeah, right.
Jon Cheplak 2:07
I think that, you know, two things that I would say is, my goodness, it's been just getting crystal clear many, many years ago, on my path, and really staying away from distractions, and knowing what my superpower is, and knowing where my superpowers are not. And that simple thing of consistency. You know, I had a couple of zooms into some teams today and, and said, you know, sorry, I'm the guy that's the guru and you know, the guru is going to tell you be consistent, I think it's that I come from an actual space of in the trenches, and had to support my family chose to support my family based on what I'm coaching as a real estate agent, as a branch manager and as an executive. And just over time, really fortunate icing, in the end, is with the consistency and bringing practical and applied principles, processes, strategies, and tactics and not really chasing the next magic bullet, people trusting in me and giving me an opportunity. And when those all converge and come together. Things work out pretty good. So that's, that's all I can call it. Nothing.
Brian Charlesworth 3:25
Yeah, no, I think it's great. I mean, you said it best, you know, yeah, just this 20 year, overnight success. I think everyone thinks it's just instant, right? They don't see. They'll see the Grit and the grind that's going on for the 20 years behind the scenes. You remind me a little bit of some of the things I saw on your website, you remind me a little bit of Tim Grover, you know who that is? Yeah, you bet wrote the book winning, relentless. But, Tim, you know, he calls it a hard ass. I don't know what you want to call it. But he's, you know, he's like, you know, what, don't hire me. If this is what you want, and I saw on your site, you're like, Hey, don't hire me. For these three things. Let's talk about that. I mean, I love that approach. Because you just like honest, like, if you're not going to do the work, I'm not your fit. Right,
Jon Cheplak 4:14
Right. Well, I think that you know, when I look at my background, before I got into real estate, I was a bouncer at a nightclub and a janitor. And I realized that fighting and cleaning toilets really didn't have this inspiring career ahead of me, so no need to have a massive education. What I did know is that I needed to constantly educate myself. And so as I educated myself, I came to understand the business and taking action in the business. But then I ran into a mentor in 2000. And at that point in time in my career, what he shared with me as he said, I want you to throw away all of your, your real estate knowledge. I mean, it's never gonna go away, but I want you to stay in the space of human behavior and principles. He says, because if you can really come thunder and human behavior, the only way you can undercome to understand it is to understand yourself better. You know, so continuing to grow, you know, we talk a lot about personal development, self-help, but really going to our deepest of waters. And he challenged me on that. And then he challenged me on principles, you know, the one thing he taught me was operate, you know, there are two types of, well, there are two types of operators only one is a true leader. And the true leader is the one that operates from principles. And you may learn a strategy, you may learn a tactic, but if you come back to principles, which are for lack of better words are black or white, I mean, this is a principle I let go of the pen, it's going to drop if you're constant, then you're gonna win. And so then he taught me some, some values along with that, you know, we've heard about what your mission statement, what are your principles? What are your values, and a lot of people, you know, this well, it's up on the wall, and no one even remembers what it says, and it's college words. But the one thing that that that he taught me was to show up as you show up, as you, he said, You know, so much of marketing today takes us away from who we are and he said, you know, the one thing that we all want more permission of is just being ourself and more and more and more and so, so for me, it was really, really simple to okay, I can be myself it's a lot of work, it's already a lot of work as it isn't stay in that spot. So So for me, it was learning those principles, learning the principle that he taught me have moved towards me towards conflict resolution before it comes drama well to, to move towards conflict, you have to be straight up with people. You can't operate while I like, Brian, so I'm going to just kind of not maybe go there. I think it was also part of not being burned. I don't think we'd been burned. I mean, you're where you're at with mistakes that were classrooms, I would guarantee, right? Yes, for sure. So most I look at it as being burned. But learning that every time that I like wasn't just piercing and crystal clear with people, and detached from how they choose to feel about it, as long as it was aligned with principles I believed in. I think that was my greatest freedom multiplier in the business. And the second part of that was it's the way that fortunately, my avatar I chose an avatar, a customer, ideal customer was in the top 1%. And you know, this, it's, I mean, certainly your business is broader scope. But I would I will guarantee the one-percenters are honed in on what you provide big time to be able to scale these businesses, and they want the truth. And so I've just paid attention to you know, that's what people want. They want the truth. And, and it's really easy to do that.
Brian Charlesworth 7:56
Yeah. I mean, just one thing you said that stands out for me is, I mean, it's being in I think so many people live in the past or maybe in the future, but being in the present. Right. I see you, I see you on stage, I think you do a phenomenal job of that. And you're just in the present. So anyway, I love that about you. So you're partnering right now? Well, I know with Dan beer, you just brought in Bill pipes made a big splash. What's going on? Like, what are you doing here behind the scenes, right? Like, what is your vision? What is your vision of where this is all going? And what excites you?
Jon Cheplak 8:40
Yeah, this is good. Because you know, the neat thing about is it comes down to a foundation, you know, and I share with people my mission statement, my mission statement is to serve leave, inspire people to want to have a positive life experience as a result of the real estate business. And one thing I'd share with anyone if you're hearing this, and you know, people said what's, you know, you got to go to this classroom to learn the mission statement, it goes, you know, to sit in a yoga stands for 10 hours on a rock to get your mission statement or whatever, just make sure it serves the greater good. That's been my mission. And so a couple of things, even my clients and some of my coaches that work for me, well, what's going on? I'm kind of confused and, you know, as visionaries are, we get way out in front and then backfill, right? Hey, y'all understand what I'm doing? Here's, here's what I'm doing staying in that mission. And then one of my emerging values is, is abundance. It's talked about a lot. And so it's kind of interesting, because I've got my chip black live coaching business, which is me coaching, yeah, speaking for my coaches. And then wait a minute, you're over here and this agent Academy thing, and then you got a coaching business over there. Gosh, doesn't that dilute your brand? And I'm just really not that smart. I just watch people that are, you know, good artists cheap. These are the little things I hold on to good artists, cheap, great artists copy, you know, and share with everyone you know, yes, there are a lot of cliches in quotes. to go around, but go a little deeper with them and see how can that apply? Well, let's see how many hotel brands does Hilton have? How many coaches trainers, and I listen, I coach other coaches right now, confidentially. And I say it humbly, I appreciate it confidential and respect that back for them with other big coaching companies, right? Because just there are no secrets. But it's like, we're all in the same business of widening our funnel. And why don't we widen our funnel for money? Now, we do it to impact more people. And if we stay in that, that vision of impacting more people, the money multiplies. And so so with that mission statement, what I knew and I went back to what my mentor taught me, he says, your job every day, is to replace yourself. If you want to make it as an executive here at Phuket, Nevada, Texas, you need to hire regional managers that make you afraid, they'll take your job that have so much talent that you want to hide them from me that you want to tell them bad things about our company, right? So they don't even come join us. And so I listened. And I did that. Well, I'm just duplicating a couple things. What he taught me there that worked really, really well. We did 15 startup offices acquisitions total, I think in a two year timeframe grew the organization exponentially. And I was just a 30 to 33-year-old kid and that was really a vehicle for me to really step out into this coaching space. Well, then I looked at the, you know, the hotels, and I think, goodness, I think hertz and Avis or some of these rental car companies. Yeah, they're, they're multiple brands, but it's one company. And then I took a look at and said, what he one thing he taught me says Your job is to replace yourself on a daily basis, your job is to raise the IQ of the organization every single day. That's how you grow a business. So as you bring these people in, and so I looked at how can I do more? Look at Dan beer, who's been a client you know, for years, but a great operator like you really just And could that compliment me? Um yeah, I was an operator I was a GM of our multiple offices and the silos the recruiting the training the technology to human resource relocation. But with that said, my my superpower is human behavior and growing the human beings, and moving people into productivity. I've done all those but then there's Dan that can complement that and then staying in this what I share with people this might be the woowoo part of the interview. But but if you're really true to you know if you can see it first and then do it I knew there was a whole damn trains his agents really well he does roleplay skill practice in his office with his team. I've done I've zoom into some of the top teams in the world Bill asked me by default Hey, listen, you can do sales training but it was excellent it was excellence like I want well, then a bill pipe shows up so here's what I'd say is on a couple of things here is that's what we're doing. We want to serve people so that when you see a bill pipes, a bill pipes could pull someone into an organization and people that have this massive mission that may not come in and get an experience of me. Maybe it's perception that can hold them back because as you said, some people who checkbox rough on the edges, right. A Danby beer can open some gateways. And so, we are delivering right now what we feel is the top-level training playbooks in the areas of operating growing a team or a brokerage, super high level, but then NOW with Bill, we're able to apply pressure in sales strategies and tactics and we're just going to continue to go forward and serve lead inspire people through that path. That's what we got going right now. And it can change by the moment.
Brian Charlesworth 14:08
Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. I love it. So tell us the difference between your coaching organization, your agent Academy and then Cheplak live?
Jon Cheplak 14:17
Yeah, all right. So Cheplak Live is my brand my business and so what I've got there is I've got Cheplak Elite Inner Circle, and those are my one on ones consist of, Well, number one in the world, the eXp transactions, number one eXp in the world GCI and it's not that the I'm wonderful. I mean, every day I look up as a matter of fact, and I'll share with you all to guess what I have anxiety at the moment that I don't wake up and listen for. I don't call the spring it's like, okay, all right. I have anxiety, every call I have anxiety if you don't have anxiety before every sales meeting. If you don't have anxiety, healthy anxiety, before every appointment, everything that you do, then you need to quit because it's not important to you. It's not important enough and you're not reaching enough B Because expectations aren't high enough. So I don't want to one coaching with an elite group of about 80 to 100. People say it's insane. Well, I don't know how insane it is to be able to talk to 100 of the best operators in the world, we have eight of the top for the top five REMAX teams in the world. My group that I coach one on one average is about 450 million sales volume. So it's teams, team leaders, broker-owners, and managers upwards to some with 3000 transactions a year. Then what I did finally, in expanding this, I took Jeff black select, which is still all under the jet black life brand. And I grabbed the only coaches that I will hire in my jet black select coaching are people that coach with me one on one. And so that's just I'm really just keeping it at that level. And so that's my Cheplak one-on-one coaching. My coaches are Cheplak Live is with me. And so that's how that operates. And then I do a couple events myself a year, and in my events that I do under that brand are putting them across the stage for two days. And I don't know, I think a lot of people like watch at average, half a billion-dollar, you know, performers go across the states, then agent Academy has very, very similar coaching environment for with team leaders. But these aren't people that typically coach one on one with me, we do have one, I think or two. But then we've also got a so that's our Platinum coach. And then we have an accelerator coaching, that's for more of the up and coming. You know, you gotta be doing 1,000,020 million, a minimum 20 million. So there's a coaching program there. We've got training for all the business silos up in agent Academy, really at a platinum level, but often come in, we do the ISA playbook. We do the operations playbook, we do the sales manager manifesto. And then we do recruiting and leadership event. Then when we go into the sales environment of it, we just with Bill now, which we're so grateful to have onboard with us. We've got a sales velocity 12 week program that we'll be launching. Well, this is the first it's going out there in public. So here we go.
Brian Charlesworth 17:17
All right, big announcement, guys. Yeah.
Jon Cheplak 17:21
We will be doing a three-day sales mastery live in-person course. So it'll be for individual agents or teams to bring their people in, and then Bill will have coaching under that. So that's the two businesses and the really neat thing. You know, people say, Well, geez, Louise, John, but what about you know, I mean, you look at partnerships, and you look at, well, what if someone wants to coach here, coach there? You know, it's pretty neat. You know, Dan, and I have been friends for four years. And I want to share this with people because I think it's important because it's the behind-the-scenes stuff is there are challenges with where that person comes from where this person comes from, and where you know, this. That and I have only argued about money once? Well, we've probably argued about it 10 or 12 times. But the one thing is, you know, on that deal, your people did more. So I'm gonna go outside the partnership agreement, and you're gonna get more on that one. Yeah, those are, you know, those are arguments, right? Dan's Dan's. Certainly, in the EXP brand, very, you know, all of our training is brand agnostic, we got all come in every brand in the room in Nashville. But we did an eXp event last July. And we have our financial relationship in the business agreement. And I said, you know, you're getting this much more. Why? Because that was your audience, you will know, I don't know, discussions over. Because my person over here does the accounting. I'm gonna tell you some ladies and gentlemen if you don't count someone else's money, my mother taught me that doesn't count other people's money. Count the lives you impact. And I'm gonna tell you something. I'm not saying being naive, but just really, if you focus on the mission, the purpose of more than you ever could have imagined.
Brian Charlesworth 19:15
As I listened to you talk about that, John, I think I just think abundance mentality, you know, so many people live in scarcity. And if you can shift that to abundance, it changes your world.
Jon Cheplak 19:29
Well, it does even you know, I watched Dan do it and he didn't have to do it. But if anyone were to reach out to him say, can I see your p&l? Yeah. Just like that. Like he put it up on and he didn't promise that. I mean, he didn't do the operations playbook. There is his real-time profit and loss statement every day. And it's like what happens is, you become a vacuum. You know, people call it a magnet. No, I call it a vacuum. When you open yourself up like that. It's just wow. It's like take down this wall versus we put this well, I'll show you this year. I'll show you that. It's. But I hope if anything, I mean, I hope there are a few things in our discussion that people get that if you can capture that, listen, there are no secrets live on Wall Street. Isn't there? aren't their earnings public? You guys
Brian Charlesworth 20:25
You have to be right. Right?
Jon Cheplak 20:28
Is that bananas? But mine is a secret? Because I'm superstar real estate team.
Brian Charlesworth 20:34
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The one thing, the one thing I find that I really love about this industry, though, people, especially since I got into it about seven years ago, people are more and more and more willing to share, because, because I think everybody knows, like, it's one thing to know, and to hear what to do. But it's another thing to execute. And like, I mean, I see spring share with people in our market, right? This is what you need to do to grow your business. Are they going to execute? You know, hopefully, they do. But anyway, the fact that you're willing to open up and share I just think, you know, that's, that's what's going to drive your world forward as well.
Jon Cheplak 21:17
So that's a good old principle, though, too. And it's a cliche, but it's, you know, it's not cliche, if you put it into action and strive for it. And by no means is it perfection, here I'm striving, and my goodness, what do I have to live for, if I've got it all figured out, but you know, to keep what I have, that that is good in my life, I've got to give it away. And to get more of what I have in my life, I've got to give it away and give it to other people.
Brian Charlesworth 21:42
That's a great principle. So, John, you just had an event in Nashville. What was this event? Tell us about this event?
Jon Cheplak 21:52
Sure. It's the recruiting I call it really my flagship in my wheelhouse is the Recruiting, Sales Management and Leadership playbook. And so, you know, I probably, I always apologize to people. Because, you know, you just want to over-deliver, I pack in probably a week in two days. But the whole foundation of it is the foundation of what really allowed me to be successful. As a leader because of the mentors that all came before me. Sure. I had to seek the knowledge and I had to do the work but I listened. And the bottom line is, it's based on that we are not in the real estate business, we are on the human resource, human development, human attraction, business, end of discussion. It's based on the fact that you're amazing software that my clients rave about the industry raves about, who cares? If you don't have people, you got the best sales manager on the planet, the best leads my leads are unicorn leads. Who cares? If you don't have the people? So but we've tried, we've tried, I mean, that's my focus. I we've all three of those in recruiting, sales, management, and then leadership. And so we take people through the, a big part of it, you know, is breaking some myths that are out there? Because I think they're old school teaching things of recruit to your culture. I mean, there's just some little things that people teach that are so backwards, recruit to your culture. Okay. And you've probably heard someone say that before. Well, wait a minute, let's do an inventory of your culture. Tell me everything that's wrong with it. And now ask me, you know, do we want to recruit to that? No, we want to recruit to a subculture. So getting that mindset shift, because to grow, you have to constantly be evolving your subculture, to move people, especially independent contractors, that is, basically you're in the cat-herding business when you lead independent contractors left to come with top-down leadership with them, good luck. You've got to evolve it from the bottom up. And the best way to change standards is to bring you've got 40 people that aren't acting the way you want to great, bring in 20 with a different standard, you've changed the environment by 50%. And I'll guarantee you they'll shift because this group of 20 will start outperforming them. So it's it's dispelling some myths, but with true facts behind it, because I did it as a leader and then many of my clients are they're doing it so it's supporting people to know that, you know, doing the simple math in understanding that, you know, recruiting is an inside out job, getting people to understand just some of my basic most basic principles that you can't make someone productive. You can only facilitate a condition for To choose to be productive, right, which are flips, but yet they're selling to people on that. And then, you know, and just going to some quick silence to than the other part is, is really the basis of it's easy to get people, I think it's easier to get people to tougher to keep them understanding that money doesn't keep people. It's deeply psychological and emotional bonds that come to a community that comes to belonging, that come to actually what most leaders are afraid of asking someone to volunteer and contribute without compensation. Yeah. So that's, that's kind of the overview of what it is. And then and then we, you know, we take there's a lot of art in this, though, you know, this, you run an organization, I mean, the artists, the human beings, the science, certainly we understand that. So it's really what I think I'm most proud of it is, is dovetailing the art and the science of this business together so that leaders can feel armed because I think what I've learned is they're willing, you know, you're, you have a solution for the challenges that they have with human beings. Right? Really, right.
Brian Charlesworth 26:12
I mean, I mean, the three things you just mentioned, recruiting, sales management, leadership, those are the three things that I mean, by streamlining and automating their business. That's what we are empowering these team leaders to do
Yeah, our alignment is 100%. I mean, we see things the same way. One of the things you have experienced Jon, maybe a little bit of your background, people don't know. But my understanding is you've run brokerages, you've run regions. And as I look at these team leaders, like coming from that background, you know how important individuals are right, adding the human capital to your organization. A lot of team leaders, I think are afraid to add to get beyond the 10, the 15, and then the 30, and then the 50. And they can't even comprehend 100 agents in their organization, you know, it's like, it's gonna be so much work, and they don't, they don't understand that it's not right if you have the systems in place. So what are your thoughts around that? Because I see that with team leaders all the time. And I mean, we have 2800 teams on our platform now. And it's just, you know, I see it all the time.
Jon Cheplak 27:37
You gotta view behind the curtain more than I do with that. You know, it's a lot of things and what a really, really great question, because I think it'll really help people. Some people quite frankly, and I don't know, I might get kicked out I know I won't she's great. You know, we're so similar my significant other real estate PTSD didn't happen. Yeah, well can go and she dealt with that for up until two years ago. Nice thing with her kiss her off she will outperform all eight of the people that were on her team the next year. And she did you know, I did springs probably that same mentality too. Right. Okay, fine. But that there's a lot of it is and I don't know if you've seen is a lot of it's a traumatic experience they've had in growing the team. Yep. They, you know, she was number one or number two team in the state for years for REMAX. And one day at all, like everyone, Dawn, like in so so part of is that some people, many never get over that. That's one. Number two, you'll have people that'll build to that eight, 910 1112 1314 15, whatever, maybe, but they'll have heard about that story. So they're just kind of doing they're doing this one and but how they do this one is they go, but I'm gonna keep knocking off a half a million bucks selling some houses. So I'm safe. So So I think that's a really, really big one. That the second now Now watch this. I'll go a little bit deeper with it in it is you'll see a lot of impostor syndrome. Unbelievable. Yes. Right. It's like, I'm not that I'm just because you want to do I'm there. I'm just a real estate agent. They judge themselves. And they don't
Brian Charlesworth 29:35
How do they shift in their mindset from being a real estate agent to a business owner? And that's, that's the what I see. The biggest challenge too is how do they get themselves out of production? Because so many, so many have not been able to figure that one out.
Jon Cheplak 29:49
Right? Where I go for two minutes. It's a simple principle. When I'm looking at that work because I'll have people that have come to me I've been stuck. I've been sitting here forever. There are two parts to it. Number one, because here's the other thing though, but you've got to step through that doorway fear, go get in the room, and there's plenty of them. This isn't about my room, go get in a room where you know, you don't belong. And here's what I mean. Because I did that, too. I remember paying 40 50,000 wiring money into this mastermind only met twice a year. And when I came in here to introduce yourself, and there are only 50 people in the room, and they said, so tell us about you. I said I'm the best damn salesman on the planet. And they're like, You egomaniac, and there are nine-digit revenue people in there. Right? This is what he means, because I sold your asses on letting this kid in the room. And they laughed. Yeah, so my point being is I get the privilege of being here today. Because I walked into rooms where, where I didn't belong, they would say you do belong. That's somebody. Great. That's number one. And listen, I'd endorse any coaching company. Just if if you've got a relationship with a coach a couple, you know, someone's gonna jump into their room that you feel you do not belong, because here's what's gonna happen. What you have talking to that agent is, is you need to see that the person that's doing it is no different than you. You need to see that the person that is doing this massive, massive numbers, like has the same problems that you do. You need to see that all this stuff that you see out there. Oh, my goodness, it's a mess back there just like me. So I think that's where we, you know, we talk about everything has its duality, get in the rooms with smart people yell, get smarter. Get in the rooms, like my mentors said to me, you had a 5000 aged companies just pay more attention to what I don't do, right? Yeah, notice those things, because I want you to see that I've been able to do this, but I screw up along the way. And it's okay. So so that's number one. Get in those rooms. But most importantly, I want you to look at not from a place of judgment, but from a place of relatability oh my gosh, they're not that different than me. They just took the next right action step. Now going, going deeper with it. I think that, here's the thing to look at. It's very interesting. It's been it's like my mentor or said to me is when I came into I went from having 100 agents in a real estate office to 100 offices with our trademark license companies own companies. It's like a hello scared is to go to the next level your studies, your commitment needs to be inside, not out, I will tell you this, like my leaders that have been stuck, or were stuck. I didn't give them real estate knowledge. Think about this, ladies and gentlemen, when you're at that point, and you got 789 people, even five people, you know, you probably know how to sell real estate. And you probably know how to sell a lot of it. But now what you're looking at is how do I interact and understand human beings? Well, you've got to study that stuff. Like for example, my clients, Dan beer, you know, most people would hear this and he said it on stage at the operations playbook. We're doing that. My number one business leadership book is the heart of the soul by Gary Zhukov. People like what? Well, because you're moving humans, here's the thing, I want you to get you guys, because what you're probably getting caught up in is, and not is, oh my gosh, more transactions. You know, how do I handle all of that, but you're also thinking more people, the only way you can handle more people is to understand people better. And the first person you need to understand is yourself. I promise you, that's the breakthrough. You need to talk to the people that are where you're where you want to be and start. And here's my other kicker for y'all. Is this, how to get through it. Stop asking and what did you do to get there? It's the worst question on the planet. Ask them to please tell you every challenge they had to overcome personally and professionally to get there. And if you pay really close attention, if you look at whether it's the internet marketers respect or the internet marketers that are kind of douchey but pay attention to one thing they do, they all share that struggle. And what that struggle will do for us it will be a gateway. So but here's what I would say is real simple principles that I give to someone to overcome that. Trust equals capacity. That there's a couple of things and control equals fear. Those two have I have my silver bullet magic pills when I'm working with a leader. Trust equals capacity. Right now you don't have capacity because you don't trust it. Now, this is where it gets even worse. You know, the problem is when you don't trust others that means you don't trust yourself. So now we're going to go deeper there. So that's just some thought provoking stuff for people to look at. And then when you're trying to control people everywhere you're controlling people is fear. And so what you're doing is you're actually the ceiling. But my simplest one is everything that you can do to work on your interpersonal. I mean, listen, you can go read scale up, you can go get rocket fuel, you can go on Eos, it all is awesome. But you'll still be paralyzed if you don't go here. And start here in understanding what in your heart because the heart chooses, the mind justifies get out of your head, if you want to lead. That's the thing your cap is here, the heart sends more messages. A lot of people don't know this, the heart sends more messages to the brain than the brain does to the heart. And think about this, folks, if you really want to grow and because people will ask, and they'll say, like people even ask, tell me about CHIP likes coaching. And they'll say, Well, it's hard to explain, because it's not.to dot, because human beings are.to dot, but a lot of people don't understand. And really, if they can hold on to this one, it'll help them really get a control, not control, but a better understanding of self than to lead others. You know, ladies and gentlemen, think about this. When you go on stage, if you get nervous, or if you're on a ledge or your, your body reacts and your palms get sweaty, if I'm watching a TV show, and sit or a movie and someone's on a ledge, my hands get sweaty, well, watch this you guys, what happened before that your heartbeat started going fast. And your heart sends messages. It keeps hormones in the heart to keep it in rhythm. So the brain doesn't function. I mean, it's weird stuff. But I don't know, man. I would focus there, we're winning.
Brian Charlesworth 36:48
You know, about 15 years ago, I had a life coach, business coach that helped me understand I was living here and not here. And like, major breakthrough to, to get through that.
Jon Cheplak 37:02
I have something you don't just go to 2800 freaking users teams. I mean, the point zero 1% of our industry here, I'm sorry, you can't endure. And so you see it right here. You and we all know it. The heart chooses the mind justifies your in your head, so you're not able to choose?
Brian Charlesworth 37:23
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, another important thing you said, John, I mean, it's it applies to me, I'm always saying, Okay, this is where my company is today. This is the vision I have, right? It's up here, it's changing this industry forever. Who do I need to be as a person to make that happen? And constantly working on me, so that I can lead that organization to that level? Right? Because I can't do it if I'm not growing.
Jon Cheplak 37:52
So number one ceiling is for the leaders is personal development, it is not a new lead source, it is not listen to you need your tech stacks and in all the framework in place. But if you don't grow your seven leaders the lid every time, yeah.
Brian Charlesworth 38:13
Yeah. Well said, I want to shift gears for just a minute, we are in a, you know, we're in this world of this industry used to have seven to eight-year life cycles, you know, where it would bounce, and now we've been through two of those life cycles without any drop. Yep. And now all of a sudden, you know, we were in this world of inflation being at an all-time high. Therefore, there's really no way to shift that without interest rates rising. What kind of impact? I mean, I have friends in the mortgage industry that are terrified right now. What kind of impact is this going to have on the real estate industry? And what do I need to do if I'm a business owner in this space, to be ready for this?
Jon Cheplak 39:04
Super good. And you can imagine this conversation is happening daily, in my coaching calls, so I don't know that I'm smart enough to be an economist and didn't do a whole bunch of schooling, all those type of things. But what I always did, and first of all, I'd share to everyone, but then I'll go from, from my perspective, you can just go here. Remember this, ladies and gentlemen, you're not in a car in an inventory economy or not an interest rate economy, you're in an action economy, period. Your economic situation is based on your actions or lack thereof. I'll give you a really, really quickly to my economic insulator business plan for a real estate agent. Put me into any marketplace no matter what knock 100 doors call 100 people a day, five days a week. You'll do find it anywhere and you want to know so funny as people say, Well, you know, okay, fine. No, no, no worries, you don't have to agree with me what I've quoted, and it'll be great to see because I love to go back 20 25% of the agents are gonna get cleaned out of the business 100% that is going to happen. I think that the marketplace is going to slow down. I just I just do. That's just my opinion. I was talking herein, in Baton Rouge with my fiance's team, they're in a lower average price to 5300 interest rates impact them group because they move out of, of buying power a lot easier than I think some of the higher price range people. And so I think that it's going to require that here's what it's going to say, the industry is going to get cleaned out 20 to 25%. I think that the bad news is good or bad news, depending on who you are. I think that the big branded teams are going to win bigger than they ever have. They have positioned broker owner-managers, and I've gotten many that our clients are doing well. You better try and catch up to these teams that have passed you up. It's undeniable. And I may make someone upset and I'm not trying to make someone mad, please challenge me if you watch this, you hear this? Because what I'll do is I'll say okay, well then how come these 60 agents closed 90 and 183 transactions? Well, they by least doesn't matter, it's a result. And by the way, they're retaining 25 to 30% More on that dollar than you. So I think it's gonna be a high turnover, I think that you're gonna see 20 25% out of this business, I think that broker owner-managers need to if you had a recruiting number for the year you need to double that recruiting number. The reason he did double that recruiting number is because the work is going to be required is already required. Sorry, you don't get to be MLS agent anymore. Now see, see the most of you with love, and this is what I'm saying to my clients and to their agents, okay, and, and their long term relationships. Sorry, the day of your company leads, be a good little boy or girl in the database, we're gonna slap your hands a little bit because you're not reaching out enough and we're gonna bring it back again and bring it back again. MLS, it's gonna do its work, work on your driveway conversation follow up more than you make 100 grand Sorry, bad news, the MLS ain't doing its work anymore. You need to go out and be the MLS, you need to go out and create off market opportunities. And I'm telling you this, it's this is cliche, again, a couple of different pieces to it. It's called back to basics, number one. And number two, it's called and this is the truth. The greatest opportunities for business growth happens in changing and challenging times. I think I'd mentioned that we were talking earlier, is going to happen 90% of you won't do it here. Let me give you this is interesting. You know, one of my top teams, she was number two in the world. REMAX last year, amazing operator. Part of their onboarding, ladies and gentlemen, this is a multimillion-dollar marketing budget supplies ton of leads. And guess what the three new agents, they go out door-knocking with a mentor, period. So I think an outbound versus their been yeah, there's still going to be leads and leads, but he or she who has the inventory wins.
I think it's going to be a very, very challenging time for well, not challenging, because I think they'll find a new career 100% I think it's the tale of three agents. Group one will be out-group two, their business will be on life on lifeline, doing CPR, group three is going to be saying but it's going to be a small group, the same. This has been unbelievable. I did what others wouldn't. I started telling and by the way, ladies and gentlemen, to leaders that are watching this, you need to change your interview. Number one, you need to go re-interview your 30 to 40 or 50. Or how many ever people are on your team, you need to go re-interview them. Because the way you hired them and what you told them they needed to be doing isn't the same anymore. That's right. They're gonna wait for listings. And here's the really good news. Here's where your opportunity is it but this comes back to what we shared earlier. You've got some Oh, geez that are paralyzed. I know. I'm zooming into the team. They're paralyzed, right? Well, how do you change them? You bring in the new people, and you let the new people know and this is your interview. You're the most opportune time in history. Imagine doing something a certain way eight to nine or 10 years and making a lot of money. And all of a sudden, you gotta change. It's not human nature. You don't know any different. I'm going to show you differently. And if you'll do different, you're going to win.
Brian Charlesworth 44:39
I'll give you an example of this, John. You know, I talked to team owners all the time. And there are a large group of them, especially our customers that are just like doubling their business every year right now, right? I mean, just killing it. And then there are some that are like, just it's all right here. their heads, right? inventories, there's no inventory. You know, there are too many people bidding on these, like, sure there's no inventory that there's more home selling than have ever sold in the history of real estate. But there's no inventory because they're selling in a day. They're still inventory. It's just not very long, right? So anyway, it's just interesting to see how that little shift can completely from the leader, right, that little shift in what they believe can make their business go through the roof. Or, or they're just going to die.
Jon Cheplak 45:36
It's all Choice. Choice. Yep.
Brian Charlesworth 45:41
Yeah. So I did want to ask you this. So you just talked about these teams accelerating over brokerages? I say this all the time. And, you know, I'm sure a lot of brokerages hate me because of this, but I believe that the traditional brokerage is going away. I think that and when I say that, I mean, there's always going to be brokerages. But a brokerage needs to change the way they run and operate their business to mirror what teams are doing, or they're in trouble. That's my opinion. How do you feel about that? And if you look at the independent brokerages that are already happening, the independent brokerages are already doing those things.
Jon Cheplak 46:26
Let me give you a yes or no. And our yes is very congruent. 100% you might get let me give you my No, no, because the ones that will really apply and get capture and are good business operators. They're ancillaries like a true you got all kinds of you know this all I do mortgage No, I'm talking about my broker-owners that I work with, that are very, very few that their mortgage is seven digits plus, right title is seven digits plus, but guess what? That's not the traditional brokerage, I'm sorry, in any broker-owners that are sitting out saying, Oh, yes, it is I have it, but show me the p&l. You tell me the p&l? You're not an operator, you're embarrassing. You're embarrassing. You're pretending
Brian Charlesworth 47:13
Just the fact of what you just said that their mortgage and title businesses are seven digits plus, that means they're not running their business like a traditional brokerage, a traditional brokerage, in my opinion, has no influence on getting people to use their ancillaries. So they've already made the shift if they've got those businesses in my opinion.
Jon Cheplak 47:30
Oh, yeah, she know, and here's, here's who's gonna stay around. But here's what it's been, though to an 80 to 90% of typical brokerages that make a profit. It's because if you took the owner off the sales floor, guess what? There'd be no profit. That's not a business. That is not a business. And so it's been gone. But like, like its history, when these teams your the teams are out recruiting the branch they work in the brokerage they work in, agents are understanding and seeing investment return, oh, but their splits? Well, no. But see, here's the thing, shallow thinking, will I give them a 75 or an 80 or 90? Well, guess what my time's worth more. I'll take a 50 all day long because I'm not having to invest the dollars and buy time to generate that person, you've put the lift in hold on that actually, my net at the end of the day, if I value my time is greater in that situation now. So my answer to you, oh, they're in trouble. They're in trouble. I mean, if you want to do it for a hobby and have a place to hang your license, and sell a bunch of real estate great, but boy, I tell you, they're in trouble. They're in trouble. But yet, I've got mine I work with they're doing really, really well. But guess what mortgage titles mean? You know? Yep.
Brian Charlesworth 48:57
Yeah. Okay, great. I think I think we're on the same page. As far as you know, then you've got the 25% of the agents are going to disappear. And the brokerages that don't shift are going to disappear.
Jon Cheplak 49:10
They're gonna end up going working for a team. Oh, my God, I'm terrible. Can you and I and brokers listen to it. You know, listen, I was gonna love what I say. But sometimes we need to have that little Zinger and go, you might be right. I better wake up or make some changes.
Brian Charlesworth 49:26
Yeah, I mean, I mean, the reality is you just need to be running your business like a business. And if you're, if you're not doing that, you're in trouble. So, John, I could spend hours here with you, but we're out of time. So I want to ask you just the last question. Well, two things. Number one, what is your last like? What is the most important advice you could give to somebody right now, and you've given tons of advice already, so you may not have something that comes to mind? And then the second thing I just want people to know how they can best get a hold of you.
Jon Cheplak 49:56
Sure. The single most important thing to do is to be self-serving, not self-centered. And here's what I mean. I'm sure you know, your audience has a lot of leaders in minus two. And there's this thing in you that really wants to help other people. And the mistake we can make, especially the amazing, you know, alpha women that we work with, I mean, you've got this thing inside you that is from being empathy and the power of a woman is taking care of yourself first. Period, it's non-negotiable. Especially the women in business, take care of your health and your wellness first be self-serving, not self-centered. Because one of the biggest breakthroughs I have found for leaders and even parents and my significant other leaves the house at Fort spring, I mean, they love to hang out sometime they're the same. For 40 AM, she's out the door, she's working out every day and running a business. Take care, whoever you are, take care of your health, wellness, and nutrition, your being before anyone and everything. Otherwise, you're being self you're never going to show up as the best version of yourself. Period. That's my number one. I want to change your outer world got to change your inner world. I can be Cheplaklive.com, or my personal Facebook page. I tell everyone, my personal Jon Cheplak personal Facebook page, it's business website, it's a Hangout, but Cheplaklive.com is a good place to go hang out to man.
Brian Charlesworth 51:30
Yeah, you can just go to search Cheplak, you're gonna find him. So anyway, Jon, thank you so much for being on the show today. Really appreciate it. Tons and tons of valuable content for our listeners. So thank you, and everyone. Thanks for listening to the show. And we will catch you again next week. Have a good one, Jon.
Thanks, brother.
