After Coaching 2,000 Businesses One Fix 6x Your Business

Speaker 0: And we're going to head into a market where if you're good, you will be gone. Mhmm. But if you're great, you might be good. The team that focuses on getting bigger will go broke. Yeah.

But the team that focuses on getting better will get bigger. And I've seen the contract to close rate fall below 50%. Where last year, it was in the 70 to eighties. It's below 50 right now. Wow.

It's a huge drop. And it tells us we have a trust recession. People don't trust us right now. Gary, you didn't even graduate high school. Do they know that on this podcast?

You didn't graduate high school? No. That's a lose voice. I've been in over 5,000 real estate offices, right, in the last ten years. And I've got 1,126 franchise owners around this world in every language running on the RISE business framework.

I want 1,126 people running that and helping millions of people. And every time I write that vision down and I have that thought, the loose voice coming is just, do that, bro. You don't know what you're gonna get 1,126 people. Mhmm. But my leader voice says, hey, Ken.

Speaker 1: Welcome and thank you for joining us for today's episode of disruptors where millionaires are made. Today, we have my dear friend and coach, Gary Harper with Sharper Business Solutions and Gary Flynn from Saint John, Indiana to talk about how after coaching 2,000 businesses, he's figured out you only need to focus on one thing, the six x your business. Now, guys, on a mission to create millionaires, the information on this show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. If you'll take consistent action, you'll become one. And, well, I guess that's it.

Are you ready to

Speaker: jump right into it? I'm ready. Let's roll. Alright.

Speaker: So for

Speaker: having me on, my way.

Speaker: Well, thank you for being here. I mean, it's always an honor. I've been able to work with Sharper Business Solutions now since 2020.

Speaker: Yeah. So Seven years.

Speaker: In December, it'll be six full years. So in two months, it'd be six full years we've been working together. Yeah. Which is still kinda crazy because I thought I didn't really need you,

Speaker: you know? Yeah. No.

Speaker: And it turns out I really... Been a

Speaker: lot of ups and downs over the last six years. Yeah.

Speaker: It turns out I, my business really, really needed you. And so... And you're out here, coincidentally. At the same time, we got our quarterly tomorrow.

Speaker: Yep. Right? So it's

Speaker: gonna be a lot of fun. We've had you, Susan, Austin, Brandon, Amanda.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: I don't think we had anyone else. I don't think we burned anyone else. I mean, we were the coaches. Yeah.

Speaker: I think it's that's alright.

Speaker: Wow. I

Speaker: hope that's more to the list

Speaker: for you. Yeah. But it's always an honor. It's always a pleasure. And, you know, the...

I was talking to someone, we were at CG, and I was like, you know, they're talking about they they use the EOS system. I was like, that's great. You know, I use the EOS system. It's fantastic. It's a good system.

A lot of us started with traction. Yeah.

Speaker: I started coaching it.

Speaker: Yeah. And what I was saying to him was like, but, like, you're the one that's running it? He's like, yeah. I'm the one that's running it. I was like, are you sure that's the best way to do it?

Speaker: That's funny. That's funny. People call me and say, hey. You know, I... I've self implemented.

And I'm like, okay. So is it cost less to, to come in now that I've self implemented? I'm like, it's actually gonna cost you more because now I gotta fix a lot more stuff. Yeah. So it's actually pretty funny.

When somebody tries to self implement it, just... It's almost comical what they don't know.

Speaker: Well, that was us the first two years. Right? So when we started doing it, we were self implementing. Yep. And they were like, okay.

We've hit a wall. Yeah. Right? We need someone else to come in. And, like, I've said this before.

I think any of you said this on a previous podcast. It's like, I didn't feel like you taught me anything new per se at the at the, two day because it took two full days the very first time. I'm done. Right? But you called out every single blind spot, everything I was overlooking.

Right? The things that I didn't wanna look at. Right? Because, like, it's really easy to fix these things over here, that, you know, maybe it'll make a move, but there are some really impactful levers over here

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: That requires a lot of work. Mhmm. That's true.

Speaker: Can we just focus on these things over here? Right. I think it's interesting what you decide. You said, I don't think you taught me anything new. Yeah.

But it's interesting. I... My goal is not to come in and teach. Right. My goal is to come in and coach.

Yeah. And teaching and coaching are very different. Mhmm. Because coach coach... Teaching is knowledge.

Coaching comes from wisdom. And so wisdom is about being able to see patterns as Tony Robin talks about. Mhmm. And be able to see... And when you're in all...

In 17 offices a week on average, which is what Sharper is, we see patterns very quickly. Yeah. And so when we walk in and we teach and you're like, yeah. I already understand that. Yeah.

I already do that. But but did you see this pattern? And I think that's the difference between teaching and coaching. Right.

Speaker: And that was... That's been my experience as well. It's the reason why we've... I recommended it so Oh, thank you. Many colleagues.

Yeah. So, right now, we're in a very interesting place. Yeah. Right? Interesting market.

We are seeing, like, the conversations I'm having with some of the operators is, like, hey. Like, right now, we are surviving Yeah. While the rest of the competition kinda slowly dies off so that we can crush in 2027. Yep. Those are kind of conversations I'm having.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: What kind of conversations are you having generally?

Speaker: So I started this conversation and the mindset around it about forty eight months ago. I started telling people, we're going to head into a market where if you're good, you will be gone. Mhmm.

Speaker: But

Speaker: if you're great, you might be good. And I think that's what's played out over the last twenty four months. We have... We've seen teams that just refuse to get great at running the business, great at what they do. And because of that, they've seen a degradation in their sales or growth, and, ultimately, they've decided that this isn't for them.

Mhmm. And some people have left the industry because they succeeded at at the industry, and other people left the industry because they failed at it. Mhmm. And that's that's what I wanna be able to empower my clients to do is get to a point where they can have that power of choice for... Versus being forced to make the decision that I can't do this anymore or it's not working for me anymore.

And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing people struggle with, getting the same results. It's just harder. The industry is just harder today than where it was over the last five years. And and, you know, from the time we started together, we went into some really nice times in 2020 and 2024.

Yeah. And then people benefited from it. And now we've got a lot of young entrepreneurs that think that's just the way it should be. Mhmm. And they don't understand what it takes to be in a market like this.

You know, Steve, I, I've been at CD, Collectors Union. It was fourteen years this quarter. It was my fourteenth year. I've been in real estate for thirty years. And, I left, high school and moved to Northwest Indiana to work with my brother-in-law rehabbing houses.

And I'd live in them during the day, and I'd, you know, keep people from breaking in and stealing copper and wiring. I had a Glock nine millimeter and a 38 special and a cot. And that's what I did. I kept them from breaking in because we were in Gary, Indiana and Hammond, Indiana and some areas that... Little rougher areas.

But my job was to keep people from breaking and instilling with the work that we had done the day before and then work on the house the next day. I've been in this industry a very long time. I've been in the ups and downs of it. I filed bankruptcy in 2008 to 2010, lost everything, had to rebuild, And I learned a lot of lessons over these past thirty years, and ones that people don't have to relearn. They just have to listen.

Mhmm. And they have to be willing to apply what other people have already learned. And, so when you get somebody like me with some gray hair and hair falling out and been staying around and doing this for as long as I have, say, hey, you might wanna make an adjustment here and you're not willing to do so. You're you're gonna find yourself on the other side of it.

Speaker: What what is causing the resistance? Because, like, I was talking to someone the other day. So we've experienced a little bit of churn inside our business. Yeah. Right?

And we kinda threw our hands up in the air, which we'll talk about probably more in-depth in our quarterly tomorrow.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But it's like we went through and, like, we looked at, like, all the reasons why someone's like, hey. We're we're not using this tool. Yep. Right? And what we figured out...

Well, not what we figured out, but what we saw after looking at all the people that have canceled, not renewed, and so on Mhmm. Was that every reason was different.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: And for me, I was frustrated. Mhmm. Because I'd rather you tell me, Steve, you suck at this thing right here.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Because you tell me I suck at this thing right here, I will do everything in my power to get good at that Yep. Right and win. Yep. But, I don't have that. And then we have clients where we'll say, like, hey, look, you know, we're noticing a pattern here.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: And that, you know, perhaps it's just your speed of lead or perhaps, like, hey, like, your people aren't attending the appointments. Their AI is booked for you, which is so crazy to me.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: If you would just attend the appointments Yeah. Like, things would be better. Right? And I wish... Again, I wish I had that because then I could fix it.

But, like, it's amazing to me. Like, I'll tell someone. Because, like, I'm the last person still for the cancellations. Like, hey. Like, you know, if you would just attend these appointments, your business would be doing better.

Yeah. And they'd rather just fail on their terms

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Than do what it takes to win. So, like, what is that? Well, people like

Speaker: to control their own burn, First and foremost, they wanna control how they burn down. Yeah. So if they can control their own burn, it puts them back in control of the situation even when they're not in control of the situation.

Speaker: So they'd rather be in control and lose.

Speaker: Yeah. Interesting. Than win and not know why. People just like to control their own burn. The other thing is it's, you know, it it...

People only change for two reasons, purpose or pain. Yeah. Right? Even in real estate, the way somebody gets to a point of selling and becoming motivated sellers, either they have a purpose or they have high enough pain point that calls them to wanna sell. And so we figured that out a long time ago in business and leading and managing people.

You have to get either the purpose big enough or the pain big enough to create change, to create them to do what you wanna do. Mhmm. The other reason is is that in the real estate market especially, people measure service providers based on ROI of their company, based on their spend. Like, so they'll look at... Well, before you do that Yeah.

Speaker: Before we get to that, because I... This is a really important point. Sure. Right? But before we get there, I would argue right now there's enough pain Yeah.

Sure. To inspire change. Yeah. But are... Is...

Are are are they still doing the change or are they still, again, willing to burn?

Speaker: Yeah. I mean, I think it comes down to a fear. It's just a fear of a mindset of not knowing what the right answer is. So what happens is is that when people get to a level so much pain that they may look at this and go, I've gotta change it all. And I wanna get back in control.

I feel like if I'm touching every dial, then I'm controlling the burn. And if I fail because of my efforts, then I fail. But I don't wanna leave it up to AI. I don't wanna leave it up to the search bar. I don't wanna leave it up.

And they they take... They're trying to take back control. Right?

Speaker: I see.

Speaker: And so that's what I mean by control their own burn. Right?

Speaker: Yeah. They wanna lose on their terms.

Speaker: They do. And so it's like, I don't wanna be, like, caught losing because I had this service provider, I had this service provider, I used this tool, or I didn't use this tool. Like, I wanna just get back in. It feels more control when they touch it all themselves again. And so that's why they let people go and coaches go and service providers go.

What do they do? They get back to where they're just gonna try to control the burn again. Yeah. So And then they glorify it by saying, I did it. I saved the world.

You know, everything falls on my shoulders, and then it justifies their future. They get back... Every time they get... Hit a wall, they let everybody go, and they go back to the grind again. Yeah.

And they stay small.

Speaker: So there was an event. We were a collective genius.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: And we were in the Service Provider Room, which I don't like. I feel like we're, like, a kids table at Thanksgiving. Right? Service Provider Room.

Speaker: I... Okay. I I can I can definitely sense how you feel that way?

Speaker: But we're in a service provider room.

Speaker: Everybody's eating the main meal over here. Your service providers, you go in the other room. They go

Speaker: in the other room. Right? But we're in this room and there's like 40 of us

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Or more. Right? And, like, we're doing the introduction thing, you know, I'm Steve Trang. I'm rejection... We're we're going on and doing this thing.

You go to you and you're like, I'm getting your heart ready, Sharper, but forget all this. Let's talk about Ganak. Yeah. And you caused, you stirred a lot of passionate conversations.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good word. So what did you do? I mean, I...

Listen. I I I sit in three to five offices a week, and I hear people complain about every service provider in this industry and why they work and why they don't work. And they they praise, and then they they complain. Right? And so depending on the situation, but I always hear the same praise come from one thing.

They get praise because they create a good conversion rate that causes the higher ROI. And in in... And they call it a ROAS in this industry, which is the wrong terminology, by the way. ROAS is return on ad spend. You're not spending ads when you send out mail.

So it's an ROI in marketing. But ROAS is a specific part of marketing that you're getting a return on. But they'll measure that. They'll look at it, and they'll go, what is my return on my investment? Is it 3%, 5%, 7%, 10%?

And when it starts to drop too low, they go back and they immediately start to blame the service providers. And they go, they're not giving me good enough qualified leads, and they're not they're not training my people right. And the AI is not handling the process the right way. And then the blame always comes back to the service provider instead of looking internally as a leader and say, what do I need to do to make this better? And so I I needed a couple things from the service room.

I needed the service room to all wanna agree on a couple things. I need us to agree on terms of what we were calling each interval of the conversion of the industry. Second thing I need us all agree on is the definition of each one of those areas. So I wasn't looking for every metric in the industry for us to track. I'm looking for four major metrics in the industry for us to track, and it's a conversion rates of gross to net, net to attended, attended to contract, contract to close.

There's a four major metrics. They're really like pressure dials of a pipe. And if you adjust one, it should affect the other. And so my whole thing is, like, we can all have to get on the same page with what it is we're gonna measure as an industry. Because every industry has a benchmark, but for some reason, we failed to do that real estate and allow the industry to benchmark against it.

Speaker: Is it really a real estate specific one?

Speaker: Yeah. In a big way. And is this in a really big way?

Speaker: Because you coach how many industry? Consult with how many industry?

Speaker: There's not an industry we don't consult. We're in nine countries, around the country, a 104 clients today. And they're all around the world. Nine different countries. I mean...

Speaker: And real estate specifically is the one?...

Speaker: By far the worst.

Speaker: You know? I didn't know that.

Speaker: We have a grave, a a, a caveman type mentality. It... It's the weirdest thing because you have the younger generations coming in pushing technology with no experience. Mhmm. Like...

And I mean no experience and, like, they don't wanna create a good experience with the customer. They just wanna be as efficient and drive as much technology. Where you got older generations with all the experience and they wanna go in and kiss the hand... Or shake the hands and kiss the babies and do all that, but they don't wanna innovate. They don't wanna try new things and, you know, it's very caveman approach.

So you got two different fluctuations happening in the industry, and you can't get anybody to agree. Mhmm. And because of that, you have no benchmarks. And everybody thinks they have the secret, and they do it differently. And the truth is, at this point, Steve, I've been in over 5,000 real estate offices, right, in the last ten years.

I don't even know the number anymore, but I know it's worth of five. And, and the truth is at the end of the day, we all kinda do it the same way.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right? We may have different ways in which we conduct process. So the idea of the GNAAC was to benchmark the industry. So gross leads, we all can agree that a gross lead is important for our company. What is a gross lead?

It's any lead that comes through your front door minus spam, period. Even if they say take me off your list, it's grossly.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: Net lead was every lead that is someone who has a house for sale. Attended appointment means you have got in the room or you're on the Zoom. Mhmm. So of the people have a house for sale, how many people did you get in the room or on the Zoom in order to make your product available to them, their solution? Then the contract comes.

The contract is you signed and they signed. We have a dual a dual signature contract where they and you have both signed. Closing, the money has hit the bank. I just wanted a general consensus that we could all agree on those conversions, those vernaculars, and benchmark the industry around it. And it was to my surprise, as you alluded to, some healthy conversations began to spear in that room because people didn't wanna breathe that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And if I I started to find it very interesting very quickly that people were protecting their best interests. Mhmm. If if we held the standard in the room, and this is where really... It wasn't so much about the vernacular as much as... Or the definition.

It was more about the percentage of conversion. Mhmm. And a lot of the lead gen companies didn't wanna be held accountable to a 50% or higher gross to net.

Speaker: Is that what you found?

Speaker: Oh, yeah. That was where most of the spirited conversations happened. Because then we almost stale... Stalled out there and didn't even make it through the rest of the film.

Speaker: We didn't. We did not finish that conversation.

Speaker: Oh, we didn't? Okay. So I ended up finishing the conversation with multiple people afterwards. But in that moment, that's where most of the people got... Started struggle.

But then, you know what? I just... I decided I'm gonna remove what people's perspectives need or what they want it to be, and I'm just gonna overlay what we're seeing. When we're in as many offices that we're in on a weekly basis in real estate, we can pretty quickly tell you what we're seeing versus the floor, the minimums, and what we're seeing versus the elite.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And looking back at ten years worth of data and all the different people I've coached and, you know, I've been in rooms with Tiffany High and Thatch Nugent and Brian Pineda and and Brandon Turner and coached a lot of these guys. So I get it in Eric Brewers and all these guys. I get to see the... How the elite operate.

Speaker: The best of the best. Yeah.

Speaker: And I also get to see how the people that are kinda struggling at the bottom of the barrel are operating. And the difference is 2,000,000 versus 10, but it surprises me how little of a difference there is from two to 10. Really? Yeah. It's a huge, huge difference, but it's a simple difference.

And the difference is at the end of the day, the floor where most people around the 2,000,000 mark in revenue or gross profit in real estate, I don't call it revenue, but gross profit, your HUD to HUDs, in that area, people are converting gross to net around 50%. Mhmm. They're converting from net to attended around 25%. They're converting from attended to contract around 15%, and they're converting from contract close around 70%. Now, Steve, if we give that team that's converting at those numbers 1,000 leads, they'll get 13 deals

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Based on that. You go over to the lead, and they're converting higher. They're converting at 75% gross to net. So 50 to 75. And then net to attended from 25, they get it up to 50.

And con... Attended to contract, they're not at 15 floor. They're at 25. And then contract to close, not much of a difference, but from 70 to 80. Mhmm.

And that's the difference. But here... And that doesn't sound like much of a change in conversions until you look at the results, and the results are 1,000 leads, 13. 1,000 leads, 75. Right.

That's a huge difference. And I've been telling people for years, the team that focuses on getting bigger will go broke.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But the team that focuses on getting better will get better... Bigger. Yeah. And that's the key. It's about getting better in each one of these conversions.

Why do we use an AI service like that to improve the conversion rate?

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: Why do we bring a Novation product in to improve the conversion rate? The whole reason why people chase the Novation three years ago is because the conversion rates started to drop. Yeah. So they're like, I need another product. Another tool.

Yeah. And that's what it's always been about. It's about three things. If you wanna get better in each conversion, you have to look at the conversion first and say, where am I at? Am I close to the floor?

Am I close to the elite? Mhmm. Then you have to decide, how do I convert better? Is it my people? Is it my process?

Is it my product? Your program helps with all three. Yeah. Because it eliminates the error in people. It does then follows the process every time the exact same way.

Right? Yeah. Exactly. And that's a big problem with people. People don't always follow it the exact same way every single time or as the way you've taught them.

And then the product itself, it makes sure that it helps identify the right product for that person's problem.

Speaker: Mhmm. And

Speaker: so that's what's so important about it is looking at each conversion, first acknowledging where I'm at. You know, we just did this exercise at CG, and, I would say majority of the room didn't know their number. Yeah. Not only did they not know how many gross leads, they didn't know how many net leads, how many points attend, or contracts are closed. They didn't know what they were converting them at either.

It's a very dangerous place to be. Yeah. And so going back to it, why did I do this? I did this because I felt the industry needed and deserved, especially service providers, a fair handshake. And we should not be measured against an ROI of your inability and failure to convert properly, that hurts our ability to show success.

Yeah. And when you live upstream, far upstream in the gross to net or you live in the net to attended or helping them from attended a contract and they can't get it closed, then that's gonna kill the conversion rate at the end, and it's gonna kill the ROI. And when it kills the ROI, it makes it look like this funnel or the people and the service providers are not doing their job.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And that's a problem for me. Right? And so the teams we coach are about getting better in people, process, and products. Why? I brought RISE.

RISE, resource, inspiration, all about people.

Speaker: Well, I mean, I remember... I can't remember which CG it was. Was it the last one, two, or three ago? Like, Jeff Neidegger was actually on stage, and he was sharing his numbers for Ganache.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right? And he's like, we went... And the the the biggest ones that jumped out to me is, like, we went from, like, 50% to 75%. Yeah. And that...

Okay. So it's it's an increase. Right? But that literally increases your revenue by 50%. Yep.

That one thing right there. So it's not a 25% increase. It's a 50% increase.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: Right? Because how much you've increased your your flow and, like, the bigger, your your pipe, right, the more you could pump through it. And that's, like, a big, a big factor. But, yeah, it's still still comical to me, like, how much resistance goes to it. Because, like, I came, you know, from the engineering world.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: Right? And, like, everything is standards. Right? Like, when you talk about, like, a USB device, like, it's the standards. It's the I triple e standards.

This is what... If you're saying this is USB three point o, here are all the things you have. Right? If you have a, your iPhone and you think you got, like, a charger and it's not doing a fast charge, it's because it doesn't fit Right. The standards.

Right. And we have generally accepted standards. Right.

Speaker: And it don't mind... The iPhones now will tell you that it doesn't fit their standards and unplug it. Right? Yeah. I think that's important.

You know, it's interesting when people do this and they do it well on our teams that work from the the floor to the elite and they get to the elite, it's it's a reward because they see a higher conversion rate that gives them numbers 75%, you know, 75 contracts versus 13. But what it does is it pops their ROI, and their ROI will go from three to 5% to 10, 15, even... Sometimes even higher depending on how much they convert and how much better

Speaker: they get. Multiple. Yeah. Three to five x.

Speaker: Yeah. Three to five x. And so what happens then as your coach is now I can take 20 to 30% of that revenue increase and put it back in the marketing channels in the funnel. Mhmm.

Speaker: And

Speaker: the cool part is is when we do that, our goal is to break the conversion rates again. That's the goal. Because if you put 20, 30% flow on the top, now you aren't just managing thousand leads, you're managing more. Right? You know, 1,500 up to 2,000 leads, and you start pushing that through the funnel, guess what it's gonna do?

Speaker: You're gonna find the the the fractures, the Yep. The breaks. Yeah.

Speaker: You stress test. Mhmm. And so then you look at it and go, is it my people? Do I need more people? Do they need different training?

Are they not the right people? Do I need a better process? Do I need to adjust my product? Do I need to add innovations? Do I need to change my marketing?

Do... What do I need to do in these three areas of people, process, and product? And then you make the adjustments. And that's why we're here tomorrow. We're here tomorrow to make adjustments in people, process, and product.

Yeah. And as we make those adjustments, your conversion rates will start to climb again, and lifetime value of client will go up, and so will your your your churn rate will go down and all those things because you're getting better. And the better you get, the higher the conversion, the higher the conversion, the higher the return, the higher the return, the more money we put in. The more money we put in, the more we break it. And every time we break it, we fix it, and then we do it again.

Speaker 2: I think it went live I think it went live, like, technically Saturday. So it's a lead that's been in our CRM over a year and it reached out Tuesday, so just a couple days ago, set an appointment, do the, follow-up cadence and, signed contract yesterday. So four or five days in it's already working, like literally a contract from a year old lead. Should be 20 to 25,000. It's a cheaper home, but, you know, $20 on a $80,000 house would be nice.

Well, one, our team is horrible at following up with old leads. And obviously with the AI, there's no fatigue. They follow a cadence, like, perfectly 10 times out of 10. One, just listen to one of the thousands of calls that are recorded from the AI. Like, we have overseas employees and I think the AI sounds more human than some of our overseas employees.

Yeah, I mean it's it's legit.

Speaker 3: What's the situation with the property? Living there, vacant, or rented?

Speaker 4: What is my age? I'm a... I'm 75 years old, and the property is approximately 200 miles away. And it's stressful trying to drive that distance every time something breaks down.

Speaker: I hear you. That sounds like a lot to manage from that far. How's that been wearing on you?

Speaker: Well, it's just the last couple years. You know? After I've turned 73, I got a little... You... The 70 seem to give you a new outlook on what you can and cannot do and what your limitations are.

Speaker: Got it. So at least you'd wanna see what options are out there. Would you be open to a quick conversation with one of our specialists to map that out for your situation?

Speaker: I would.

Speaker: And if you want to hear for yourself exactly what this sounds like, text AI caller to the phone number 33777. When you look at this, the the compound effect. Right? 75 closings out of every thousand versus 13

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: Out of every thousand leads. And, again, we're talking about just a few things here. Yeah. Of course. This is leading to...

Right here, we're talking about, you know, five, six extra business. But then you got the compound effect. Yep. Right? Like, the guy that's gonna be sending five x can now spend more next month on marketing.

Speaker: 100%.

Speaker: And the guy's got a 13. Yeah. Maybe he's gotta, like, look like, where am I gonna cut down my expenses? Yeah. And so this one's compounding smaller.

Yep. This one's compounding bigger.

Speaker: Much bigger. At a faster pace.

Speaker: Yeah. So it's really a... It's it's a... It's an unfair, what's the word I'm looking for? The lever here is is is so impactful Mhmm.

Because because how much of a difference it can make. Yeah. And and it's not easy. Right? But...

Easy. But once you got it figured out...

Speaker: Well, we say it all the time. This is very simple. Mhmm. Just not easy. Yeah.

If it was easy, everybody would do it. Right? Everybody wouldn't need me as their coach to help walk them do it for sure. But, you know, simple... We don't have to make it more complex and add some complexity to it already being hard.

Mhmm. Right? So we gotta try to keep it as simple as possible so that the hard doesn't overwhelm us of doing it. You know, Brett, Donald Miller says when you confuse, you lose. Mhmm.

I think a lot of times in business, we try to make this too confusing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's not confusing. It's just making sure that each one of those conversions are tracked. Each one of those conversions are monitored to the point where we can make the adjustment when needed to.

Speaker: So let's talk about each one of the steps. Yeah. Right? So gross to net. Yep.

What are some things... Because going from 50% to 75% is a pretty substantial Yeah. Jump. Yeah. What are the levers that you can pull to go from 50% to 75% gross to net?

Speaker: Well, one is focus. The fact that you don't even know the numbers Mhmm. Is probably why it's setting out where it's setting out today. So when I walk in a room like I did yesterday and honestly expect a lot of people in the room now already be doing this and they're not Mhmm. Is a big telltale that a lot of people in the world aren't tracking it.

They're just looking at the end. They're looking at the ROI. So the first thing we gotta do is make sure we're tracking it. It's becoming very aware, and we're looking at it often. Second thing you gotta do is when looking at the people, the process, or the products, you gotta identify and make sure you have the right people.

And so gross to net, you gotta make sure that the people who are bringing the leads in are the right people to bring the leads in. And so that's one of the reasons why I use predictive index because we wanna match the behavior to what we need in that seat. And so we don't want the wrong behavior. I was on... I was auditing a call not too long ago for a client, and it kinda makes me wanna laugh just thinking about it right now because the lead came in.

And they get on the phone, and they're vetting the lead. And they're, like, talking to the person like, so what do you wanna sell right now? And the person's like, well, my dad died, and, it was two weeks ago. And, yeah, I just feel overwhelmed with this house. Okay.

So what are you asking for? It's like, what what what? Did did his dad die? Right?

Speaker: Like Yeah.

Speaker: You missed a huge opportunity Yeah. To connect with the human being. Right? And so I thought that was pretty important. You know?

And I started actually thinking about it. I'm like, people kinda give AI a hard time for not having that emotional intelligence, but I've seen AI actually have more emotional intelligence than most of these people that are answering the phone just, like, dismissing because AI doesn't shy away from that awkwardness. Mhmm. Right? No.

Where people tend to shy away from that awkwardness.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so the people are a very important component of getting the conversion up. Right people, right seats. Making sure they have the right desire to do the job. Make sure they have the right behavior to do the job. Make sure they have the right training to do the job.

Mhmm. And make sure they have the ability and desire to wanna grow with the company in that seat. Right?

Speaker: But wouldn't that be from net to appointment?

Speaker: From gross to net? Well, I mean, it depends. Right? Depends on the process of what somebody's using. But, I mean, to some degree, we have some teams that are co...

Cold calling. They're they're they're actually grabbing that gross lead at the beginning and then trying to see whether or not they have a house to sell. So it really depends on the process of when that person's getting it. Yeah.

Speaker: Because I look at gross in that for myself. Right? I kinda look at it as more like what lead sources you're driving. Right? Because, like, we we have, like, the big three in real estate.

Right? You got TV

Speaker: Yeah. TV.

Speaker: Direct mail Right. And PPC. Right. Right?

Speaker: Some people are doing pay pay... Pay per lead right now too. But... Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. But see, you have the big ones. And so, like, I think that is where... You can't measure the ROI, agree with that, for each lead source. But you can measure the gross to net Mhmm.

For each lead source.

Speaker: A 100%. You can look at it and say how much of those came in out of house for sale.

Speaker: Yeah. So how many of those are quality? And then if they're, like, not hitting if they're not hitting 50% Right.

Speaker: We cut them. Yeah. 100%. But you still have that somebody that's measuring that and making sure that's happening. So somebody has to be somewhat engaged.

And then the other thing is you have to make sure your process to bring those leads in Mhmm. Is dialed in. We were vetting a process for a guy that had, I think it was pay per click, And he clicked on it, and then you go to his website. Right? And you have to fill out seven page forms, seven different pages to even enter your information to his system.

And by the fifth page, if you weren't motivated enough, by the way, to continue to the seventh page, you exit out and you get a phone call in fifteen minutes. But if you went all the way to the end of these seven pages, motivation drove you to the end of all that pain That's

Speaker: a how

Speaker: it would work. Out, then you get to schedule an appointment for four days from now. Literally.

Speaker: That's not a real process.

Speaker: But that was their process. No. Yeah. 100%.

Speaker: I refuse to believe that.

Speaker: Oh, no. A 100%. And and it was even funnier because when auditing this process is is actually something Susan did, she found, like, a missed million dollars worth of opportunity. Yeah. Yeah.

It's huge. So you're gonna you're gonna have a process that literally calls people back right away if they're not motivated to get to page seven. But the ones who are motivated to get to page seven actually have to wait three to five days before they talk to you. And so that's the kind of process upstream that could absolutely kill your conversion rate....

Speaker: Crush it. I mean, I saw something. I had forgotten how many CRMs are inside our industry.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: There's, like, 13 of them. Right? Is it really? It's so stupid. Right?

And early on when we had rolled out Objection Proof AI, I was the one that was connecting. Right? Because, like, we didn't know if this is a thing yet or not. Yeah. I'm not gonna hire her to go fulfill it.

Right? So I'm the one that's onboarding and so on. And there was one particular CRM. I won't name their name, where if someone came in, let's just say a PPC lead. Right?

And then that person filled out another form as a PPL lead.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Because that contact already existed inside their CRM Mhmm. It didn't come in again.

Speaker: I'll just delete it?

Speaker: It was just blocked. So, like, if someone came in fourteen days ago

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they come in again right now

Speaker: Yeah. Showing more motivation.

Speaker: Showing more motivation. Yeah. Like, drop everything.

Speaker: Yeah. I mean, this person's highly motivated to get a hold

Speaker: of you. But, I mean, you can even see in that situation a CRM

Speaker: That's terrible.

Speaker: Is an inhibitor Oh, yeah.

Speaker: What's the process? Like, you have to know the process from start to finish of that connect, of that gross to net conversion and make sure that it's dialed in Yeah. And you've removed any obstacles from it reaching the full expectation of that lead. The third for me is product. So people, process, and product.

Mhmm. Product in that area is your marketing products. And if you're starting to get below 50%, then your message just gotta be reviewed. Where it's being marketed to, how it's being marketed, You know, what are you doing? Are you upsetting people?

We had... A couple years ago, we had a client who had, like, a majority of their leads coming in, and they couldn't figure out if the person had a house for sale or not because they were saying checks to them in mail, and everybody was calling in just furious about how they got a check-in the mail and they were gonna sue them and blah blah. How do you even get my address and how do you get my name? It was... The marking itself was triggering Mhmm.

The seller to not even be able to be somebody you could communicate with. And so even in the forms online and stuff, they fill them out. It was just like, take me off your list. And so we had to go and coach them to adjust their product

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: In order to get a higher quality lead or better engagement with the client or their seller. And so in gross and net, those are some things we find just to name a few. There's... It can go pretty deep into that area. But to name a few of those.

Speaker: So net to appointment. Mhmm. That's it. For me, initially, that's just inside sales.

Speaker: Yeah. It is.

Speaker: You're leading to... Is there anything else, or is that the main one?

Speaker: It's mainly inside sales for net to appointment. Again, training for those people.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: I think speed to contact is super important there as well. How it's handed off, how you're making sure you're content... Connecting with them. So that's all process related. We find that people that don't answer the phone within the first five minutes, the motivation drops significantly amount.

So we gotta be very careful of how long we let the appointment come in and not have a convert... Or the lead come in and not have a conversation with them to try to get on an appointment. And then the other thing is, you know, making sure that we are explaining how we're going to solve the problem, which is the product side of it all. Right? Because then we can't really get an appointment set if we're not solving.

In that area right there, I always tell people there's two things things that every seller is looking for or any customer, seller, or buyer is looking for. And when they're in the moment of engagement, I call that the moment of engagement. That is probably the most pivotal part of the process because if they don't feel you're gonna solve their problem or alleviate their pain, they're gone. They're gonna keep shopping. Yeah.

And so two things have to happen, value and experience. Yeah. Super important. Value meaning not what you think you can do to bring them value, but do do they perceive that you're gonna bring them value? That's the important part.

Second sign is the experience side of it. And I don't mean, like, how long you've been doing this. I mean, how do you make them feel? Mhmm. And if you don't make them feel good and they don't have a good experience with you and or they don't feel like you're gonna solve their problem, your conversion rate's gonna drop.

Speaker: Yeah. So that's... It's a one appointment, net to appointment. Yep. Appointment to contract, I'm guessing here there's two things, is your way of solving their problem Mhmm.

But also the caliber of people that are going to solve their problem.

Speaker: 100%. It's about the caliber of people for sure. It's about being knowledgeable too and how to solve the problem, not just tell them you'll solve the problem. Mhmm. And then the other thing I think is really important here is we have seen in the last year the, stuck rate dropping.

What I call a stuck rate is the ability to connect you. And the more I connect to you as a human being Mhmm. To another human being, the more you feel stuck to the solution or stuck to your agreement with me.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so it is actually not just hurting the appointment to contract, it's hurting the contract to close. Right. Because even after we leave, somebody's like, I don't care. I didn't really like Steve anyway. Mhmm.

So there's no stuck point. There's no stickiness there. And so we're losing them in the back half of the funnel because of that appointment right there. The other thing too that is hurting our conversion rates downstream and not just in that one is salespeople buying outside the buy box. They're loosening their buy box, and and I call it the doom loop.

The less they sell, the more that loosens. The less they close, the less money hits the bank, the more that loosens. And it's a... It's just a loop. It's a doom loop.

Speaker: Vicious cycle.

Speaker: And it does... And it doesn't end well for anybody. It doesn't end well for your owner. It doesn't end well for the salesperson. So that's super important that we train our people on staying within the buy box.

We train our people to make that human connection. We train our people to be high level individuals. I think another thing we should do, and I've seen a lot in the last three weeks, is being in person is closing at a high... Much higher rate right now than over the phone. It's just...

It's almost 50% or or percent higher. The industry average right now, I think, over the phone, the last four clients I've seen is around 8%.

Speaker: That's rough.

Speaker: Yeah. It's 17 to 25 in when we go on in person right now. I'm just not seeing anybody succeed over the phone right now. The worst you can do is just get on the phone. If you're gonna have some hybrid model, at least get them on a Zoom.

Look them in the eye, talk to them face to face, make sure they understand who you are, what you look like, and how you're gonna help. And then last is the best way is just go in person at this point. I think that's by far the best way right now. But people need to get in. They need to feel your energy, and they need to see you solving their problem.

You know, Steve, twenty years ago, we would go in and, you know, we'd take them grocery shopping. Mhmm. We would help, you know, cut the grass. We did all kinds of stuff back there to bring the right experience and make them. Why?

It was harder. You know, why it was harder? The conversion rates were lower... Harder to get. And now we just...

We've learned that it's just so easy. Now you need me, and I don't need you anymore.

Speaker: The... I mean, when you say that, two thoughts come to mind, transactions I've had to do. One of them didn't even close. It was, like, taking a guy who was, like, completely down on his luck and driving him, picking him up Mhmm. Taking him and his keg, empty keg, to some liquor store

Speaker: That's good.

Speaker: So he can get his $35 cash, right, so he can eat that day.

Speaker: Yeah. That's rough.

Speaker: Yeah. That's rough. Alright. Alright. So then the last part is gonna contract to close.

Yeah. I mean, from here, I'm guessing this has to do with your ability to dispo and your ability to do transaction management. Is there anything else?

Speaker: Yeah. We talked a lot about the upstream effect in the downstream. Mhmm. And that's important to know. I think the other thing too is making sure that the handoff is so important from acquisition, person signing, building that relationship to bringing Rachel in and be like, this is Rachel.

I want you to know who she is. She's here for you. This is how she's gonna help you. Keeping that experience going. A lot of times, our sellers feel very, very let down from a great experience with their acquisitions person to a not so great experience when they get handed over to a low b, high process, high tenacity person and making sure that that person is still carrying the experience through, and they're gonna have their back and make sure they get taken care

Speaker: of

Speaker: all the way to close. And so that's where it really gets dialed in. Some of my bigger teams are not just, like, building relationships with their title companies and things like that. They're actually having them come to their meetings now.

Speaker: Oh, really?

Speaker: Yeah. I have... Some of my bigger teams... Actually, I won't tell you who it is, but they have the president of their title company coming to their meeting because they close so much. And that's the power you get when you convert a higher place.

Right? Yeah. When you're closing 80% of your contracts, title companies wanna be a partner. They don't wanna feel like you're, you know, just out to get them in trouble. Yeah.

So it is important.

Speaker: And, I remember we're at... Was it... Was it... One of the collected jeans events, and I was, we're at dinner, and I was sitting by Casey Smith.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And she was talking about, like, in her opinion Mhmm. The transaction coordinator should be the highest paid employee Yeah. In the in the company because they're the ones that are actually making sure this deal closes Yeah. Because in... From her from her point of view, an incompetent TC Mhmm.

Versus a great TC Mhmm. The amount of deals that fall out Because a great TC is proactive and knows how to solve problem going back to pattern recognition you mentioned earlier. And then that's a good TC, kinda throws their hands up. Like, well, I guess they didn't wanna sell.

Speaker: Yeah. No. That's exactly. And you know what's funny is that the highest paid person in a real estate company and they're required to pay the highest paid person in the real estate company all comes down to what market we're in, where we're seeing the lowest conversions. So when you have a gross to net at a really low conversion, you're probably the most high paid person in that industry, in that market right now is gonna be the marketing.

And it's, to, you know, net to attended, that person's probably gonna be your lead manager. And it's funny looking back over the last thirty years, I can tell you every market where the person in each one of those conversions was talked about as to be in the most important person in the business right now. Right?

Speaker: That's interesting.

Speaker: It really is. And it's it's always comes down to what is the market holding back which conversion the highest. And right now, we're not seeing any in gross to net. We're actually seeing a higher percentage of gross to net than we saw last year. Mhmm.

We're seeing a higher percentage of net to appointments right now than we saw last year. What we're seeing lower is appointments to contract and contract to close. In the last three weeks, Steve, because I'm in these offices and we aggregate the data in real time, we don't wait months. We're not looking back at the last quarter. We're looking week by week because everybody comes in.

We run their weekly meetings. We're running 104 weekly meetings right now across the country. And because of that, I see everybody's KPIs in real time. Mhmm. Not looking back at them or seeing them in the moment, and I've seen the contract to close rate fall below 50%.

Where last year, it was in the 70 to eighties, it's below 50 right now. Wow. It's a huge drop. And it tells us we have a trust recession. People don't trust us right now.

And, and and that's a problem. We have affordability crisis in The United States right now. That's what's causing it as well. And there's just a lot of mistrust happening in The United States right now regards to the economy in general. And because of that, people are unsure.

Speaker: Well, I guess I would disagree on that.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: On the contract to close side, what, what I'm hearing Mhmm. Right? And I'm not seeing that... I'm not looking at the data like you're looking at it Yeah. Which is something I wanna talk about next.

What I'm hearing predominantly is that this... The wholesalers can't move the deal because the buyer, the flipper Mhmm. Is just a lot more conservative today than they were Yeah. Six months ago. And why?

Because things are just taking longer to sell because of interest rates.

Speaker: Yeah. Because they don't they don't trust. They don't trust that if they buy it today Yeah. That they're gonna be able to move it.

Speaker: Yeah. They have no confidence. Right? Little to no confidence. 100%.

Speaker: Yeah. Which takes me back to my trust Yeah. Statement. Right? And so that's exactly what's happening is it's not that we don't have the deal setting there too close.

We have the pipeline filled. Yeah. It's just the person buying from us at this point doesn't know if they trust either us, trust the economy, trust their own process. They're just scared. Mhmm.

And they don't have enough knowledge to be able to help them pull the trigger and move forward with it.

Speaker: So for me, I look at it. It's the discipline

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Of the acquisition person

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: To buy at the right price. A 100%. I think there's the discipline and then the skill set. Because what you need to be able to pay for the house today has to be lower because the guy you're gonna sell it to is gonna be lower. So I think I look at it as a skill set problem

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: And then a boldness problem. And, like, I see it all the time. Like, you know, one metric I strongly disagree with, I know I'm on... Is unpopular. This one's like, I don't believe in making offers.

Right? I don't think, like, making offers should be your metric.

Speaker: Mhmm. But I

Speaker: believe 100% should be dropping anchors. You just say a super low number at every appointment because that's what gets the conversation started. Right? But I've seen way too often of the, like, I didn't... Like, you know, she wanted 400,000.

I couldn't Yeah.

Speaker: I couldn't do it well.

Speaker: The offer. Yeah.

Speaker: Right? And I think too far apart.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Which is like... We still lay a heavy anchor. It doesn't have to be your number.

Yeah. Right? And that's the

Speaker: You still gotta know. Right? So...

Speaker: Yeah. So that's... I think that's where, like, the the the boldness and the skill set of the acquisition. To me, that's where I see it.

Speaker: Yeah. I know. But that's why I call it the doom loop. Oh, yeah. That's what you're saying.

Right? Because when you get to the end of the contract to close and your guy's like, no. Can't. Whatever. You can't.

Right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: What do

Speaker: you do?

Speaker: You go back up here and you loosen

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: And you lock up more.

Speaker: Yeah. Because you have to go get contracts.

Speaker: Yeah. Because you're... And that was the other thing I was gonna say too. In the industry right now, people are celebrating the wrong c. Mhmm.

We're ringing bells and we're cheering for what c in the conversion rate? The contract. Mhmm.

Speaker: And the

Speaker: one we have to cheer right now is a close.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's so important. To get the contract, yes. But the one we should be cheering is not the contract. It's the close.

Speaker: Well, you know, it's funny. Like, when you say this Mhmm. I got a little bit of PTSD

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Back when I used to be a realtor. And being a realtor, I always laughed at people bragging. Here's how many listings I've gotten. Yeah. Here's how many listings I've taken.

Yep. I was like, who cares? Yeah. How many houses did you sell?

Speaker: It's exactly all I care about.

Speaker: Right? Yeah. Like, did you close? Yeah. How many houses did you...

How many houses actually closed last month? Yeah. Look how many listings you took?

Speaker: Yeah. I got 500 listings in one close. That's not a good number. You're not a good realtor. Yeah.

It was funny. We were talking before we got on, and I was talking about... I was up in Ohio, and we're talking to this sales guy, and he's, like, how wonderful he is and how great he was at sales and all this thing. And I'm, like, well, what's your close rate? Well, 8%.

Well, that's terrible, bro. You suck at sales. And he's like, no, I don't. I got 25 contracts. I'm like, so?

Yeah. If you can't get them to close, it doesn't matter.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: You're buying wrong. If you buy wrong, you're not gonna

Speaker: sell. Yeah. Nothing else matters. Yeah. I mean, that was my...

Like, the thing I've taken. Right? Like, I haven't been doing it as long as you. Right? I got started in o seven, but things are hard right now.

Mhmm. But they're not hard like it was in o eight and o nine.

Speaker: No. Right? Like like, the world stopped

Speaker: Yeah. For a period of time. Yeah. Right? And so, like, right now when they're, like, locking up 8%, there's just...

Again, what I learned was that in order to sell a deal back then, you had to buy it so low Yep. That it was just a complete no brainer. Yep. And we're not quite that low Yep. But we're approaching

Speaker: Yeah. That low. Yeah. Or either that, you held it. Right?

So that was... It was either you bought it wrong and you held it and you tried to figure out a way to make cash flow.

Speaker: Rental. Yeah.

Speaker: This is what I did. Bring on rentals. Destroy the stupidest decisions I made back then. But, I mean... Yeah.

I mean, I got into real estate in '97. And, by 2004, you know, we were full time into property management and owning rentals. And Robert Kiyosaki...... The smartest

Speaker: guy in the world.

Speaker: Yeah. I I bought......

Speaker: Like, you were the smartest guy in the world at

Speaker: the time. Not... Yeah. I thought...... Felt like it.

Definitely felt like it. Yeah. Carlton Sheets course is guiding my everyday. Right? And so, you know, I'm thinking I'm winning.

And, and then again in 2008 to 2010, and things start changing. You know? And I'm like, well, I don't think $2,200 a month cash flow is gonna be suffice enough to to keep me alive here. And then as the market shifted and what... You know, houses fell under, you know, went under water, and then they reassessed taxes, it just left me in a really ugly place.

So I I end up filing bankruptcy in 2011. I had to. Right? Let's just... It was what...

Where we were. But you know what? It's a very different market even though it was hard then. It's it's it's equally hard today just in a different way in a lot of ways. Then people don't realize...

And this is why I always go back to conversion rates. Because in thirty years, conversion rates has always been the thing that tells me what market we're in. Mhmm. Back then, a house sat on the market for five to seven months. We don't have a five to seven month conversion.

We just don't. I mean, it's not four hours like it was a couple years ago. That was nice, by the way. Bring that back. But, like, it's still starting to get passed in, like, some markets past ninety days.

And then I think this is interesting and very, very dangerous, actually. I've been coaching for ten years now, and I've always told people have two times your cash conversion cycle in your bank. And everybody always looks at me and kinda feels like that's too much. And I... I'll tell you why.

Because it takes a lot of times you figuring out the first cash conversion cycle that it didn't work because you have to get to the end of the cycle to figure out what I just did didn't work. And then you need the second to be able to rebound. Yeah. Right? And if you don't have that runway, then you burn through it all and you don't have anything left.

And I've seen that right now actively in the real estate market where people didn't have two times their cash conversion cycle in the bank, and now their products are taking ninety days or more to get cash back. And because of that, they still have an active burn every month in expenses, and they don't have the the cash from... Or the, the reserve to cover that burn. And so what's happening is they're either laying off people super fast right now, letting people go because because they're seeing the money just bleed out of the account because it's not coming back in to replenish and or they're getting to the end with all the people and not having any money left, hoping that these houses close, hoping that they make the spreads, hoping that's what they planned it to be. And if those numbers don't hit right quite with the way they wanted them to, then they don't have any way of recovery.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's super, super important that if you go to your audience listening to this today, like, be a good steward. Be a good steward of your business.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: You're playing with people's lives. People were counting on you. Be a mature enough person to make sure that as you bring people on, you're keeping that cash reserve high. Because it's not a matter if the market will shift. It's when it shifts and whether or not you're prepared to be able to get back to a good

Speaker: place. As we're talking about gonna act this whole time Yeah. I'm thinking, like, there's no reason why my system should not be integrated with yours. Mhmm. I have this data.

Mhmm. Right? I should be connected. Mhmm. Because yours is...

Where where is your data house?

Speaker: Well, we house it in our GoHighLevel, our CRM.

Speaker: But you guys have a website for all this stuff.

Speaker: We do. We do. What is it? Sharperprocess.com.

Speaker: Yeah. So I should have, like, this data, and

Speaker: we should be sharing this data. 100%. Right? But we couldn't until we figured it out.

Speaker: We had to standardize it first.

Speaker: We have to standardize it, which is why I wanted every service provider to standardize. Because, man, this becomes super powerful the moment we all standardize and we start sharing the data.

Speaker: Yeah. I mean, because that's what, you know, we track a lot of data and, you know, we track what the appointment rate and and and this and that. So I can proudly say we're a 35% appointment rate, right,

Speaker: for a really good.

Speaker: Tool. Right? So you're saying, like, fifteen and fifty. So we're not the 50.

Speaker: Wait. Wait. 15... From appointment to contract?

Speaker: Or

Speaker: net to appointment. Net to appointment is only 25 to 50.

Speaker: Yeah. So we're not 25. Yeah. We're not 50, but we're at 35.

Speaker: Yeah. That's great.

Speaker: Right? And so what I was telling, my team this this past week is, like, hey. We need to start breaking it down by lead sources.

Speaker: Mhmm. Yeah. 100%.

Speaker: Right? Because once we start breaking down my lead sources, and someone says, I'm not getting this, it's like, well, let's evaluate your lead sources to see, like, where is this disconnect?

Speaker: Yeah. And who's handling it? What's the process? What's the product? What's the proceed...

Or, the person that's handling that lead source that's causing it to go up or go down? I think it's brilliant for you to be looking at that way. I tell the sales teams that we work with right now, the teams we're working right now, you should be tracking your conversion rates in the Gannac across all channels, but you should also be tracking it per channel per salesperson.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because we were the team in in, Indiana, and they had, like, a five ROI on a lead a lead source, like, one marketing channel all the way through. Their conversion rates were up, and they had a five ROI. And then I had them break it out per salesperson. And one person was bringing the average up because he was crushing it, bro. Like, he wasn't...

He wasn't even close. This guy was crushing it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He had, like, an eight x ROI on the marketing channel where somebody else had two.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it was like, no. No. No. Don't give that guy those leads anymore. Right?

Or get him up, trained up. But just that delineation of tracking it per marketing Mhmm. Per acquisitions is huge. Yeah. Tells you a lot what you need to know.

Speaker: Yeah. There's a lot a lot of work still to be done. So there was a video that went super viral. I don't know if you saw it.

Speaker: Oh, which one?

Speaker: There's a there's this guy, Ryan Pineda, a dear Oh,

Speaker: that guy. Yeah. A dear friend.

Speaker: I think he quoted you.

Speaker: He did.

Speaker: I think he quoted you, and he, has stepped away from wholesaling. Yeah. And, yeah, like, the last I checked, there's, like, 400,000 views Yeah. On that one. It got sent to me by a few times, so you can see there are a lot of shares

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: On that. And I was curious what your perspectives there because you had a different point of view. I thought conversation was

Speaker: in the room. So if you noticed in halfway about, I think somewhere about one third of the way through the video, Ryan says, yeah. I was at a quarterly and was with my business coach, Gary Harper, and, yeah, we had a couple rough quarters. And then, you know, he was telling me all the things we gotta do. And, by the way, what I was telling you how to do is exactly what we're talking about right now.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And

Speaker: track it. He had it. He's tracked it. He's done a great job with it. But there were some process...

It wasn't a people problem. It wasn't our product problem. It was a people... A process adjustment that he had to make. And, we're sitting in the room and walking through it, and he's like, yeah.

I'm I'm I'm just not gonna do that. And I didn't know if he was just disagreeing with me or if he was just like... But you're wrong, Gary. Yeah. He's actually told me that many times.

You're just wrong. And I respect it. Mark... Ryan's a great guy. But, it was funny because he's like, yeah.

I'm just not gonna do it. One thing I wanna point out though, it's funny. That's why I was watching the video for the first time, and it got sent to me a million times, I think. Is this you? Is this the Gary?

You know? And I'm like, yeah. And, I just wanna tell you, Ryan's a marketing genius. Mhmm. He's an absolute genius when it comes to marketing.

Speaker: He's the best in our industry.

Speaker: He really is. Like, I don't think people realize that he's still young how genius he is Mhmm. And how much better he still has to get. And that's just insane. So first and foremost, you know, like, the way he started it, his dispositions, where he carries himself, all those things, the confidence.

And the decision as he was approached to and even said on the thing was just... It's just without flaw. He's just like, I'm just not gonna do it. Mhmm. And I wanted everybody to know.

It's like, when he made this statement, he he meant it in the moment. Like, it wasn't like a two day conversation.

Speaker: Consider this. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. He's just... Our job is I'm not gonna do that. Yeah. But here's the reason why I want people to look at this a little differently, and it actually frustrates me a little bit to Ryan's defense with everybody that wants to criticize him walking away from a hard time.

Speaker: Ryan's not walking...... Particular business. Yeah. Not a hard time. A hard time in one particular...

Speaker: Right. But that's... People just assume it's because, you know, he's just not good at it. And the truth is he gets the right to make this decision.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: Because when you go through success, Harvard Business Review talks about the five stages of business. And those five stages of business start with, you know, a product, a price, and a profit, and you get to a point to where you go into time, money, and people, and you're in the grind, and then you get to stability, and then you get to expansion, and then success. And what does success look like? It's a thing we all chase. But some of us don't even look at what it is.

But Ryan doesn't build businesses with the beginning in mind. He builds them with the end in mind. And by looking at success and what his purpose is gets him to the point where he's like, I've reached the level I wanna reach with this business. Mhmm. And I think it's very important to know because he reached that point.

He built a successful business. He hired successful people, and they allowed him to step away. And by allowing him to step away and not do it every single day and be in it every single day, like most of the people watching that are grinding right now. He did what he was supposed to do, and he went out and built other business... Successful businesses.

Because once you build one successful business, it's addictive. You wanna build other successful businesses, and you wanna replace yourself with the time, money with people, and and you wanna make sure these businesses get off the ground the right way, and he did that. And he's owned ones that haven't worked, and he's master class the ones who have. And m nineteen is a phenomenal business. Holy Homies is a phenomenal business.

Dad Built is a phenomenal business. Pineda Partners is a phenomenal business. They partners with a bunch of other people helping them scale their business. Yeah. And it's just phenomenally what he's done, which gives him the power of choice to decide where he wants to spend his time.

Speaker: Yeah. Well... So I did the whale club quite a bit with Paul Sparks. Right? We did it for a couple years.

And one of the things we talked about is, like, we act, a lot of us, like, we've got infinite resources, but we don't. Mhmm. Right? There's only so much time, so much money, so much energy, so much attention.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: Right? And, like, Ryan is a friend, you know. He was one of the few people that called me, right, when I was going through some tough times, and to to check-in on me. And, like, when you're doing as well as you are in these other businesses, why would you? Yeah.

Speaker: It's not doing...... Make sense.

Speaker: Keep doing the real estate part. It doesn't make any sense. Mhmm. And so the the part about... From whale club was, like, you build your life, you design your life, and then you build a business to support that life.

Yeah. He's doing exactly what... Why we got into the business. Right? So, you know, while that was all going down, I actually called him, you know, on my way to an appointment.

And, first, checking on him because, like, he didn't torn down pretty hard Mhmm. On social media. And this is Ron. He just doesn't care.

Speaker: Yeah. He doesn't care.

Speaker: Right? Which is what... Why he's also a great marketer. Right. So we're laughing about that.

And the second thing, I was like... I was telling him, like, I'm jealous of you. He's like, why? I was like, I stopped buying houses two years ago. No one said anything.

Speaker: Right? Did you do a podcast about it or a social, post about it?

Speaker: I made some podcasts. I mentioned it

Speaker: here and there. Brian started it with, I've decided to shut down my business. I did it wrong.

Speaker: I did it wrong. But I'm happy for him, and I

Speaker: know he's gonna do well. Yeah. You know, it's funny with Ryan because at the end of the day, you're saying exactly what we build a business for is to be able to have the power to choose where we spend our life, how we spend our life, and who we spend it with. Yeah. And he built a business and a model that allowed him to do just that.

You know, at CG, we were talking. I was presenting on the Ganache, and I made the comment about how many you guys seen this video of Ryan. Right? And everybody's, like, raise... I want everybody raise their hand.

And I said, how many of you in here today have four other five other businesses that have enough money that make you enough money in less than a thirty day return that you could decide to do the same thing? Raise your hand. How many people say hands? Why not? I don't think one.

Mhmm. And I said, how many of you guys have to figure out this real estate thing in order to pay your bills and survive? Every hand went up. Yeah. I said, and that's the difference.

The difference is he doesn't have to figure it out anymore. He doesn't. He's already figured it out once. It's already made him what he needed to make him, and now he's focused on doing his purpose. And Ryan had a hard shift a couple years ago where his purpose became more about serving God

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: And getting God's message out and doing things around the church. And the truth is these other businesses serve that more. Yeah. And that's because he's chasing his purpose now. And so let's be careful of, like, criticizing somebody that has succeeded that then allows them to fulfill their purpose in life.

Because the last thing I want as a business coach is to build you a successful business that never fulfills your purpose. The Bible says, what if the man gain at the whole world, but he loses his own soul? Yeah. And what is the soul? The soul is your purpose.

It's why we're here. It's what we were meant to do and accomplish in this world. And if we're chasing fortune and fame over purpose, you're gonna feel very empty on the inside. And the truth is, Steve, I've met a lot of gurus and a lot of my, successful people in this industry, and I've met people who the world would say was the successful person that they wanna reach, and they're bitter. They're angry.

They don't enjoy life, and they never fulfilled their purpose.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: Yeah. And then you meet somebody like Ryan who says that 35 years old, no. No. No. No.

I'm gonna trace my responsibility of my purpose Yeah. For this right now. And I I commend that. I stand up. I applaud it.

And you know what? I I love the fact that you earned the right to be able to make that video. So it's amazing. Amazing.

Speaker: So you wrote another book.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I don't know where you find the time.

Speaker: At two or 04:00 in the morning. That's where I write.

Speaker: So what is this? A Mind to Rise.

Speaker: Yeah. It's, my newest right. It's probably my most vulnerable right. All my books have a little different of volume in them. You know, the Rise Business Framework is 266 pages written, like, multiple books within a book.

You... If you wanna learn about finance, you go to page 61, learn about finance. If you wanna learn about processes, you go to that chapter, learn about the process. But then I have a couple of books that I write, like the rise... A mind arise and a purpose arise that are fables.

And they do take a lot of things into play about my life, my journey, some of my clients, and their journey, and it's just... It's life lessons that I've learned over these many years, almost fifty years now that I like to put in story form, and that's what this is. And it's it's called A Mind Arise. Again, probably my most vulnerable writing I've ever written. A lot of it's me.

There's... It's centered around having the right mindset as an entrepreneur. And I always tell people there are four reasons we fail to scale. Number one's fear. We replace fear with knowledge, which is why we like podcasts, which is why we go to masterminds, it's why we read books.

It's why we do those things. It's because we need the knowledge to overcome the fear.

Speaker: Otherwise, if... Either a feeling of safety or safety.

Speaker: It does. And it gives us at least an educated guess. Yeah. Two is mindset. Mindset's a lot of times about, like, you know, am I the right person?

You know? Can I get out of my own way? Will people follow me? And all the things that kinda go into it. And years ago, I I wrote down this thing.

A friend of mine, his name was Dave Overman, came to me, and he's like, hey. I have given this voice in my head a title. That title is called the loser voice. And, he talks about the the mindset and that... The voice that we use to beat ourselves up internally.

And if I say the word loser voice, it's funny, I don't often have to describe what it is. Right? If I talk to you, I'm like, hey, your loser voice is talking right now. Mhmm. People know pretty quickly what I'm talking about.

So... Pretty clear. Yeah. It was pretty... It was like, wow.

Okay. So we all have it. Mhmm. And it's pretty clear that we all listen to it. And so that's what the book's around.

Chapter six is all about the loser voice and this journey of this entrepreneurial leaving his job, going into a business ownership, and how that loser voice really controls his first five chapters. It really limits him. And it doesn't stop him, but it does enough to kinda, like, create doubt. And it's funny you can be in... If you if you study Genesis in the bible, it's, the devil when he went to Adam and Eve, he he didn't lie to them.

He just created enough doubt where they didn't... You know, they just questioned things. Right? Yeah. And that's kinda what we have inside our own head sometimes.

It's just... It's not always wrong. It's just enough doubt to slow us down. Yeah. And the loser voice does play a role in our lives, and it's played a significant role in mine.

I'm a very confident guy, and I portrayed a very confident leadership and management and coaching and all those things. But there's a voice in my head that's constantly saying, why are you on this podcast? Yeah. Why do you think you've earned the right to do that? And it reminds me of every failure that I've ever had.

Gary, you didn't even graduate high school. Do they know that on this podcast that you didn't graduate high school?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's the loser voice. But in the book, I wanted to not only give it a name and identify it and help every other person out there that might struggle with a loser voice. I wanted to show you how we overcome the loser voice. And there's two other voices. Right?

People are gonna think I'm crazy. We have these voices inside our head. But the second voice is the leader voice. You called Ryan. You brought out your leader voice.

Are you okay? How can I help you?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You're... I'm proud of you. I mean, I'm so jealous of you. What is that? That's a leader.

That's a leader voice that you have inside you that you use every day to help somebody else. Question is, do you use it to help you? Yeah. And so the third voice that we have is called the legacy voice. And in this book, we walk through how these three voices in this person have helped propel this person to their purpose by the end of the book, and they do.

They do just that. They help him. He succeeds, hits his purpose in his life, And it's interesting, but that legacy voice is about if I don't quit. If I shut down this loser voice and I listen to let... Leader voice, what will that leave me with?

What would I get to? How can I win? And I think that's the important part of this book is the mindset of an entrepreneur. We feel very alone at times. Mhmm.

And I think because we have to carry the weight, because we have the $80,000 payroll every two weeks, and the 17 voice mails a day from all the people that call me in the world's about the end. And that's my day. My day is filled every day with 17, 20 phone calls from people saying, I need you. I don't... I can't make it today.

I had three calls today, Steve, with leaders and their team before I walked in here. Every day my phone rings, it's somebody having their worst day. Yeah. They're not calling me because they're telling me how great it... Today was.

They're calling me because they're having their worst day.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so, like, for me, I've had to, like, build that leader voice and help people. But then who do I call? Right? And so I've had to figure out how to use my leader voice to shut down that loser voice and then to keep me focused on the legacy of what I'm trying to leave behind. And so I became very vulnerable in this book, and I wrote this book in a way that empowers every single entrepreneur out there that feels alone, that feels like it's never enough, that feels like they're not making a dent in the waves of the ocean, And that no matter what they do, they're never really gonna truly leave the legacy they want to leave because that's a loser voice telling you all those things.

Mhmm. And we have to have a system. Just like we have a system for running our business, we have a system for running our lives and our finances and all those, You have to have a system for this. And so the system I wrote in here is first and foremost, write down your loser voice. Write down in one column everything you're telling yourself that that loser voice is telling you true or not true.

Second thing, write down everything the leader voice. How would you, as a friend, tell the person that just called you about all the things they're not good at? How would you lead them out of that mindset? Yeah. And then third, what ifs?

What if I'm able to get past this? What if I am able to succeed? What if I am able to lose that 130 pounds? What if I am able to hit $1,000,000,000 in the next ten years? Because, Steve, that's my vision.

Yeah. My vision in the next ten years is that 1,126 franchise owners around this world in every language running on the RISE business framework. I want 1,126 people running that and helping millions of people. And every time I write that vision down and I have that thought, the loose voice coming, it says, you can't do that, brother. You don't know where you're gonna get 1,126 people.

Mhmm. But my leader voice says, yeah, you can. Because that guy lied to you ten years ago. He's lying to you again. Yeah.

And I believe full... Wholeheartedly that not only will I hit my goals, I will leave a legacy in the wake of it. And that's what keeps me going, man. That's how I adjust my mindset, and that's what I wanted to help other people with as a mind arise.

Speaker: Well, it's powerful and it's important. I think, I've never considered having a system for that. I wanna ask you something else. Okay. And then, hopefully, you don't get upset with me about this.

Speaker: Sure. Find out tomorrow.

Speaker: So you said for years, like, your goal is by the end of twenty twenty six, you wanna be able to donate 2,600,000, right, to the church. Yep. So I wanna ask you Yep. How is that going Yep. And then what we can do as an audience Yeah.

To support you in that goal.

Speaker: Well, I'll be honest with you. I don't think we're gonna hit it, to be honest with you. It's been a... It's been tough. I mean, it's a much...

It was a beehive goal. Mhmm. If we add it all up, we're pretty close. Yeah. I mean, super close.

I think within a quarter of a million. At this point, I've carried the weight of that on my shoulders of, like, I'm gonna figure out how to get there. Mhmm. But I think at this point, like, we're actually gonna hit it by the end of this year. It's gonna take a lot more than me to get it there.

And so, you know, what the audience could do is is not through me. See, here's the beauty of the goal. It's to do a good work that supports God's work. The Bible says if you've done it under the least of them, you've done it under me. I consider that God's work.

I don't always consider it a church or, you know, a ministry or something like that. But I would inspire, hopefully, today with saying this, find something you feel is God's work Mhmm.

Speaker: And

Speaker: let's give it. Yeah. Let's go let's go help somebody. I got a text this morning from a guy, and he he needs help with his grade school, his Christian school. And he's like, hey.

You know, sports are so important to get youth. You know? They they teach them discipline. It teaches them all these things. He's like, we we need a scoreboard for our basketball.

And he's like, I'll put Sharper's name on it. Whatever. He's like, I need $5. Mhmm. And, of course, we're given the $5,000 for it.

We've done other things for this school. But, like, find a need. Fill a need. Yeah. Right?

Well,

Speaker: because I know I texted you about this. You know, like, I don't know if you wanna talk about it.

Speaker: Yeah. It was... Because whenever you're facing a fail point or you feel like it's a fail point, it's like, why would I wanna talk about that?

Speaker: I know you said you don't know what I wanna talk about. But, like, to me, I'm talking, like, as a friend. Like, I think anyone that's listening, right, if you're following me, like, this is something that I I think would be awesome if we can kinda, like Yeah. Help you get that across the finish because I know it's so

Speaker: important to you. It is so important to me. And and here's the thing for me, it's not about giving through me. Yeah. But if somebody was to give and they say, hey.

I did this because I wanna help contribute to the 2.6 Yeah. And they were to text me or they were to message me on Instagram or Facebook or whatever any platforms they're on, and they weren't able to send me a picture of how... On what they gave Yeah. I would include it in the total at this point just to just to say, hey, as collective.

Speaker: Yeah. You know

Speaker: you know, it's not my will, but that'll be done. And if we can do that for him and give to God's work. And the reason for it is I I formally believe God doesn't need my money. I just don't need this.

Speaker: I think he's fine.

Speaker: I mean, he's fine. Right? You know, he took loaves and fishes and multiplied them. He could multiply a dollar if he want. It's more about my heart than it is about the giving.

Yeah. That's what's important to me. It's like, where does it keep me knitted? You know? Bible says money is root of all evil.

I think it's meaning and the fact that we don't use it the right way.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so I wanna have to give. I don't wanna be a bucket. I wanna be a conduit. I wanna be a conduit. And I think selfishly, I wanted it to flow through me, but I'm okay if it flows because of me at this point.

I just want it to flow, you know, and that's important. And going back to the 2.6, so I said I want 1,126 franchises. Mhmm.

Speaker: And there's a pattern there.

Speaker: Yeah. So the reason for the 1,100 is because I've talked to a lot of, franchise owners and developers and people that have made lots of money, and they they tend to reach the level of 1,100 franchises every time that it hits a level of success. And so that's where the 1,100 comes in, but the 2.6 is still in the number 1,126. Mhmm. Because I wanna get to a point.

If we can do 1,100, we'll reach $1,000,000,000 in ten years. Yeah. But I still wanna give 2,600,000 a year. So the 2.6 is a subliminal message hidden in the $11.26. And so that's my goal.

My goal is to not stop a a push to where we started ten years ago. It's still always to chase that 2.6. And I believe we can do it. I believe with the help of others in the podcast, if they found somewhere that they feel was God's work, whether it's a single family or a mom or, you know, somebody without a job or a missionary or a church or... I...

It doesn't matter to me. Yeah. It's God's work. Right? If you do it under the least of them, you've done it under me.

If you do that and if you would send that to me, I think that would be such a blessing. I don't think there would be a dry eye in my eyes or dry eye coming from Alamy that day. I think I would be very, very grateful for that.

Speaker: And so, like, I'm not asking you guys, right, like, to donate No. To Gary's cause No. His foundation. I'm not asking you to buy Sharper. I'm gonna ask you to buy Objection Proof AI.

I was like, if you find it in your heart to do it Yeah. You know, that'd be... That would be amazing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So the last thing I wanna talk about here is AI because you're talking about, you know, connection.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: And and we're in a trust recession.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: We're also in a world of AI. We are in a world

Speaker: of AI. In a really big world of AI.

Speaker: So what... Where do you see this going? Like, how... Are you using it in your business? Yeah.

How everyone's using their business? Like, where do you see this going?

Speaker: I think it's allowing me to spend more time creating the right experience.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: So I think AI lives in the area of of value and experience, with, our essential... Value and essential. When we build AI, we have to build AI with a mindset of something, a very old tool in six six Sigma. It was called EVA, central value add. Any process in a business that's essential and brings value needs a high level of of of of experiences attached to that process.

So we have to make sure that the people, because it's a core process, are feeling good about the process, whether it's an internal or an external customer. AI can play a very big role in doing processes in our company. They're either low in value, high in essential, low in essential, high in value, and they can live in those different things that free you up to spend more time in the area of bringing value. And it's They didn't look at them that way. Yeah.

Speaker: Now that you say it, it's like it's obvious.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's just because I I got Shaq trained under a pretty predominant mind in in business in 2001 in GE Financial and learned Six Sigma. And there's business process management is what AI does. It's the newest and greatest tool for business process management.

Business process management, I've been a Six Sigma expert for thirty years almost, has been around, you know, for a very long time. Nobody's talking about the fact that AI just takes it to a whole another level than we've ever had the opportunity to do it. And so AI is a business process management tool in a company. It's all it is. And so we have to look at every business process and look at it and say, does this bring value to the customer internal, external, and is essential to my business?

So example, updating a CRM in a real estate company, is that bring value to the customer? Updating your CRM? Indirectly. Well, but they don't see it that way. No.

Because value is always done and proceed by the person that brings it to. Right? So to them, it's not any valuable how you track. They can put it on a spreadsheet. They don't care.

Yeah. Is it essential to your business?

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: So why are you having anybody but AI do that? Right. And for you up to talk to the person, to bring experience, to lead your people. Like, that's where we need to use AI. We need to use AI and things that are high value to our customer, but not essential to us.

Mhmm. Right? So, like, it's not essential to me to, like, send a message or communicate to somebody that we're gonna be out in fifteen minutes. Right? It's not essential.

I don't have to do that, but it would bring more value to the customer that we're gonna be out there in fifteen minutes. We use AI to do it. Now in my business, and I see AI living a lot more in the essential side of it than the value side of it in in a lot of cases. A lot of people... People use it there.

But, yeah, I'm using it in everything. The only problem I'm having right now, see, with AI is, like, the constant battle of who's better. Right? From Claude to RockBot to, like... There's so many

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: That they're constantly jumping. Like, even... I I was forty six months ago, I was gonna write chat g p d off as not being up to speed. January.

Speaker: I thought they were dead by July.

Speaker: Yeah. And then all of a sudden, they come roaring back Yeah. And they're like, it's solid, bro. It's super solid right now. Yeah.

But, like... And then, you know, Austin, who's my COO, he... I texted him this morning. I'm like, hey, who's you hired to do your social? And he was like, what are you talking about?

I'm like, it's responding to all my messages. It's telling me how wonderful I am. You would never say that. Who who did you hire? And he was like, no.

That's my Grokbot.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I'm just laughing. I'm like... He's like, do you not like it? I'm like, dude, I love it. I absolutely love it.

Yeah. And I think that's what's so important about AI right now is people are scared to use in a lot of ways. But, man, it just revolutionizes how much more productive we are.

Speaker: My most valuable resource Mhmm. Is connecting with other humans. Right? It's influencing its relationships. Yep.

My number one thing.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: But I don't really have the time to do it because everything else I got going on. Yeah. I am having more quality conversations now Yep. Than ever before.

Speaker: Exactly what I'm saying.

Speaker: Right? Like, the automations, so I was at a... At event. This happens at every event now, by the way. Alright.

So every event I go to,

Speaker: right, I

Speaker: was like, alright. Here are all the people I wanna connect with. Mhmm. I just... And it just goes in Google Keep.

It's nothing fancy. Right? Yeah. And after that, events over, take that list, I put it in my Grok bot. I was like, alright.

Make sure I talk to these people. Yeah. So it's sending introductory texts. Yep. Right?

They reply. It's finding the schedule. And it's like, hey, Steve. You know, like, they'll tell me. Here are the times that you can meet with this person.

Here's the text I'm gonna send them. Do you approve? I look at it. I approve. They reply.

Once they confirm, my AI just books an appointment. We just talk to that point. And then I just talk to them. Yep. And now I get to talk to a person that I know moves the needle forward.

Yeah. Right? Or I have tasks. Right? Like, I gotta follow-up with this person.

And, you know, you have your CRM. You got the task, this and that. But now, like, where are we with this person? It's like, I don't know. Find fifteen minutes in my calendar.

And now, boom, that fifteen minutes up. Like, that time shows up in my calendar. Yeah. And I just call. There's no thinking about it.

There's no, like, well, who do I have to call today? There's it's just... There's so little thinking

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And all I'm doing is just talking to people all day

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Which moves the needle more than anything else 100%. I can do.

Speaker: And that's why I tell everybody, look at every process you're doing, everything that is either valuable or essential.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: Have it do it. Have it do it all. Yeah. If it's not valuable or essential, cut it out. It's waste.

It's wasting your process. But if it's valuable and or essential, have AI do it and have you freed up to go have quality conversations with people. It's a highest return on your your time is to have higher higher quality conversations with people. And you know what's interesting with AI is that the more we have it do these things and create more productivity, the more we have those conversations, and then it creates more opportunity. And then we feel overwhelmed if we don't have the system in place with AI to be able to handle it all for us.

Yeah. It's funny to me. I remember a couple years ago before AI, I would be talking to clients and they were like, you know, I went to this mastermind and I had these conversations and I needed to follow-up with all these people, service providers especially. And then they would come back and they would have to do all this work. They sent all this email and have all...

And book their own calendar, do all this. And then you would get on the call, and they're exhausted from doing all that stuff. And, like, hey, Steve. How's it going? Good.

You need anything? No. I'm a good dog. Okay. And then they have to go because they need to get on to having the next conversation or following up to the next email.

And they're so consumed with the mundane things that are low value or low essential that they don't actually engage in the quality conversation.

Speaker: I'm having more human to human connections now than ever before.

Speaker: How you feel about that?

Speaker: Because... Good. Because I'm moving the ball forward. I got crazy audacious goals. Yeah.

And I need to do all these things

Speaker: Yeah. To hit my goals.

Speaker: Yeah. And so I get to do, like, you know, you know this very well. I'm not gonna call Gary and ask how he's doing. Yeah. Right?

But if you and I talked about, like, right here we talked about implementing good knack and objection for AI. Yeah. Right?

Speaker: I could

Speaker: put that later on. Hey. Find a time for me to talk to Gary or Austin, whoever else. Yeah. He's gonna find a time.

Speaker: Yeah. And

Speaker: then we're gonna jump on a Zoom call.

Speaker: Yeah. And we're gonna figure out how to do this. 100%.

Speaker: I'm gonna take the the fathom notes from there, give it to my engineers Yeah. And then we'll get it done.

Speaker: Yeah. 100%. And that's what we're doing with Mrize. So in Sharper and Mrize, what we're doing right now is we have our meeting moderators. We're using AI to record it.

We're having the CSO calls recorded with AI. We're going with... As coaches, Susan will see it tomorrow. She has applaud. It records a day.

All that data goes back in in real time and starts filling out dashboards and metrics on all the things, and it starts populating. So in... Instantaneously, we can start to see where people... Where the industries have a hot spots, where we're having conversion problems, where the conversion problems are, what the common problems are across the country, and it it it just makes us a better coach. Now I don't have to come and spend, like, eight hours discovering what's going on, and I can come in start coaching you immediately.

Right? So that's a big first step of what we're doing. I'm even using my own business, so I have AI gathering all my data. We used to build Plecto boards. I don't anymore.

I have my claw build my Plecto board, and then and then not only does it build it, it starts telling me my headwinds and my tailwinds that it's seeing in my data because I've programmed it to tell me what I should... And so I go to my overview of my CEO dashboard, which is literally seven tabs, and I was just reviewing this morning. And I've got an AI, and they're telling me, like, this is where you need to look, and this is this is dropping or that's going up and what's going on. So it allows me to be more intentional Mhmm. With my time.

And so... And now I'll tell you the last one. So I have multiple businesses. You know that. Right?

I have literally 15 different companies. And each company is run by business unit leader, and and it has its own structure and everything. It's very similar to Ryan. I structure my clients very similar to the way I run my businesses. And, but I started a new business this year because of AI.

I don't think I'd ever started it if I hadn't had AI. At 12 years old, my brother-in-law came to me, and he wanted to teach me the idea of this real estate investing. And he's like, in order to understand real estate investing, you have to understand investing. You know, just generally, you have to understand investing. He's like, tell me something you're passionate about, something you enjoy.

And I said, well, I love baseball. He's alright. Have you ever collected baseball cards? And I'm like, yeah. I love baseball cards.

He's like, alright. Show me your baseball card. So I showed him mine, and he pulls out and go... This binder of football and baseball cards, and he hands it to me along with the Beckett book and says, I want you to evaluate each one of these and see what's they're worth. And then what they're worth that they were to get a perfect grade and you took them and sent them in and got them perfect graded, how much would it be worth if you took very good care of it?

And it started to teach me this idea of investing at 12 years old. One of the nicest things that everybody's ever done to me in the mindset of investing. So I fast forward to now, and I've always had a passion for baseball because... And baseball cards because of what that taught me at that age. So I am now almost 50 years old.

I get into this year, and I decide... I see Kevin O'Leary, and he's now buying baseball cards. And I'm hearing all this rumbling about how baseball cards is becoming an asset and all sports cards, Pokemon, everything. And then you see, what's his name? That genius marketer.

I forgot his name, but he sold, like, a $16,000,000 Pokemon card.

Speaker: Logan Paul.

Speaker: Yeah. Logan Paul. And you see that happening this year. And I'm like, man, what am I missing? You know?

So I started studying this thing, and I'm like, it works just like real estate. You go out and find a raw card, you evaluate the price of the raw card versus like I did as a kid, what it would be worth if graded as an eight, a nine, or a 10, then you send it in. If you take care of it, you send it in and it comes back. If it comes back as a 10, it triples or sometimes quadruples or even higher the value. So you get a three to 10 x r r r r, x on it, and then you can take it and turn around and resell it and make money with it.

I don't have time to do that. I don't wanna make time to do that. You know what I've been? I built a... Our Claude Co work bots Mhmm.

That go out and look for the top 100 traded cards by including Pokemon, baseball, football, basketball, all of them. It goes out and finds a list, and then it has my other bot go and then look for these on Facebook Marketplace and eBay and all these places. And then it comes back and says, this is what we found. The next bot looks at it and says, how much are these selling for as 8, 9, and tens and evaluating them. And then if it evaluates them properly, then it starts when the auction starts bidding on these things based on my MAO, my maximum allowable offer.

Yeah. And once it reaches it and it doesn't, I win, I win. If I don't, it moves on to another card.

Speaker: No emotional attachment.

Speaker: No emotional attachment. And it doesn't overpay. It's a phenomenal. But then I I need one employee, Steve, because then somebody's gotta receive the cards at my house. I have, like, nine cards being delivered today.

And they gotta open these cards and index them and make sure that they're ready and they're clean, and they check them and make sure that they look like an eight, nine, or 10. And if they match up to it, then they put it back in the quad. This should be an eight, nine. By the way, just happened recently. There's an AI bot now that scans the card for you.

I don't need the employee to do it. You just need to have the employee scan the card, and it tells me what it'll gray at based on AI grading. Mhmm. And then it recommends whether or not we send it in or not. And then we send it in, it goes to PSA, it comes back.

And then as soon as it comes back, it comes in our system, and PSA notifies, and it comes in, and then the next bot is listed on eBay. And they start selling it.

Speaker: You're way too excited about this.

Speaker: I'm so excited because I I make about, like, $2,000 a week on cards in a passive play. I don't have to do anything with them, man. It is crazy. But that's the power of what AI has allowed us to do, and it allows me to make passive income. Mhmm.

You know, we're talking... How many people would like 6 to 7,000 more dollars a month right now?

Speaker: Yeah. You gotta pay taxes on it. Isn't that... You don't want it. Still.

Like I'm kidding.

Speaker: I mean, if you do it the right way, you don't have to be that sign right now. I'm just kidding. But that's, like, that's what AI has been allowing me to do. It's been allowing me to be more intentional with where I spend my time. Yeah.

And that's what I love about AI.

Speaker: You you still have that Hummer?

Speaker: I do. Which one? The first one or the one I wrapped or the...

Speaker: There was one you bought up a couple years ago. I... So I drive a Tesla. Yeah. Because we were talking about which one to go with.

Yeah. Right? Because, like, you know which one's better? Claude, Brock

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: GBT. It really doesn't matter. Yeah. Because, like, right now everything's so good. Yeah.

Speaker: It's all good.

Speaker: Right? Like, everything's so good. It doesn't really matter. You can't go wrong.

Speaker: Yeah. Sure. That's fair. Right?

Speaker: Yeah. So for me, it's not about which one's better. Right? It's just which one integrates best, easiest with my life. Right?

And so I have a Tesla, and everyone knows I'm a giant Elon fanboy.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: Right? And so, I have Grok bots tied to Grok tied to my car. Okay. So, like, I was just driving around, and I'm just talking to my Grok bot. Like, because you just you just go...

You just hold the the left button, and then your Grok turns on, and And then you just talk to grok, and grok is just commanding all the grok bots. So I'm getting, like, end of day reports. Hey. What do I need to know? What's my status on this?

What am I a bottleneck on? And it's it's got access to my Google Chats. Mhmm. Access all my bots. It's telling me what...

Where I'm the bottleneck. Yeah. And they removed me from the bottleneck.

Speaker: And then it shows you a process ownership chart and all the features that you have?

Speaker: I should make that. I should make that. But, like, where it got dangerous this morning

Speaker: Okay. Was

Speaker: was, like, it made a document for me. Yeah. Because, like, we're doing the AI closer. I know you're talking about virtual closes. Not great.

But, like, you know, we're building an AI closer. Okay. And for us to have an AI closer, we gotta have a one page purchase agreement. So I was just talking to Grok this morning about building up my one page, purchase agreement that we can auto populate.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And, you know, we need, like, the important details. And, like, it built it. It's, like, awesome. And it was, like, do you want me to show it to you? I was, like, that's not safe.

But... Yeah. And it opened it up, on a on a browser in my... On your screen? On my screen.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: Right? And I would...

Speaker: Hey Jarvis, remote drive so I can do this.

Speaker: Well I got... I turned on recently full self driving because I'm doing this now. Yeah. But unfortunately I wasn't logged in to my Google so like I didn't have access to...

Speaker: Oh, that's funny.

Speaker: That's funny. But... Yeah. I think this is the crazy world we're in right now.

Speaker: It's the world we are in. I mean, honestly, if you watch Marvels, you know, and you'd watch Tony Stark and him...

Speaker: I have Jarvis now.

Speaker: Yeah. I have Jarvis. I love my Jarvis. Right? Like...

And it's funny. My clients that have AI bots, they're giving them names. Like Mhmm. There's one that we have, they call it Claudia. And then it's, yeah, not as unique as some of the others, but, like, they literally have named each one.

Mhmm. They've had them develop their own picture so they have a face and a way to recognize them. Mhmm. And, like, they've even asked the AI to kind of develop their own personality and, like, what age they wanna be and all the things. And it's pretty interesting, actually.

One of the things I love, and this is one of the things we we can do in a really big way with AI, especially with what you're doing, is we should... Because every person we hire gets hired for the process, which is the desire. You don't have to worry about desire with AI. Right? They desire it.

Training. You don't really have to worry about training. Once... I mean, when you get the training installed and then it continues to learn, which is even better. But then the the feed is, like, the ability to grow the company or grow with the company.

Well, AI is doing that naturally. But the one thing that we could probably do a better job with the AI bots is behavior. Could you imagine taking the PI, the ideal PI of the person that you needed to do the process, and then training the AI bot AI bot and saying this is the behavior that I need you to show when doing this process?

Speaker: I

Speaker: need you to act like an outgoing personality. I need you to have agnostic decision making, and I need you to push to get the resolve. I need you to make sure that we are risk tolerant or risk averse. Like, literally telling your AI bot what behavioral traits you want them to learn with to match the process that you need. It's a...

That's just a whole another level of taking AI bot to another level.

Speaker: Haven't done that. I'll definitely do that. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Because we do it with our employees. Right?

Speaker: I mean, everything I have is just be as proactive as possible. Like Yeah. Stop asking me for input unless this is an irreversible decision. Right? Like a text message or an email Yeah.

That's an irreversible

Speaker: Yeah. Sure. Sure. So, like, those I still approve. Okay.

Speaker: But everything else, if it's irreversible, just just go and do do it,

Speaker: I mean. Dude, I told mine. I said, don't do anything that's illegal or unethical. Right? It's just when the beginning stages.

Right? And literally, I had a card come back from PSA, and it didn't grade as an eight. And I'm like, should I crack this open to just sell it raw? I can't advise against that. That would be unethical because you already know it's a seven.

And I'm like, oh my gosh. Okay. Now I'm a got the ethical police on me and now with the... With AI. But I think we should definitely program our AI to have the behavioral traits that we need for that process.

Yeah. Just like we hire for employee to have that behavioral traits, we need our AI to have that same behavioral traits.

Speaker: Makes total sense. Yeah. So, we talked a lot.

Speaker: Mhmm.

Speaker: I think a knack is one of the most important things. Like, the... Again, like, talking about, like, the the... What's, one thing you can focus on. Yeah.

Like, the success of your business. If someone wanted to connect with Sharper, wanted to work with you, or one of the coaches on the team, what's the best way for them to connect?

Speaker: Let me just say this. I mean, we give out three to five videos, I mean, per platform every single day of free content and data, and we don't hold anything back. We wanna help as many people as we can. So if you're not following me on either TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or even YouTube, like, step out and please do that. I mean, I think that's one of the best things that you could do to help.

The other thing is if you want to get more information, we offer a free audit of your business. We do that with any client that wants to come into our system. We audit them first. And so if you go to sharperbusiness.com, on sharperbusiness.com, you can go in there. You can fill out a form and take that business audit.

And, actually, my son, Jacob, will call you and walk you through. He is, usually on five to seven calls a day with different real estate entrepreneurs walking him through that connect and helping them understand the people, the process, and the product, where they might need to be adjusting. And so that would probably be the best way to take that step forward is by going to Sharper Business, filling out that form, and then being able to get that free call.

Speaker: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Speaker: Thank you so much.

Speaker: Absolute pleasure. Thank you guys for watching.

Speaker: See you

Speaker: guys next. Steve train.

Speaker: Jump on the Steve train. Disrupt us.