managing a small team to becoming one of the top performers in the Missouri market offers invaluable lessons in leadership, strategy, and accountability. Starting with just 8-10 agents in 2018, Matt now oversees a team of 27, but his success hasn’t come without challenges.
Matt opens up about how using Sisu transformed how he tracks performance, sharing that one key metric – the appointment set-to-close ratio – helped him realize his team was missing out on $3 million in GCI. “We lost $3 million in GCI from one metric that we wouldn’t have known existed if it weren’t for Sisu,” he explains. He dives deep into why understanding these numbers is essential for any real estate team leader and how even small changes in performance tracking can lead to significant gains.
The conversation moves into how Matt built a foundation of accountability with his agents, explaining that quality is often more important than quantity. "The quality of the lead is determined by the skill and the will of the agent," Matt shares, emphasizing that success doesn’t come from flooding agents with more leads but from improving their ability to convert the ones they have.
Matt also reflects on the importance of simplifying business systems. He highlights how over-complicating processes can create unnecessary roadblocks and how focusing on the fundamentals allows his team to thrive even in challenging markets. He describes his recruiting and onboarding process as one that pushes agents to meet high standards from day one, ensuring that those who stay are fully committed to success.
Top Takeaways:
(2:31) The chaos that nearly cost $3 million
(4:55) Is better pipeline management the key to team success?
(7:45) Are agents getting out-scripted by their leads?
(10:24) How does willpower affect business outcomes?
(15:01) How do messy business breakups lead to owning your success?
(16:20) The power behind automating transactions with Sisu
(20:26) Why are spreadsheets holding back business growth
(26:07) What happens when agents don’t track their business numbers
(30:20) What’s the real focus of successful team leaders?
(33:42) What makes onboarding multiple people at once more effective?
(35:48) Why does building a five-agent team lead to a rollercoaster
(40:11) The must-have steps for onboarding new agents
(43:12) One activity that can win your day in real estate
If you're looking for strategies to streamline your operations, recruit the right talent, and drive your team to new heights, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Tune in to hear how Matt Smith uses Sisu to track the correct numbers and build a high-performing team that adapts to the ever-changing real estate landscape.
About Matt Smith
Matt Smith is the owner of Matt Smith Real Estate Group, based in Missouri, where his team of 27 agents leads the local market. His team’s success has earned them a spot on the Inc. 5000’s fastest-growing companies list, and they’ve held the #1 ranking in their marketplace for five consecutive years. Matt’s approach to leadership and metrics-driven performance has helped his team close hundreds of homes, including 100 homes in one month with just 18 agents. He also coaches real estate professionals across the country.
Connect with Matt Smith Today!
Episode Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 00:34
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the grit Podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth. I'm the founder of Sisu and the host of the show, and when I say grit, I'm talking about people like our guests today. So I'm super excited to have Matt Smith on the show. Matt has been with us since 2018, 19, which would be right when we launched Sisu. I don't recall how big you were at the time, Matt, but I think you had maybe a handful of agents, maybe, yeah,
Matt Smith 01:03
I think we were eight to 10 agents somewhere around then. Okay, time. Okay.
Brian Charlesworth 01:08
So anyway, Matt is just crushing it. Has been doing some amazing things, and I've wanted to get him on the show for a long time. Matt has a team that's based in Missouri, about 27 agents today. He just told me they've gotten smaller. And so we'll talk about that and why. And every team leader knows that you go through cycles like that, so that's a good thing for you guys to hear from Matt. So we'll dive into that today. But also, Matt also coaches team leaders. He's now coaches for Chet black, and also has been coached by Chet black. And I think that being coached by Chet black, Matt, you probably could also talk to us a little bit about health and fitness today, too. A little
Matt Smith 01:48
bit, yeah, yeah. You learn a little bit being in those rooms about that, for sure. Yeah.
Brian Charlesworth 01:52
So, okay, cool. Well, welcome to the show. Anything you want to add to that?
Matt Smith 01:57
No, I'm just appreciate you having me on. I was an early adopter of Sisu. I'm kind of a unicorn when it comes to personalities. Being a leader is part of my my evolution and constant growth is, I think, as a lifelong learner, becoming a better leader is always valuable. And so one of the things that I learned early on was, like, DISC personality test. And so I'm a 90 9d but I'm also like a 90 4c So wow, yeah, those that know disc and know those personality I'm kind of a unicorn, I mean, so I fight an internal battle with all the analytics, but also I just want to drive and keep moving forward. And so I saw Sisu very early on, and I'm like, I need this in my business, because it was just a chaos. It was just a disaster, and I was just bulldozing my way through building a business, and there's all kinds of gaps and things that we're falling through, and this is a product that has helped us, literally, we talked about it this morning in our leadership l 10 on some improvements that we're going to talk about a focus of next year, where we lost $3 million in GCI from one metric that we wouldn't know it existed if it weren't for Sisu,
Brian Charlesworth 03:00
$3 million on one metric. This is amazing. Like, yeah, we need to drill into this. You're not going to leave us hanging there, right? Like,
Matt Smith 03:06
what is the metric? Yeah. So I think, I mean, I'm sure your listeners know what Sisu is, right? But I just, I think, as as a someone that is first and foremost, Sisu, in my opinion, is just a great addition to, it's, it's how I run my business, right? So I have follow up boss or CRM, and I have the tech stack. I have everything that you need, but Sisu is something I check daily. And I think too many business owners, and even if you're an agent listing, you're still a business owner, if you treat your business like a business, it will reward you like a business, like too many people who are just lackadaisical, and if they're afraid of looking at their numbers, which is what Sisu exposes, I think that just something they probably need to face up and challenge, especially in these marketplaces. And the better your numbers, the more you can improve. And so this metric is, it isn't a traditional metric, but again, I'm a C personality, and so I dive deep into these things. And so I was tracking year over year, but all the way back to 2020 which was the unicorn pandemic marketplace. And I looked at it was a weird metric that I tracked, because I just, I think, if you just track it in different ways, and you look at it through a different set of lenses, you can find a different result. And so instead of like just conversations to appointments or appointments to closings, I tracked appointment set to closed ratio. And in 2020 our appointment set to close ratio was like 44% which was really, really good. But this year, year to date, it's like 32% and it sounds Oh, it's just 10% what's the big deal? Matt, well, it was over, over 400 closings and over $3 million in GCI. No more conversations, no more appointments set, just managing our pipeline properly.
Brian Charlesworth 04:43
So what? What shifts can you do? Matt, as a leader, like as a leader, now you know that number. What can you actually do to take that number, implement it, and get your business back up to that 44%
Matt Smith 04:55
Yeah, so I think there's two. There's two parts that most team leaders struggle with. You. Got database management, but you also have pipeline management. And so database management would be like, in your CRM, how do you get a lead to an appointment, right? And I think that, and we could go down that road, it's something I'm very well versed in. But I think where I found as a team leader, someone's in the trenches daily, I go to more events than anyone that I know. I'm just a lifelong learner, just gathering all this knowledge from amazing leaders and amazing people doing things at high levels and being a coach scene behind the curtains of some of the top team leaders in North America, I get to see the things that are exposed in the industry. And I think a lot of times, the biggest gap isn't most agents don't need more leads. You just don't absolutely
Brian Charlesworth 05:39
Amen. Hallelujah, right?
Matt Smith 05:42
But I think, I think agents struggle, right? They struggle with this mindset, and they struggle with, if I don't have enough closings, that means I need more
Brian Charlesworth 05:50
leads, more leads, because I don't follow up on the leads you give me. That's
Matt Smith 05:54
right, that's right. More leads don't equal more closings. I don't know where we thought like where that makes sense in our brain, but it does. That's what we all think, is more leads equal more closing. But what I found is, when I developed you mentioned our team getting smaller, and that's been very strategic, and it's what I mean by that, is because we really ramped up and enforced standards as the market changed and evolved, the market required more of the agent to be successful, and so the agents that refuse to adapt to the change are no longer in our organization, and that doesn't make them wrong, but we are innovating, we are growing, we are adapting with the change, and one of those standards is average contact attempts per lead. How are you following up with the leads that you have? And so we actually minimize to maximize. So our agents, one of the initiatives that we rolled out is the agents get less leads. Now, as soon as we implemented less leads, and we had standards that we put in place of conversations that you had to have per week to be on lead flow, their production went through the roof. Let's talk
Brian Charlesworth 06:51
about this for a minute, because it seems totally backwards, right? But I see it all the time, and I have these metrics, and I know if people are getting too many leads? Yep, they don't follow up on any of them, and their conversion is trash, right? Yes. So if you can get them following up on the leads, you give them properly, they get higher conversion.
Matt Smith 07:13
Yep, well, I think so. I simplify it with a quote. I'm a quotes guy, right? I simplify it with a quote. The quality of the lead is determined by the skill and the will of the agent. The quality of the lead is determined by the skill and the will of the agent, period. Yeah, no one will be able to convince me otherwise. I don't care if it's from Zillow, realtor.com, PPC, Facebook. It doesn't matter what is the skill and the will of the agent that tried to work that lead. That's
Brian Charlesworth 07:37
the skill. Is one thing, and the will, which you say so, well, that's a great term. If that agent doesn't believe it's a good lead, yes, you don't want to give them that lead, right?
Matt Smith 07:49
Yep, yeah. So I think a lot of us too, agents struggle too. Here's another way to shift your thinking. I think a lot of agents get out scripted by the leads. Yep. I think the leads are better at telling them they're just looking than the agent is handling that quote, unquote objection
Brian Charlesworth 08:05
that's well said as well. Love it. Love it, so I've heard. And this comes, this comes from someone on my team, Braxton, who I know you know well, but Braxton continues to tell me how high of production you have per agent. What does your average agent do? A year in interest? So
Matt Smith 08:26
our, I'll start with our floor, our standard. And when I say standard, it's not hey, it would be nice. And it's unicorns and rainbows. I love my people, but I love them enough to hold them accountable.
Brian Charlesworth 08:37
So, so when you say standard, what is a standard to you
Matt Smith 08:41
per year? How many 20 closings per year? Or standard, or you're on a perform it's judge quarterly, measured quarterly. And if you're off one quarter and there, there's major life events and things that are right, you're off lead flow at that point. No. So you, you be, you get put on, like, a performance improvement plan, basically, right? We have the playbook of, if you do these things, you will sell 20. They judge themselves one through 10 on those items. How well have they done last quarter? What they self identify? What is the focus they want to improve? Because everyone wants to sell 20 or more. Yeah, we get in our own way sometimes. So I just kind of help them self discover what those things are. And then they build a plan, and I hold them accountable to the plan to make adjustments and improvements. And what I what I look for is the adjustment in their mindset, an adjustment in their activities over the next quarter. And if they are back on track, then they're fine, right? But if we can, if we don't change our behavior, again, why did we shrink an agent count? It's because it's hard for humans to change. Yeah, market changed around us, and so the expectation of what agents supposed to do has to change as well, and if they refuse to make that change, then they're just probably not going to make in the business. Now,
Brian Charlesworth 09:50
I know you hold standards, and you're saying, hey, you need to have this many activities every week, or you're not going to be on this team. However, if someone does have that many activities, I've heard you. You actually guarantee them that they'll make at least 100 grand, or you pay them the difference between what they make, and that's how much I believe in our proven process. Yeah, so let's talk about that. How do you have enough confidence that you are willing to put that out there
Matt Smith 10:12
through repetition? I've just done it long enough, and I've honestly you're not paying me to say this, just the truth. I have the data because of Sisu that I know what it takes, period, and so if you know your numbers, and you build a proven process and a plan, and we have great education, we have great training, and I'm able to help people me and my leadership team and other agents on our team like it's just a contribution environment. We're able to help people that maybe struggle with the skill to develop it, but it's really the will part that matters. And I think if you have the will, and you're you have the willingness to if you're open minded, you're coachable, and you're willing to follow the process, there is literally been nobody in my organization, nobody that has done our proven everyone says when they look it's a playbook to 20 closings, when they look at the playbook like, Oh, that's easy.
Brian Charlesworth 11:01
How big is the playbook? Can you share it with us?
Matt Smith 11:03
It's, it is, it is, I think it's six items.
Brian Charlesworth 11:06
Can you share those?
Matt Smith 11:08
I can, yeah, I can. I can give you basis, right? There's with the 100k guarantee. Of course, there's fine print, right? But essentially, essentially, it is. Are you you having 20 conversations, two minute conversations logged in our CRM per week, 20. That's four per day per week. Yes, four per day. Can you talk to four people per day about real estate? Wow. Okay, that's, that's number one. That
Brian Charlesworth 11:31
sounds pretty low, right? Like, I think, I think someone should have 20 conversations per day.
Matt Smith 11:36
So I live in the real world, yeah. And I think that you're right. And I think that if they were then they would Forex their income, right? Yeah,
Brian Charlesworth 11:43
right. But that's what I'm saying, the fact that you say only 20 per right, and you're going to guarantee them that kind of money, that's Yeah.
Matt Smith 11:50
So there's more to it, right? There's our following our database management policy, which clearly defines, again, database and pipeline. So follow our database management policy. This is how our proven playbook and how we handle leads. How many times you call them? What is the messaging? What scripting do you use? What text templates do you send? When do you send it? And it's all spelled out for them. It's mostly automated, right? And then we have pipeline management. Once you set the appointment, that's when the hard work starts. How do you develop depth of relationship? Etc, we have so it's database management, policy, pipeline management, one open house per month, following our proven Open House policy, right?
Brian Charlesworth 12:27
Once again, if someone really wants to make money, if they could do that once a week, what would that do, right? Or even twice a month, right?
Matt Smith 12:33
Right? Like as an example, in my market, I was told when I was up and coming that number one teams wouldn't work and number two, open houses don't work in our market because everyone was, in my opinion, too lazy to do them. Yes, I just looked at them differently. And instead of just standing out one sign and inviting only people, they want to invite as other agents. And I'm not like crapping on if you do agent open houses good for you. I think you should have relationship with agents. But I want to, agents aren't going to buy it. I want, I want to. I want the buyer right, and I want the neighbors to know that I own the neighborhood. And so I just, I just adapted a new mindset, and like, as an example, part of our proven process for open houses is you have 50 pointer signs, yes, go crazy, right? That's
Brian Charlesworth 13:12
exactly what I did, and exactly what every agent I coach at home, you need to have at least 50 signs like,
Matt Smith 13:19
but, but too many people, I call it, they dilute things. And they say, Well, Brian, that works for you, but it won't work for me. And so they do it half ass. They do it halfway of what they should do, and then they get a quarter of the result. And they're
Brian Charlesworth 13:30
like, why even do it? I was talking to an agent the other day about his open houses. He's done two over the last couple of weeks and and he's, I said, How many people did you have there? And he said, None. And I said, Well, you just wasted a lot of time, didn't you? And that's what happens if you do a half assed open house,
Matt Smith 13:46
right? That's right. Well, I mean, as an example, I have an agent that did want to in the same neighborhood one weekend, and then another agent heard her success and did it in the same neighborhood the next weekend. One had seven listing appointments from the open house, and one had goose egg. And what was the difference? Matt, they just one of them actually followed the process to a tee with intent, and the other one just said, well, open houses work in this neighborhood. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna show up.
Brian Charlesworth 14:10
So team leaders, how many of you guys have this process to a tee for your agents when they do their open houses like this is what you need to do as a team leader. Yup. Matt has these systems in place. Matt, you, you said your personality 99% D, yep.
Brian Charlesworth 14:26
What was the percentage? 92% Yeah, it's
Matt Smith 14:29
in the 90s. It depends on which time I take it, but it's like any high 80s to low 90s for A. C, okay,
Brian Charlesworth 14:35
that's so strange to me, but it's awesome. I'm 90 9d. 99 i So, like 99.9 D, 99 point like two. I So, but what? What attracted you in 2016 when you were a small team, I'm sorry, 2018 What attracted you to Sisu?
Matt Smith 14:55
I was sold on at that point. I needed to operate my business. This as a business, I had been with different brands and different brokerages and different things, and some people that are listening to this maybe know my story, and I'm not going to get into it, but I've had some messy divorces, if you will, and I've had hundreds of 1000s of dollars stolen from from previous broker owners that I worked for. And it's just messy breakups, and I think it was just something that clicked. 2018 I joined exp Realty, which was also at that time, it was the new, up and coming thing. And it was time for me to run my business as it was my business, and not rely on a big brand or big franchise. And I wanted to bring everything from this system and this system into my systems. And I wanted to build my systems and my teams that no matter what happened say the EXP thing didn't work, or whatever, this brand didn't work. Now I had something that was my business, that was tangible, that I could take anywhere, and that was what really excited me. And then as I was diving deeper, I just saw the value in man, if you can really change one metric for one agent by 5% it can move the needle significantly for their family. And it's, it's those little those. I mean, I got this from John jet black. It's tiny hinges that swing big doors. Yeah. And I think most people don't track their numbers, and they so they don't know how to run their business, and they run their business on accident versus on purpose. And I wanted to be intentional and have a plan,
Brian Charlesworth 16:17
yeah, yeah. Okay. So I think, I think something that a lot of people don't get about Sisu. A lot of people are like, oh, yeah, well, if I have Sisu, I'll know my numbers. What I don't think most people understand is the reason that happens is because you have the systems in place to streamline and automate your intake forms to manage your transactions through Sisu. I don't even know if you're using the client portal. But if you are, your clients are getting updates all along the way. It sounds like you are using the client portal. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And because your systems are all in a single place, and follow up boss, of course, follow up boss and Sisu being your systems. Now, without doing anything, we have these events every quarter where we have people come in and see springs team, and everyone's like, Oh, well, how long does it take her to get her system updated so her numbers are accurate? It takes zero time, because it's updated real time, all the time, because that is her system. And I think that's what so many people don't grasp, is how important that is to have that system in place. Do you have anything you want to add to that?
Matt Smith 17:22
No, I think, I think that I say no, but yes, someone that maybe going down a rabbit hole that I went down, that I learned from is I used to say, I want to make our system so simple that I could get a monkey off the street that come in and know how to do it. But I overdid it, and I over complicated. We had this big, long manual, and every time one thing would change, because it's always evolving, then we'd have to throw out the manual and we'd have to start over. And so I follow the EOS business model now, and I think that it's the 2080 rule. What is the 20% of the process that produces 80% of the result? And that's your system, because you're always going to have human element. You're always going to have adaptation. The market's going to change. Your personnel is going personnel is going to change. There's going to be some new tech or some new automation that happens that enhances the the system. And I think you can over systemize too. And a lot of people get stuck by paralysis, by analysis, and so literally, how I started building my systems would I would do it, and I would record myself doing it, and then that, that's now the system, right? Like, so you don't, you don't have to have anything. It doesn't. It may overwhelm some people, like, it does me sometimes. But as you're doing the thing that you think you need a system for, just record yourself doing it. And guess what? That's your system now,
Brian Charlesworth 18:34
yeah, another thing is, I think, I think so many times just the word systems, like, if I think, okay, you need to get systems in place. That alone, I think, is overwhelming for most team leaders. So what is a system, right? If, if you have, let's say somebody goes under contract, or you take a listing, and you have 28 steps that need to get completed to get that person to closing, whatever that number is, as long as that's all in something, yep, right? I remember about, geez, it must have been about seven years ago before Sisu was really up and going, and spring lost a transaction coordinator, and I remember her being in tears about it, like she was like, I'm gonna have to take 90 days of my life to, like, get this next person up to speed. And I'm thinking, Whoa. And now, if you know, if she loses somebody like that, all the systems, or I'd say systems in quotes, the steps that need to be done are all right there. So she could actually have a VA from the Philippines do that. No problem, right? So, so I just want you guys to maybe realize that systems are not something that has to be complicated. I actually had a team, and this another exp team. I had a team, and I'm not going to give away who the team is, because I'm going to do a podcast with his team here shortly. But they had a CTO in their business that had put together over complicated systems, just like you're talking about Matt and. And this is somebody who's making 200 grand a year, right? And they were able to eliminate this person. And I basically said, Look, we're going to simplify things, but I and my team will be your CTO, right? Yeah, we're going to eliminate every spreadsheet you have, and we're just going to have all your systems be in follow up, boss and Sisu, and things are better than they've ever been, right? Well, for anyone, anyone that's listening, it's so good, and it's,
Matt Smith 20:26
I think too many times we over complicate everything. And I don't use spreadsheets in my business. I just don't, or do some of my staff have spreadsheets for certain things, sure, but it's, it's just, I just think they're outdated. And how many spreadsheets Do you have, really, right? If someone's running their business on spreadsheets, how many do you have? You have way too many. And when's the last time you opened one? There's one that you haven't opened in three years. Why do you still track things there? And so I think we just, we over time, we just scale. And all these things get complex. Well, I think you have to, you said it too is it's important to simplify, to amplify, meaning that if you're going to grow in scale, which, if someone's listening to this, my assumption is they want to grow. That's why they're listening. And if you want to grow, you have to realize the first step of growing is simplification. How do you simplify things? Because scale brings complexity by itself. So you need to simplify things so that it allows you to scale. And some may say, Well, I'm missing that. My personal my personal touch as I build this system. Yep, that's part of building a business. You can't always teach someone in a system your personal touch. That's where coaching, training, leadership comes in. That isn't a part of the system. And I think too many people, again, it's just, it's it is really, really simple, is, what is it that you do every time you intake a transaction? What is it you do every time a lead comes in? Just put it on paper. If you struggle with your block, record it.
Brian Charlesworth 21:46
So good. So good. Matt, so many. I would say my biggest challenge right now, as the CEO of Sisu, is there are so many small teams in real estate who think that once they get bigger, they're going to put a system in place. Oh, that's so instead of putting the system in place, in order to get bigger,
Matt Smith 22:06
will you talk or or you can make the mistake that I did. Well, I'll hire someone to do that system. Yeah, you can't. You can't. You just can't. Now, does that not mean that you, as you grow, you can't have great people that you hire. I have great people. I love them to death, and they're phenomenal. I couldn't do it without them, but to have the mindset of, I'll hire that right person that's system minded to put all the systems in place in my business is just flawed. Thinking it just doesn't work. You have to slow the process down to speed up the result. And you have to understand, if 78 70% done by someone else is 100% awesome, what can you do to get someone else to perform at 70% of your capacity in this job role so you can continue growing your business. And you cannot do that without systems.
Brian Charlesworth 22:47
You just can't. So Matt, when is the right time to put systems in place today, no matter how big you are? Yeah,
Matt Smith 22:56
okay. I mean, here's my rule, if he needs a system, have you done it more than three times in the last 30 days. Well, like as an example, this is how crazy I am with systems. Every single person that gets hired in my company knows exactly what to say, how to answer the phone, because the phone rings every day. What if, will someone an agent's watching? Agents don't really know how to answer the phone. If they're on duty and they're covering the front desk. Well, they desk while they receptions on launch, they need to know how to answer the phone. And so do I have a system to train them on what to say, or am I just assuming that they know how to answer a phone, right? Right? So
Brian Charlesworth 23:32
for a system, system for everything, basically. So I want to, I want to switch gears a little bit before we got started today, you talked a little bit about diving into Sisu for recruiting recently, and I know that jet black has you on stage a lot to talk about what you've built on recruiting. So I just want to dive into that for a few minutes, and maybe you could share a little bit more.
Matt Smith 24:06
Yeah. So I think one of the things that I'm so blessed to be around people like John sheplak and the community he's built is to really so I'm in a very small marketplace to accomplish what we have. I mean, our main marketplace, our main MLS local board has 280 agents.
Brian Charlesworth 24:22
That's it, not very many, no. And
Matt Smith 24:26
I mean, we, we're 20% plus market share in that market. And so we're going to sell over 700 homes this year in that marketplace. And so it's as I've as I've grown and scaled. I've realized that sometimes I need to get out of my small town, or sometimes, like, there's a, I don't know what your faith is, or any of that, but there's all kinds of things around and great sayings around, like, you're never going to be the hero in your own hometown, right? And I think one of the things that people get stuck in is they allow their environment that they're they feel stuck like stuck in the mud in their environment. And they don't get out of that environment to get around bigger thinkers, people that are doing things differently. And I'm so blessed that I've been able to get into rooms like that. What the first step was with when I joined exp, it exposed me to whole new world. And now in the John Chaplain environment, exposed me to a whole new world. And one of the things that I realized there is that at that point in time, I had the model Navy SEAL team, my average agent, Brian. That year that I hired John, CPLEX sold over 50 homes. My average agent and I was out of production. What John told me the very first call, he said, You're in danger, dude, what are you talking about? I got it figured out. I got the highest PPP of all the agents you coach, I know what I'm doing, right, like the ego, right? Yeah, yeah. And what I found out probably just smiled, yeah, right, right, yeah. You learned the lesson the hard way. But what I realized was that made me very, very vulnerable, right? And I think a lot of people understand. They understand, especially if they they understand Sisu and they understand KPIs, leading in indicators, lagging indicators of a business, like how many conversations you have, how many appointments, how many of you assigned all that stuff? The importance of that in your business for you to know your metrics, I think, is even more parallel and more important to know for your recruiting business, meaning, how many people, how many real estate agents, number one, don't even know their numbers. To treat their business like a business. It's the majority of them, but the ones that are performing at the top of the top, I guarantee you they know their numbers. Yep, right? And so let's talk about recruiting, though,
Brian Charlesworth 26:31
you just said something. I want to, I want to slow you down on because I want to make sure that people get this. Okay, you just said that it's more important that they understand all those metrics, all that same stuff, it's more important that they understand that on their recruiting business. Yes, sir. Now I would say probably 80% of the people out there running a real estate team don't actually have a recruiting business. So how could that possibly be more important?
Matt Smith 26:57
So those of you that maybe can relate to that and are thinking like I used to think, I'm not saying I'm right, you're wrong. I'm just saying My eyes have been opened, and I think that if you just have an open mind for this part, hopefully you can take something away. So think about I used to be the I was a proponent of this. I want to recruit to my culture. Culture is important. I love my team. We're a family, like I would take a bullet for these people. And so I used to say, well, I don't want to grow too big, because it'll affect culture. And John is the one that challenged me on this. He said, awesome. I love that, and I love that you have a great culture. Now I want you to write down all the things that you wish were better. Tell me everything about your culture that you wish you could improve, you could change, you could get rid of, you could add, make a list of all those things. And he said, so what you're telling me is your culture isn't perfect. What you want is a culture that can evolve and that can get better and that can improve. And if we improve in more activity, if we improve with more contribution, we improve with more volunteerism, we improve with more open mindedness, whatever those things are that you want to improve that you wrote down your list. Would that make the the whole better? Of course it would. Well, how do you make the culture better? You can do one of two things, and for relatability, let's talk about activity. I think a lot of team leaders struggle with Asian activity. Again, the activity required in today's marketplace is different than it was two and a half three years ago, and a lot of agents haven't adapted to that. Well, you can either beat your head against the wall trying to force agents to change that they don't want to. It's the hardest thing for a human to do, or you can bring in new people that don't know any different and are willing to do the work, and they start getting success by doing the activities. And now the OGS in the office are like, wow, look at Brian. He's killing it. What's he doing differently than me? Oh, wow. Look at all these conversations he's having. I guess that really does work. I should probably pick up my game and now they they do more because they see, they see the the hints of success that other new people bring into the environment. And I call it borrowed belief. Sometimes people don't their heart. We're so hard headed we don't want to change, and we don't want to admit someone else's right. And so we have to sometimes see it like, what is the movie? There's a famous movie seen as believing right? And I think too many people like fall for the trap of, I'm just going to tell them to do this, and because I told them to do it, they'll do it. The reality is, we don't believe what we're told, but we believe what we experience. And so how can I create the experience of the success this agent desires? The only way I know how is bringing someone else to do the activity that I'm asking them to do and they see the results and now they want to do it for themselves? So
Brian Charlesworth 29:37
I challenged you on that because I believe the exact same thing as you, but I see so many teams that just don't grasp that, and so I wanted them to hear that from you, because in my opinion, if you still want to be in this world in 2345, years, you're going to have to shift. Into this belief, or you probably won't be here anymore. Yes. So, so now, now that we have that, Matt and we're all on the same page, now talk to us about, how do we treat these metrics, more importantly than we treat the metrics in our Yeah,
Matt Smith 30:14
before, before I finish that, I want to, I want to just for someone that's still like, Ah, I just still don't believe it. I got a story of someone that I coach, that I coach, that I had this conversation and very honest and open with them, and and there's, there's a math equation that everyone can do really quickly. Is, what is your average GCI per closing? What is your average revenue per closing? Let's just say $10,000 for mass sake, right? So say it's $10,000 to the company. How much time energy, money, resource, do you spend chasing that next $10,000 most team leaders would say somewhere close to all of it, right? That is their focus. But the reality is, when you become team leader, you put the leader cap on. You are no longer in the transaction business. You are in the human development, human attraction, human resource business. You're in the people business. So your job is to be responsible for the people who are responsible for the transactions. And so that
Brian Charlesworth 31:10
being said, before you go on from there, you're in the people business. How many transactions have you personally sold in the last year?
Matt Smith 31:16
I've sold zero.
Brian Charlesworth 31:20
There we go. You're in the people business now, you guys, I didn't prep this. I just knew that because I know how Matt leads his team, and that's what a leader does, right? And that's I've shared this over and over with people, but I believe that the biggest value that Sisu does is it helps get team leaders out of production and into working on their business instead of in their business. Absolutely so. So anyway, continue on, continue on. Back to the math. So
Matt Smith 31:50
now let's think, how much time energy, money, resource do we spend hiring our next agent that we're going to bring into our organization? And that's where usually I just, I just, nobody responds like, Huh, I'm supposed to actually spend time on that and money, no, and so. But I think a lot of people this will help perspective shift. So we talked about all you spend all of your time chasing 10 grand, which I would never say, Stop chasing transactions. But I want to, I want to give you perspective shift here. So let's say that the average agent on your team sells what, 10, 1215, homes a year like? Let's say 10 for mass sake. Let's say that the average GCI is $10,000 and let's say your agents are on a 5050, split. So that means you get $5,000 per transaction for that agent. That's what you have as revenue to you as a team leader, that agent sells 10 per year. That's 50,000 the average lifespan of a team agent is about 3.5 years. So that's $175,000 in revenue from one agent. And how much time do you spend chasing 10 grand versus 175,000 we have it backwards. Yeah, we have it backwards. And so hopefully that's perspective shift so listeners
Brian Charlesworth 33:00
that is such, such wise advice, and I love it just makes me smile to hear this from you. So here, here's something I've run into, and I've coached team leaders. I don't charge them, but I've coached team leaders, in many cases, because I'm in front of hundreds and hundreds of team leaders, or maybe 1000s. But what I've seen is many of them, Matt will say to me when I talk to them about, you know, we should take your team from 20 to 50 agents, right? And they'll say, Well, I I just can't onboard more than one or two agents a month, right? How do you respond to that
Matt Smith 33:37
after I get done laughing? Well, I shouldn't, I shouldn't laugh, because I've been there, right? I've, I think it's important to note that I've been in those shoes. I was that person, right? Like I was that person that said, that's, that's crazy. I will never recruit that many people. I don't need that many people look how great we're doing. And it's, it's just, I think, I think it's just a mindset shift that we have to experience some pain before sometimes we make a change. And one of the things that I think is really, really important is to understand, here's my philosophy on onboarding. It is easier to onboard 10 than it is to onboard one, and why onboarding people in groups, the community that you create, the competition that you create, the ability for someone else to be there, to be that sounding board, or be that inspiration, or be that borrow of belief when you're out of the room, is extremely powerful. Our best successful onboarding classes, I've had the most people in them, yeah. And so we guys have an onboarding day, right? You
Brian Charlesworth 34:36
can't make this stuff up, guys, if you don't have this mindset, somehow you need to get this mindset. And I would say John sheplak does a better job than anybody in this industry at getting people into this mindset. I can tell you guys this, but you know, I haven't run a team. Personally. I've helped spring, but I have not run a team. So you guys don't listen. So talk to Matt and Chip lac, because you have to get in this frame. Of mind, yes, to really be where you need to be in three to five years from now. Something you
Matt Smith 35:07
brought up earlier, Brian, like, I think it's people maybe can relate to. You mentioned spring going through, which I heard her speak at a couple events, blew me away, by the way, phenomenal. And I think you mentioned, like, a TC leaving, and she was like, panic. Oh, my God, my business stops. Yeah, how many team leaders are handcuffed right now, if their top five agents, top three agents, started their own team, what would you do? Oh,
Brian Charlesworth 35:31
that's another experience. I saw her go into tears with when she had that power team. Yes, five agents, and each one averaged over 35 homes. And what happens when one of them leaves? Yep, they leave. You're gonna lose probably three of them, maybe all five, and you're starting over. And in my opinion, the mrea book, Millionaire Real Estate Agent book, I don't know if you can't wear it kW, before you were at exp, but that book one of the greatest books of all time and one of the worst books of all time, yeah? Because what it's done is gonna say that if you didn't. So it's taught people, it's it's certainly got people to believe in teams, right? But it taught people to build five agent teams, yeah? And if you build a five agent team, we call it the messy middle around here, but you are in the messy middle, yes. And you are going to go roller coaster up and down for the rest of your life. If you don't get out of that, you have to go bigger, or you're never going to grow. Yeah, and maybe
Matt Smith 36:28
someone doesn't have the desire to grow really, really big. Yeah, I'm in, I don't know. I'm in a marketplace of 280 agents, and I'm recruiting like crazy. So like, what's your excuse, really? And so, but I think too a lot of people just get they get again, they get in their own way, and they're like, Well, I don't know how to recruit. And one of the things that I spoke at the last triplex Tahoe event, I hosted a mastermind on recruiting, and I started these round tables with the same question. I want you guys to unpack and realize that all of us have three things in common with our real estate business. We have lead generation, we have lead conversion, and then we have some sort of follow up process. All of us have elements of those in our real estate business, right? We create leads, we have a follow up nurture process, and we have this, how we convert leads at a high level, right? We all have that. How many of you have that in your recruiting business? And everybody's like, Huh, what recruiting business? And they're at a chip like event, right? But it's just for perspective of I think a lot of people just struggle, and they think recruiting is picking up this headset, which I make phone calls on, by the way, and saying like cold calls, and trying to convince people to join the real estate team. But what I try to teach people, and I coach people too, is there's a better way, which is why I created the product that I've created with John Chet black is the three recruiting funnels. Is we create hand raisers of people that are engaging in your content and say, Hey, Brian, I'm actually interested in joining your real estate company. And like, Who do we call in real estate businesses? Do we cold call? Do we pick up a phone book? And cold call agents may say it's cold calling, but it's warm calling. It's hand raisers. People that have visited your website, they've requested a mortgage, they've calculated they want to show in whatever it may be, they've raised their hand in some way, shape or form. And so I've just built a systemized way where you can do the same thing with recruiting. And so then you can build the same exact systems for database management and pipeline management that you have for your real estate business in your recruiting business,
Brian Charlesworth 38:21
yeah. And whenever you actually know your stats, you know, you know how many appointments you need to have, yep, in order to get those 10 recruits a month or five recruits a month or two recruits a month, whatever it is, you know, right? What's the number? How many appointments do you have to have? Matt to get the number of recruits you want every month.
Matt Smith 38:41
So our number, our number for 2025 we've already set that. By the way, if you haven't done your 2025 goals, you're behind. And so we've already done our 2025 goals in October of 24 and our number is, we need to bring on six agents per month in 2025 every month. Okay, in order to make that happen, we have to set anywhere between 15 and 20 appointments per
Brian Charlesworth 39:04
month, okay, which if you set 15 and 20 appointments a month, how many of those actually take place?
Matt Smith 39:09
Roughly 80% of them. Okay,
Brian Charlesworth 39:13
so how many of you guys have set your goals? And if you have, have actually set recruiting goals again, we just talked about this. I don't want to try to convince you, because Matt has already enrolled you, which is much better than convincing but that is the most important part to growing your business
Matt Smith 39:33
absolutely so you can't grow your business without more people. You
Brian Charlesworth 39:36
just can't Matt. When I think of recruiting, I think of two, two sides of it. I think of the side you just discussed of how many appointments I'm going to set, how many I'm going to meet, and how many I'm going to actually recruit. And then I think about onboarding, recruiting, onboarding. What's your onboarding process?
Matt Smith 39:55
So, funny enough, I actually Brian, I don't know if you knew this, but I have a podcast too. My last. Podcast last week I released was an overview of my onboarding process. So I didn't
Brian Charlesworth 40:04
know that, so I'm gonna listen to that. Yeah, and I know you're not gonna be able to fit that whole podcast into this, but give us a two minute. Here's
Matt Smith 40:10
an overview. Number one, have a process. What are the must haves that every agent needs to do? And onboarding to me isn't the paperwork and the contract and all that admin stuff in my world, that stuff just happens automatically. I want to get them to sell real estate. How do I get them into action? And so I'll give you, I'll give away my best tip for this number one, when they come in on day one, I want to set proper expectations. We have a pre onboarding. So here's our three things, pre onboarding, boot camp and onboarding. So pre onboarding is all the the admin stuff. They have their contract signed. They have their license on day one of on boot camp. They they're ready for boot camp. I'm not wasting a day with all these questions and all fingerprints and whatever the thing, all these things. No day one of boot camp is day one. It's time to get to work. And part of the pre onboarding is they it's this how simple it is, 50 sphere of influence. They bring them with them. Brian, on day one, if you show up without that sphere of influence list, here's the conversation that I have. Hey Brian, thanks so much for showing up. This is the front of the room. Thank you so much for showing up. Just so you know, at massmyth Real Estate Group, we take our commitment seriously, and unfortunately, you did not take your commitment seriously. Again, your sphere of influence filled out. So I'm going to ask you to go home, get that filled out and come back tomorrow. You got some makeup work to do when you see you tomorrow, I send them all. It's we're serious here, and some of them don't come back. But what does that do to everyone else in the room? They're like, Oh, wow, this is serious. Yeah, it's real. It's a It's, I mean, you can change your life in our organization if you, if you actually commit to it, and so I want you to take it serious. Number two, what I do is I give them 50 of the oldest, deadest, worst leads I can find in our database. Here you go. Brian Colin,
Brian Charlesworth 41:42
yep, leave.
Matt Smith 41:43
I come back in an hour, and they're just defeated. This is miserable. Is this what real estate is? I knew I shouldn't join this team. This is miserable. I asked them, How did it go? And I unpack, and I let them self discover through a series of questions. They're like, well, if I would have known what to say, it would have been way better. And guess what? Now they're actually asking me to teach them scripts and dialogs, yeah, versus me forcing it down their throat because they experience some pain again. People don't believe what I tell them. They believe what they experience. So how do I give them the experience of so much pain? They're like, I need help. I need to know what to say. And now they want to learn the scripts and dialogs. Yeah, that's day one.
Brian Charlesworth 42:21
I love it. You've probably heard spring talk about her, hello week. But as I hear you walking through this, it's It's identical. It's just not I ripped off some of the things from her, to be honest, although she has them come with 200 people, but I think she gives them until day two to actually get those 200 people in their in their list. But anyway, Matt, this has been phenomenal. I am looking forward to seeing you this week in Miami at exp con, so be there, and I'd love to take you out to dinner and spend some more time with you. In the meantime, with us being out of time here, what would be like? You've given a lot of advice here, but what's like? One takeaway that these guys just need to make sure moving into 2025 like, what is something they absolutely must be doing right now?
Matt Smith 43:08
Well, I think a lot of people over complicate the business, and if I were to simplify it, real estate to contact sport, and too many of us struggle with being able to take that next step and get momentum, and we get stuck and we're an overwhelm. And when you're in overwhelm, you panic, and you freeze. And too many people are frozen right now. And so what I would encourage you to do is break down. Is what is that activity that I can do to win the day today? If you're an agent, if you're a team leader, it does not matter. You have to make sure that you win the day today. All of us have goals. We want to win the year, we want to win the quarter, we want to win the month, we want to win the week, but we haven't really done the work with ourselves and the honest what is the daily non negotiable activity that I need to do today to get closer to my goals? And most of the time, it's probably the one thing you don't want to do and you put off. So do it first. If you don't do that one thing, the rest of the busy work. The rest of the things that you were doing does not matter. If you're an agent, it's a contact sport. How many contacts are you having with with prospects today? If you're a team leader, number one should be recruiting. How many recruiting conversations are you having today? And by the way, retention is a part of recruiting, and if you don't believe that recruiting is important, I was going to tell this story earlier, and I got off sidetracked. Is one of my coaching clients bought into the recruiting after we had many, many conversations, and he shared with me six months later, he said, I just want you to know if I had not listened to you in recruiting, I would be out of business today. Today is the day I would have ran out of money. But not only was my investment in coaching with you worth it, now, we are more profitable. You're having our best year ever, because you convinced me that recruiting was number one.
Brian Charlesworth 44:47
That's how big of a difference it can make. Alright, guys, I'm going to end it with that, because going from being out of business to having your best year ever is what we all want, right? So, Matt, it's been phenomenal. Thank you for joining me. On the show and looking forward to seeing you this week, for sure.