Welcome to Action Solves Everything, the show for those who want to stop overthinking and start producing. I'm your host, Alex Montagano, broker, leader, and founder of Lockstep Realty. Around here, we believe movement creates momentum, clarity comes from doing, and the agents who take action are the ones who win. Every episode is built to help you grow your skills, your confidence, and your career. Now, let's get to work. So today we have the pleasure of speaking with Steve Robbins. Steve is one of the owners of Highgarden. Highgarden Real Estate Brokerage is in 10 other cities. It's in seven other states. They have between five and 600 agents across all of that area. They just opened a commercial division. They opened an office in Mooresville. And Steve is also the host of a killer podcast. It is called A Private Conversation with Steve Robbins. Goodness gracious, Steve, how Well, it's really easy when you have partners that you like and trust and can have great podcast guests like yourself when you've been on my show. Yeah, that's awesome, Steve. You mentioned your partners, and I think You know, I've been fortunate enough to get to know you really well since you brought me on your show. Look, I think building business with partnerships is not a small task. It takes great people working together to support common goals. And you've had your partner since the beginning. Can you tell us a little bit about how you guys came together, who your partners are and how you guys work together? Well, first off, Brian Holley, I've known since kindergarten. He's one of my two partners and actually our director of I.T. His name's Alex Shainer. I've also known him since kindergarten. So building something with people you love and trust, you really can't beat that. Brian and I met Chris Kukulhan, along with Alan Williams, who was originally a partner with us until 08, 09, whatever it was. He wanted to focus on sales, which is great. He's totally killing it and couldn't be happier for Alan. But so Brian, Chris and I have been doing this together now since 2000. And we all have different skill sets. We all have different strengths. We certainly all also have our own weaknesses and being able to lean on each other, not do it alone. I'm a team guy. I'm way more of a team sport kind of guy than I ever would be an individual sport kind of guy. It's just way more fun for me. And that makes it easy because I we've definitely looked around the room many a time and just said to ourselves and to each other, I don't know how we would is working towards the goals that you guys set as a room. I'm sure it's certainly, I mean, look, obviously knowing Brian since kindergarten is a different deal. But I want you to dig a little bit more into that and what it's like working with folks like that. I think about what our room is like and look, you've had a front row seat and we've met about how Lockstep's grown. And I've tried this solo pioneer stuff for a lot of my life, and I've learned how challenging that is. So oftentimes, you know, Russ and I had a chance to spend time with you and Chris a couple of months back, and we kind of look at each other and it's like, man, they have something insanely special there. And it's really Look, it is exactly that. So I want you to share a little bit more with the room, like how you got here and then Well, so we all worked together at a home builder. It was cross our communities ended up getting bought by Beezer at the time. It was, I think maybe even the 12th largest builder in the United States. It was a regional builder here in the Midwest and Southeast. We all did really well in sales. We saw back in 2000, a real niche opportunity that there was a couple of brokerages already doing it and a couple of realtors really focusing on it. And that was simply turning first-time, I guess, apartment dwellers more than anything, renters into first-time homebuyers. We had come from a new construction background. We knew mortgage financing. We knew the pain points of renting versus owning. So it was really easy to be able to take even friends of ours that were also in model home sales and turn them into the other side of the table. provide them leads. We were really good at marketing and lead generation. And so we built something really fast. All of us in the first few years were selling and we put all the money that we made in our commissions right back into the company. So we were flush with cash, not taking really home that much, putting it back into the company, reinvesting, reinvesting. It was totally bootstrap. We didn't borrow money to build it. And so we were able to quickly get to a place where we had 20 or so agents that were all making six figures on the leads we were providing. And the builders loved us so much that they were helping us pay for the marketing and then giving us bonuses on top of it because we were really driving a large percentage of their business. That really changed as we decided that we could do this in Indianapolis and have a certain level of success, but we could take the show on the road. In 03, we opened up an office in Vegas, same concept, same idea, and with a more robust real estate market and prices were going straight up. It was a wild time. I could go on and on with crazy stories, but like so much of things that go up, oftentimes they come down. Then the crash happened. When the crash happened, it was devastating. We were in Florida and in Las Vegas, which along with California, were really the epicenter of the bust. We barely held on through 08, 2010, 2012, finally things started to bust a little loose. By that time, we were in five different markets. And what it really saved our bacon was back in 04, we started dabbling in online lead generation. And we're really way ahead of the game of driving traffic to our website, generating leads. Even today, it's still part of what we do. But in the last five years, we've really gone through another iteration, which is less about our leads. Leads used to be the reason you would come to our company. Now it's a reason, but it's not the main reason. The reason is support, culture, trust, and a more traditional brokerage than what we ever have been in the past while still trying to be forward-thinking Man, that is all so good. I think I would love to learn a little bit. For somebody that rode the high, rode the low, and then have ridden the high to where we are today, did you ever think when you guys were 2004, 2005 in growth mode, where you were, where you are today, where, hey, we just opened another office, we got another division, has that been part of the vision long-term? Or how do you guys get there? And then amongst a room of three of you and four of you, how are you making those decisions as a team to know when it's the right time to do that? Cause it's easy to follow the shiny object to keep going more and more and more. And look, like I sit in that seat and get excited and it's like, let's do this. Let's do that. But for you guys to know, like today's the day we push this button. Tomorrow's the day we push that button. How do you guys make those decisions and In almost every market we went into, and right now we are in 10 others outside of Indy, like you mentioned, it was really because there was a market leader that either came to us or we knew that we trusted could help us run that show. But in the last several years or last few years, probably, the focus is because if truth be told, I probably even have told you this offline at some point, but it probably would have been wiser to go deeper instead of broader as we did. We probably got a little bit too spread out and it didn't allow us to focus on really the core business as much as we could have. We're still operating in all those markets, but they're smaller, 25 to 50 agents running very skinny. And, you know, we have good value propositions in those markets as well. But our focus has really dialed back into primarily Indianapolis in the last few years. And it's starting to show we're strengthening our position in the market. certainly legitimized ourself as a, after being in business for 25 years, you should hope, but in the last few years, particularly, I think our probably status and appreciation of what we've accomplished in the market has started to turn some heads and we have opportunities that we wouldn't have Can you talk a little bit about your value prop that you guys have out there? Look, my perception of you guys as a brokerage has changed a lot just in getting to know you guys, but also all of a sudden, I feel like probably in the last 18 months, the contracts that we receive are from higher quality, high garden agents and look like you notice, you just take notice of who are the people that are moving the paperwork and doing the job in the industry. And oftentimes it's like some of your agents that are like your top agents or some people that I just absolutely love, like Laura Waters and Leighton Wellbaum are a couple of my favorite people. So talk a little bit about your value prop. What makes you guys great? What makes you you? And then like, what are some I think probably what, if you asked a lot of the agents, our value proposition would start with the three of us and the fact that we are available. We are here for you. We haven't, at this point, we have 280 agents, I think right now or something like that here in the Indianapolis area. And they all know they can pick up the phone and get ahold of any of the three of us or text us. We return calls, we answer texts. And having that level of support and really something I talk about over and over in real estate, that level of trust, whether it's working with a client as an agent or whether it's a broker with their own agents, you're not selling houses, you're selling trust. And they know they have that with us. Absolutely. Sometimes other situations come along that are better fits for them or whatever the particular reason is might make sense. We also know, and it's proven over the years and years, that a lot of people end up coming back to us because at the end of the day, for one reason or another, it could be the leads we've provided. It could be the training. It could be the support. It could be the culture. but they just know they trust us and that we're going to offer something that never really goes away. And that is the credibility in Yeah, that is, look, it's fantastic. It's, you know, as somebody who's building a room right now, but also sees like how steady you are in your leadership of what you guys do, it's admirable. You know, when people walk out the door, it's hard not to take it personal, but it's also easy to recognize like the menu of options that agents have today is more than ever. And I remember entering the marketplace in 2012 and it was like, Remax and Century 21 and Tucker. And I was always like, I don't even know who this Keller Williams thing is. And then a couple of years later, Easy Street becomes Highgarden. It's like, I don't know what this is. And then I moved to EXP in 2018 and movement even at that point was rare. And then it was like. 2020 COVID market, in comes Compass, bam, changes starts happening everywhere. So how have you guys rolled with the punches to become a market pillar while some of these other brands have struggled to hold on and some have even leaned out in the market I would say that probably the number one answer to that question is how we've been able to evolve. Those going from being new home realtors to being a tech-focused online lead generation to who we are today, being more traditional, having a compelling commission structure, having the leads if you need them, having a back end, As you well know, Chris is always focused on, you know, what else can we build? He loves to develop and build. That's his personality. And so he's going to be tinkering and coming up with new and fun things. That's what excites him. Not that he's not great with people. He is. Brian, too. Brian is the most available and supportive broker that you could ever ask for. And any of the agents will tell you that. So. It's a good mix of people. We have good leadership and support here to help us. Our staff's amazing. And just like yourself, really proud of who the people we are that we work with and proud to be available What excites you? I know having spent time with Chris, especially like I'll give a plug here to InspectionResponse.com, such an incredible tool that he's built for agents, but What excites you in the evolution of where you used to be, where you are today as What really excites me, and I've told you this, but I'll tell you here on the show, what really excites me is building relationships. And that's one of the reasons why I started to do my podcast, to build relationships with people that I respected. and admired from afar, perhaps before and getting to know those people. But the relationships with the agents, the relationships with the people that work here, that's what I really value. And knowing they can trust me and me knowing that I can trust them. You know, something else we've talked about that has been the biggest challenge for me is as we've grown, being able to have the depth of relationship that I want to have with each and everybody that works here. That One day at a time. And just when I have time with people, I'm gonna, if I have time with an agent, I want it to be quality time. If I have time with, this isn't just our agents, this is just the way I, I'm not a small talk kind of guy. If we're gonna have a conversation, let's talk about something meaningful, let's get to know each other. And whether that's family, friends, work, I don't want to waste my time with talking about nothing. Let's get under the hood a little bit. Some people definitely would say that I'm their therapist around here and I'm OK with that. I enjoy that. It's all right. Those people often That's I love that. I think about some of the time that we've spent together, whether it's like going to lunch or when we went to dinner with our wives. And look, I think you're as honest as can be about the fact that the conversations are meaningful. And so much of it comes down to like when we spend time together, like you and I, I think we have lunch on the books here pretty soon. And I block off two hours of that because there's so much depth that you can dive into and you can learn about on the other end. And look, I think so much of what I appreciate in our relationship is that, um, whether it's like you trying to learn about me, there's always a reciprocating educational piece for me of what I can learn on my journey. So I'm very Well, me too. Like, it's been great getting to know you. I'm really proud of you for this podcast because, you know, I know it's not an easy thing to get off the ground and you already have had some great guests. You got me, which is probably going I wouldn't sell yourself short. Talk about your podcast. Yeah, talk about your podcast a little. Like, what is long term? Like, where's that going? What are you doing with it? I know you've shared some stuff about some ideas you have, but I'd I knew that I was going to start with really focusing on Indianapolis real estate. I've branched out a little bit. I had Mark Musick, the owner of Ruoff Mortgage on there. I've got some other people in the hopper possibly that aren't necessarily Indianapolis real estate people, but people that I know will enjoy learning their story. I'm not really sure how much I'm looking to grow it beyond Indianapolis or beyond what it really is. It's working exactly the way I would hope, which is me getting to know some people I didn't know that well, and me going maybe a little deeper with people that I did. If it continues to kind of be a thing and grow organically, that's fantastic. If it helps raise the bar for or raise the I guess the status of Highgarden or my people. The big thing going into it was that my social media presence was practically nothing. My brand in many ways was practically nothing. People didn't know anything about me. And honestly, I kind of prefer it that way. Like I'm a private guy. I don't really not that interested in blowing myself up in any way, shape or form. It's helpful for the business which is a big reason why i'm doing it but i had to find a way to do it and create content in a way that wasn't all about me and. It's really been fun seeing the reactions of the guests. Number one is really interesting how nervous everybody is. it's secondly, really interesting to see how happy they are. After that, after we sit down and talk, and they're like, Oh my gosh, that wasn't as dear as bad as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it was great. And then my favorite thing is when the guests are sharing it on social media, and the amazing compliments they're getting about the clips that I'm posting and Craig West are my interview with him a couple days ago, he's the CEO and owner of Berkshire Hathaway here in Indiana. That's just a perfect example. He had shared it in the comments he was getting about how great of a leader he is and all the wonderful love. That just makes me feel I have a guy that has helped me, Sebastian Russ, Keyon's podcast, Launch Lab, and I was talking to him about this. And I was like, am I looking for downloads and subscribers and shares? And he's like, none of that. And I was like, oh, excuse me? He's like, how many meaningful relationships can you grow and build? And I was like, man, like if you really skin down everything that we do every day, like how much depth can you create with the people that you know? And look, I think so much of real estate We live for this idea of me, me, me. Look how many sales I made. Look at what our volume is. Look what I've built. Look at my most recent sale. Here's who I helped. But when you come from a place of giving to others, I've shifted so much of what I do just because it's like when you see these things that others are doing. I remember how I felt when I had my podcast with you. I was coming on I barely knew you learned a ton about you and then it was like let's get together and talk more let's get together and talk more in our our conversations have overhauled a ton but the one thing that hasn't changed is the growth in the relationship that we have which is look it's awesome it. It takes what we would classify as like careers and jobs. And it like you just talk to your friends all day and business comes of it. You know, agents call you to join Highgarden, agents call us to join Lockstep, but it's not. You know, the idea of like prospecting by beating the streets and dialing the phones is not a necessary thing in our industry. And so, look, I've enjoyed following your podcast and seeing it. I don't have the venue that you do, but, you know, goodness gracious on Oh, it's I remember walking down there being like, the content we're going to get is awesome. So it You posted some some photos with some of your content from there here recently, Yeah, we're we just hired a VA that's working through some of that and like chopping it up and repurposing it. Look, the the shots are too clear in the Man, it's too good not to use. I'm like, hey, just keep posting those. The lighting was So what else? Where else are you guys headed? Talk about your commercial division. I think that's a really neat thing, especially in a world right now where it's like you guys have been residential focused. You went from builders, residential, all those things. What makes you open Yeah, we had a gentleman named Abby Stancato that joined us a couple, three years ago, and he was interested in helping us kind of do something exactly like what we are, which is launching a commercial division. Right from the get-go, it took us a couple years to kind of get to know Abby and get to know the situation enough where we felt like, okay, we're ready to pull the trigger on this. And at the end of the day, there's very few brokerages. There's a lot of agents out there that would like to do some commercial, even if residential is their focus. And there's a lot of brokerages that just won't let you do both. And we know that we have to be careful about letting agents that don't know what the heck they're doing out there acting like they're commercial agents. So we're being very thoughtful and careful with that. But there's a real opportunity to not only get business, but to bring in some agents we probably wouldn't necessarily get otherwise. And we trust Abby to help us with this. And so that's where we are. And we're calling those agents fusion agents, where they can do both. And we have a lot of agents super excited about it that are already here. And this is not something we're looking to start competing with the big commercial brands by any stretch. But it is something where if we have agents here that have opportunities, we don't want those opportunities to go by the wayside because they didn't have training, support and mentorship to get deals What are some of the things you guys are requiring your agents to do to be a Training is the big part and then oversight with Abby. So they're going to be working with our, and we have a couple other agents that are also involved that have commercial experience. And so they're not going to be doing it alone. Um, there's, I've heard so many stories about how agents with other brokerages are doing commercial, even though they're really not kind of supposed to, but then they turn in the commercial deal and they get paid. That's happened here too, being honest. And so we knew we needed some structure and support behind it to make sure, one, we weren't getting ourselves and our Well, I love the questions we get all the time. And it's like, I've never touched a commercial deal. I don't pretend to know. And so it's like agents keep them because they pay well or because they're really big opportunities. And to me, That loses sight of what the purpose of being an agent is and what the standard associated with it is. And so it's like, is that in the best interest of the client? And something I've always felt is just, I don't know anything about it. I'm unversed in anything. I had a guy recently send me, it was basically a house in downtown Carmel, it was like a million and a half. He's like, past client, he's like, can you help me with this? And I was like, I cannot, here's a guy you need to call, he's better. And I'm happy never touching that because the last thing that I need is at the 11th hour, hey, you never told me this, or I didn't know. It's really awesome that you guys vet a process and an opportunity for two years, you know, I'm building the relationship that you had mentioned. That's solidifies the opportunity for you guys, but also paves a clear path and gives direction and credence to what you have when it comes out and then what the future of it looks like. Yeah, I, you know, you could call it a strength or a weakness. I'm not me particularly probably even as much as. even more than Chris and Brian. While so much in this business is relying upon urgency, I rarely operate with the kind of urgency that some people might want or expect. Like, let's make sure we're taking this one step at a time and doing it the right way. And one of my favorite quotes from John Wooden, who has many great quotes, is, Yeah. I mean, look, our market, the real estate market in general, since 2020, there's been this forced creation of urgency around everything. Every opportunity could be gone. If you don't do it now, if you don't buy the house right this second with this decision, I'm guilty of it just because I've grown in the market with it. Getting in in 2012, when you said it started to break up for you guys, I've only known you know, better, better, better, faster, faster, faster. But also, like, we as a team have learned how to slow down to speed up. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast, is a line some of us have used here. And I think to your credit, if you're going to do something, do it right. And do it right Yeah, absolutely. And so not saying we haven't made mistakes along the way. We've probably made every mistake in the book in 25 years, but you Yeah. Speaking of failures, why don't you share some that maybe you guys have experienced in the last handful of years that you guys have worked through, share some vulnerabilities about things you've overcome I mean, the biggest challenge we ever faced, which about put us under was the great financial crisis and the housing crash. We barely held on. And that was quite the learning experience. And this downturn that we've been facing in the last few years, I mean, we had the COVID bump, which was, you know, great for people in real estate. We didn't know it was going to be great for us. It was certainly possibly ultra traumatic there in March and April of 2020, but we were way more prepared for what could have been at that point because of having lived through the crash. There haven't been, in terms of the last few years, there's nothing specifically I can point to as a failure. I mean, there's little failures here and there, which is, how you handle the particular situation with an agent, how you... made the right hire, didn't make the right hire. But, you know, when you've been doing it, I guess, you know, I'm starting to feel old here all of a sudden, when you've been doing it for 25 years, those things just they show up. But when you're in it for a year or two, they can feel devastating and like a crisis. And you realize how little often things are actually a crisis. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of that urgency thing that we talked about. It's like the Eisenhower matrix, which shows, you know, what is urgent and what is important, what is not urgent, what is not important. And it's like living in the things that are, you know, not urgent and important. So you can actually methodically, I was listening to your podcast with Jared and, um, you were talking about burning the boats and then I'm hearing you reference the Eisenhower matrix. And what I keep coming back to is he probably has, he must think he has a very intelligent audience because a lot of people aren't going to know what the hell burning the boats refers to or the Eisenhower matrix. But Hey, I keep Yeah. It gives people something to go back and look up and learn about. Maybe it makes me sound a little smarter than I am too. Yeah. You're pretty smart. Um, I'd like to talk a little bit about like, you go on like your journey's awesome. Like you start as a guy, like helping people, you know, apartment dwellers move into home, new homes for the first time. Then all of a sudden you're have offices all over the United States and other areas. Now you got all these agents, like how do you measure success year to year? Um, and for some more, um, context behind the question. I just had one of our staff members send our individual agent goals over the course of the year, and then we tally them up and it's like, Hey, our agents want to contribute this much. And I asked a question back, I was like, Hey, I'd be curious if you had to peg how many deals or how many agents we're going to have at the end of 2026, like, what do you think? And he's like, Uh, I don't know. Why do you want to know that? And I was like, well, what are we working towards? And he's like, we're working towards a mission, you know, help agents be the best version of themselves. Here are core values. And here's how we lead the room. And look, I've always been somebody that's where it's like fun to chase a goal. But I said it recently, like losers have goals, winners have systems. Um, and so it was kind of like, Hey, Alex, you taught us that this doesn't matter. So I'd be curious. How do you guys define success? And what does winning look like for you Going back to that idea of having done this for so long, success in real estate as a brokerage at our size, in my mind, it's moving forward. And there's so many reasons why real estate, you could be moving backwards. The headwinds are immense. You talked about the competition of other brokerages and agents can work just about anywhere. A lot of those places are very strong competitors. And so whether it's agent count, whether it's volume, you've got interest rates you're dealing with, you've got competitors you're dealing with, you've got the market that could be contracting. The key for me is moving forward each and every year, getting a little stronger, whether it's adding something like a commercial division, whether it's going into a market like Raleigh, North Carolina, whether it's adding another great agent, whether it's seeing another great agent that had left come back, you know, take those one victory at a time. If you keep winning the little battles, you're eventually going to win the war. And so, you know, the war is never ending this business. And we're just going to keep really fighting one battle after another. The way we go about it is to be good people, to really respect and appreciate the people we work alongside that aren't even with us, like yourself. I don't look at Lockstep as a competitor per se, really, and I certainly don't look at you as one. I look at you as a friend. I don't think it's fair to say that there's enough business for all of us. There's going to be people that win and lose in real estate. There's only so many deals for the top agents and even the career-minded agents to sell. That being said, there is not a single person if they don't figure out what they wanna do in this business and want to make a career out of it and actually work it the way they would work a normal job. If you put 40 hours a week into real estate and you're actually trying and you have even the semblance of a plan, you're gonna probably do okay because you're I run a every other week mastermind with team leaders, and I had one in, and she is a total powerhouse. You know her, Lindsay Smalling. And we were talking about agents, and she was like, look, it's really hard to get agents today to treat this like a real job. And one of the things Jared talked about in his podcast was like, when he started, He woke up every day and he treated like, yeah, hey, I'm working a full-time job. And Lindsey and I were laughing because we were just talking back and forth about leading agents. And I was like, you know, she's like, how do you get people in the office? And I was like, man, sometimes I just find myself asking the question to an agent of like, what do you do all day? You know, and it's like- I've asked that question many times. Yeah. And look, like, I think what makes, You guys, you, it makes us, us, it makes Lindsey, Lindsey, like great leaders is it's like, sometimes you need to meet people where they are and hold them accountable to what they've asked you to hold them accountable to. Like for a long time, I remember. I had a conversation with a buddy once and I came in the office and I was like, Daniel, we're going to have daily power hours at noon and we're going to call for an hour. And if agents aren't in there and he looked at me and he was like, are you serious? And it was like a Christmas vacation. You serious, Clark? And we kind of like, and then I like left and I backed down and I was like, man, I'm not going to ask people to do things that one, I'm not willing to do or two, like, If we did that and everybody turned around and left, the whole concepts of the core values that we stand upon of like better together and relationships over transactions, it's like you're just moving away from that. So rid yourself of the desire to be what you say you are and choose to be something else then. Look, I just think it's like when you talk about leading people and you talk about running an operation, finding success in that and the joy in the people that you work with every day. I think that's Yeah, and I really respect what you've built here pretty quickly, too. You have a really good operation. You think about things from a systematic perspective. You're more systematic than I am. That's not my strength, to be honest with you. My strength is really just the softer people skills. I'm definitely an analytically minded person, and I think probabilistically, But my probably gift is that relationship piece and earning that trust. And I think you're very good at that as well, but I do think you have a really good system going. And it's just how can you continue to plug people into that system and Yeah, we, we've struggled early on with like identifying who is a fit in the room or how do you determine with that? And I had a call with a buddy of mine who's based out of Minnesota. His name's Blake Suddath and Blake and I were talking and he's a director of opera or director of growth for one of the fastest growing real estate teams in the country. And he was like, draw the avatar of who you want to work at your brokerage. And I was like, Okay. And he goes, let's try this differently. Who's, who's your favorite agent when it comes to this, this, and this. And I was like, Oh, it's this person. He's like, talk to me about that person. And it was like, they have this, they do this. They just, none of it was like, they sell a ton of real estate or they're well connected. It was like, no, they're just great people. They work really hard. Um, they're committed to helping others and being a good teammate. Um, and look, when I got in this business, I was taught like win and loss on other sides of a transaction. Like you had to win every deal, every battle, every inspection was a war. And it's like, this sucks. And I think when you look at this now, the idea of like you and I work at different brokerages, we talk every week, we spend time together once a month, our wives have gotten together. Like there's way more to this industry than winning and losing deals. And look, I think for guys like you and I, like you said, committed, invested people, I do believe the pie Yeah. Yeah. I think for the people that are committed and invested, it Yeah. What is next for you? Like where are you headed and what's, what Next for us is, uh, we're really excited about 2026, honestly, in terms of, uh, improving in just about every way. We've got a great team here right now, but we've got some really good agents that I think will be joining us over the next 12 months. We have, as we've discussed, the commercial division that's just kind of getting launched. I think we'll be a little bit more focused into maybe a little bit luxury than we have been in the past. And like I said, it's really just continuing to move forward. There's not some particular new market we want to go into or meaning outside of Indianapolis or any kind of situation that, you know, is going to be earth shattering. It's continuing to add good people and moving forward just a little bit at a time. But I say a little bit at a time, I wouldn't be surprised if in 2026, we had a What is your position around the condition of the market relative to where it's been the last couple of years? Forecasting I'm generally an optimist, but that being said, I feel more confident than I even have in the past that 2026 is going to be a better year than it has been. Of course, there's a lot of pent up demand that's been building over the last three and a half years. There's a ton of political pressure to get rates into the fives. All that will probably help. the mortgage rate lock-in, golden handcuffs, whatever you wanna call it, has been a real thing. And because of life events, because of the rate being closer to what a lot of people are locked in at right now, the key we're really gonna be looking for is how many new listings are coming onto the market, how many people are willing to sell that home. It's been so difficult for people regardless of their family situation, even if it has changed to go from whatever home they have right now with a relatively low payment, with the appreciation of 50 to 60% over the last few years, they're going to pay more and have a higher mortgage payment for a lesser home. And it just makes it really difficult for people to move. But as real wages rise, as interest rates fall, as prices have stabilized, it's given a chance for affordability to take a little bit of a breather. And that's the key. And we just need to keep inventory levels at a place where if I had a concern for 2026, I was actually on the Hancock, my board panel yesterday and talking about this. One of the questions they asked me, what are you scared about? Not really scared or generally concerned about much, but if there was one thing that I might have a slight concern about with 2026, particularly in Indianapolis, it would be about demand really outstripping supply Indianapolis in the last two quarters. had double the net population growth of number two and number three in the nation. We were plus 2%. Each of the last two quarters, technically it was the second and third quarter of 2025, but that's the last two that have been measured. Columbus, Ohio and Denver, Colorado were plus 1%. Everybody else was below 1% or negative. So Indianapolis does a hot market. Now, I know people have listings out there that have been sitting, that are stale, that are on the market for 120 days plus, and they have barely had any showings. And there's some dogs out there, and there's also still pockets that demand is not anywhere near where it was, but relative to the very low supply that we have. even off of the lowest of the lows over the last few years, it is possible that if rates get into the mid fives, demand gets to a point where prices start to spike again. That Yeah, I would, I would share the sentiment, right? Like, I think it's fun to think about what that could be for some of the agents on your team or within the brokerage and the success folks could have. But I think for a traditional consumer, Look, time has helped so many folks just get acclimated with where we are, and I think that plays a role in this. I think you tank rates, you keep doing it. I think we create some bad habits again. Look, our industry… Look, a lot of folks that lockstep got in the business 2021, 2022. And then all of a sudden, the last couple of years, there's this stark change of like, how the hell do I go get a price reduction? We just had a listing get a massive reduction and our commission got cut at the knees. And I was like, Hey, what happened here? And they were like, she was firing us. She was going to for sale by owner. And it's like, This is just a different world. And I remember starting in 2012 and 2013, it was like, you used to say, I can sell your house in 90 days. And that was a flex. And then it became 30 days, and then it became seven days. And then it was like, I'll sign this listing contract with you for a weekend. If it doesn't work, you can rent it. And I think this has... We're not looking at offers until Monday. We're not looking at offers. Yeah. And then we have to amend the contract. But how I feel is like, You know, I run my masterminds every single month, and we see a great attendance from agents. And a lot of it's like learning the skill of the job. And we're giving such a service on a most important asset in the world, the most expensive one anybody's ever going to have, the most emotional decision somebody's going to make. And so many folks didn't know what the hell they were doing. And so I think part of this, I would agree with you, just leery to what it does for agents to create this speed to lead and the fastest guy wins. It's like, actually, no, the person that steady Eddie is willing to walk away from opportunity cares less about a transaction and more about the person involved in it. That to me goes a lot further and I think it's much more valuable than how many deals can you rack up for how much commission? And look, I haven't always felt that way because I was somebody going fast collecting checks, but I And at your master class where I was on a panel there, your question, one of the questions was, what's the one word you would use to characterize 2025? And I said, weird. And the reason why I said that was because the number of agents that would tell me how weird they felt like everything was. And I think what makes it feel weird, those price reductions are happening in some places where you just can't get any action. And at the same time, here we go again. I've talked to many agents that are dealing with multiple offers, escalation clauses, appraisal gaps already. And there's such a strange dichotomy of whether it's a buyer's market or a seller's market. And I really just put that in the category of when you have very low supply and very low demand relative to norm, you're going to see some Yeah, we talked about this on the Northside MIBOR panel. There's this group of people that are moving, and a handful of years ago, They bought in the crazy market with tons of offers. They're putting that house on the market today, and they may not be experiencing that. And look, they may have no other experience in the marketplace. And you could tune into the news, which please do not do, because the news is going to be a national scale. It's all doom and gloom. And so I really think it's super important for agents while beating the streets and creating the experiences and having the stories to utilize social media and share those stories and don't look at as more like anything other than a way to educate consumers. Good friends of mine and clients of mine, their house is on the market right now and they had an appraisal shortage. When they bought, the house didn't appraise. But when they bought, the market forced them to come up quite a bit. Now, the current buyer said, we're not doing it, take it or leave it. I was talking to the agent who's helping me with the deal, and I'm like, all they know is this scenario and that scenario. It's impossible for them to feel anything other than negative. However, you need to just educate of what their options are and let them choose. This isn't our, it's not my choice, not your choice. It's their choice. And so I just think as agents, it's our job to be as transparent as possible, communicate as much as you can and share the wins, share the losses, the Yeah, that, and that was something we talked about at the North side, my board panel. setting expectations? And how did you end up setting expectations with these folks? Or did they come around to the new reality that it's not what it used to be? Yeah, in this instance, it's just a lot of education of like, hey, here's the game of chicken you play associated with what just happened. Now, we know this. Here are the risks. Are you somebody that goes to Vegas and loves to keep hitting and keep playing and keep doing it, or are you somebody that likes to protect your money? You explain who you are. Here are the risks. Make your decision." And I had this instance a long time ago in my career. I think it was probably 2016. I was having trouble wrapping my head around some of the stuff that my buyers would want to purchase. And it was like, I don't think this is a good deal or I don't think this is smart for them to do that. And I had a real estate coach at the time. And I asked him, I said, Hey, how do you help? How do you handle this? And he was like, Alex, it's not your house. It's not your money. Provide the facts and get out of the way. And forever. It's, it's easy. It has to do with agents about opportunities and it has to do with investing in real estate. It has to do with everything. It's like, This is an emotion. I understand that you carry it, but I'll help you back out of the emotion. Here are the facts. Now make your decision or you sleep on it. I know you're pissed or I know you're frustrated. You should be. I would be too. Rest on it. Let's talk in the morning." And ultimately, our client ended up moving forward with the opportunity because it was in the best interest and Well, let's talk about the podcast for a second. How are you about it so far? Not this episode, which I'm sure is easily will be your number one watched. Yeah, yeah. No, how are you feeling about it? You're just getting going. How many people have you done? I know they haven't all, you've released two up to this point, but how many We've shot, I think seven or I think you'll be number eight. Okay. It is really fun. Like, If I were to come sit down with you, it would be very similar to this. And so I think the conversations and the relationships that this has afforded me to build, I was floored at the response I got to the people that I invited out of the gate. But I went to the well, like Jared's a good buddy of mine, Summer's a good friend, but then I asked some folks that I didn't know really well, And look, it's a challenge for me to sit in the seat of question asker. And so there's like skills to learn around that. But I've enjoyed it. I thought it would really stress me out. Like, oh, my gosh, I have to shoot an episode. Really it's like you spend an hour talking your friend and for me i look at like. This episode will wrap it will get posted the opportunities and look i know ryan foxworthy will text me and be like i listen to your episode steve that was awesome and. I think our industry, something that's a big goal of mine is like, as I continue to grow with lockstep and like, I want to create a lasting impact on our industry. That is like, that guy was a Titan that changed everything. And it's not about being the biggest or the best, but I think the impact that can be made. And I think a big part of that is like, If an agent gets an opportunity to learn something from 45 minutes in conversation with Steve Robbins, that could change his business and his career. And so I just want to be the vessel to do that, whether it's the masterminds I host or the team leader round tables or building lockstep and helping our agents continue to grow or having these conversations. And this affords that. And I actually, Yeah, definitely enjoy them because as well, it can be a little stressful putting it all together and making sure everything goes as well as you hope. It's just my personal philosophy. You're, you're following right into it that just sit down and have a damn good conversation with someone. Build the, keep building the relationship and let people kind of listen in on what some of those conversations can sound like. Maybe they'll pick something up. Maybe they won't, but you know, there'll Well, I think I think of your podcast and look part of what got me to reach out to Lindsay. Like, I didn't know her. I see these stat sheets. I knew she was on your show. I'm at lunch with you and I'm like. How do I get through to this? Like she's unbelievable. And you're like, yeah, she's awesome. Just reach out to her. And I was like, just like that? You're like, yeah. And then all of a sudden she's here today and we're talking, we're laughing. And it's like, her and I will be fast friends and build together for many years to come. I think it's really, really exciting. And it's like, because you did what you did. it helped me bridge the gap in the relationship. And it honestly, when she walked in today, I was like, I don't know you, but I feel like we're fast friends. And she was just like, yeah, I've been meaning to come here and this is awesome. And I'll be at your pod or your deal next week. And I'm like, I need to get you on my podcast. So it's, it's really fun for that too. It's just the relation, the meaningful relationships back to Yeah. Yeah. I got one final question for you. We always wrapped with, something centered around the concept of action. So when you look at somebody who's struggling or struggling to move or get moving or active towards something, what does Yeah, I think you've maybe heard me say something like this before, but I think what's required is to really a good deep look into the mirror and asking yourself, what type of person am I? Am I the type of person that has the discipline to do what I don't want to do when I don't want to do it? Do I need extrinsic motivation? Do I need to be around people that will push me, motivate me, lift me up? Or do I have that type of burning fuel inside of me? And within real estate, particularly, there's so many parts of real estate that people get into real estate. And of course, there's the HGTV and the glamorous part that people sometimes get attracted to the flexibility. Oh, I love to look at homes, all that happy, fun stuff. At the end of the day, You have to find within real estate what you enjoy and go do that, particularly if you're not the most disciplined of people. We talk about treating this thing like a job. And there's very few agents actually that do put in the time. They are a good manager of themselves, which is difficult for most people to do. Most people, let's just be honest, they need to be told what to do or how to do it, at least sometimes. And in real estate, you can be on the right team, you can have the right culture, you can have the right support, but you are running your own business and you really need to figure out how much you have it within yourself to get up and go or how much you need to be around people that help keep Man, I love that. You got to find your discipline or do things you love, Yeah, I think about fitness or things like that. It's like when you try to lose weight and if somebody put green leafy vegetables in front of me every day, I'm like, I'm not doing this. But when you find it through other methods of like, hey, if you actually eat these things, they taste good and it can help with your journey. It's like, oh, this is more fun. It's more sustainable behind it. For that point, you should be playing this game for the long run. You can't play this game year to year to go, if I do this this year, because every year, January 1st, you start at zero, you're as strong as the relationships that you have and you still have bills to pay. And so, look, I think it's like those that are pioneering this for the long run and playing the game forever are the Oh, you know, you've been inspiration with your ice baths and your 96 hour fast and stuff. But where that's inspiring for a lot of people is you're showing the discipline that you have and that you can bring to the table. One of the things you said on my show is that, you know, you're the you're quick off the mat and the last person in the ring. And I really respect that about you. When Kyle Engel was on the show, we were talking about – with Dr. Andrew Huberman and how there's this part of the brain that when you practice discipline actually grows. And there's this part of the brain when you are just playing it soft and taking pleasure over pain every single time you turn left or right, that part shrinks. And believe for you for proving to yourself and maybe to the world that you can jump in a ice bath every day and you can not eat for four days. I Like those are the hard days, but those are the ones that are like, okay, you know, when it's 60 degrees outside and I get to get in a 40 degree bath, it's like, this is refreshing, you know, as crazy as that may seem. But you know, a lot of times I do this in the evening now because it is like a refresher before I spend my evening with my kids. And it is like a reset, like right before their bedtime. But I think for the next couple of days, I'm most excited about taking it on when it's like the tundra out and stuff like that. I'll make Maureen come outside and take pictures of me so everybody Well, it's all part of the brain. But we didn't even talk about brand building. I think that's a huge thing that people need to be focused on right now. But Yeah, I've said this. I said, look, our best people that come on early on, we'll have back sooner than later because the good conversations leave. the guests wanting more. So, Steve, this has been awesome, man. Golly, we laughed about the time of, you know, 40 to 45 minutes. And here we are clipping almost an hour, but I could talk to you all day. So thank you so much for being on. Congrats on all your success. Good luck with Commercial Division, the Mooresville office, opening all these offices and landing great agents. And I can't wait to see your next episode on the show as well. Congratulations with everything you're doing, Steve. Hey, man. Thanks for having me on, Alex. It's a pleasure. All right, dude, we'll talk to you. We'll see you on the next time. Thanks for listening to Action Solves Everything. If today's episode pushed you, challenged you, or helped you even take one step forward, send it to someone else who needs that same nudge. We all get better when we grow together. And if you're looking for a partnership that actually believes in coaching, collaboration, accountability, and actually becoming the best version of yourself, shoot me a message. at all social handles, at Alex Montagano. That's A-L-E-X-M-O-N-T-A-G-A-N-O. Remember, success rewards the ones who move. Take action,