Building High-Performance Real Estate Teams: Insights from Matt Miale

In the latest episode of The OT Only Teams for Real Estate Professionals Podcast, host Daren Phillipy welcomed Matt Miale, a top-performing real estate team leader from Connecticut. Known for his direct leadership style and a proven track record of success, Matt shared invaluable insights into building and leading a high-performing real estate team.

The Foundation of Team Success

Matt’s team of 28 full-time agents closes over 600 transactions annually, generating $170 million in volume. Their model is straightforward: focus on the basics of real estate—sign agreements, sell properties, and set appointments. By simplifying the business to its core, Matt’s team avoids distractions and maximizes efficiency.

“Real estate is a simple business,” Matt says. “You’re either serving the client or finding the client.”

Leadership That Sets the Standard

Drawing from his background as a wrestler, Matt leads with discipline, structure, and high expectations. His team operates on a meritocracy, where rewards and recognition are directly tied to performance. Daily morning calls, team meetings, and regular accountability benchmarks keep the team aligned and productive.

For agents who don’t meet these standards, Matt is unapologetically direct: “If you cannot show up and do the job, eventually you’re going to fail.” This tough-love approach is balanced with a genuine commitment to helping agents grow and succeed.

The Power of Client Events

A cornerstone of Matt’s strategy is leveraging client events to strengthen relationships and generate leads. His team hosts 6-8 VIP client events annually, such as Harvest Fest, sports outings, and food truck nights.

Matt emphasizes that the true value of these events lies not in the gathering itself but in the communication and relationship-building that happen before and after. “The event is the least important part—it’s the lead-up and the follow-up where the magic happens.”

By focusing on their sphere of influence, these events account for 85% of the team’s business, proving that strong relationships trump expensive lead-generation tools.

Hiring for Resilience and Results

When building his team, Matt prioritizes candidates with a proven ability to overcome adversity. He believes resilience and accountability are more predictive of success than real estate experience alone.

“Hardship teaches grit,” Matt explains. “And grit is what sustains long-term success.”

Simplifying the Path to Success

One of Matt’s key philosophies is keeping the business simple and effective. He avoids shiny new tools and gimmicks, focusing instead on consistent prospecting, relationship-building, and following proven systems.

“Most of what people are selling you in this industry is unnecessary,” he warns. “The fundamentals will always be what drives success.”

What Team Leaders Can Learn

Matt’s no-nonsense approach, combined with a culture of accountability and support, serves as a roadmap for real estate leaders looking to scale their teams sustainably. Key takeaways include:

• Focus on Fundamentals: Simplify tasks to essentials that directly impact the bottom line.
• Prioritize Relationships: Cultivate your sphere of influence through meaningful communication and events.
• Set Clear Standards: Hold team members accountable while providing them the support they need to thrive.
• Hire for Grit: Seek out individuals who have a track record of overcoming challenges.

Next Steps and Opportunities

For those inspired by Matt’s insights, he offers an in-depth class on building an events-based business. Connect with him on Instagram or Facebook to learn more.

Final Thoughts
Matt Miale’s approach proves that with strong leadership, simplicity, and an unwavering focus on relationships, it’s possible to build a high-performing real estate team that thrives in any market. Whether you’re a team leader or an aspiring agent, his strategies are a masterclass in achieving sustainable success. Tune in to Episode 28 of The OT Only Teams Podcast to hear the full conversation and dive deeper into Matt’s strategies.

Transcript

Announcer  00:00

Welcome to the OT only teams in real estate.

Matt Maile  00:16

Most of the stuff that people are selling you is crap because we are so fearful that our business is going to evaporate overnight, that we will buy anything in order to pretend that we’re buying insurance, as opposed to just go do the job. The job is go talk to more people. It’s that stinking simple. They’re out there. I just wish I could run my team the way my real my wrestling coach ran our team when I was in high school. You must figure out how to get someone that you’ve never met to agree to meet you in a place that they’ve never been to talk to you about something that they know nothing about. And you must be able to do that consistently over time, every single day, or you’re never going to have enough contracts in order to feed your family. This is the job. It’s what you signed up for. As a leader, your job in perpetuity is to drive the standard all the time. It will almost never be perfect. You will always be chasing it if you take on the role of leader, your job is to solve problems for people. That’s your job. Your job is to figure out ways to make life easier or better for the people that you serve. And the people that you serve are the people that choose to follow you.

01:39

Here’s your host. Daren Phillipy, Hey

Daren Phillipy  01:41

everybody. Welcome to the OT only teams for real estate professionals. My name is Daren Phillipy, and I’m your host. And let me tell you something. You guys don’t even know what you’re gonna get yourself into today, because Matt miae blew us all away. I’ve been having conversations about this ot all the last couple of days. So I’m telling you you’re going to want to make sure you grab your notes. The other thing is, too, I want you to brace yourself, because this guy is going to come and have straight talk with you. If you are looking to build a team and you’re looking to be a stronger leader, this is the guy you want to listen to. Matt runs a team in West Hartford, Connecticut. He covers basically all of Connecticut. He closes 500 plus transactions and 170 million in volume. Now, not only does he build a really powerful real estate business, he knows how to speak in a way that will motivate you and inspire you. This is this, the way he speaks to us in this group, is so impactful. And so I can’t wait to share this with you guys. You know, he runs a great team, and I knew I liked this guy when he brought out the fact that he was actually a wrestler. And you guys know, I wrestle in college, and I gravitate to this kind of stuff. And so he’s built a team that’s got standards. He’s built a team that requires strong leadership. And that’s one of the things that I learned from this OT, is that you can build a big business that is very simple, that is based off of strong leadership. That’s really this next conversation, the conversation that you’re about ready to listen to is about an hour long and is all about leadership. So make sure you grab your notepad. Make sure you get ready. And this is an episode you probably want to listen to multiple times if you want to become a stronger leader. Okay, I’m going to see you guys at the end of the OT. Tell me I’m wrong. Alright, guys, thanks for coming to the OT. Super stoked to have you guys here, and even some more stoked to hang out with Matt Yale. How’s that? Pretty good man. Super glad to have him. He I picked up the phone and called him because he’s in the Millionaire Real Estate Agent playbook about throwing events and and it took me probably 30 seconds to say, This is my kind of guy. And so thanks so much for for being here, dude, and it means a lot for me to spend time with you. Tell us a little bit about your team, what you’re all about, how long you’ve been in the business, all that

04:19

kind of stuff. Alright, yeah, let’s get we’ll go through the brass tax here. So we are based in Central Connecticut, but we are statewide organization. We currently have 28 full time agents. We will sell about 600 homes this year. We did 587, in our peak year, which was 2022, we, you know, had some challenges, like a lot of people adjusting to the market in 2023 made some pretty bold changes structurally to the organization, and we’ve rebounded pretty, pretty powerfully. We’ve got 64 pendings in the month of July, so we’re pacing really hard to hit our 600 which is great, but. Um, we are unique as a real estate team. And I think we’re unique because we are the biggest boring business that you’ve ever seen. And by that, what I mean is that we actually just follow the model I am extraordinarily rigid around what the job of a real estate agent is, and that is, and we define this, and we talk about it every single day on our team calls that is, sign something, sell something, or set an appointment. And if you actually were to captivate and capture, what is it that a real estate agent needs to do each and every day? Can you tell me any other thing that they need to do in order to actually do their job. No, they need to sign an agreement with a buyer or seller. They need to get a buyer or seller under contract with another buyer, another seller or another buyer, or they need to set a console with a potential buyer or a seller. And really, that’s about it. So we live by the premise that if it doesn’t mean sign something, sell something, or set an appointment, it should be done by somebody else. And we have a staff of seven full time administrators. There’s our w2 employees that work for the team. I’ve been in business as a team, really, I think it’s best to qualify as around 2010 we started prior to that, I was a solo agent from 2006 to 2010 and like a lot of solo agents, I kind of had some foray into an assistant, and then not an assistant, but, but really I was the only one selling. It wasn’t until I got the right assistant, and then my first buyer’s agent partnered with me in 2010 very proud to say too, that that buyer’s agent is still on the team and has been now, so for 13 years. That’s another thing I think that makes us pretty exciting as an organization to look at is that we have incredible retention on our team. We don’t lose people once they come to us. They come to us. We’re very selective about who we allow in the door, so we’re not your typical kind of churn and burn, you know, maybe they make it, maybe they don’t. We ask people to come to our team, and then we hold them to pretty high standards as far as what it means to be in the means to be in the organization, but why it works and why they stay is because the amount of value that we deliver to them in an everyday basis allows the agents on our team to sell, on average, 25 to 35 homes. On average, our top producers are selling 60 to 70 and they do that by serving 80 to 85% of their transactions through their sphere. So sphere repeat and referral business. I heard earlier, Jay talked about how FSBOs and expireds were a big part of their business. We focus all of our energy, and when I say all, I mean all of our energy. 0% of our energy goes to strangers. 100% of our energy goes to people we already know or getting to know new people. All of our energy, all of our marketing, all of our budgeting. We don’t pay a single dollar for internet leads. We don’t pay a single dollar for Zillow leads. We don’t buy any external lead system whatsoever. We generate all of our own leads. And why? And again, what that says to the agents that come to the team is, when I come here, I get to work with the people that I already know, love and trust. They get an exceptional experience and value by working with this team. And it’s a really great place for me to have a really great life and sell a lot of homes and so that value perpetuates, which is what makes agents want to stick with us. That’s who we are. That

Daren Phillipy  08:29

did that. You articulated that so well. Thank thank you for for sharing that. Because many people who are running big teams, they feel they have to go outside of their sphere of influence, on that side of their database. So you’re the first person that I came across that says we spend all of our energy, all of our power, towards people that we know. So that’s a big team like that.

08:52

Do we have an environment where we can be honest here? Listen, is there? Does everybody hear tough skin? Just just girls? Yes, they can handle it, because I don’t one thing. First thing is, Jay, we know we should get some cameras on here, if we can. It’s one just, you know, for participation purposes, maybe people turn their cameras on like I assume, just let’s again. We’re we’re all we’re all grown ups here. So one of the things that I tell my team is, if you show up to a podcast, you can sit and you can listen, but if you show up to a meeting, I’m going to expect you to participate, and if your camera’s off, there’s only one reason that you’d go to a meeting and keep your camera off, that would be because you’re also on the potty. So I’m going to assume that’s what I’m envisioning, just so you guys know, don’t worry. It’s fine. I don’t want you to turn it on if you’re on the potty, but I’m going to assume that that’s where you are if your camera’s off, because why else would you come here and not turn your camera on? So we’ll just assume that, and we’ll go from there. So the the thing is, that why that happens, Daren, is that people are people are often operating from a place of fear, okay? And team leaders especially, and I spent years. Are learning from the biggest and best in the business. Now, how many of you guys have seen people come and go in our industry? They get on stage, they get propped up. Oh, my God, they’re the best thing ever. Look at this amazing thing, and then where are they? Two years later, looking for a job, out of business. So it didn’t work. Oh, it’s not as good as it was. I made no money. I went down that road. I tried everything. I did it all. I bought it all. I spent all the money, I lost my money. I did it all over and over and over again. And you know what? Most of it’s bullshit. Most of the stuff that people are selling you is crap because we are so fearful that our business is going to evaporate overnight, that we will buy anything in order to pretend that we’re buying insurance, as opposed to just go do the job. The job is go talk to more people. It’s that stinking simple. They’re out there every day. There’s somebody that wakes up and makes a decision that they’re going to buy or sell or invest in real estate every day. Your only flaw, and the flaw of all your team agents, is that they’re just afraid to go find that person. They want you to find it for them. We make no bones about it. You come to our team, we’ll help you find them. We’ll give them an amazing experience, but your job is to find them. You’re the hunter. If you come to this team to be an order taker, we’re not the right team. Now it’s real scary for team leaders to take that position. It’s real scary, because what they’re afraid of is I’m going to lose them. Then what I figured out was that I was better off losing them than trying to serve them, because at some point in time, I’m serving 19 different masters with 19 different sets of requirements and 19 different sets of things that they want. I knew at some point that I would be fine if everybody quit, and all I had to do is sell real estate. I knew that I could outsell most people. Just give fine. Just give me the phone book, because I’ll do the work. It might not be sexy. I may never get on stage to talk about it, but I will outsell and outwork people. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the right thing to do, because I’ve I’ve matured as I’ve gotten old. I’m more seasoned now. I understand taking a vacation is a good idea, but there was a very real part of my growth where I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that maybe building a team is just a bunch of crap. Maybe it doesn’t work, because everybody’s trying to sell me something. So when I just said, I don’t buy stuff anymore, what we do is build an organization that follows rules and standards, and we apply those standards with effectiveness and with value every day, and the people that sign up for it, by the way, like you guys might be saying, I’d never want to be on this guy’s team. That’s actually great. That’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for the ones that don’t want to be here, because the ones that do, they eat it up. I was on vacation for two weeks, and this morning was the first morning call that I got back on, and the text that I got like, oh, man, we missed you. I’m like, I figured most of the time I’m getting on the call and they’re and I’m, you know, whipping people, and they’re like, No, we need that. You’re you’re going to build your organization around your culture and who you are. And for me, it was always about get people to do the job, and their life will get so much better. It gets so much better. It this is not a hard job. It’s not hard. We bring so much complexity and and challenge, and we bring it on ourselves. We buy a bunch of crap, and we pay for a bunch of things. We’ve got to learn a bunch of software. I mean, I this was it. This is my whole business right here was when I started. I did it out of these composition notebooks. Why these? Because they were the cheapest ones you could buy at Staples. I bought a box of 100 of them, and I just ran through them. I didn’t have software. I didn’t have top producer. It was just make phone calls every day, make notes when I ran out of people to call, go back a few pages and find somebody you talked to a few days ago. It was very inefficient. It was totally not like dialed in, but it helped me sell 5060 houses a year, which, by the way, at the time, my average sales price was $200,000 guys like we had to build a business that was efficient, because if we didn’t, we were going to ever make any money. I couldn’t afford to go buy every bill. Well, I tried it, I did, and I went broke a few times. And then I said, forget that. It’s not, you know, somewhere around 2013 2014 I figured it out. This is a simple, simple business. There’s two things you’re doing. You’re either serving the client or you’re finding the client, and that’s it.

Daren Phillipy  14:29

So first of all, guys, welcome to doing business in the Northeast Kyle. Boom.

14:36

It’s not all like that, not.

Daren Phillipy  14:38

I love it, dude.

14:39

I’m not everybody’s cup of tea. I know that, but I, I do know that we run a spectacular business and and I wish more team leaders would have the guts to do it, because their lives would get so much better. But it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s fear. And I And listen, I have, I’ve looked at you. More P, L, S, I’ve coached more team leaders. I’ve spent hours and hours of time with people, and they’re always afraid of losing something, but they don’t understand that what you can gain is the ultimate freedom to run your team the way it should be run. It’s just it takes, you know, it takes, it takes a little grind. It’s going to be it’ll be bumpy, but

Daren Phillipy  15:21

what I saw is leadership. And everything you just said, right, there is all about leadership. It’s, it’s believing. You believe in who you are. You know your value proposition, and now you’re going to stand firm to it and lead.

15:36

I’ll tell, I’ll tell a funny story about that that many of you team leads will relate to it was probably around 2013 2014 and I came home one day and my wife asked me how my day was, and I looked at her and I said, I think I’m exceptionally gifted at making people cry. Because it was just another day where someone came in my office and just broke down into tears. I can’t do it. The job’s too hard. And I was like, I don’t I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, because I’m actually not. Most of this sort of hard ass view of things is really self preservation, because fundamentally, I am huge hearted, and I care tremendously, and so in order for me to protect myself from being dragged into a lot of drama, which I think is self created, I have to protect. I have to create really, really stringent guard rails before I let people in, because once they’re in, I’m, I’m, I’m a mess. I have to, I try to save everybody. And so what happened was, I shared that with her, and she, said, Well, what, you know, what is it that happens? I said, Well, you know, I keep having these people join the team and like they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. And then they come to me and they say they want to do it different. And then I try to get them to, I try to convince, it’s just like, over and over, trying to sell people on the idea of getting up and going to work every day. And I said to her, I just wish I could run my team the way my real my wrestling coach ran our team when I was in high school and and she was like, Well, what was that like? And they said, Well, you know, you were expected to show up like, there was no like, convincing you to show up to practice, like, if you joined the team, practice was it was a foregone conclusion. Like, I didn’t. I didn’t ever consider, even for a half a second that I wouldn’t go to practice after school unless I was on my deathbed. Like there was never a moment where and I was like, and he was hard as hell on us, but it was because he wanted us to win. Like practices sucked. Practices were brutal. We hated it. We grinded, but it was because he wanted us to win. And you know what a lot of us won. We were good, we were a good team, and we didn’t even win. We didn’t win champion, but we won, and we felt like winners because we worked our asses off, and we knew our coach was hard on us, but we knew it was because he loved us, because He wanted us to win. And I was like, I just wish I could run my real estate team like that. And she said, so why don’t you? And it was like, Huh? Well, I’ve never really met anybody that runs a real estate team like that before, but what would that look like? And obviously you got to tone down some of the rhetoric and change a little bit people wrestle off and stuff, but you can run a business that’s based on the concept of a meritocracy, and that was really the first word that I landed on as a cultural edict, or sort of a cultural guide post for us, which was that we are a meritocracy. Which you’ve heard of a democracy, right? You understand what that is. A meritocracy is like a democracy in that we are guided by principles, but our principles are the rewards go to those who’ve earned the merit, who’ve done the job, meaning leads aren’t distributed to the to people because it’s fair. Leads are distributed because people win. Winners get opportunities. People that don’t win don’t and so you create that culture, and again, it’s scary, because when you create that culture, well, there’s this one that needs a needs a little hand right now, they’re trying, and it’s like this business pays nothing for trying. It’s just reality. And we just have to be able to speak reality, that if you cannot show up and do the job, you are going to fail, whether I help you this time or next time, eventually you’re going to fail. You must learn the things you need to learn. You must figure out how to get someone that you’ve never met to agree to meet you in a place that they’ve never been to talk to you about something that they know nothing about. And you must be able to do that consistently over time, every single day, or you’re never going to have enough contracts in order to feed your family. And so culturally, I landed on this idea that my job was to tell people the truth all the time, whether they wanted to hear it or not, and just always tell the truth based on my view of it, and do it from a place of I want you to win. I want you to win. And therefore these are the things that you need to do. If you’re unwilling to do these things, we might not be the team for you, because our. Job is to help you win. That’s what you hired me for, and that’s what I tell them all the time. My language to the team is, this is what you hired me for. You hired me to help you do the things you need to do. Now we’ve set up some some systems around how that looks for us. We have a we have a number of sort of ground rules, and one of them was the one I talked about earlier, which is cameras on right we we call that agreement number one, which is that if you’re on the team, part of your agreement is that you’re going to show up. And we don’t, you really use the word standards, but it is. It’s one of our standards. And showing up means when you’re here, you’re here, not half here, not partially here, not you know, when you’re here, you’re here. It means camera on, participating, join the team, be here at practice. Because if I went to wrestling practice and said, hey coach, I’m here, but I don’t really feel like it today, so I’m just going to sit on the side. That was it like you just were off the team, or you’ll never wrestle again. It you didn’t show up halfway. You came to play. And so we come to play, and that’s why our per agent production consistently is in the top 1% of the country. I mean, I think based on where we are this year, based on the real Trends data, that will be the number one team by per agent production in the country this year in 2022 our per agent production. We did 587, units with 18 full time agents, and 85% of that business was fear, repeat and referral now granted. We got buoyed by the market, like a lot of people, but we were working with the people we knew doing the things that we do every single day. In our agents were crushing it, crushing it. We it was, it was like an elite operating force. We didn’t have to convince people to go to work, because that was already part of the deal. Show up. That’s your first agreement.

Daren Phillipy  21:49

So Matt, first of all, I now know why I really, really like you. I wrestled in college. There was one time I stepped off, stepped off the mat after winning, and he was going off on me, and he said, You need to stop wrestling like you’re trying not to lose. You need to go out there and try to win. And all I heard for you what, what you’re saying to your team is, you go out there. I’m going to get your back. I’m going to train you. I’m going to get you to to the position you can handle any situation and you will win. And you should approach it

22:23

like that. We set our people up to win. That’s That’s my job. My job is to set them up to win. I can’t and I say this to them, I cannot do your job. If I have to do your job, I’ll just go do it myself. I’m happy I still sell too, by the way. So I, I put this out there to my team all the time. I want you to imagine you’re competing against me, because I’m still in the game right now, now. Granted, like so when you get off a call with somebody, if you don’t ask for the contract, if you don’t ask for the close if you if you’re in an open house and you don’t ask for the appointment, I want you to imagine that I’m sitting outside that open house in a bush, waiting to talk to that person. And if they can just imagine that I’m the next person they’re going to talk to, and you wonder and ask yourself, am I going to ask for the contract? Am I going to close the deal? Because if you think that you’re going to beat me, that’s cool, but I’m out there, and there’s people like me out there that are going to snipe you all day long. I’ll prepare you to win, and I’ll put you in a position to win. And so that’s that’s what we do. We engage the team in a way that challenges their thinking. But you know, let’s let me take the rhetoric back a minute, guys as team leads, what I know you hear and think is that there’s this crazy group of like Navy SEAL predators. We are a disaster, too. I mean, every these conversations never end. So I went away for two weeks, and all I could hear about was how many cameras were off and how many people were driving during the call. I mean, everybody wanted to tattle on everybody else. Oh yeah, the cat’s away, the mics will play. So I come back and I’m like, What? What happened to you? That’s exactly what used to happen at wrestling practice. Head coach was gone. Assistant Coach was in. People coming in late. Exactly what used to happen. It’s this is the job. It’s what you signed up for as a leader. Your job in perpetuity, is to drive the standard all the time. It will almost never be perfect. You will always be chasing it, which, by the way, will be a challenge for your exceptionally high, high C rule follower, people who will always be like, it’s not working, it’s not working. It’s like, it’s working enough for us to keep winning. Like, the point is when right, like, drive the mission toward the wind, toward the victory, get as many people to come along as you can, and you’ll have a fantastic business. But it starts. It really does, start with getting out of a fear mind as a leader, and start stepping into who you are as a leader. Who are you? You don’t have to be a wrestling coach. You could be, you know, you might, you might have a team that focuses more on, you know, family values or something else. And that’s all. All, okay, this just worked for me. It’s who I am. And so it became very authentic for me to lead like this, which meant that the people that were attracted by the way, you also might think, like, all I have is a bunch of dudes. We’re 70% female, like, like, it’s more. There’s more, there’s more women than there are men on the team. And I don’t, I don’t pick that. I mean, I just look for talented people that are willing to come to work. So you know, our our standards, our methods, are all about empowering the people that are on the team to go do their best, and as long as I deliver and and drop that value every day, I know that they can go out there and they can win and they can beat other people. And I’ll tell you what isn’t, what it isn’t. It isn’t glossy, bound presentations. It isn’t some, you know, some scripted dialog that we teach everybody. It is this business at its foundation, is very simple. You win simply by showing up more than the other people. 80% of Realtors just aren’t even going to work. They’re not even going to work. Just show up every single day and do something, and you will be in the top 10% it’s that stinking simple. I

Daren Phillipy  26:12

don’t even want to go to this next spot, but I have to. And then we’re going to go back into a like, I know everybody on here is like, freaking preach. Let’s go. But I have to do this part, and then we’ll go back to the fun stuff. Hold on, I gotta take notes on that, because you just, you just said, I’m gonna write this down. How do you find the people that want to work? How do you don’t answer it? Because where do you find the Where do you find the wrestler? Not the wrestler, but the person who comes in and shows up every day and does the grind do,

26:48

all right, I won’t answer it. Okay, don’t

Daren Phillipy  26:49

answer it. I know you want to answer it. You’re like, let’s go. Alright, this what I need you to do. Now, if you can share with us we spent by the way, I haven’t even asked, Where do you get your leads? So So you’re in mrea playbook, and you specifically the thing, one of the things that I know you do really well, is pour into your database, your sphere. You throw these great events, yeah, please lead us through what this playbook says,

27:20

yeah, um, let me start with the why, the why behind events, because I think that it is crucial to understand how I landed here. Um, like everybody, I got into the business, and I did what everybody told me to do. Well, maybe not like everybody. I like everybody who had a goal. I did what I was told to do, and I made a lot of cold calls, and I spent a lot of time, and I had a sales background. For the first 10 years of my career, I was in advertising sales, so I started with a foundation of understanding, like the metrics of the numbers game, like you gotta you gotta put the reps in. So I had a little bit of an advantage in that, but what I found was that the vast majority of the business that I was getting was getting was coming from people I knew, vast majority not even, not even close, like, literally, like, 80% was coming from people that I knew, and I was talking to them, but most of my conversations with them were not cheesy sales conversations. They were catch up conversations. They were, how are you doing? They were, you know, what’s Did you see the Yankee game? They were different types of conversations. They were way more fun. Honestly, I enjoyed them a lot more, and I spent a lot of my time trying to build my business around going and doing things that I liked around humans, because I knew that all those people lived somewhere, and that as long as I was around them and talking to them, and they knew what I did, that when they had a need, they could call me and I could, I could solve that problem, as long as I showed up credible and trustworthy. And so this, this started when my business really started to take off. And I think I had closed about 80 or 100 deals. It was like 2011 I had one buyer’s agent, and it was me, and I was actually out at a bar with the buddy that I play softball with who’s still a very good friend of mine. I’ve been on the same softball team for 15 years, bunch of old guys now, and we’re, we’re, we’re getting really bad every year. We get worse and worse. We used to be pretty good when we were in our 30s, but now we’re all in our I’m the youngest guy at 49 the oldest guy is 58 so we’re, we’re slow and, you know, but we’re still giving them a run for their money. But anyway, I’m out for, I was out for a beer after a game, which was not an unusual thing for us to do. And it was at it was when craft beer and bars were really starting to take off, you know. So there was this new bar in town, and they had 87 craft beers on tap. And my buddy says, you know, the only problem with 87 beers on tap is you just can’t ever try them all. And and it just sparked a thought that most of the people that I like to hang out with liked beer at that point. And I was like, what if I could help them? Try them all? What if I could do a beer tasting? I. Because I was starting to feel frustrated by how difficult it was to keep in touch with everyone that I knew and and provide value to them in a way that, like the classic 36 touch, call them once a quarter, send them some shit, blah, blah, blah, which, by the way, like again, it’s so outside the normal operating behavior of a typical highly successful realtor like, go interview 30 top producers and ask them how buttoned up and dialed in their database, 36 touches, 30 per 30, 10% of them are going to tell you they have something. 90% are going to be like, it’s a shit show, and yet they’re out selling everybody else. So again, I just just observing, like, tell me, you know, tell me something, but then show it to me. And what I saw was that there was this standard of, like, do a 36 touch, that’ll do it, and then nobody that was actually selling a lot of houses was doing it. And I was like, Okay, so there’s a mismatch here. So that could work, but it doesn’t mean it does work, because there’s all these people do. What did they do? And what they all did was they hung out with people they knew. So I was getting frustrated because I was unable to execute on that. So then I thought, What if I just got everybody in a room all at once, and I just bought everybody some beer like that would be the best way for like, kind of knock it all out at once. And that from that event, or from that idea was born, our very first client event, which was called Harvest fest. Now, harvest Fest was a beer and bourbon tasting with like it was like in the in the vein of an October fest. We did it in the first two weeks of November, because it was right before Thanksgiving after Halloween. It was this idea of like, end of year, thank you event for all the clients that we had worked with, and get them all in one bar, give them a beer tasting. Everybody came in and they got it. They got 22 ounce pours, I think so you could get a two ounce pour. And I got these custom made pine glasses, which are everywhere in my office, except for one right in front of me. I got these custom made pint glasses. So everybody came, they got a pint glass. They were able to leave with it and and they got to have some beer and some cool, you know, bratwurst and pretzels and Oktoberfest style food. And I was sweating it because I was paying for the whole thing. And so I was sweating it because it was like 8000 bucks, and I was terrified that, you know, what if it doesn’t work, like, what if it doesn’t work, right? And literally, that night, three of the people who came brought a neighbor, a friend, a work colleague, every one of them, Hey, Matt, I hope it’s okay. I brought Jeff. Jeff wants to get his house on the market. I told him, you’re the guy. I figured, what better way to get you, get you guys in touch than to have him come here? I was like, there you go. Three deals that night, not to mention all the referrals and follow ups that came as a result after the fact. So it became real clear to me that this was an efficient way to communicate with a lot of people really fast and get some and get some leverage out of it that sold me on the idea that events done effectively over time could be a lead generation strategy. And you asked, Where do we get our leads? The truth is, we don’t really do leads. Like it flips the triangle on its head because it’s leads listings leverage. We don’t really do leads. We do relationships. So like we get our leads from people we know our relationships are our leads, and anybody that comes to our team, the very first thing we do is we enhance and build their database for them. So we actually put it together. We actually do that heavy, by the way, when you talk about value, an agent coming into our business literally gets an actual database functioning communicated to effectively within the first two weeks that they show up being on our team. Just for that is a massive value add we get. We do data appends, we find addresses, we collect all the information. We put all the effort, energy and cost up front to get their database enhanced, because we know that’s where they’re going to get their business from, because we need them to have their database in order for them to invite them to all of our events. So So for me, the rules, it must be relevant to agents so they feel it’s a gift they can provide their sphere of influence. Recognize that invitations and communications are more important than the event. The event must reflect who you are culturally. So obviously a beer and bourbon tasting was spot on, in alignment of number one and number three. Let me talk about number two really quickly. Number two is that what we learned over time and now that that harvest Fest has evolved, we do typically six to eight VIP client events a year now. So just about every two, every six weeks, we have something big going on that we can invite people to. And that includes, we just did a Hartford yard goats game. That’s the minor league baseball stadium here. We had 1500 people in attendance to that. But what I tell everybody, which is crucial to. Understand is it’s actually not about the event. The event is the least important part of running an events based business. It’s the lead up and the afterward, which is where all the communication happens. Because if I were to ask you guys, what call would you prefer to make, or what call would your team prefer to make. Hi, it’s Matt. I was wondering, do you would you like to buy, sell or invest in real estate anytime soon? Or, hey, it’s Matt. I have four tickets to to a baseball game. Do you want to go? Which call Do you want to make? You want to make the latter call you want to invite people to a baseball game. That’s and so if you have agents that won’t pick up the phone, it’s because you’re asking them to make a stupid phone call. They don’t want to make that call. Nobody wants to make that call. It’s a stupid phone call. Like, don’t make them do something stupid. It’s not going to work. It turns people off. So I just said, How do I make them make a phone call that actually makes sense? We’ll give them a bunch of tickets to an event and they’ll make the phone call. So that’s that’s the concept behind it. So we run these events constantly. So the next one that we have is actually in August. We rent out a drive in movie theater. They have the capacity for 1000 cars a night. But what we do is we book three nights a week, for six for four weeks, so So, and then we invite all of our clients, and we basically pay for the car. And they get a giant popcorn. They get a beach bucket because it’s a summer theme. They get a beach bucket with the logo on it and whatever. And they can fill it with popcorn as many times as they want, right? So they drive in, they just say, I’m here with the me alley team. They get checked in, they go in, they get to watch a movie, and they can do it on any one of 12 nights that are available at this drive in movie theater that’s here. And it’s basically, you know, they get there, we have a tent up front. We’ve got tables. They come over, they check in. We’ve got some registration stuff going. So that’s our drive and movie event. We do a bunch of like, we do a soccer game with the Hartford athletic which is the MLS soccer team that’s here. We do the Hartford wolf pack, which is a minor league hockey team. We do the harvest fest event. We do an outdoor food truck and music live music event. So these things are, they’ve evolved over time.

Daren Phillipy  37:14

First of all, awesome. I mean, awesome. That’s as lame as I can explain. There is there anything else I need to know on this game plan part two,

37:27

without getting too deep in the weeds this, I actually do an entire, like, hour and a half class on how to how to build an events based business. So what I would tell anybody that’s here is, if you’re interested in that, just reach out to me. Find me on Instagram or Facebook, reach out to me, and I can bring that class to your market center, or I can bring that class somewhere and teach it. Because there’s a lot of this is overwhelming for people. What I’ve learned is they look at this and they go, shit, dude, I don’t know. How do I deploy the resources? How do I pay for it? There’s a million logistics questions around it, and I can tell you that there’s a really simple way to get started. There’s a complicated way to get started. There’s there’s methods to tracking and understanding the the actual ROI on this that are really, really important. And so reach out to me, Matt at the Mealy team or find me on Facebook and send me a message, and I’m happy to get the class in your in your area, to go over all that love it.

Daren Phillipy  38:29

We will make that happen. I guarantee that we’ve got, we’ve got, dude, I can camp out for four hours here with you, and I know we’re done in 15 minutes. So this is what we’re going to do. I want to, I want to talk about so much stuff. I’m like, where do I go? Let’s talk a little bit about Chris. One of the things that I think is really cool that you’ve done is is you were able to create a team that attracts other teams to want to join you. Will you tell us a little bit about how that works. What do you need to do to be able to attract others and say, just be part of us, dude.

39:10

So the way I look at it is that if you take on the role of leader, your job is to solve problems for people. That’s your job. Your job is to figure out ways to make life easier or better for the people that you serve, and the people that you serve are the people that choose to follow you. So for me, I wanted to solve the biggest problems for real estate agents. And what I understood the biggest problems were is that real estate agents always feel like they’re on the roller coaster. They’re up, they’re down, they’re up, they’re down, they’re up, they’re down, and they’re always chasing the next deal. They’re always chasing Where does my next deal come from? Where does my next deal come from? Once I learned that you could, you could really level that out and get really good at predicting business based on working your database versus. Is working with strangers, then I knew that I could solve the problem for the vast majority of agents by giving them a system to communicate with the people that they already know. So somebody like Chris, and just for those you guys who don’t know Chris grant, Chris was a team leader in our Market Center, one of the top team leaders in the country for a while. Really great guy. 20 plus year veteran in the industry. Chris stepped down from the team leader role, went and started his own team, made a made a run at that for about a year. And over the course of that time, you know, he and I had always been friends because he was team leader in our market center. So we knew each other really well, you know, we collaborated on stuff. He’d call me, he’d call me, he’d ask me questions. Hey, I want to do this. I want to do that. How do I do it? And at one point I just asked him. I said, you know, dude, I don’t like, it seems silly to me that you’re out there trying to build this. I already have all this. Like, what would it look like if we just, if we just engaged in a partnership? Like, how would that look? And he was like, you know, I’ve been waiting for you to ask. He actually said that. And I was like, Well, you know, obviously I always want to be respectful of somebody wanting to go do it on their own, but you know, what does that need to look like? And he said, to be honest, like the thing that’s most important to me is being able to deliver the most value to my clients. And if I can deliver the most value to my clients and have a big enough world to grow in both for my own business and then also through people that I influenced. And what would I want to go build it on my own for? But the reason that that value works is because I’d already solved all the problems that he was trying to solve, and most of you guys have already done the same thing. You’ve already solved the problems that many of the agents in your market, many of the agents that are trying to build teams are trying to solve right now, the two things that hold people back from partnering with you is number one, ego, and you can’t do anything about that. If there is this person that just simply wants to do it themselves, that’s fine, let them. There’s nothing wrong with that. I might be one of them. I might need to I might be one of those guys that just needs to go do it myself, not because of my name or any of that, but because, like, I enjoy the process of doing. I enjoy being a leader, like the parts of this job that I like require me to be in charge of it, so I might not be the greatest team player, but so if there’s somebody like that, they might not be a great fit, but there’s also people out there that just simply aren’t being fulfilled, selling homes or running a team, and they would love to partner with you, but you just have to figure out what problem they’re trying to solve that you’ve already solved, and then helps help them see how you can help accelerate their life through that most of the agents that are on my team were experienced agents. We actually don’t hire any new licensees, as a matter of policy. If you’re brand new, you cannot get on our team or even an interview unless you’ve had two years or 10 transactions. We just don’t have time to teach people the basics. It’s not part of our equation. Like, because you don’t know what you don’t know, and people that are under 10 transactions are under two years, they take for granted how much value we deliver to them, because they just don’t get that. This is not the norm. So they show up and they’re still talking about how glossy are your presentations? And we’re like, there are none. We don’t put we don’t put gloss on our presentations, because they’re still asking me for, when do I get business cards? I’m like, Dude, I haven’t had business cards Since 2017 What do you need business cards for? That’s ridiculous. Who? What do people do with business cards? They throw them away. You’re not getting any business from a business card. Sorry to go off on a tangent, business card, people, here’s the thing about business cards that drives me freaking bananas. For bonus points. Does anyone here know what a business how a business card got created?

Daren Phillipy  43:51

What that was? No, I can’t wait to hear how things are made. I this. I love this. Anybody

43:56

know where business cards came from? Okay, I’m going to guess that when I say the word Rolodex, several of you are going to be like, ding, oh, my God, that’s where business cards get. That’s right. There used to be this thing before you had a phone that held all the information in the world, called the Rolodex. And sales people lived and died by their Rolodex. The bigger your Rolodex, the bigger your bank account. Okay, and the Rolodex was really effective. If you handed somebody a business card, they could stick it in the Rolodex and staple it in. And that was how, that was how you created efficiency in business it was about, hey, here’s my business card, put it in your Rolodex. You take the business card, you put it in a Rolodex, staple it, and now you had that person’s contact info. Well, how many of you guys have a Rolodex now, no. How many of you put every person you know in your phone, right? It’s in your phone. You’re you don’t need a business card. It’s a giant waste of money. It means it does nothing. It adds no value. It creates no upside. It’s an it’s a it’s like saying, how, how many weekends are you going to advertise my home in. Newspaper like you’re you’re not solving a problem with a business card, but, but so what happens is we, as team leads, we just decide to buy a bunch of business I love it. Ozzy, thank you. Yeah, we just decided to buy a bunch of business cards because teams are asking for them, and we’re afraid that if we don’t give them business cards, they’re not going to join our team. Just tell them the truth. The business card is not going to make you good at selling houses. The business card is irrelevant. I don’t even have them. I don’t have them. I haven’t had them in years because they don’t do anything. And by the way, what’s more effective giving somebody a card or saying, let me get your contact info. I’ll text you real quick, and then we can communicate right

Daren Phillipy  45:38

nine minutes and I’ve got I’ve got two questions, at least. Okay, go. Have to finish the question. So, so, first of all, again, awesome. How do you find the person that’s willing to grind

45:55

all right, so there is, there is a, there is no question that. This is the, you know, this is the million dollar question. This is the hardest thing to do. If you lined up 10 brand new agents in front of me today and asked me to guess, you gave me their resume, and you gave me everything about them, and you asked me to guess which one was going to be most successful or which two were going to be in the top 20% I’d be willing to bet I’d be wrong. It is that really difficult to predict who’s going to be successful in this business. And so there is a little bit of trying out. You got to look at it. Now, the couple of things that I have found to be pretty good indicators is, number one, track record means way more than anything else, and way more. Look at their history, who they are as a not only as a person, but but career wise. What have they done? Have they shown up as a leader in other parts of their life? Have they shown up as somebody that was resourceful in other parts of their life? That is the best predictor, but beyond sales, because I’ve taken dudes out of FedEx trucks and turned them into 40 unit producers, and I’ve taken people out of corporate sales for 10 years and gotten them out of the business within 15 days. Like you, you cannot predict who has the resilience and the the capacity for dealing with what it takes to do this job at a high level, and so I look at track record, and what I’m typically looking for is a history of overcoming adversity that is the best, to me, the most likely predictor that somebody’s got something in the tank that other people Don’t. Now that adversity for different people means something different. So, you know, for one person, overcoming adversity might be that their parents were divorced when they were a kid. For somebody else, overcoming adversity might be being bullied. For somebody else, it might just be, hey, I struggled in a job, or, you know, I got caught smoking weed when I was in college, and, you know, whatever it could be, any number of things, but I look for a history of having overcome some adversity and and having created an outcome. What that tells you about the person is that they’re willing to take responsibility for their own future and they’re willing to do something about it. And that, to me, is the biggest predictor, and it’s, it’s way more, you know, for for some it might be a single mom, it might be, you know, it might be a they’ve just, they’ve found a way to make it happen despite the fact that they didn’t fit in. What? What happens if you don’t find that with people is they bring a little bit of a victim mindset with them, where it’s like, Well, I came here because you said you were going to do blah, blah, blah, and I thought that if you did this, then I would magically be successful. And the truth is that, like, I can’t do any I can’t do any of that for any I can’t make any one of you get off this call and do anything. I do not have that magic power. All I do, all I do, all I have, is the ability to create an environment where all the resources are available for you to go make your own future happen faster, with more efficiency and better I can create an environment for that, but that’s it. If you don’t do the thing, there’s nothing else to say. So I look for that, and that has proven to be a pretty good litmus test. I’ll tell you one thing that is really interesting too, is that I actually we have a lot of high C personalities on my team, and that that flies in the face of sort of the typical but they’re usually like, they’re usually like, high DC, high CD, but there’s a there’s something about a system that attracts people that are in sales, that they want a system. They want to follow a system. And they want, they don’t like the fact that it’s unpredictable, because typically high C is like everything to really fall into a box. But. If you can help them with understanding that it’s a system that you follow it, they do really, really well inside of a highly structured environment.

Daren Phillipy  50:08

That is the best answer I’ve ever heard. Oh,

50:12

well, I’ll take it, dude.

Daren Phillipy  50:13

Thank you. Alright, so we got five minutes to ask questions. You’re awesome, Jake. If you have any other questions, they’re going to have to be very efficient. Jay, go ahead.

Jay Hendrix  50:27

First of all, I want to say, of all of these we’ve been at, this is the best one period, hands down. But my question is, you just said something that I think is the hardest thing to do, is you get somebody on your team, and you just said in 15 days they’re off. How in the world do you make that decision and make that happen in 15 days?

50:49

So we have standards, and we have agreements, and we have benchmarks, and if people aren’t, so people figure out really quick if you’re in a meritocracy, right? Or, if you join the wrestling team, the people that were going to quit quit within the first 15 days, like, like it wasn’t, it wasn’t halfway through the season, like it was the first 15 days that people quit. So that’s typically what we see, is that people show up, and when we say so, our standards are, show up to everything that the team does 100% as expected. We need you to report five of seven days your activities. We need you to do two consults a week, and we need you to add five new friends to the database every single week. So those are, those are the only things I care about. I need you to do those four things. I need you to do them every single week. If you don’t, if you can’t do them one week, that’s fine, but you can’t not do it two weeks in a row. 15 days is all it takes for somebody to not do it two weeks in a row. It’s just four things, and that’s all and by the way, oh, those four things will, those are the recipe, by the way, for you to run a highly efficient, structured team that drives people toward production. Have them just require them to show up to everything show your number one rule is you have to show up to everything. You have to show up now everything for us is we do a morning call. Every single morning 830 we kick off morning. Call 830 to nine o’clock. It’s mandatory. It’s required. You cannot not show up unless you’re deathly ill. That’s practice. We do script practice on that. We do market stats review, we do objection handling, we do accountability. I bring a little bit of a, you know, a morning sermon to everybody to get everybody fired up. And then we go out and do the day and we do that on Zoom, and that’s a show up. That’s a requirement. So that’s, that’s, you know, you got to show up five out of seven days for the morning call. We have one team meeting a month. Team meeting is about two and a half hours. We do one call night a month. Call night is typically two hours. We do three team retreats a year, which is an all day off site, which, those are super fun. Nobody ever misses those, because there’s usually a really nice dinner and some drinks at the end, right? And breakfast is included, so nobody misses that. And then, and then we do all of our VIP client events, and so you’re, you’re required to show up to all of that. That is rule number one. So it’s really easy when somebody shows up and commits to all that. And by the way, like, we don’t hire people until they’re like, we call them The Four Agreements. Like, the Four Agreements are what you’re signing up for. When you sign the contract, it says, I agree to these four things. So within two weeks, if you haven’t done the Four Agreements, like, it’s not even about kicking them out. They usually don’t want to be there. They’re usually opting out within 15 days. You really never, I don’t think I’ve had to fire somebody in five years. The environment does all the heavy lifting. Like people that don’t want to show up to an environment that’s all about work and production just don’t like coming to work. They’re just like, Man, this is all you guys do, is talk about selling real estate. And it’s like, yeah, no, shit, that’s what we’re here to do. Like, like, you know, like, This is who we are. Like, it’s what we do. So, yeah, so that’s, that’s it. It’s you just, you just create an environment where, you know, they don’t want to be there if they’re not, if they’re not going to do

Daren Phillipy  54:24

it, Matt, you have inspired me, and you’ve inspired us. There’s no doubt you’re getting a phone call from me saying, hey, it’s time for us to have you on here again, because we didn’t even get a fraction of what I needed done done, and then we could do a little bit of drilling and some wrestling at Mega camp of family reunion.

54:42

Awesome. Hey, listen, guys, you can find me, like I said, find me on Instagram. You know, send if, if you feel inspired to throw a five star review up on the Mealy team Google page. That would be awesome if you got some value out of this. You know, anything that you could do there. And if ever. There’s anything I can do to help you. I’m really easy to find. Like I said, through Instagram or Facebook, you can find me, and my cell phone is all over the internet because I’m a listing agent. So

55:12

it’s really, I just want to say it was very before we go off, it was very refreshing. I mean, I’ve been, this is business with kW for 23 years. And, you know, I’ve been, I was hired in by Terry brink is and I really like how direct you are. I know you kept saying, many people don’t like it, but for me, I feel like, yeah, that’s the guy. I just

55:32

it’s been a weird, it’s been a funny sort of experience for me, you know, because it’s been a slow build business and so, so, you know, in the last couple of years, really, people started calling and say, Hey, what are you doing out there in Connecticut? What’s going on? I show up and, you know, I never knew the way we did things was different. I just did it the way we did it and like it. And I never knew it was unusual or different. I knew it was the right thing for me and the right thing for my team, and I appreciate that very much, Ivy,

56:04

I just wanted to tell you, because I’m like, sitting here listening, going, What is he talking about? Like, dude, I love this guy. He’s like, every time you say, I’m like, Okay, I’m going to call him. I’m going to coach him. What are you talking about? You’re amazing. Like, just it’s most people want direct. I just think that’s what people need, that’s accountability. So anyways, I’m sorry to take us over. Daren just wanted to say that.

56:28

I appreciate it very much. It’s scary for people that don’t that aren’t ready to hear it. Yeah,

56:35

I get it. I get it. Yeah. Ozzy guys, so

Daren Phillipy  56:39

if he’s got to say something too. Just wanna, okay, I just wanna say thank you for sharing all your wisdom. I appreciate it. Yeah, anytime, anytime. Thanks, guys. I’m not sure if you noticed Ozzy’s got a singlet underneath those sleeves there. He’s ready to roll nice. And

56:55

we all rip up our business card.

56:57

Yeah, throw out your business cards. Yeah. I was like, soon. I was like, Do you remember when the roll everybody goes, Oh, crap. Now I remember, like, When is the last time you went and found a business card to call somebody?

Daren Phillipy  57:12

Well, Matt, I’m glad I’m blessed to call you my friend and spend more time with you, bud.

57:18

Thank you guys. Bye. Pleasure. Take care. Bye, well,

Daren Phillipy  57:26

I don’t know what to say. I am telling you guys that experience for me, listening, spending an hour with Matt was fantastic. I hope you guys got a whole bunch of ahas the way he speaks and leads his team, the way he sets standards and and expectations, the way he simplifies the business and simplifies the expectations. It’s very clear, you’re either gonna win on his team or you’re not. If you’re not gonna win, it’s okay you don’t hit on his team. If you win, you’re gonna win. I love, I love my time with Matt. I guarantee you guys in the future. I haven’t asked him this, but I kind of all and told him he’s going to be on there again sometime. So guys, I hope you guys enjoyed it. You do know that I and I do this every Tuesday, 1130 Pacific Standard Time. Live on. Zoom. If you want to be a part of it, just contact me. I’ll hook you up. We’ll get you into that room where you can actually be the one asking questions in the room. I run a Keller Williams office here in Vegas. I do this because I want to be the go to place when it comes to building. Now, I know you’re probably not in Vegas, but you probably need help building a team or looking for ways to to make your business easier. So contact me. My number 702-706-4949, I’m happy to help with you. Number one, number two. I’ll also connect you with some great leaders in your area that knows the models and systems when it comes to building teams. Second thing, if you’re in Vegas, you’re considering a team, or building a team, or you have a team, and you’re looking for for some direction and some guidance. You don’t have to make this up for yourself. You could follow a model. Contact me. I’d love to be your resource. Love to be your partner. All right, that is pretty much it. That’s the OT. I’ll see you guys next week. Can’t wait talk to you soon.

59:25

Thanks for coming to the OT. Remember you can join us every Tuesday at 1130 Pacific, Standard Time on Zoom. Gain zoom, access the OT archive and other team resources at only four teams.com. See you next week. You.