Episode 49: Real Estate Accountability, Lead Systems, and the 45-Day Rule for Team Growth – The Rhonda Roberts Team

Episode 49 of The OT: Only Teams for Real Estate Podcast is packed with actionable insights from Rhonda Roberts, a top-producing team leader from Louisville, Kentucky, who closed 139 units and $35 million in volume over the past 12 months. In this dynamic interview with host Daren Phillipy, Rhonda opens up about her journey from teacher to thriving real estate leader—and how she’s mastered lead generation, agent accountability, team culture, and smart hiring to grow a powerhouse team.

If you’re a real estate agent looking to scale your business, build a team, or improve your systems, this episode is an absolute goldmine. Here’s a breakdown of the top takeaways from this inspiring conversation.

📈 From Struggling Agent to Team Leader: Rhonda’s Comeback Story

Rhonda didn’t start out as a top producer. After leaving teaching due to a health issue, she struggled for years in real estate—until her husband gave her an ultimatum: get serious or get out. She chose to get serious, hired a coach, switched brokerages, and reinvented her business. Today, she leads a team of 12 agents and 4 full-time staff, delivering consistent results with a strong culture and smart systems.

Key takeaway: Your past doesn’t determine your future. With the right coaching, environment, and mindset, any agent can turn it around and thrive.

🔥 Proven Lead Generation Systems That Fuel Growth

One of the most impressive parts of Rhonda’s model is her diversified, ROI-driven approach to lead generation.

Here are the top lead sources her team uses:

• Open Houses – with a strong SOP to capture and convert.
• Realtor.com & Zillow – carefully selected by cost-per-lead and conversion rates.
• ZBuyer – a long-game listing lead source she’s used for over 10 years.
• Referral Exchange & Lofty CRM – to track, manage, and follow up effectively.
• Social Media Video Previews – with in-house video to boost listing visibility.
• Geographic Farming, Networking, Agent Referrals – especially effective for more experienced agents.
  

Rhonda runs her lead systems like a business. She and her operations manager review ROI monthly, cutting low-performing zip codes and scaling high performers. She also rewards top agents with the most leads, using a rolling 30-day performance model.

📋 Agent Accountability: No More Free Rides

Rhonda has high expectations—and she holds her team to them.

If an agent wants to be on lead rotation, they must:

• Follow up immediately and consistently using a 12-14 day process.
• Keep their Lofty CRM clean and up-to-date.
• Meet minimum performance metrics (contracts, showings, activity).
• Commit to a full-time real estate career—no side hustles or “dabbling.”
  

She’s even created a 45-day onboarding evaluation: if an agent isn’t producing or following through, they’re let go. Rhonda has shifted from “mother hen” to performance-based leadership, emphasizing that this is a business, not a charity.

🧠 Mentorship & Culture: Why Agents Stay with Rhonda

Rhonda isn’t just a boss—she’s a mentor, coach, and team builder. Her top producers stay because of her hands-on support, coaching culture, and family-like environment.

• Weekly team meetings with training, guest speakers, and updates.
• Biweekly 1-on-1 check-ins with each agent to review pipeline and goals.
• Daily inspirational texts to boost mindset and motivation.
• Celebrations and cheerleading for contracts, listings, and wins.
• Social outings and travel that build strong personal connections.
  

🤝 Smart Hiring: No More “Projects,” Just Producers

After hiring too many underperformers, Rhonda drew a line in the sand:

• No dual-career agents without a written exit plan.
• No “learners” who don’t want to sell.
• A tighter interview process that involves her ops manager first.
• 3-week performance plans instead of drawn-out 60-day improvement plans.
  

Her advice: hire slow, fire faster, and protect your team culture like it’s your most valuable asset—because it is.

🎯 Rhonda’s Top Lessons for Team Leaders

1. Track ROI ruthlessly—especially on paid lead sources.
2. Hold agents accountable or they’ll cost you more than you think.
3. Mentor from experience—Rhonda shares what not to do so others don’t repeat her mistakes.
4. Create culture intentionally—your team should feel like family, with structure and expectations.
5. Use video and social media—like it or not, it’s how people know you’re in the business.
   

🚀 Final Thoughts from Daren Phillipy

Rhonda Roberts is the definition of perseverance, leadership, and smart systems in action. Her team in Louisville, KY is growing and thriving not by accident—but because of intentional systems, high standards, and a heart for mentorship.

Whether you’re new to team building or ready to scale, this episode gives you a blueprint to follow.

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Transcription

Speaker 1  00:00

Welcome to the OT only teams in real estate.

Rhonda Roberts  00:15

I had sold so many houses to people I would have never sold a house to had I not put things on social media past students, people I went to high school with, like that I haven’t talked to in 30 years, you know, whatever, get on social media and show them what you’re doing, and they don’t. And so by using that, that’s one of our big things for that opportunity, is we’re gonna take video, we’re gonna take video of you and then we’re gonna post it and tag you in it. Like, if you’re not gonna use it, we’re gonna make you do it. I wish my agents would work like they say they want to work like, that’s the big thing, you know. Like you’re you worked five hours this week. If that you know, how are you going to sell 25 houses this year if you work five hours a week and you talk to three people like, I cannot get them to make that connection, and I could say it 8000 times, and our coach can tell them 8000 times, and Tom Ferry can tell them 8000 times, and there’s still that disconnect. So I what I would love to see are agents who say they want to be full time. Agents, be full time agents. We meet at their 45 day mark, and if they’re not cutting it at 45 days after joining the team, we’re gonna split then, like, if at 45 days in, they’re not doing the things that they need to do, they’re not going to change in 90 days. They’re either going to do it in that first 45 or they’re not going to do it at all. And so I’m starting to make the break faster.

Speaker 1  01:56

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

Speaker 2  01:59

Welcome this week’s ot only team for real estate agents. My name is Daren Phillipy, and I’m your host, and we got another great guest. But before we get to the guest, I need you to do me a favor. If you’re watching, if you’re listening, whatever you’re doing, look and see if you could follow me. If you you could like me. Do me a favor and help me grow the sucker. There’s lots of people that need to hear about the OT and all the knowledge and all of the value that we’re spitting out, and help me out. So like that sucker, please, please, please follow all of that stuff. And then the other thing is, you can invite people to it too. Okay, done with my housekeeping. Let’s talk about Rhonda Roberts and the Rhonda Roberts team from Louisville, Kentucky, one of the first of all coolest ways to say Louisville. But you’re from locals, you gotta say Louisville. And she’s over the last 12 months, 139 units, $35 million in volume, and she’s going to spend a lot of time talking about working those internet leads and converting those leads, so you can make a good ROI on on those in her area. They’re not that expensive, which is super helpful. The other thing too is she’s also felt the pain of bad hires and how to bring people through that process and make sure that they are the best fit on the team. I mean, we do so much effort in getting people to join the team, and you do all all the things, check the boxes, but until they actually live with you, just don’t know. And so she’s got a great process to share with you on that. And so I want you to pay pay attention. This is going to be a really good OT, and I have a feeling, Oh, the other thing is this, my guess is you weren’t in the room. I’ve got lots of room for you guys. I could, I think I could put up to 100 people in the room. We did not have 100 we got a good group, but not 100 so join the room by going to only four teams com Click, click that little button that says, join the room at noon, Pacific, Standard Time, and you are part of the crew. And then you could ask Ronna questions like this. Then you can ask some of the other other teams that we’re talking to what to do about specific things. And listening to it’s great, but you can’t have that interaction. I want you to have that interaction. So do me a favor. Do that. I will see you at the end of the OT. All right, guys, thanks so much for being here and hanging out with us on the OT. It is the new year. It is time to tear up this 2025, and no better way than hang out with a master of the business, Rhonda Roberts. She so you guys hear, if you’re listening on the OT, you hear this Tennessee guy and and he’s got some friends in low places, and he says, You’ve got to have my. Friend Rhonda on the OT and so I begged and pleaded pay her 1000s of 1000s of dollars to hang out for us for an hour. Um, she’s based out of Louisville. And just so you know, I knew this girl in college. She said, Louisville. So if you’re it’s local Louisville, Kentucky. 139 units and 39 million volume in the last 12 months. Thanks for hanging out with us. Tell us a little bit about

Rhonda Roberts  05:27

you. Okay, so as you mentioned, Rhonda Roberts, Louisville, Kentucky. I am born and raised in Louisville. Haven’t lived anywhere else. A graduate of the University of Louisville. As a matter of fact, I’ve been in the business for 17 years prior to that, I was a high school teacher. I taught for 10 years. I had a significant health issue happen about 20 years ago that took me out of the classroom, and when it was time to begin to work again, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I still was not healthy enough to be back in the classroom full time, and so I picked real estate. I had a great realtor. I was a terrible real estate agent for about this first seven to 10 years of my real estate career, my wonderful husband, who is a corporate executive, said your hobby is costing us a lot of money. What would you like to do? And I said, What do you mean? And he’s like, do you want to go back to teaching? Do you want to pull the kids out of private school, or do you want to actually sell houses? And so I told him, I said, Will you give me a year? And he said, why not? We’re this far in so he gave me a year. I got a coach, I changed offices, I got it all together, and that’s when I really started being productive in the real estate business. So that’s been about 10 ish years ago. I started teams off and on, but really struggled. And so it took me a while to figure out the team that I needed and wanted. And so that team started, the team kind of that I have now started about five years ago. And so we just kind of keep building on that.

Speaker 2  07:10

Love it so. So after five years of building your team, after being not as awesome as you’d like, I guess before that correct, what is your org chart look like now.

Rhonda Roberts  07:22

So right now, we have 12 agents currently on the team, and we have four staff. So our staff looks like we have kind of our head assistant kind she’s she’s more like an ops manager, but she does a lot of assistant work as well. So she, we have her, and then we have somebody who does our listings coordinations, and again, turn he works in the office, so he turns in our stuff for closings and such, and it’s kind of my right hand. We have someone else who does video work for us, and she also manages our database. And then our fourth is our marketing person who does our graphics, puts together our marketing materials, posts to social media for us, things like that.

Speaker 2  08:04

Love it. Love it. And how many you have? 12 by or 12 agents do? They don’t both do, buyers and and sellers both or

Rhonda Roberts  08:12

they do. Everybody can do anything. And so I am also still in production. I’m the highest producer on the team still, which we’re trying to get out of this year. Um, but yes, everybody does both.

Speaker 2  08:27

Love it. Love it. So if, if we’ve got 12 people, how, by the way, you guys missed it, she’s got, I guess, a closing or a listing or something like that, two and a half hours away. How far out do you go from Louisville?

Rhonda Roberts  08:40

Um, it will depend I, as I mentioned to Jay, like if it’s a $60,000 manufactured house, I may not go very far for it, but depending on who it is, also if it’s a friend or a family member, we’ve done things as far away as an hour and a half to two hours, and that’s okay. Gotcha

Speaker 2  08:58

love it. So if you’ve got 12 people listing, Zen buyers both, how do you create leads for such a large team? So

Rhonda Roberts  09:09

it’s really interesting, because what we do, we have what we call lead rotation like and there are certain things that you have to do to be on lead rotation. I don’t know if you’re ready for me to talk about this, or if you want me to wait. But like some of our lead sources, we’re big on open houses, and we have us SOP around how we do our open houses. So we do open houses, we do realtor.com we do Zillow. We are not a flex team, but we do get leads from there. We also use the seller site Z buyer. I don’t know if anybody’s heard of that. We do get leads from referral exchange. We get leads from lofty so we have an intake, and then there are two or three of us who are very networking heavy, so we’re both in, you know, several of us are in multiple networking groups, where we also bring in quite a bit of business. Business. Um, about half of my current wealth are super new to the business, like not in production, almost. You know, they may have done one because they just came on at the end of the year, type of stuff. So those people do not have access to the leads in the same way that my team members that have been with me for two years and are constantly having deals get leads. There’s we differentiate how you get on lead rotation. Got

Speaker 2  10:30

it so then let I want to I’m curious. Then, as you start developing, looking at all of these lead resources, I mean, you got your sphere of influence. And that’s one thing we all know. Sphere of influence, referrals, past clients. That’s mostly the starting part of it. And now I’ve got to start creating leads for other people. How do you go about picking the bit that like the the lead sources that you’re currently in? And what did that look like? And

Rhonda Roberts  11:00

yeah, so with we’ll use realtor.com as an example. So when we first started using realtor.com obviously, we just started it on a smaller scale, just to see what it would look like like. How will these leads come in? How will we be able to make sure that they’re being served well, how will we check that return on investment and see if we should grow it. And so that’s what we’ve continued to do. And we do that on a month by month basis. You know, one of my admins sends me a report at the end of every month about how many leads came in, how many contacts were made on those leads. And then, you know, we look at our numbers in terms of ROI, so if it’s something that is serving us well, and we’re still generating business from it, we will continue to grow that lead source versus Okay, well, we just need to knock that off and not try it anymore. Okay.

Speaker 2  11:49

So, so you you started, my guess is you said the first one is probably realtor.com was the first one that you went after, and then you just kind of do red light, green light with each one of those. So, so what is required for you to say, Okay, I’m going to try this. You go about it, and then what happens makes you either pour into it or lean into it more or to cut it off.

Rhonda Roberts  12:11

Yeah. So it’s interesting because, you know, I saw a couple heads nod, like when I mentioned the mentioned Z buyer. So Z buyer is, I have been in with Z buyer for probably 10 years, and the reason that I got into them initially was cost. It was super cheap. Um, it’s still pretty cheap when you give it, you know, when you compare it to other sources. But the thing with them that’s, it’s a long game. We close deals. We close quite a few deals. We get the listings because they tend to be listing leads, and we close those, but it’s a long game. Some of those that we close, they may be two, three years out, and we’re pulling them out of the database and getting them so I don’t really, you know, I know that we’re going to get enough each year to make a return on our investment in terms of like Zillow versus realtor.com the reason I picked realtor.com over Zillow is because Zillow, I’m paying about $300 per lead, whereas realtor.com I can get several leads a month from that zip code for that same price. So I’m looking at what generates us the most leads, since we have a larger team. So you know, if I’m going to for me to get five people a lead off of Zillow, I have to pay a more substantial price than I would off realtor.com so that’s why we leaned in more on it than we did Zillow.

Speaker 2  13:33

Okay, so then you got your system. What? What does that system look like for you? Get that report from your your I’m just going to call them director of opsa to keep it simple. What does that report look like? What are the reporting? How long do you read before you’re like, I’m cutting them off.

Rhonda Roberts  13:51

So the So, like I said, we get, we look at a monthly report of that and the pricing on it, and what we’ve made off of it. And he will actually, so realtor.com you get a notification. Hey, this zip code is coming up next month. Do you want to keep it or do you want to drop, you know, do you want to drop it? And so he and I will sit down and we’ll look at the numbers. Hey, how many leads came in from this sort from this zip code, and did any of that turn into business? And so if, if we’re not seeing a, you know, several closings or a closing or two out of that zip code. We may move on to a different zip code and close that one off. So we, we look specifically at that, and I will tell you, most of you, if you have realtor.com if you tell them when that zip code is up, hey, you didn’t give me the 32 leads that were promised whatever they usually will give you a credit towards your next month.

Speaker 2  14:48

So you hold them accountable for, obviously, what they say they’re going to do, right? I do, I do. So when you’re dealing with that, then you’ve got, you know, the newer people don’t get some of those leads. What is the expectation of the standard of those who are because you don’t have an ISA, correct? The agents are the ISA, yes. So what is the expectation of the people on the team when it comes to their lead generation, and, you know, bringing business to the table, versus what you’re providing? Okay,

Rhonda Roberts  15:18

sure. So one of the things, the initial thing, is, if they get a lead from me, they are expected to reach out to that lead immediately and say they don’t get them well, then they follow up with text, like we have a whole big thing that goes on for 12 to 14 days of trying to work their new lead. And so we use lofty and so we look at their lofty every day, and we’re like, okay, so you still have three leads that say new leads that you got three days ago, like you’re off lead rotation, until you can clean this up and show us, and then it can be an attempt in contact for 12 to 14 days. And then they need to figure out where to put it from there. So we have a standard operating procedure around how they are supposed to be going into lofty on a daily basis and cleaning up those leads. If they don’t, then they’re taken off lead rotation in terms of bringing in their own leads. When an agent joins my team, we sit down and we have a conversation of, you need three to four lead pillars as a new agent, what does that look like for you? Me and my leads can only be one. What are your other three, and how are we going to build and work those?

Speaker 2  16:34

So when, when it comes to that and you have those discussions, what are some of the other things that your agents are doing to create leads for that Sure. So

Rhonda Roberts  16:44

one of the things, obviously, is going to be open houses. We do a lot of open houses on the team. I have two or three agents who are doing two to three open houses a week. We do networking. We have some of our member or team members that are kind of networking heavy and really pouring into their sphere. We have a couple that do geographic farming of the neighborhoods that they live in. We are very specific on what they should look for in their neighborhood if they want to farm them, and how that looks. I have a couple of agents who put money into realtor and Zillow themselves, for you know, just to bump up their lead amount coming in. So, so those are some of the other things that they do. I don’t think I have any door knockers right now. I’ve had door knockers in the past. I don’t think I have anybody out door knocking I’m right now, but some of those are the big things that we do. I have some that do work to build relationships for agent to agent referrals. I have one that works really hard on that. So,

Speaker 2  17:49

so how what percentage is, I guess, when you bring them onto your team, what percentage is expected to come from you providing those leads and them, you know, bringing their own leads and stuff like that.

Rhonda Roberts  18:03

So I would say initially, it’s very Rhonda heavy, like their expectation is. And my expectation too, is that most of their business is going to come from the team that first year. And then what we’d start to see is we start to see that, you know, slide off to where they become, usually more dependent on their own business and people that they know, or referrals and things like that. So I would say, in the beginning of a general agent who’s probably new to the business, it’s probably going to be about 9010, or 8020, initially getting from me, and then that slides a little bit more, maybe to a 6040,

Speaker 2  18:41

okay, so you’re providing leads. I know it’s costing you money. How do you go from you said all my leads are and it’s going to cost you something? My guess is you’re going to have some sort of split. They start navigating to being on the other side of their creating their own business. And typically they’re going to say, hey, Rhonda, I don’t want to be paying you that split. I want another split, because that’s the the whole back and forth. Hey, I’m going to take a listing and you’re going to pay for that too. Help me understand how you were able to create the compensation that you currently have.

Rhonda Roberts  19:14

Okay, well, one of the things that compensation to the agents is always something that’s really, like, super heavy on my heart, just because our price point is so low here, like, our average sales price is about 275 so by the time they split with me and the company, the agents don’t make anything. And so I hate that, and so I do have a different compensation plan depending on where the lead comes from. So yes, it does kind of like, you know, like, oh my gosh, my highest producer, most of her business is personal, so I get less of her money, but, but I also don’t give her as many leads because I know she’s not going to work, because she’s really in tune with her. So. And her referral base, so she’s really going to focus more on those anyway. And then the other thing that I did have done, I guess I should say, is the better way to say that when the new agents come in, I have adjusted it where their first certain number of deals is a heavier split to me regardless. And so as we continue to bring in new agents, I’m always getting more longer from the new agents. And so that helps out and balances where we’re taking in money. And

Speaker 2  20:32

are you willing to flex, or do you is it this is just kind of what our split is, and

20:38

this is how you earn. No, I’m

Rhonda Roberts  20:40

not Jimmy. Am I going to give them better? I’m not giving them any better. They’ve already got it really good. They really do. I mean, compared to other things in my office, they’ve got the best split. We’ve got the best splits. I

Speaker 2  20:54

love that. I love that. So, so let’s Is there anything else that you want to share with us on the listing side of things

21:03

on listings, I’m sorry,

Daren Phillipy  21:05

leads portion, I’m sorry. I want leads.

Rhonda Roberts  21:08

Okay? No, I was just gonna say, we hold them accountable to their to working the leads properly. Like I said, the one thing, like, there are a few things to keep you on lead rotation. Like, I had a meeting with an agent the other day, and I said, you are off lead rotation until such happens. So what you know, we hold them accountable to really taking care of the leads inside of lofty and making sure that they are doing the things they’re supposed to do. But the other thing that we started a couple of years ago was rewarding the agents who are doing the most activity by continuing to give them the most leads. Think a lot of people often give people who aren’t you don’t have business leads because they’re trying to get on business. But what we do, we do a rolling 30 day calendar that shows who has accepted contracts, who has closings, who has all of those things, and those people. If you have two in a month, then you’re at the top of the lead rotation. Like, that’s how, and if your lofty is clean, like, that’s how you get the most leads. So we give the most leads to the people who are the most active and stay the busiest. Love

Speaker 2  22:13

it. Love it. Let’s talk a little bit about listings. You’ve got a large area that you are listing properties. How do you list your listings to leverage? Or what do you do to capture more listings? What makes you unique?

Rhonda Roberts  22:28

Sure? So one of the things like I said, is we do open houses. We do a lot of open houses so that we are getting more attention, and it gives us an opportunity. We do videos. We do our video work currently in house on the team, so it’s not the most, you know, expensive looking video that you’re going to see out there, but we’ve also gotten really good reception and views and things like that. And so one of the things that we’ve started to do over the last few months is we have listing preview day for the team. Because what we were finding was we were finding that some of our team members didn’t know about the listings that other people had, even though we send them out, because they’ve never actually seen the property. And so now what we’re doing is, is we were taking the time to go out together as a team, as many people as can be there at once, and shoot different videos at the property, so that we have videos that we can throw up on social media. If that house is sitting for 30 days, we’ve got something different we can do two weeks later or two weeks later. You know, we have not just the listing agent, but we have that other agents walking around saying, This is my favorite part of the house, or, you know, something like that. Just so maybe it’s not Lisa’s listing, but Lisa can share that house and talk about it to her clients and her sphere and her so we’re really trying to just up the visibility of our listings. We do kind of standard things. We still do postcards, you know, like that kind of stuff works here. And we do lofty has listing lead generation through Facebook. So we’re we always do that when we have listings in open houses to generate leads.

Speaker 2  24:10

Perfect. I love it. Let’s talk a little bit about the leverage portion of your business. Um, if, if you provide a lot of leads, what percentage of your businesses you’re created versus the team created? Oh, I

Rhonda Roberts  24:28

don’t have that number in front of me from last year, and I’m going to say it wrong. Probably I would say we were about 6040 last year. Well, if you take me out, take me out, we’re at about 6040 and

Speaker 2  24:39

60 is you provide Rhonda provides the lead. Yeah. So tell me the value of your your team. If, if you had a value proposition to your to attract people to your team, what does that look like?

Rhonda Roberts  24:54

So my big value. So there’s two. One for new agent, like, if you’re brand new to the business. And you’re going to come to me, you’re going to learn, you know what I stunk as an agent, and I learned what to do, and I can show you the way, like Yoda, like, follow me. Let’s do this. So I have that, like, if they’ll just listen, I can tell them exactly what to do, and they won’t waste seven years of their life like I did, and and spend all the money of the family, but, um, so there’s that, but also with our team, what I find versus the other teams in this office, like our mentorship is huge. I have an agent on my team, and some people may be like, This is nuts, but I have an agent who’s been on my team. She’s one of our top producers. She’s been with me almost five years. She still sends me almost every contract she writes just because she wants to have a second pair of eyes look at it. And I’ve never once said to her, Don’t ever do that or what. Like, I’m like, I am happy to look at anything. I will go on any appointment with any person that wants it. So like, when we have, when we talk mentorship, it’s me they get. It’s not somebody else on the team. I mean, like, if I’m in family at family reunion and somebody needs something, we have agents who are experienced, who can go on appointments with people or help people do a buyer consultation. But I ran script practice for my team this morning, and, you know, we did scripts back and forth for 30 minutes. You know, I do all of those things. I’m super hands on with the team. And so, you know, I have no life outside of real estate. I really don’t. My children are grown. They work for me, so I see them every day. Anyway. My husband is a corporate executive who works as much or more than I do. And so, like, I don’t have a life. This is it, and I love it, and I love helping people, whether it’s my clients or my agents. And so that’s our leverage, is that they’re going to get an experience on my team that they’re not going to get in other places.

Speaker 2  26:55

So cool, so cool. So it seems like you have a strong culture. If this is basically your family there, and this is your life, tell me a little bit about your culture and what makes your culture unique. Yeah,

Rhonda Roberts  27:11

so we always, and that’s the other thing. I always tell agents when I’m interviewing them, we really like each other, like there’s no drama. You would think teams of 12 and some people coming and going, because we do have a higher turnover, probably because I’ve made some hiring mistakes, which I think you’ll want to talk about later. So I’ll save that. But we do a lot together. Um, like over we have some ladies who we have all ladies, but one right now, and one admin. So there’s also that that they all get along. We go to top golf, we go for Christmas break. We went to dinner and to see wicked, you know, like in the evening, when, because some of them can’t do things during the day. So we took an evening to do that, and that was just a ball. We just do a lot together. We have a lot of title companies that want to feed us and hang out with us and take us places. And it’s kind of the same. Some of them will go with me to Dallas for the Tom Ferry stuff that we do. Sorry, Max coaches, coaching people. But so we travel together for that kind of stuff. We do have. We have a text that goes out every morning where I share some kind of inspirational quote or something, and then elaborate on that and why it’s important for their business, and then we talk about what’s coming up for the rest of the day. We cheer lead. Every time somebody gets something under contract, a text goes out that so and so got an accepted offer, or so and so got a listing signed today, and everybody cheers and congratulates.

Speaker 2  28:48

So good, so good. So I can see a problem where, if you have the best splits, they’re well taken care of, they are they’re mother hen is taking care of them no matter what, and you’re providing a bunch of leads. How do you filter? Do you just take everybody or how do you filter? Because you got to protect your culture. What do you do to attract talent? And how do you filter to make sure that everything is the way it’s supposed to

Rhonda Roberts  29:14

be? Yeah, so I’m that’s the thing that I’m improving on as we speak, like, that’s my biggest challenge is because I was, I was like, Oh, I can fix them. I love them. Oh, I can do that, you know. And I’ve had to quit that. Like, stop it. Um, so one

Speaker 2  29:32

problem, I’m sorry before you get into that, because I think what caused that, what caused the I won another hand them, and then all of a sudden, I gotta stop it. What caused that?

Rhonda Roberts  29:46

Because it was costing me too much money to hold people on the team that don’t make any money.

Daren Phillipy  29:53

So what did you do? I let them go,

Rhonda Roberts  29:57

and then I told myself, stop hiring these people. Um, so one thing that I have stopped hiring, I have stopped hiring people who have other jobs or who do not have an exit plan to get out of those jobs. Like, they if they want to come, they have to have a written like, if they have a job, they have to have a written exit plan for that job. Like, I just turned it’s funny, I just turned this gentleman away, and I feel really bad because I’ve hired two people since him, because I told him, I was like, Oh, we’re not hiring right now. Come back in January. Well, then I hired two people, and he saw it on Facebook, so I felt bad. But the difference was, he has a job. He doesn’t want to quit it. He wants to retire from it in like two years. And when my ops manager and I interviewed him, it was more like, yeah, I’ve had my license for like, two or three years. I haven’t really done anything. I just, I really care about learning. I don’t really care about producing. And I’m like, Eh, no, we need producers. Like, if you, if you’re not going to come here and commit to sell at least a house a month if you have another job, you know, if you have another job, a house a month is pretty big, so I’m like, I can’t, I just can’t take you right now. So I’ve really stopped taking people who have other jobs, and the ones that I have that have other jobs, I’m holding to a higher standard of an accountability. And you know, in terms of accountability, like, how are you going to do this?

Speaker 2  31:23

So do they come to you, or do you go out there and start looking for them? So

Rhonda Roberts  31:26

it’s a little bit of both, honestly. So I’ve done things over the years where I’ve hired, I’ve run ads, and I’ve gotten people that way, and then there’s been other opportunities. Our Keller Williams office is one of the bigger ones, and it well, it’s the one of the biggest offices, just in general in town, and it is known as a place where new agents come to learn to be successful. And so I’ll get an email oftentimes from our team leader here, or assistant team leader, that says so and so is looking to join a team. Feel free to reach out, that kind of thing. And then they kind of make their rounds around the team, and then we decided from there, you know, which team they’re going to go on, and if we’re the right fit, or somebody else, or or what? Okay, perfect.

Speaker 2  32:12

So you’ve got a bunch of people got, and they’re spread all out. How do you you talked about there’s accountability with leads and lead rotation. What does your accountability look like when it comes to that team? What systems you have in place to make that happen?

Rhonda Roberts  32:30

So we, we have a meeting every Monday, and then I also, so we have a team meeting every Monday, and then every week

Daren Phillipy  32:40

what is covered in that that team meeting.

Rhonda Roberts  32:44

So sometimes we have a speaker like, uh, this week we had a loan officer come in to talk about some Metro housing money that’s coming out, and who can apply for that or whatever. Because they usually bring us food too, because we like that, because it’s breakfast. And so we usually try to have somebody come in, whether it’s a loan officer, title company or maybe a home inspector, just to hit on some things, and they’ll talk a little bit. The other thing that we’ll do is go over just kind of any training. We’ve had so much new paperwork, like our last couple of meetings, have dealt with new board forms, the new contracts that came out at the first of the year. So I’ve kind of taught them how we’re going to use those. We talk a lot about Phil Jones and exactly what to say, because I’ve really been coached in that in the last few years, and gone to a lot of things that he was at. So we do a lot of that kind of stuff. Sometimes there are videos we need to watch just with inspirational stuff, or just stuff about how to do this, or, you know, so it just depends on kind of what we’re doing. We also talk about our new listings, and kind of, you know, who has a new listing and wants to tell us about it, or stuff like that. So we just kind of hit a lot of things in that meeting. How long is that meeting? An hour, and who

Speaker 2  33:59

runs that? Me, Okay, what about you said, Alright, so that’s every Monday you do that. You said, every other Tuesday, something happens.

Rhonda Roberts  34:07

No, every other week, I meet with every agent for about 15 to 20 minutes, and they have a little sheet that talks about, you know, what’s your goal? Where are you at with your goal? Who are your current clients, and who are your next three clients? And we just kind of go down that sheet. So that’s their accountability, like, who, who? Who do you what’s your pipeline look like if you don’t have a pipeline, what are you going to do to get a pipeline? And who are the people that you’re currently working with? And so in the week that I don’t meet with them, the ops manager does. So they’ve got somebody kind of in their space every week asking them about what they’re doing and

Speaker 2  34:45

what is your goal on that? What do we spend most your time doing?

Rhonda Roberts  34:51

So some of it’s the face to face, just because they get time with me that they feel like they were promised when we brought them onto the team. You know? I’ve had agents say in the past, well, I didn’t get to spend as much time with Rhonda as I thought I would. Well, did you ever text Rhonda and ask her, you know? Like, it’s not a big you know, I will spend time with you if you text me. Um, so it’s just that, but it’s also keeping them accountable to, hey, you told me you were going to sell 20 houses, and it’s March and you’ve sold zero. Like, what are you going to do to get caught up on your goal? Love it, love it. And then we problem solve if they have problems that they have, because they know I’m going to have a few minutes with Rhonda so I can throw this at her. You know, they save up some of those problems, which is nice for me, because that’s less of the got a minute.

Speaker 2  35:38

Okay? So what do you do is 12 agents. Everybody gets 1520 minutes. What’s your show up? Right?

35:49

Oh, super high. I would say 90.

Speaker 2  35:51

Okay, good. I was kind of curious, because there’s when, when you have that time blocked off and they don’t show up.

Rhonda Roberts  35:57

No, very seldom, very seldom does somebody not show.

Speaker 2  36:03

Okay, good. I love it. Anything else that you’d like to share with us about either systems or your leverage or leadership that you think would be valuable that you want to share with us? Think of anything? Okay, perfect. So what have you learned most over the last 12 months

Rhonda Roberts  36:24

about hiring? I was hiring the wrong people. I was hiring the wrong people too frequently. We have a great core group of people, and then I just kept hiring these others who just couldn’t get themselves in gear, didn’t do the activities expected. You know, had come in with a plan to quit their other job, but then didn’t stick to the plan. So I’ve learned to be more particular about hiring, and not hire right on the spot. But and I’ve gone through Career Visioning and all that. So, you know, it’s been more of a process, and often I will have them talk to my ops manager first, because she used to do all the hiring and firing on a team that she was on pre COVID, and then she had to leave that major it was a major team, um, she had to leave them during COVID, because she got really ill, so she’s had a lot of experience with that. And so she will talk to them even before I do now, and she’ll tell me, like her feeling like and don’t even, you know, and I’ll still usually talk to them, but she’ll be like this. I don’t think this is one you want to, you know, because I’ve always, I’ve always got the I can fix them and make it better. It’s that I want it more than they do syndrome, because I’ve seen what being successful has done for my family in our lives. And I’m like, dang it, why don’t you want that? Like I don’t understand, I don’t understand people who just don’t want it, but that’s just my personality. So what

Speaker 2  38:06

do you do? Do you do you coach them up, or you coach them out on that little bit

Rhonda Roberts  38:09

of both? Some of them, I coach, you know, I’m able to coach up. I don’t give up on anybody quickly. And Jay knows this, because we’ve talked about this on on our Thursday call, but we like, I had a, like, a 60 day performance improvement plan, and I was like, golly, 60 days is a long time. Like, I gotta quit dragging it out that long. It just needs to be like, You got three weeks to get something under contract, or you gotta go like, or you’ve got, you know, three weeks of making having 100 conversations per week. So it’s, I’ve got us. I’m learning that I can’t be as mother hen. And, you know, it’s a business, and I’ve gotta, you know, while I love these people, I have to run it like a business. Yeah, I bet you can’t help it sometimes, huh? It’s hard. It’s hard because I want it so badly for all of them.

Speaker 2  39:00

Sure, sure, sure. What’s a mistake or a big mistake that you’ve made that you hold value from the lesson that you’ve gotten from

Rhonda Roberts  39:14

it all goes back probably to the to the hiring Well, no, I will say this, I have stayed in offices longer than I should have. So I don’t know if I said this, but I’ve only been at Keller, so I’ve been in the business for 17 years, and I’ve been at Keller Williams. I it’ll be five in May, I think. And I said I was trying to grow a team starting at like year 10, like 10 years ago, and I just struggled so hard, and I just refused to, like, make the move to kW, which would have been so much easier in my team building. It just didn’t realize it. And so, like, I just, man, I dug my heels in, and was like, I’m not, I’m not going over there. And I mean, I’ve moved offices, like, four or. Five times. So it wasn’t that I was resistant to change. I had had change repeatedly. Um, but gosh, if I had come here to like, two offices ago, night and day difference in my business. Oh, love that. Sometimes you just gotta make the move.

Daren Phillipy  40:16

Love it, love it, love it. Um, this is the time that you guys. Raise your digital hands. So I go to Louisville, and I need to get myself something great to eat. Where are you sending me?

Rhonda Roberts  40:36

My gosh, we’re, like, such a foodie place. Like, I don’t know if you know that, but we, we’re a tremendous foodie place. So there are some little restaurants, um, there’s lemu, there’s Veronese, um, all kinds of good stuff here. Those are my faves.

Speaker 2  40:49

Les moose sounds perfect for me. What is it? It’s a steak house. Oh, I guess. Okay,

Rhonda Roberts  40:57

one of the best steaks probably I’ve ever had. So Baronet has a little bit of everything, but, um, probably more. Um, oh gosh, grassa, Gramma, I forgot about that. Like, Italian, like, we got everything. It’s a huge foodie town. I love it on top of Bourbon Trail stuff, which I don’t I’m not a drinker, so I don’t know anything about it, but everybody in the world comes here for Bourbon Trail stuff. So

Speaker 2  41:22

good. Well, I mean, I’m not a drinker either, so I’m sure it’s so good. I just like watching people drink. It’s fun. Yeah, Jay, go do your thing. Ask your question,

Speaker 3  41:30

gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I don’t want to take a lot of you time, because I know we get to speak. We get to talk on Thursdays as well, too. But let’s not really appreciate this, Rhonda, so we also, like you. You said you have your team do previews around your listings. We do that as well on our team. Tell me a little bit about that. And what do you do to really get them to see that? Hey, this is a great opportunity. You’re getting to see something before everybody else. So hey, go get into your pipeline and go see what you can find.

Rhonda Roberts  42:06

Yes, so I will say this, you’re talking about like our listing, our eight our team preview days. Okay, so we just started this at the end of last year, so we’re very new to it. So I don’t know if you know Jenny Smith, she is in Georgia. You should see her accent. Find her on Instagram. She’s amazing. She’s a Keller Williams agent in Georgia. Jenny Smith, she presented at Tom Ferry summit last year about doing this with her team. And it’s the cutest thing ever. So we, the agents on my team that were with me at Summit. We’re like, we’ve got to start this. And so our purpose in doing it is content. We want to see the listing. It’s important, especially me being the team leader, because they’re going to call me off the sign. I’m like, I don’t know. I’ve never seen the house, so it’s important for me to see the house, so I’m going, and we’re trying to get as many agents there, because we’re trying to develop online content. Because I will say that is like pulling teeth from my agents to get them to put things on social media like and it’s huge. And I tell them constantly I have sold so many houses to people I would have never sold a house to had I not put things on social media past students, people I went to high school with, like that I haven’t talked to in 30 years, you know, whatever? Get on social media and show them what you’re doing, and they don’t. And so by using that, that’s one of our big things for that opportunity, is we’re gonna take video, we’re going to take video of you, and then we’re going to post it and tag you in it. Like, if you’re not going to use it, we’re going to make you do it, gotcha. So that’s one reason we’re doing that. Gotcha. It helps you to see the house. Because, you know, I can go in and be like, Oh, wait, so and so in my sphere might like this, or, you know, or, Hey, you know, put it on your again. Social, hey, we’ve got this house coming, but we’re also sending out a lot of emails and lofty about deals of houses. Or, Hey, I just saw this house. We have this coming up. Let me know if you’d be interested those types of

Speaker 3  44:18

things. Yeah, I learned that previews about two and a half years ago. I learned the previews were so good because I had listed a condo, and something happened with the lock box. So I had to bring a lock box back. Lauren, I was going, I think dinner, largest happened to be with me. We go in. I set the lock box. She’s looking around the house. She calls somebody while she’s in there, and she sold the house while she was in there. So I just learned that, man, previews really, really, are a lot of things. So you’re really using it for exposure, for the listing, and exposure for the agent. See, we’re really trying to see, hey, what kind of, what kind of, what kind of leads can we? Can we, can we that already are in our collective pipelines, that we could, that we can sell the house, but I appreciate that.

Rhonda Roberts  44:59

But I tell you, we use, we use that listing leads.com or whatever, Jimmy Mackin and Tom Ferry thing. We use that. And one of the things in that is the Deal of the Week email that goes out. Now, you have to find the deal, you know, and put a deal together. But I have done that, like with one of our office exclusives, I just don’t tell them, like, the address. They tell them information. I got response the first time I did it, I got responses from 15 people I have never spoken to.

45:31

That’s awesome,

Rhonda Roberts  45:34

because when people leave the team, like, all their crap gets put into under my name, basically in in lofty so I don’t know who these people are, but we’re getting constant, constant, like leads from those listing leads things you know that for Deal of the Week they love, if you can come up with some kind of deal, you know, I’m like, Dang, this was cool. So we’ve started doing that.

Speaker 2  46:07

Jay was so impressed that he froze himself. Any more questions? Jay, nope, I’m good. All right. Great, great question. Oz Lopez, beat

Speaker 4  46:19

us. Alright, is it my turn? Yeah,

Speaker 2  46:23

I will ask you to to run over the other side where the hand is raised. I’ll let that one just hang out there. That

Speaker 4  46:29

was my phone over there. That just so I had to thank you for your patience. Rhonda, thank you for pouring your all your knowledge and wisdom with us today. I have a quick question, what is one thing that irks you about the about your business? What’s one thing that you wish you could change, if you could wave a magic wand and just change something right away? What would it be?

Rhonda Roberts  46:59

This is going to be mean, but like, I just can’t help it. I wish my agents would work like they say they want to work like, that’s the big thing, you know. Like you’re you worked five hours this week, if that you know, how are you going to sell 25 houses this year? If you work five hours a week and you talk to three people like, I cannot get them to make that connection, and I could say it 8000 times, and our coach can tell them 8000 times, and Tom Ferry can tell them 8000 times, and there’s still that disconnect. So I what I would love to see are agents who say they want to be full time agents. Be full time agents.

Daren Phillipy  47:36

I love that you looked over your shoulder, by the way, I know

Rhonda Roberts  47:38

I’m like, crap. Is there anybody in that office? Because we have the office across the hall and these walls are so paper thin, like, Oh, crap. Are they here? Um, there’s nobody here. Let’s see my point.

Speaker 2  47:52

Truth, though, you did kick people out. I

Rhonda Roberts  47:55

did kick Well, yeah, but they’re admin, they’re staff. There’s no agents here. So, so, yeah. So that’s the biggest thing. Like, I just, I wish people understood what it took, you know, like, they don’t really get and so some of my agents, I will say this, they came in during COVID, and so it was just like this. I don’t know about your all’s market in in COVID, but ours was insane. Like, we couldn’t take five minutes off because everybody was buying a house. And so it was so, really, super easy. And then it got hard last year, like 2024 was harder for us. The Fall was miserable, and it was like they didn’t know what to do because the business wasn’t falling in their laps anymore. And so, like, we’re showing them the way and it, I think there’s just a disconnect of, Oh, I’m just gonna go work for myself, make a lot of money, have freedom to do all the things I had freedom in 17 years. So there we go. But you know, if you want to make the money, that’s, that’s what it takes. You know

Speaker 4  48:59

what? Um, I can relate to that, because I was just talking to Daren about this a couple months ago. I said, You know what, with my team member, I have one team member and and I, I joined forces with him in 2020, and the market was hot. We couldn’t take a break. And after the interest rates went up and blah blah, the market shifted to a instead of a speed based market, to a skill based market, absolutely. And I was just saying, I think my buyer agent is being exposed right now in this market, and I don’t know what to do. I’m like, Should I try to Let’s go, or should I go? Here’s the door, have a good way. Or should I, like, encourage and motivate? But I it feels good Rhonda, that I’m like, I’m not the only one going through this. It looks like it’s, it’s, it was a market that they were bred in, kind of a different one, and this one’s now skill based market. Right? So absolutely,

Rhonda Roberts  50:01

and see, I got my license in, oh, seven, like, right before the crash. So, like, I’ve been through tough, and I’ve been through, oh my gosh, everything’s a short sale. Oh my gosh. There’s, you know, we had back in those days, we would have 10,000 houses on the market. Today, we have 2400, so and and during COVID, we would have 16, 1700 max. And so, you know, our inventory is crept up a little, but it is. It’s a lot more work to find buyers. So, like my top agent, struggled, because she went from just stuff pouring into her lap to being like, Oh my gosh. So what I’ve really encouraged I’ve given them a list of books that they need to read. I send them videos. I send them podcasts. We talk about something each morning, inspirational and use that as a topic, just because I told them every day you need to be putting something into your mind to make sure that you are learning because let me see if I can find what I sent them this morning, just in terms of the the thing, because I think it applies. I don’t know how long ago that was. We all chatted. We have this super long text thread that goes on forever, but this morning said, strive not to be a success, but rather to be a value. And that’s from Albert Einstein. And so that’s what I’ve been trying to tell them, is we’ve gotta be a value to people, for them to come to us, to send their friends to us, and if we’re not putting all these things in our mind, atomic habits, fanatical prospecting, shift, the one thing, all of those things. If we’re not putting that kind of information in our mind every day, we’re not, you know, am I reading, you know, blogs in the morning or whatever? Maybe not blogs. So am I reading something in the morning that helps me become more knowledgeable about the market today, and how can I share that with people? And so that’s and that’s the teacher in me. Like, you know, I can’t get past it, I guess, but I’m always like trying to do that. I would love to start one of my goals. We’re moving offices physical, like, physical offices, not office office, where we’re going to have a bigger space as a team. And so, like, I’m excited to start, like, bringing them in and doing a book club and doing some, you know, on Team masterminds just within our team. And so I think that’s going to help them grow as well. I

Speaker 4  52:36

do have a question on that, on that same topic, um, and maybe you already covered this with Daren earlier. I’m not sure I’m I think I jumped off for a little bit. Do you struggle, Rhonda, with letting people go? Because I do with my one buyer’s agent, I think like there’s let me, let me help them, or let me motivate them, or or maybe there’s a there’s so much potential. I can see it in you. Why don’t you see it in yourself? And I’m always like giving them another chance and another chance. And the reason I ask you, Rhonda, is because you’re way, way more advanced than ahead in this real estate game that and I am. So my question is, if you are like me, where it’s hard to kind of like go, Hey, you’re not a fit. Have a great day. How do you deal with that? Do you have a Do you have somebody helping you do that? Do you have a system that does that for you, or you just kind of weather it?

Rhonda Roberts  53:37

So I was terrible at it, um, because mother hen like, I just want to fix everybody. I want to take care of them. I don’t understand why you can’t do what I’m telling you to do, kind of mindset. But over the last six months, I’ve gotten better, and part of that is it is clearly stated in our ICA agreement, what the expectations are, and if you’re not hitting it, then you need to go. And I did have this super long period of time, like with 60 days, where I would put you on a performance improvement plan for 60 days, and you had that much time to get something under contract, and then we would re evaluate. Well, I decided 60 days was too long, because I had these two people in particular that it they were not going to get anything done in 60 days. And so it was just awful. And so, like, it was just like torture to me to have to do those every three week meetings, and it was because we knew they weren’t going to do anything. And so, um, so we’ve switched it. I will no longer do a 60 day. It will be like a two week, three week, month, Max. And I also included in our ICA agreement that we meet at their 45 day mark. And if they’re not cutting it at 45 days after joining the team, we’re going to split then, like it. Like if at 45 days in, they’re not doing the things that they need to do, they’re not going to change in 90 days. They’re either going to do it in that first 45 or they’re not going to do it at all. And so I’m starting to make the break faster.

Speaker 4  55:17

I like that. I’m aware of the PIP the performance improvement plan. I learned that in Career Visioning, but I never thought about putting a deadline to it. And so I like that. I’m gonna put a two week. I’m gonna change that up on my system. So

Rhonda Roberts  55:33

they got all that from my corporate husband. Like, he’s so, like, you know, well to do with this. And I’m like, they’re they’re contractors, they’re not employees. He’s like, Yeah, I know, but you still want to be fair. And he also agrees that 60 days was too long, so I have short that will not happen again. That

Speaker 4  55:50

makes sense. Thank you for the takeaway. I appreciate it. Rhonda, of course.

Speaker 2  55:53

Oz, awesome question. Rhonda, you’re so good. I’m so glad we got the hand. I’ve had some text people sending directly, directly to me, saying that this girl’s right down my alley. So I’m so glad that you’re you’re here if, if someone wanted to send referrals to Louisville or any of the surrounding areas, what’s the best way for us to be able to send referrals to you.

Rhonda Roberts  56:22

You can email me, or you can call me, text me. So my email is Rhonda, R H O N, D, A Roberts homes, H O M, E, S at Gmail, and my phone number is 502314, 23145305,

56:47

and we also do serve southern Indiana,

Speaker 2  56:51

perfect. Well, I now know Jay a burger because he brought someone super amazing to us. So thank you so much for being here, Rhonda. We’re all loving this, and I can’t wait to hang out with you. Hopefully we get to see you here for family reunion and the OT live. So that’s pretty much it, guys. Thank you so much. Rhonda, you’re the queen, everybody. I will see you guys next week on the OT.

57:20

Have a good day. Okay, we

Speaker 2  57:22

did it. We did the OT with Ronda Roberts. She killed it. Rhonda, you are one smart woman, and I love your willingness to share. Rhonda, you’ve actually come to the OT multiple times since this and I’m super excited to see your face every single time you join the room. Now I’ll tell you one thing. I don’t do this just because it’s like a hobby or I like to do this. I run one of the largest real estate companies in Vegas, and I spend most of my time coaching and helping non Keller Williams agents in their real estate business, specifically growing teams. So if you’re growing teams and you’re needing help and you’re looking for ways to systematize your business, contact me. My number 702-706-4949, and I’m here to help. That’s pretty much it. Every single week, every Tuesday at noon, jump on Zoom. You’ll be able to go ahead and check us out, be a part of the conversation. That is what the only team zoom mastermind is all about. And so join us. I will see you guys next week at the OT. So until then, go out and do some good.

Speaker 1  58:28

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