Small Town, Big Results: Troy Williams’ Innovative Real Estate Tactics

How Troy Williams Dominates His Small Town Market with a Systemized, Relationship-Driven Approach

As a real estate agent in a small town, standing out and capturing the majority of the market share can be challenging. Yet, Troy Williams has achieved remarkable success in York, Maine, closing 339 units and generating $194 million in volume over the past year. His journey provides a blueprint for building a thriving real estate business in any market, particularly smaller communities.

The Power of Community and Local Knowledge

Troy’s deep roots in York give him a unique edge. Growing up in the area, he has an intimate understanding of the town and its residents. He leverages this knowledge to position himself as the go-to real estate expert. His authenticity and local expertise resonate with clients, creating trust and long-term loyalty.

But Troy doesn’t stop at being a local. He actively builds relationships with key influencers in the community, including attorneys, town hall staff, bartenders, and hairdressers. By offering value and support to these individuals, he taps into their extensive networks, generating a steady stream of high-quality referrals.

Innovative Marketing Strategies: The Trolley Effect

One of Troy’s standout marketing tools is his trolley. Using it for open house tours not only creates a memorable client experience but also serves as a mobile billboard, reinforcing his brand throughout the community. This innovative approach highlights the importance of creativity in marketing and the value of standing out in a crowded market.

Building a Streamlined and Profitable Team

Troy’s organizational structure is designed for efficiency and profitability. His team includes a director of operations, a comptroller, and an executive assistant, along with seven full-time agents. He right-sized his team from 12-14 agents during the 2022 market slowdown, ensuring all agents remained full-time and profitable. This strategic move allowed him to maintain high standards of service while adapting to changing market conditions.

Troy’s focus on systemization is another key to his success. He’s documented every aspect of his business, from client intake forms to task assignments. This approach ensures consistency, smooth operations, and business continuity—critical factors in maintaining profitability and providing exceptional client service.

Relationship-Driven Lead Generation

Troy’s lead generation strategy revolves around his sphere of influence. He’s built strong relationships with local professionals, including builders, investors, and landowners. Regular client events, newsletters, and direct mail campaigns keep him top-of-mind with his database, while his community-focused approach fosters trust and loyalty.

Valuing and Empowering His Team

Troy emphasizes the importance of understanding and communicating the value you provide as a team leader. By adjusting his commission structure to reflect his value proposition, he’s created a win-win scenario for his agents. His innovative approach includes offering agents opportunities to invest in his real estate ventures, further aligning their success with his own.

Simplicity and Focus: The Keys to Longevity

Troy advises team leaders to simplify their business processes and focus on doing a few things exceptionally well. This clarity and focus have been instrumental in his ability to adapt and thrive, even in a slowing market.

Troy’s Takeaway for Real Estate Professionals

By combining deep community roots, innovative marketing, and systemized processes, Troy Williams has become a dominant force in York’s real estate market. His story is a testament to the power of relationship-driven strategies and disciplined execution. For real estate professionals looking to own their local market, Troy’s approach offers valuable lessons and actionable insights.

Catch the Full Episode:

Listen to the full episode of *The OT Only Teams for Real Estate Podcast* featuring Troy Williams for a detailed breakdown of his strategies, team structure, and innovative marketing approaches. Don’t forget to subscribe to stay updated on future episodes featuring top-performing real estate professionals sharing their secrets to success!

Transcription

Announcer  00:00

Welcome to the OT only teams in real estate.

00:13

If you’re on the once you’re on the team for two years, you’re eligible to invest with me. You know, I I’ll show you my track record. I’ll show you what I’ve done. It’s all open book. And you know, I’m not doing this because I need your money by any means. I’m doing this as a way to reward you and and also hopefully educate you, right, as long as the profits there, you know, what’s the matter with them? Selling 300 houses or 600 houses? I’d rather sell 300 and make a good chunk of change, than 600 and not make any

Announcer  00:52

money. Here’s your host, Daren Phillipy. Hey

Daren Phillipy  00:58

everybody. Welcome to this week’s ot only team for real estate agents. My name is Daren Phillipy, and I’m your host. Your host. And for all of those agents out there that are doing their business in their hometown, the hometown that they lived in, this is your episode. You can apply all the things that you learn from Troy Williams in in no matter if you grew up in the town or not, but Troy Williams grew up in in York, Maine, and he says the house that he currently is living in, he can see the house that he grew up from. I think it was his deck. So, so what Troy’s gonna do is he’s gonna share with with all of us, basically what he does to be, kind of be that guy that everybody comes to when it comes to doing business in that town. It’s a small town. I’m google it. Go on Google Maps. And York Maine is not a gigantic community. And he, over the last 12 months, has closed 339 units, 194 million in volume. And so if you want to own your town this, this right here is, is a great episode. He’s also going to share a little bit about how he’s able to retain his agents and and really make a difference in their lives. And you guys are going to love it. You’re just going to love it. So I want you to make sure that you’re ready to take notes and all that kind of stuff you kind of stuff. Would have loved to have you in the room. All you need to do to join the room is on Tuesday at noon, Pacific, standard time you go to only for teams com, click the Join the Zoom Room, and you can actually be a part of that. It’ll bring you right in the room. Go through the whole thing, and you can be one of the people at the people at the end of the the episode, where you can ask questions. So I challenge you to do that. I double triple dog dairy on that. Okay, okay, take some awesome notes. Troy. Troy knows so much, and you guys are going to learn so much. Thanks, Troy for being here, and I’ll see you guys all in the OT. Alright, guys, here we are welcome to the OT. Super excited to have Troy Williams, one of the most generous of the the phone calls of, hey, will you be on the OT? And he’s like, You bet. And we schedule, scheduled it relatively quick too. So Troy, thanks so much for being on here, dude. Yeah, no, I’m happy to be here. So So give us a little I’ve got the numbers, and I found that my numbers might be I’ll tell you what I have when it comes to your your production, you can tell me close enough. Over the last 12 months, 339 closed units, and 194 million in volume, and that’s in downtown York Maine, that is that about, right? Yeah.

03:44

I mean, we’re probably trending a little lower than that right now, but yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s our average. Okay,

Daren Phillipy  03:50

well, good. Well, tell us a little bit about where the heck is York Maine, and tell us a little bit about who you are, yeah.

03:57

So, Troy Williams, born and raised in New York Maine, very fortunate to get to, I tell people, unfortunately, I get to live other people vacation. We’re about 4515 minutes in Boston and 40 minutes in Portland, Maine. So I can be in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, if you know where that is in about 12 minutes. I can be in Boston in in under an hour, and I can be in Portland, Maine in about 40 minutes. So I I’ve got some big, you know, metropolitan areas close by, draws a lot of second home buyers, you know, big, very, very popular summer crowd the winters are, you know, our year round population is about 14,000 in York. And then our in the summer, our population swells to about 65 70,000 that’s, it’s a popular spot,

Daren Phillipy  04:55

no doubt. And just so you guys know, see that over. His left shoulder he, he said, This is where I live, and this is straight from his backyard. So, yeah, I guess it’s a popular, popular lighthouse in in the area. So, oh, cool. Well, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about what is your org chart look like?

05:18

Sure, yeah. So I, I, I set up my org chart so that I only have a handful of people to report to before I realized that that was like the thing to do. I just, I get confused easily. So the more people I talk to, you know it was not, it was not a good thing. So I’ve got, I’ve got a director of ops who, who, you know idea I work with on a daily basis, all day. I’ve got, essentially my Comptroller, who does all the financial reporting and bookkeeping and stuff for all my different businesses. And then I’ve got a personal assistant, or not in person, but an assistant, an executive assistant, rather, who helps with everything and and then I’ve got the leaders of each of my businesses report to myself and my director of ops together in a perfect world. They’ll go to her before they’ll come to me. They’ll come to me only if, if absolutely necessary. Then the agents, agents and employees, all report to two other people.

Daren Phillipy  06:28

Very good. What is your how many agents do you have on your team

06:31

right now? I’ve got seven full time agents in 20 prior to 2022, when the market started to, you know, slow down. And mid 2022, we started to talk grade and let people go. We typically have had about 14, at least 12 to 14 on average. I My whole thing is, I want people who are full time, who are making six figures, who are doing well, making good money. And when I saw the business slowing down, I knew I couldn’t do that for that many people. So I needed to, you know, really kind of right size it.

Daren Phillipy  07:08

Are they able to do listings and buys and both,

07:12

yep, yep. There’s certainly some people who have have strengths one way or the other. We do a lot we do. We do everything from land, some commercial, new development and luxury. So you know, if they bring in their own thing of any of those, they can do it with me. With that said this, I give the business to whoever I feel is going to be the best fit for that piece of business.

Daren Phillipy  07:41

Okay, before we start getting into some important stuff, you ever sold lighthouse?

07:46

I, I had offers on the lighthouse, but I have not actually closed

Daren Phillipy  07:52

one. My guess is probably hard thing to sell. Yeah,

07:56

yeah. And just a funny sidebar, my, my, I’ve got two sons, and first one, we weren’t sure what we’re having for a girl. We had some great girl names. We really didn’t have a boy named we liked. And we were in the hospital, you know, waiting, you know, just about to have this kid, and we realized we needed to have, we needed a boys name we could both agree on, in case it was a boy, we were convinced, me a girl. And so that lighthouse in the photo there, there’s another one that you can’t see, kind of where my logo is called Boone Island, and William is being a common last name. We needed something unique. And a buddy of mine said, you know, if I had another kid, Troy, I’d name it Boone. And so, like, we’ll go up with that. So we our oldest son is bona Boone, in reference to Boone Island, and our youngest is fry, which is another island that’s an island on one of our lakes in the state. So

Daren Phillipy  08:48

those are, those are solid names. Little side note, first of all, Boone and sly. You said, right. Okay, so I was gonna name my youngest son either cam or creed? Yeah, with creed, because I said, Dude, you wouldn’t want to mess with a guy named creed in the back alley. You don’t want to mess with that guy. You don’t want to mess with the boon either.

09:08

No, no, no. We wanted a strong name, and that checked the box.

Daren Phillipy  09:13

No doubt, no doubt about, well, stop screwing around. Let’s talk about, um, where you get your leads. You You got to feed um, seven agents, you got your team and up to 14 leads.

09:25

So we were really hyper local. We I started the team because I had more business than I could could handle on my own. I was referring it out. And then the owner of Keller Williams, the closest one to me, we met, and he’s like, he goes, dude, he goes, dude, he goes, You should start a team. I’m like, How do you do that? He goes, Well, you know, Gary Keller wrote a book on it. And I’m like, who’s Gary Keller? And he goes, he started, Keller Williams. Like, okay, I so I was doing it kind of backwards. Have Been doing it backwards for a while, but I, over the last six, seven years, changed that. I have. I’m fortunate that a really large sphere of influence, and I leverage that sphere of influence to to grow the leads. So when I’m when I’m doing anything lead generating wise, I’m not going to talk to somebody unless they they have the ability to bring me, like, four pieces of business. So that really narrows down who I can talk to, right? And then those people I just pour into them. So it tends to be attorneys. Tends to be people who, you know, interact with a lot of different people on daily basis. That could be somebody at Town Hall, that could be that could be bartenders, wait staff, right? I mean, it can be hair. Hairdressers are amazing. I mean, they talk to everybody, and they’ve got a captive audience. So I take really good care of them, builders, investors, landowners, right? So I, I nurture those people in a big way. And, you know, we do it. We it pay it pays dividends, right? So a lot of it’s client events. We do one big client event every month at least. We have a newsletter that we put together every month and saw digital content. We send that Every Door Direct to about 6000 households. We send it electronically to about another 15,000 people. And, and just, you know, really trying to stay top of mind, we’ve got a truck, we’ve got a troll. So we’re in a beach town, right? We, we, years ago in 2017 they wasn’t bought my first trolley. I was sick of people asking me for, you know, in this business and any visible business, you get asked for donations constantly, you know, and you give somebody a few 100 bucks, and you’re lucky if you get, you know, mentioned in in their, you know, whatever their acknowledgement thing. So I decided I was going to buy a trolley and do, stop doing open houses and do trolley tours instead. Hold

Daren Phillipy  11:59

on for a second. Did you just say you own a trolley? Yeah,

12:03

I own two. I have two now. Yeah, okay,

Daren Phillipy  12:08

sorry, okay, go back. Is it unlike tracks, or is it? No,

12:12

it’s, it’s Street. The first one actually was from Vegas. I got, I got from Vegas, oddly enough, yeah. So we, we’ve got to, you have to have a CDL license to drive, and, of course, so good school bus drivers who work for me. And when people ask for for money, what I say is, you know, how can you use the trolley? Worst case scenario, they can’t use the trolley. So they can. I’ll give them a certificate to, you know, raffle off or auction off a night out on the trolley. So people use that for weddings, for, you know, bachelor parties, for whatever you know, oftentimes I don’t even want to know. So it’s, it’s worked very well. And it’s a moving billboard for us. It’s, it works incredibly well

Daren Phillipy  12:57

that that is, that is awesome. You’re the first person I know that’s bought a a crawling Yeah. So let’s, let’s get into, I have one question, and then we’re going to go into the playbook that that you’ve helped create. You said you were doing it. You’re, you’re building a team backwards for years, and they said, You’ve, you’ve kind of fixed it. Tell me a little bit about how are you able to undo what you did from your backwardness? Yeah,

13:31

the biggest thing was getting a good handle on the value that I offered. I was I really wasn’t valuing what I was offering to people the same way they were. I just assumed everybody has access business, and everybody you know that I was thinking that they’re doing me a favor by taking care of these buyers and sellers that I couldn’t take care of and and finally, one realized like that, that not everybody had that, that luxury of excess business. And also, you know, I started investing in real estate when I was 19. So I’m big and I really love investing in real estate. I do, I do a lot of land development. I own about 50 something apartments. I own a lot of different commercial properties, short term rentals, you name it. And I’ve always felt like, like, I don’t, you know, I think it was Jay said earlier he wants to get better. I’ve always felt like, you know, Jesus, there’s so much I don’t know, right? Like, I have, I have so much to learn. Still, I never actually thought that I have something that I could actually teach people. So some, you know, after a few people asked me to share my insights, and people came and looked to me afterwards, I’m like, damn, thank you for that. And I help people. And they were like, you know, hey, I just made this thing. Thank you. Whatever I. Realized, like, Okay, this is something of value that I can offer people. So once I got my arms around my value proposition, I restructured my whole team. I basically said to everybody, like, hey, look, I love you all. I hope, I hope you stay. If you don’t know our feelings, this is what I’m doing. I give everybody, like, six months notice. I said, you know, it was June or July. I said, Come January one of next year, this, this is how things are going to be. The splits are going to change. Because I’m not making any money on the business. I’m giving you, and I’m not really giving you leads, like, I’ve never paid for leads, per se, but I’m giving you, like, actual business. I’m saying, hey, so and so wants to list their house, and you’re going and you’re listing it, and I’m getting enough to cover the marketing, but I’m not getting, like, I’m not making any money on that. If I’d be better off. I just referred that business to somebody else, and they gave me a referral.

Daren Phillipy  15:52

What was that split, by the way, so I know, so we know what you’re talking about.

15:56

Yeah, it was 60. It was, well started off at I was getting 25% and I was, I was basically getting a referral, but I was covering all the marketing and all the admin, because I needed all the admin for my own business. And it just made sense. And then I I bumped it. Bumped it finally bumped it to 6040 where they got 60. I got 40 and and then, you know, I realized, that’s when i The Epiphany came in. I said, I just, I gotta, I gotta change this. So I changed it at that point, from 6040, to 5050, on buyers, they get 50, I get 50. It’s stuff that I give them. If they bring in their own thing, you know, they’ll get 60, I’ll get 40. And then on listings 6535 I get 65 they get 35 because listings are worth so much more and the time that they have to put into those, I mean, they’re really just going and signing it. I have a photographer on salary. I have a listing manager who puts it in the MLS. I have a graphic designer on salary, on staff who does all the marketing. I mean, they just had to go and do a few open houses and cash a check. So I was, I was looking at it all wrong. I was like, you know, I’m getting something and not having to turn it away. And it’s been, you know, it’s been a win. I prior to that change, I had about 18 to 20 agents on the team. After that change, I cut it down because the agents needed to sell more to make make money. And anyone who you know gave me any grief or, or was like, busy about is, like, you know, I’m sorry, but Bye, bye. Like, this isn’t working anymore. I know this isn’t as good as it was, but it’s never going to be what it was. What

Daren Phillipy  17:50

was it like after? And what has it done for your business? Making that switch

17:56

at first, it was really tough, because I lost some people who I really enjoyed working with, but ultimately, they just, they, they were a point in their lives where they didn’t, they didn’t want to sell any more homes like they actually wanted to sell fewer homes and make the same money. And I just, it just wasn’t going to work that way. So the first year of it was really tough. After that, it just got, it got progressively better and better. And you know, during that that transition, I also said to people, I said, No, here are the other values that I’m going to do. If you’re on the once you’re on the team for two years, you’re eligible to invest with me. You know, I I’ll show you my track record. I’ll show you what I’ve done. It’s all open book. And you know, I’m not doing this because I need your money by any means. I’m doing this as a way to reward you and and also hopefully educate you, right? So if I, what I, the way I looked at it was, if some, if someone on the team is going to put down 1020, $100,000 on a subdivision with me, they’re going to want to know how that process works. They’re going to want to know what that looks like. They’re they’re going to be invested in going to planning board meetings. They’re going to be invested in talking with the engineers with me. They’re going to see all the stuff that I do on the on the front end, before we have those listings. I mean, right now, they only saw them on their listings. Some of these take a year, two years, to get through approvals and and they don’t see all the stuff that that happens before that. So that was huge, that that that attracted a lot of real really, that actually brought in some big talent. And, you know, initially, a few people close to me were like, Troy, like you’re you’re giving them the same return you’re getting, and they’re just putting up money. I said, Yeah, but you know, they’re also it’s, it’s a way for them to get invested and and hopefully, you know, coming from mindset of abundance, they will look at this, and all of a sudden they’ll start looking for more opportunity. Once they go through the process with me, they’ll see what I look for. And instead of having just. My two eyes and two ears looking for deals, I’ll be able to leverage their eyes and ears, and then we’ll find more as a result. And it’s been, it’s been really good.

Daren Phillipy  20:09

So so smart, so smart. And just for all of those who are listening and watching, many, many people do it backwards. Many, many agents do it backwards for a different purpose, and take, take the words of Troy, it is, it is so true time after time, making that being in the model is really what you did, yeah, is, is how you’re able to run a profitable business. And I love how you’re able to show that value proposition. Let’s go ahead and I’m going to share my screen, and we’re going to go over the playbook that you were a part of making. So if you can, Troy, just go over this play and tell us a little

20:57

bit about it. Yeah, sure. So I am, as I said, I grew up in York beach. I The house I live in right now. I moved nine times my entire life, and of those nine, eight of seven are within one mile, and eight are within three miles the the house I live in today, if I were to get up on when we’re building it, when I was on the like on the second floor, the roof of the second floor, I could see the house I grew up in. Right next door is another house that I lived in I still own. So why am I telling you this. I’m telling you this because, you know, I grew up in this area. I’m very passionate about this area. I know it so that, you know that was a big advantage for sure. And I, when I, when I got licensed in 2010 I wanted to, I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I really, I saw agents who were in their car, you know, for four or five hours a day, and I said, you know, people telling me how many miles they put on their cars. And I was like, I don’t want that. I mean, I do not want that. I drive about 8000 miles a year, and I don’t know that I would enjoy this if I was doing much more than that. So So I wanted to be the the guy. I wanted to basically sell everything in the town. We have about anywhere from three to 400 sales in a given year. Obviously, that’s been compressed in the past few years. But I wanted to, I wanted to really own own that area. So I said to people, I said, you know, I said, please reach out to me. Whatever you need, I you need. You need a plumber. You need electricity, you need a dog walk. You need a dog sitter. You need someone to clean your gutters. Whatever you need, you know, you want to know why there’s police sirens, you know, down in your in your neighborhood, reach out to me. Don’t go to Google. Reach out to me. Anytime you need anything, reach out to me. And people would say, but why? Because the more you think I mean, the more you think about real estate, the more likely you are to when you overhear go from being a casual space that we all eavesdrop, right? We’re all out and about. You hear people talking, and if you hear somebody talking about real estate, your ears are going to perk up, because you’re going to be thinking about me so much, and you’re going to go and you’re going to, you know, interrupt them and say, hey, hey, you need to talk to Troy. You really, you know he, knows everything. And I also, I figured, the better I this, the more likely people will just meet me versus three people. So it’s worked very well. I you know, I told them local newspapers to call me for anytime they doing stories need help. I went to the tax assessor. I said, Hey, anytime you got questions on why something sold for so much or so little, you know, I would appreciate you reaching out to me. I’m happy to help talk to all the attorneys I knew. And I said, you know, anytime you need a CMA done for a divorce or the accountants for a date of death valuation, reach out to me. No charge. Happy to do it. And and it worked. Well, I I would then take all that, put, put everybody in my database, and I really tried to give them items of value. So, you know, if I saw, if I saw somebody’s kid, the newspaper, local newspaper, you know, win an award, I would flip that send it to them. If I heard about a book that I thought someone would appreciate, you know, I would send that to them. If anytime I was thinking about somebody, right, even if it was just something stupid, like, you know, they they love chocolate ice cream, and I just had chocolate ice cream, I’d say, Hey, I was just thinking of you. I just had this great chocolate ice cream. I know how much you appreciate those, you know, a lot of it was corny stuff, but it worked. And, you know, I mean, it’s not, it wasn’t hard. It just just had to be purposeful about it and really think about it. And it forced me to get to know the people who were in my database, more than just being a name, right? Like, we take that database, that database is the business it. That database is the what everything’s worth. And, you know, we get the obituaries every day for the area. We make sure that we don’t mail anybody who’s died. We don’t mail anything, right? But anyone, they’re survivors, we send them, you know, a condolence card. When somebody gets married or divorced, we make sure that we update that so we’re not sending, you know, Jackie sue a birthday card for her ex husband who cheated on her last year. You know, it’s, it’s a lot of work, but we really take that seriously and yeah, and then just communicating with it, you know, the notes, the newsletters, you know, as as that database got to be bigger and bigger, I had to find ways to scale those touches. So I went from reach out to me, you know, I’ll get you whoever you need to. I have what’s called, I call it Troy’s list, like Angie’s list on my website, people who are vetted, who, you know, who I can say, you know, I personally would use. They’re not in alphabetical order. They’re they’re in order of best to, you know, still best, but not the best. And it’s a live thing. We we keep we take people off it, if they if they start slipping, and we put new people on there, who who are up and coming, and really, you know, doing a great job for people. It’s And now, when people need someone or need something, they go there and I’m still helping them. They view it as though I’m still providing that resource, even though, you know, I’m not talking to them one on one necessarily, yeah, and then, you know, just being there when they need the real estate, right? Like it’s we do all these things. I mean, I can’t tell you how many people say to me, why did you do that? Why? What’d you get out of that? And oftentimes the answer is nothing, but they’re going to, when they need, when they have the ability to refer to business, or they can, you know, real estate comes up, they’ll send it to me if I, if I did tit for tat on everything, I wouldn’t have any freaking business, right? I mean, I’ve got to give them value before I can expect anything from them. And that’s, you know, then and then, when they do come to to, you know, provide something, I got to be there, you know, with bells on and ready to answer the phone.

Daren Phillipy  27:53

You know, that’s fantastic. The this the consistent story that I hear from each one of these teams that I talk to every single week is is provide a ton of value and come from contribution, and just, it’s all about relationships. And there’s different way to build relationships, and you’ve done it the perfectly in the small town way. Yeah, that’s so is there anything? Is there anything? Is there anything else you’d like to cover in this, in this, off this page?

28:27

No. I mean, I think the biggest thing is just, you know, I hear from people all the time, oh, well, you grew up there, so you, you know, it’s easy for you pick, pick, pick something else it doesn’t have. If you’re new to an area, pick a niche that you can dominate. You know, it can be multi families, it could be land. It can be, you know, divorces, whatever it is, you know, find one thing, no more than two, and just do those things at a high level. It and it’s not going to happen overnight, right? I mean, it’s not like my first year or second year I was selling this many homes. It’s just, you know, time on task, over time, will deliver incredible results,

Daren Phillipy  29:05

exactly right. And this, this model here, you’re exactly right. You can take this and do youth, you know, sports clubs, or you could do people at your church, or you could do certain organizations. That’s all you’ve done, is gone deep into your community, and this is a way to go deep into a community. Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about your listings. How do you use listings as your leverage? What do you do unique?

29:32

Yes. I mean, listings are precious. You know, I’ve from the time I had my first listing in a very different market was, you know, days on market was two years to today, it was, you know, a big opportunity, and it’s an opportunity that, you know, you’ve got to leverage. So I, I take. Lot of pride in my signs. I see a lot of people, a lot of realtors. You know, they find excuses why they use crappy old signs, why they still use the old Keller Williams logo on their signs. I see that, and I just chuckle. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s crazy. If my signs get damaged anyway, they’re thrown out. We get new ones. We take our presentation very seriously. If we didn’t, I don’t know that people would want, want us to. I mean, I get people who say to me all the time, you know, and I ask them why they why they hired us, or what it was they said, you know, your listings stand out. We have, we have a we we always had somebody who writes our remarks. Now we’re, we’re playing with AI and some other things, but, you know, we, we take those remarks very seriously. We make it very emotional. We, you know, nobody’s ever, nobody’s going to part with a ton of money because it’s a logical decision. I mean, very rarely do they do that when buying real estate or cars or anything like that. They do it because it makes them feel good in a second home market. We especially have to appeal to people’s ego, their vanity, you know, their their sense of self worth. We’ve got to make them feel like, you know, like they have to have this, right? So with to answer your question, so with listings, we put a lot of time and energy into how they come out that goes from the photos. You know, our photos, we have them. We had a staff we have a staff photographer so that our photos look different. We take shots that are different from all the others that are being shot by, you know, the same group of different photographers. Our videos, same thing. We have a lot of area shots, you know, you get the idea we then are when we go on a showing, you know, it’s not as much now, because I mean, it’s going kind of digital, but we used to have, like, you know, really nicely bound presentations. It conveyed value. We had, you know, card stock brochures, you know. And I’m not talking just high end stuff. I’m talking like everything had this, you know, it it was a consistent, it was a purposeful decision that we wanted to have all of our listings present at a higher level, and we leverage it from we don’t pend it right when it goes under. We take as much time as we’re allowed to depend it in the MLS so that the phone still rings. We still get buyers. The pending rider, you know, goes up the, you know, social media campaign had, you know, there’s, there’s something that happens when it gets listed, something happens when it closes, from postcards to, you know, there’s, there’s for every step of the process. There’s, there’s something that we’re doing to either raise awareness about ourselves or the property. But, you know, we’re not, we’re not going to ever squander that opportunity. I I buy and sell a lot of property myself. I still, if I’m selling something privately, I’ll still market it in such a way that I get something out of it. Even though I’ve already sold the property, you know, like it, we want to get we want that phone to ring.

Daren Phillipy  33:30

I think, I think the details, and I’m not surprised you, the way you’ve approached your business is very detail oriented, and everything matters. And no doubt that makes it stand out. What I’m curious about as we transition into the leverage portion of it. A lot of times I talk about the team and attraction, I think with who you are, tell me a little bit about your systems, the valuable systems that you have to run your team.

34:00

Yeah. So we, you know, I, I in 2018 I had my had my first child, and leading up to that, my wife said, you know, we’re not going to have kids until, until you can step out of the business. And, you know, not, not fully or whatever, but you know still, you can take weekends off to you can take, you know, we can go on, you know, vacations and all of that, and, and I’m grateful she did at the time, I was like, you know, oh, what you know now, I’m very grateful, because we get to do a lot of things, right? But I didn’t even, I never really thought about all the things I was doing. I was just doing them. So I had, I had to, like, slow down and sit down with, actually, with my coach at the time and my director of operations. And we had to really. To, like, dissect every single thing and and make and document everything. And then we assigned people to each task so that, you know, it could all be what everything was being done would continue to be done, whether I’m here or not, if I get hit by bus tomorrow, you know, no one, no one’s going to notice. And oddly enough, I had so I had my kid in July of 2018 my dad had a freak accident in August 2018 and I had to take, like, three months off to kind of take care of of a lot of his stuff, and my my mom and another stuff. And so I really was, you know, not hit by a bus, but I was taken out of play, and it was awesome and scary all the same time, how well it worked. I mean, I felt like, I almost felt like I wasn’t needed anymore, which was strange and not, honestly, not a good feeling, but at the same time, really proud that our business and I changed my phone number during that process because I didn’t want any distractions. I wanted to be able to, you know, take care of my family and other stuff and and. And it worked. We stress tested it. I mean, we found out where things needed to be done better and more refined. But yeah, so we’ve got, I run a I have a lot of administrative support staff right now. We have seven agents. I also have seven full time employees, just for the real estate sales. And I can tell you like, I’m a big believer in specialization. I want to do what I do best and what makes the most sense for me to do, and I want someone else to do everything else, whatever their best skill. I mean, we have a graphic designer, we have a listing data, we have a transaction coordination, transaction coordinator. We’ve got people who can do things so much better than me or or some of the other people, and they do their thing really well. And then we cross train everyone has to learn at least one other role so that people can go on vacation. People can, you know when they get sick, whatever it it’s it works well.

Daren Phillipy  37:17

So tell me about how you were able to document what was in your head. Because I know there’s a lot of things, especially as you’re trying to get yourself out of, out of the seat, so you’re not the main point to guy, yeah, how do you do that? What did what did you do? What were the steps?

37:34

So we literally just, we shut off all distractions, sat in a room, and we, we talked about, you know? All right, Troy gets a phone call. We basically role played it. Troy gets phone call from somebody wants to sell. What’s the, what is the first thing Troy does? All right, he’s probably gonna pull up the the GIS, the task maps, you know, start looking at different things about the property, pull the deed. We just, we went through every single step, and then I would have people shadow me on these appointments to see, you know, what else did he do that he doesn’t even know? Like, I kind of have kid people like, when I go on this appointment, I black out. I just, I’m just, I’m there to get it and get it signed. And I say some crazy shit, whatever I got to say to get it, I will do. I mean, we started a, we have a small construction company with four full time employees, because about six, seven years ago, I mean, I was, I was having people, you know, doing all the stuff to people’s homes just to get listings. I mean, they were like, you know, we need this done. We can’t get anybody, oh, I’ll get that done, you know. And I, I, I had to have somebody there to, like, write down all the shit that I said, you know. Or I would, I wouldn’t remember. So between documenting it all and then having somebody shadow me to make sure, like, to fill in all the missing pieces, that’s and then from there, I in 2018 I had 2018 2017 I hired a ex military. I forget what her role was exactly, but I knew the moment I met her, she’d be an amazing transaction coordinator. And I said, Look. I said, I need you, and she’s a paralegal. Prior, I said, I need you to build, build all the systems, document everything. She built that whole role. And you know, when she left, she was able to hand that, that system over to somebody else. Same with everybody else. They have to document everything, and they’ve got to make it so that, and it’s, and I at first, a lot of them are hesitant to do so, but I go, Look, I You get three weeks paid vacation. You know, I want you to take those three weeks. If you take those, we need to make sure, you know, we don’t stop while you’re gone. So, so

Daren Phillipy  39:53

smart, so smart. I love I love that. What have you learned over the last 12 months running your team? Yeah. I

40:01

probably that I need to focus on so when, when the market was contracting. I was, I would, I would, I had never had a I never gone backwards, right? So, you know, you mentioned I did 330 units, whatever that was down from 390 and then 390 was down from 430 something and whatever. So that was really hard for me. And the only way I became, I was able to accept that was by looking at my profit and and realizing, well, my profit is, is what I’m actually making is still, is still there, right? I had to get rid of we had to right size the agent count. Had to make some other changes to keep the profit there, and as long as the profits there, you know, what’s the matter with them? Selling 300 houses or 600 houses? I’d rather sell 300 and make a good chunk of change than 600 and not make any

Daren Phillipy  41:00

money. Hey, I’m going to last ask Mike last question, which means everybody in the room, if you have a question, raise your digital hand. Some of you guys have struggled trying to find where that button is. It’s, it’s at the bottom, search and search and search, and you’ll find it. It’s, it’s, it’s under reactions. So raise your digital hand. You’re able to ask him anything. In fact, Troy told me, I bet you nobody could stump me. So look, you’re welcome to ask any question. If I’m coming to York, where do I need to eat?

41:35

What do you like?

Daren Phillipy  41:37

Look at me. I’m 510, 245, and pretty much everything, yeah.

41:44

So my favorite place is, Oh, God. I mean, so if you like steak, we’ve got two great steak houses. We’ve got we got Nick Steakhouse, which is freaking awesome. And then we’ve got a Brazilian steak house in a few towns over that is, I just went there for the first time out of this world. I’m throwing a blanket name of it at this moment, but it was lost buyer. Is what it is, absolutely incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Daren Phillipy  42:13

I love Brazilian steakhouses because they keep on bringing food to me. Yeah.

42:19

It was awesome.

Daren Phillipy  42:21

Okay, well, I don’t see any raised hands, but, oh, there you. Christine, I’m so excited. This is your first question. Let’s go ask away.

42:32

Oh, I have to unmute myself first ask the question. Daren, okay, my question, you said that you do. Edd out, yep. D are you seeing a return on that?

42:46

So what I will tell you is it’s hard to measure because we we’ve got so much market share here already, and oftentimes, when we ask people, you know why they called us, it’s a combination of things, but yes, I would say we can certainly trace enough business to it that we’re getting a return. I think we’re getting a bigger return than we realized by two for two reasons. We’re protecting our market share that we already have and we get. We’re expanding it. Even when they tell us they call they’re calling us because we sold something else on the street. It’s probably a combination of that and the newsletter.

43:28

Okay? And then you also said that you use that in combination with something electronically. Can you expand on that?

43:34

Yeah, just the the digital news. This is the newsletter, The we send it print to everybody in in our core market, eight by 10 or eight by 11, double sided, and we have a digital version that’s much longer. We send that out to our entire database, and that’s

43:52

just an email. Yeah, yeah. Okay,

Daren Phillipy  43:56

great. Thank you. Awesome question. 15,000 emailed, and 6000 mailed. So no, no doubt, big, big tool for you. It sounds like Troy. Oh, yeah. Love it. Great. Great question. Christine, do you have any other questions?

44:14

No, not at the moment, perfect.

Daren Phillipy  44:15

Thanks for asking Gil. Go away. I mean, not go away, go and ask

44:25

I’m a horrible lip reader. Gil, yeah.

Daren Phillipy  44:27

Gil, his he, he’s saying something amazing.

44:32

There you go. He’s okay. Here we go. How about this? How about now? Good job. Okay. When you approach attorneys or hairdressers, you know, referral sources. What’s your script for that? And then you also mentioned that you took all your tasks and wrote it all out like you brainstorm. What do you track? It is it? Is it paper checklist? Is it software checklist?

44:55

Yeah, so the first part with hairdressers and. Stuff i i went to I wanted to see what I could do for them, right? So my, I can’t sometimes, I said, my hairdresser, and she’s a hairdresser, but she she cuts my hair, she doesn’t dress my hair. I don’t know how you could dress this, but so when I, when I first got my license, I was saying to her, I was asking her why she didn’t have her own shop, and she didn’t know the first step of opening her own so I made it a point to like, I said, Look, I said, Let’s get together. You know, I’ll show you. You know, we can put a business plan in place. And, you know, six months later, I sold her a piece of real estate that show up in the very successful salon in and in doing that, I realized I learned a lot about the hair industry because I helped to put the business plan together. And one of the things that I learned was how much these people, how many people they interact with, how loyal people are their hairdresser, and the influence that like that that hairdresser has over people, right? So I tried to find other hairdressers. I knew that my wife knew that I that I had any kind of connection to and and look in ways I could offer them value. So some of it is, it was a lot of it was that same thing, you know, showing them, hey, I’m happy to help you with business plan and help you to, you know, help you grow your business in any way I can. And, you know, and really, and not even saying, like, and just send me referrals. But you know, I would more say something like, you know, and they would often say, Well, why do you want to do that? I go, Well, just like you, my business is built on referrals. So you know, anytime you know I can help someone, they’re likely to help me in return. And if I help you, make more money, you’re going to think highly of me, right? And they’re like, Yeah, with attorneys, it was much easier. Attorneys are always trying to find a way to get something done quickly and for as little money as possible. Because, you know, their clients are paying them a lot of money, and if they tell their client, oh, you also got to pay this and this and this doesn’t go over so well. So I talked with a few attorneys and asked them, I said, you know, how can I, how can I help you in your business. You know what? Really it was. It was more like getting to know them than anything, and in that process asking them, you know what? How does real estate play a role in your and what you do and you know and learn, listening what they say, and then following up with like, you know? Well, I’m happy to help you anytime I can, because they would oftentimes, they need, you know, for divorces, they need an opinion of value for, you know, for estate planning, they need an opinion of value for so many things, right? And then, like, what are you going to charge? I said, Look, I said, I’m not going to charge you. I’m really not going to charge anything, because there’s no, there’s no hourly rate that I’m going to say out loud that you’re going to be happy to pay. So really, I’m going to do this to help grow my business. And all I ask is that when you can send me a business, you know, when that person we did the value for their estate plan, when, when somebody passes and you need, you need to refer that family in a realtor to sell the assets. Just think of me. That’s all when you when you’ve got a divorce and, you know, and that newly divorced couple, you know, go liquidate something, they ask you, who you recommend? Just think of me. That’s all. It really was pretty easy.

48:34

I love that. That’s great.

Daren Phillipy  48:37

Great, great question. The second question was, documenting. Oh, yeah. How do you document?

48:43

Yeah. So at the time, what we did was a little bit of all that we we typed a lot of it, we hand wrote a lot of it, and then then we anything was handwritten, was typed, and then we refined it all and kind of like put it, put structure around it.

Daren Phillipy  49:02

Is your, is your checklist in a system or technology? Or is it a piece of piece of paper? Or where does it

49:10

I would have to ask, I’d have to ask my assistant. I know there’s a like, we have an we have an intake form, so any new client, buyer, seller visit, we fill up the seller intake, or a buyer intake, that intake form, you know, it goes over their source of business, their name, you know, timing, promises. There’s a section that says, you know, crazy promises Detroit made, whatever it might be, and then that gets disseminated to everybody on the team, so that our runner knows she has to make keys. She knows she has to go to town hall and review the file the code office. Our photographer knows when he’s expected to go and take photos. You know our everyone on there has a. Role. Our graphic designer knows when she needs to make flyer by when she needs to do the brochure by all of that, and it kind of that that’s the launching point for everything. Gotcha.

Daren Phillipy  50:12

Gilly, any other questions?

50:14

Thank you very much. Yeah, awesome.

Daren Phillipy  50:17

Great, great question. Any any other I have one more question. If any other, anybody else has a question, raise your hand. We do have just a couple more minutes or whatever. What advice do you have for us? And as those who are running their big teams, what advice do you have for us?

50:37

Keep it simple. I think so many of us, for whatever reason. Try to, we don’t try to complicate things, but we do, and you know, it dumb it down. Just dumb it down to as much as you can, and then do those things at a really high level. I see so many people who who especially and it’s especially tough when you go to like, mega camp or fender union, you hear all these things and all these people doing these different things, like, oh, man, I should do that. Oh, I can do that. You know, just you because, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. And if you think you should, you know, what are you going to stop doing in order to do that? And is that, is this new thing going to deliver, you know, more business than what you’re getting rid of. If it’s, you know, if you gotta think about any of that, don’t do it. Just don’t do it.

Daren Phillipy  51:29

That is a great advice. As we’re going into mega camp next week, we’re going to come up with a whole bunch of ideas. I know every single week we have the OT and we’ve got someone sharing amazing ideas. I think that’s that’s a great rule to follow. So, so, so wise. Alright, well, if, if, if people are dying to send referrals, I sent that. That’s a horrible way to set but if those who have leads that want to send to referral for a second home and in York Maine and you want to look like the genius saying, Hey, you should buy a house in York. Maine, what’s the best way for the agents who are listening and participating? Send referrals.

52:10

If you go on, if you email me, Troy at Williams, phillipypartners.com, that’s that’s the ultimate. Send me an email. Give me a call that that we will take great care, great care of you and your referral, and we’ll make sure that you get paid so

Daren Phillipy  52:28

good. That’s, that’s what I’ve I like to hear too, is making sure that everybody wins, right?

52:33

Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s, you know, nobody and, and here’s the other thing, right? Like we want to, we have we, I suck at communicating, right? So I built, one of the big reasons that we built these systems is so the, you know, we make it easy to do that. So this, this prompts all on the way. And it’s not just relying on me to update people, but there’s, there’s something that’s always going, Oh, time to give an update. Time to do this time, to do that did so and so get paid. You know, it’s, it’s huge.

Daren Phillipy  53:05

No doubt, no doubt. Well, Troy, you’ve been fantastic. I’m glad we’re friends. I’m excited to meet, meet you next week, dude, you’re the best man. I really appreciate it. I feel like I need to buy, buy a lighthouse in man,

53:19

yeah, yeah. Happy to be here and look forward to seeing you guys next week.

Daren Phillipy  53:23

Cool. I love it, guys. Well, thanks. Times. I’ll see you guys later. All right, there you have it. Another great OT, and I’ll tell you, isn’t it awesome to see the things that Troy does, to take care of his agents, bring value to his community, to be the go to guy in

53:44

York, downtown York.

Daren Phillipy  53:48

You can, too apply this into your business, but you got to take it and you got to implement it. Take one of these ideas. So there you go. On that. Now, you guys know I do this because I run one of the largest real estate companies here in Vegas, the Keller Williams the marketplace. And I specialize in working with people who are looking to build teams, build teams, or building teams, or have already a team. They’re looking for ways to make it easier and all that kind of stuff. So if you want help and you like money, and those kind of go hand in hand, my number is 702-706-4949, and I can help you out. Vegas or not Vegas, I don’t care. I can help you. And that’s pretty much it. So let’s go. It is it is time. It is time. We are almost done with the year. We’re gonna have season two. If you could believe that amazing. I can’t wait. And let’s go. Let’s go. I will see you guys next week. Until then, do some good.

Announcer  54:54

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