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. Welcome to another episode of Action Solves Everything. I've got a very special guest with us today, Jim Wilson. Jim got in the business of real estate in 2002. He ran a powerful business until 2014 when he became the manager of the Remax Legend office. 2016, he then bought into the franchise when he took ownership of that. In 2021, he left Remax. Opened real broker for the state of indiana and then twenty twenty two he became a regional broker there so jim, the accolades in the accomplishments are a mile long what's up man things are going well i've noticed when i'm in a room i'm kind most tenured section of the room which is which is kind of cool right in a way i still feel like i've been in the business for five years and every year i think can i do it again and reproduce what i did in the previous twelve months and the answer is yes if you do the same action steps but yeah time has passed and i realize a lot of good friendships have been made And I see you, you know, you're at the different company. Are you a competitor? Not really. I think you're just a peer, right? And you always had always used the term iron sharpens iron. I want to be around people that are successful and I can learn from them or they push me to do more. So we've kind of built that over the years of surrounding yourself by people that are successful and What What brought you to the business in 02? You're approaching 25 years and I don't want to age you, but when you say that you're now some of the more tenured company in the room, when you and I started working together back in 2014, I was a young buck and you were on the side of the room with me. What brought you in the business? When did you jump in? Talk about the beginning days for Yeah, so I always had an interest in real estate. So from being young, high school into college, didn't act on it, but then got out of school, had a good job, 401k, some salary, got a bunch of friends that worked with me. I worked for a commercial kitchen equipment contractor, so very niche field. did construction management for the most part. I had a great boss and started buying some rental property on a land contract. I was making, starting teacher salary, right? So at the time, probably $28,000 to$30,000 range. And a buddy of mine was a school teacher making that money. And I think by the time I was 24, we had two and a half million in land contracts out on homes. So we had maybe 13 to 15 at the time and had bought a house right out of college. So me and a buddy put both of us on a deed and shared the mortgage and had a friend's rent from us. Best thing I ever did to get a strong financial base was basically pay no rent. We had two other roommates that wanted to rent and they paid our mortgage for us. And I kept that house for, I don't know, I think in four or five years times kind of got blurred, but I had enough equity to go buy a diamond ring to ask my wife to marry me, right? So, and we spent plenty of money on Las Vegas and boats and fun stuff and went through the cash that we had from the rentals that we had. The company I work for, that's how I got in the biz, the company I work for, the owner had, he was great, the owner had a son about my age, real hothead, and I knew when I was 45, 50, I didn't want to work for him once transition had changed from, ownership changed, and I applied for grad school. So, went back and got a master's in information sciences. So, I worked three years, took a year off, sabbatical off, had a great boss though. He said, you're three months away from being vested in 401k. So, if you leave, part of that goes away and you need health insurance. You don't think you do, you're whatever, 24 years old and you think you're invincible. And he said, you need health insurance. He said, stay up, stay on board. You can handle jobs in Ohio, Michigan, northern Indiana for us. And I'll keep you on salary and we'll figure out that's fair or not. If not, we will just drop you down to hourly rate. Looking back, he knew I knew 20 guys that needed weekend work. Right. So he had an unlimited supply of manpower to do that. I got out of grad school, didn't like it, understood it, but it wasn't fun and was pretty rooted here in Indy. I could have went to Atlanta and Colorado, Denver, but I would have had to make twice as much just to not make what I was making here and live there on my own. So he hired me back and. I was his right-hand guy. So I was helping cut costs, looking at his books. We went from 13 employees to 30. So the gas cars get out of control. Your health insurance gets out of control. And, but he's building a company and wasn't watching the backend as much as he could have just because you're busy growing. So I was then kind of the cut man of looking at the books. I ran someone's business without it being my business and my risk. That company ended up going, they lost their financing. And we did a lot of schools and hospitals, but schools do all their work in the summer or winter break, because you're redoing whole kitchen lines that take two or three weeks. So anyhow, the funding dried up. The bank then hired me to help wind down the company. So I'm, I don't know, 25, letting people go, right? I'm thinking like, I just go off my buddies and have fun and we make some money. Now I'm ending people's jobs. Well, I knew we weren't paying for unused vacation time. So I already had some rental property. Um, I knew at that time it was a two, you could do a two week class to get your license. So I took two weeks off back to back and did RECP, got my license. And on that Friday, I got a call from the bank saying, Hey, we're shutting the, we're locking the doors today. You might want to get your stuff. Well, of course I already had my stuff out because I, I would let people go. So, um, then I had to figure out, I think I do want to do going to sales. So I contacted Bart Gowker, who at the time was number one agent in the state of Indiana, at least according to the billboard or the shopping cart. So I called him up and asked, would you have lunch with me and let me do an interview. So we met for an hour and a half at a restaurant. He and his wife showed up also. And after an hour and a half, he said, nice to meet you, but I don't want to manage someone. I'm making pretty close to, you know, seven figures with the unlicensed assistant and just him. And I said, no, I get it. I just want to be a fly on the wall. He called me back a few days later and said, okay, if you pass your test, then you can come on in and work for me. So I passed my test the next day and went to work for him. So I went in on a team and didn't know, I showed up at, you know, 758 ready to go. And it's like me and an office assistant in there. So I went from corporate to this independent 1099 world and it was a change of pace, but it set me up for showing up Can you, I mean, there's so much there. And I don't want to miss anything from it, but look, I think being kind of like thrust into this position of importance and decision making at age twenty five, like I think sometimes like we have these dreams and these goals to accomplish and be in these positions. But how we get there is never really how we drew the plan. And so I think like. all of a sudden, one day you're in that position doing that as somebody who's 25. I remember being 25. That's when I got my real estate license, when I turned 25. Can you talk a little bit about what those days were like and what I always had good mentors along the way. I also feel like I was the one who stayed late to listen to those conversations and wasn't trying to get out early. I knew I had all, typically I went for the quick dollar, the highest paying thing, put me on a roof, give me some hard work. I didn't want to go work at a McDonald's or fast food, right? If I'm going to not be by my friends or family, I want to make the most money that I can. Then I slowed down and said, I want to learn the right way. On learning this new business that I want to go into. very inquisitive and asking questions, and I want to know the whys behind it. So I did a lot of ride-alongs with previous boss in different world and the owners of that company and the previous one I worked for for six months. And then with Bart, I want to know the finances. I want to know what's your thought process on it. Versus like, I just write sales and I get a check and I'm out the door, right? I want to know the back end of like, how did you, how did you hire an assistant? How much money you have saved? Are you a leverage person or you cash? and just that thought process on how all that works. So then I knew I was, I like small business. I like business for me to go work for IBM or a large court. Like I don't understand that. I don't like waste. So I like small business under, you know, whatever, 200 employees. You can know everyone's name and you know what every department does. type of thing. So I always kind of gravitated towards that small business. I started some companies in high school, carpet cleaning business, floor care, stuff like that. I love to, I wish I had all my old business cards. I'm sure there's somewhere in a footlocker or something, but it'd be fun to go back and look, what experiences did I learn from in those situations? And I always feel like there's always, I've always taken some risk. but calculated. I can make a quick decision if I've done my homework already. I typically don't just jump into something if I don't know what that risk is. There's a fine point of no risk, there's not much reward. Huge risk, but I'm not going to now, especially in my 50s, I'm not going to mortgage the house for this maybe upside thing that could happen. I probably wouldn't have done that in my late 20s either, but I would take that fractional, maybe a triple and to use baseball terms that I'm not looking to just hit that home run every single time and go up and down, up and down. Some people make it. That's great. I don't like that I think understanding that though, like. Being willing to play for singles and doubles and look there, there are certainly home runs in your Rolodex like you definitely hit them, but look, There's a couple of things you touch on how much you value small business. And when I joined Remax in 20. I interviewed with a couple of different REMAX brokerages and I had some nice opportunities in front of me. And the reason I chose working with the Legends office is the way that Judy Cohen had the brokerage positioned was that it was like, this is a small business where everyone knows your name and everyone's here to help you. And some of the other offices I went to, it was like, look at my fancy car and look how cool I am and look at this stuff. And I was like, I didn't understand that. And something we've, we've been conscious of, and it's conversations I've had with other folks in the room as we grow lockstep, it's like, there becomes a point where you grow beyond that ability to have an understanding of what's important to each individual person in your office. And look, like you guys did a fantastic job during the REMAX days, you still do it now. And it's a challenge, but I think that's what makes small business great, is you can make such a direct impact in people's lives and play such a strong role in that. And that's something you guys always have done really well. So it's awesome Yeah. And on that, you were an all-star with us, right? And we had several throughout the years. I remember coming home from college one time and asking my dad, Someone you had hired, he was in sales, he was a regional for a company called Grody, they're out of Southern Indiana by Hanover on the water, can't think of the town. But I said, what was it like that the guy that used to work for you, and they sold LED lights, they were the first to make LED lights like semi-trailers and police cars. The one guy that worked for you, he's now CEO of Reese Trailer Hitch. Like, how does that affect you that someone who worked for you is now like the CEO of this other company? He said, I knew when I hired him, he was better than me. And if I could have him here long enough to influence other people, other salespeople that he managed, if he was here long enough, we would have an impact on their region. And he said, I just wanted him as long as I could. And then he went over top him and he was his boss's boss and moved to a different company. So I remember that as being like 20 years old of. Acknowledging that you're not always the smartest person in the room, nor do you want to be all the time. You want people surrounding you that are going to take you to another level. So seeing that with agents throughout the years or office assistants that are not challenged enough, and I know they have the capacity to take us to a different level or to give me more time back or to help elevate my sales. It's something that's always on my radar. Who's got what it takes to be a leader? And there's no doubt you're gonna be successful wherever you ended up throughout your path, because solve 15 or 10 years, however long it's been, right? That you want to be surrounded by those people because they're gonna push you. We have an office space here. So yes, we're a remote type company, similar to what you're in. But when I hear the people in the office got a sale, got two sales, they have this coming up, It's all said in, you can hear it, right? It's not said like I'm better. It's, well, shoot, they're doing that this weekend. I need to make one more phone call. And there's been a lot of Friday phone calls. I'm showing some homes this weekend, 650,000, because I won't leave on a Friday at three if I didn't make enough calls today. and I'll send messages out, text messages out to my past referral partners, someone in Muncie, someone in Kentucky, someone in a different area, right? Hey, hope all's well. Do you have any need for help in the area? Every, about two weeks, nothing happens. The third week, actually I do have someone, right? So it's now a, I've got three of those going on, and they only want 15% referrals. So I just sent a text, right? And it's a 430, a 400 buy, and then like a 600, 650 purchase, just because I sent a text. Would they have sent it to me? Maybe. But it took 20 seconds to go through. Who do I need to send a text to? It's the same text, right? It's just change the city, change the name, right? Boom, go, go, go. And you send 10 or 15 of those out. And I would say I probably make about four or five sales a year. on Friday afternoons just by sending that text out. That ties the loop on showing up at 7.58 the first day of work and treating this like an actual job. I think our industry is so funny. Look, you've seen a lot. You know a lot of people through the space. You know, I remember when I started, I always laugh at the, you know, how I started. And like, when I started, I would have kicked me off of lockstep today. And it was like, you know, you wake up at nine o'clock, you pop on sports center, you eat your breakfast, you go for a run on the canal. And I used to tell this, like I would get to the century 21 office at one o'clock in the afternoon and I'd forget my computer. And then I'd just be like, oh. I'm going home and I'd go home and hang out for the day and accomplish nothing, not realizing like the success or failure that oftentimes we experience in real estate is that's our own doing. And so sitting around, I mean, I remember when you and I started working together in 14, 15, those times when I would show houses on Friday nights, It always made me feel like I was that much closer and the buyer was that serious because, hey, if you're going to give up a Friday, that's that's a big deal. And it was always something that I enjoyed doing because I cared that much about the work. So like the idea of showing up, have you always felt that way? And like, what's that like? You know, you're 24 showing up. The consistency beating Yeah. Which I actually know his niece. But I'm very scheduled. Time blocking has always been part of my skill set. My mornings, I know I'm here by a certain time. I'll go to the gym in the mornings. So a little bit younger age, I would go to the office back when Five Seasons was open at Keystone area. I would go to the office from call it 8 to 10, get all my morning work done. send things out that need signed, go to the gym from 10 to 12, eat a sandwich on the way or whatever's going on. And then I'm back in the office for the afternoon for two hours of getting those signatures back. And then my showings would start at three or later. So always been very structured in what I do. I'm no different now. I now manage the state. So i don't know what agents are gonna call i know they're gonna call right but not everyday i know when the cycles come up and back and the markets goods my phone's been ringing last two or three days so people are active agents are active in the market but I know what i'm doing every day and there's spots there's open spots to fill in that i know i've gotta leave sometime in there. I leave my laptop at the office i always kind of have. Now i'm five minutes away if i need something i'll come back but i might take it home i remember one time my son who's now junior high school said. Man i wish you worked at mom's work i said why he goes cuz you're on your phone. But when I would come home when they were that little age, my phone went in my room or wherever from five to seven, and then bath time started maybe a little after that, right? So for those two hours I was dedicated, I happened to pick up my phone the one time, and that's when he called me out for it. So they're observant, kids are observant. They know when you give them time or don't give them time. Now they understand, well, that's how dad makes money. And we go on these sprints of busy, not busy, but I try to be present with it all. With that said, I know when I leave here at 4.30, I know what I'm doing the next day or that evening. I still work evenings every once in a while. But back in the day when the kids were little and I had to pick them up from a daycare, my days were Tuesdays and Thursdays to pick up. So I would tell new buyers, there's 84 hours in our work week. All right. Seven days a week, 12 hours a day. I don't work 14 of them. Tuesdays after 5, Thursdays after 5, and Saturdays after 12. So if we can't find 70 hours to work together, I'm not the right agent for you. And they would say, oh, no, that's plenty of time to work together. Well, I didn't want to cancel my Tuesday, Thursdays because then my wife had to pick them up again. She works too. And then Saturdays, I said, there's going to be kids' birthday parties, sporting events. I'm not going to miss those. And I'm an early riser, so I'd rather get up and show a house at nine on a Saturday. And by 11, you're done. I mean, if you're showing more than three hours, you know, everyone's, it's painful, right? So unless you have multiple buyers in the same day. But that's always given me, I hardly work weekends. Everyone thinks we work weekends and nights. If you control your schedule, we've all been to trainings, but I did this a few, an hour ago. They want to see a place. I'm available Thursday from 2 to 4 or Friday from 9 to 11. And they picked one of those two times. They're coming from out of area, so they're probably thinking Saturday or Sunday. I And they said, yeah, yeah, that time works. Sounds good to me. Now my weekend's still How did you, like, when did you learn that? And how have you kept that with the responsibilities that you have running the brokerage and the pace Yeah. And of course, there's times where you have an out-of-state buyer and I got to work all weekend. But I know by Sunday evening, we're under contract and I gave up a weekend. It's probably four hours and three hours, probably seven hours total on there. I know I'm going to have to do this throughout the time, but it's very scheduled. It's a little easier with the age of my kids now, one in college and a junior in high school. So it's a whole lot easier to do that. I guess I've always, I can remember doing that. So Ashton's 20. So I've been doing it for 15 years with that schedule or a little bit longer that I just set those parameters out there. Or I'll just work Sunday evening after four o'clock. If it's nice out, I want to be outside. If it's rainy and snowy, I'll work the weekends. I mean, I like my spring and summer's better than my, winners for working wise. And I know I'm going to go through sprints where I make a little bit more money in the winter than putting homes under contract in the summer. Because I know I now schedule out, I got this from Drew Schrader. I think he was on stage or something, but his Fridays, I think he tries to do a closing in the morning. golf in the afternoon, and then has dinner with the wife and the kids at wherever he golfs at, right? And then he'll work Saturday morning if he has to. But he knows Friday, he's probably making money and doing something fun, seeing his friends, getting family time in. And then if he needs to work on Saturday, he can. So I'm paraphrasing what he has said in that meeting. And that's what I try to do. It doesn't always work. Sometimes you your Friday gets away from and you got to do something. But if I can try to schedule that, then it becomes a really fun way to work. When we had the REMAX franchise, when I took it over, we had to do like the mission statements, Judy and I, right? It's like, what did you want? a place to make money, if not go volunteer, and then a place to have some fun. Now you can't just go have beers in the office every day, right? That's not a working environment. You can socialize and do your stuff and have fun with your coworkers. But if you're not gonna have fun with coworkers, then go find different places to go work. If you don't like where you work, then go find an environment that you thrive in. So if you can create an environment where you're having fun, you're making money, That's fun. We're pretty fortunate. Of course, we have our days where it's like this a long day. Most of it's in your own head of, did you really prep for that inspection response? Did you prep your buyers for how to respond? Did you do your homework beforehand? Or did you walk into a listing appointment knowing, I can see 10 shingles off your roof? You should probably mention that on your walk in the first day, like we have some issues. When the inspection comes and whammoes them, They've already got a quote. They've been set up to say, we know we've got some challenges because you're right. We've been talking about a new roof for three years. Well, OK, well, it's probably going to have to happen now, especially with insurance. Now, it's hard to get a roof insured if it's over 15 years. So agents don't like having tough conversations. So the earlier you can get ahead of those to do that. While I'm on that topic, if you have something hard to do during the day, do it before 10 a.m. Make that hard phone call. It'll eat away at me all day long. And I was probably up the night before thinking I'm awful. We have a guy I work with and I've worked with him. He's been my financial advisor for 10 years now. And he now runs some finance at Lockstep and runs some other business stuff with me. And he's a right hand for me. And when there's hard decisions to make, he always asks, how soon can you get that done? And it's like, well, hold on. This thing sucks. I'll get to it when I get to it. And he's like, well, can you do it in an hour? And it's like, I'm not ready to do this in an hour, but the reality is, is like whatever delta of time that you set between then and when you're going to do it, you're exactly right. It keeps you up at night. I remember the deals that would keep me up at night and the conversations that would drag on throughout the whole day. And it's a line I use. It's a line of stoicism. We suffer more imagination than reality. Oftentimes what happens is not what we've told ourselves will happen. But yeah, it's that concept. Eat Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely feel like the worst part of our job inspections. I mean, you take that away. It's just a fun. It's a fun gig. Right. But. I do all those before 10 a.m., the day after inspection. I love that. That day, it's the next day, you process it. I'm gonna look at it and process it a little bit. And then around 8.30 in the morning, I'm gonna go through it, you know, fine tooth and say, right. And then we're done by 10.30. Our response is done. It's ready for signatures. And we've moved on. It's stressful for a seller or buyer, whichever side on that you're on. And then we all kind of move past that and figure out a path. with it. So You text me about leg day today. Hard thing, first thing, right? I want to hit on, like, you're running a small team in the mid-2010s and you decide to take over as an office, you know, manage the office for the Legends group and then ultimately buy into the brokerage. What was behind that? I thought I wanted to run a large team after running Most large teams don't work, meaning they're not profitable. It could be to satisfy an ego of I've got five people, ten people. Team leads selling 90% of those sales, they get two that don't sell anything and three that are just always have an excuse, right? So now you're having team meetings, you're adding more to your plate that isn't needed. I hired an assistant when I hit around 40 transactions. And that was the best thing. Because at that point, I was getting pretty swamped of handling that many transactions. And then I could handle them, but I wasn't going back in and updating new addresses, the CRM, the stuff I can't stand doing, right? And certain tasks, I'd have an assistant hand them a thank you note, give me a thank you card. Now it's all, we're paid non-check-wise now. You can't hand me my check until I write a thank you. I just made $12,000. I should be able to write a hand thank you note for the time you spent and the money you gave me as a thank you because we don't get any of that anymore. So there are certain tasks that that assistant would do. I'm kind of veered off there. But then I hired someone who worked at another company and they're going to quit that job and then come work full time. They got promotion, promotion. I mean, you got three kids. You need health insurance. You're getting paid pretty well. It's going to take me a while to get you to that level in the six figures. And he would be successful. But Isaac, as a friend, would love to have you make a few more. But as a friend, like you've got to stay with where you're at. He still at that job and doing extremely well. So at that point, I realized I would rather because I was managing a little bit too. I'd rather, if I'm busy, send referrals out to agents in the office and keep them afloat, get them some more experience. I could still probably make the same, but not have to have the Tuesday afternoon huddle with everyone. If you're going to do it, you got to do it well and be scheduled and have your plan in place. But I saw a lot of teams that didn't do it well. Out there and teams have changed over the years, especially now with more remote offices. There's some really good models out there that work models being the team leads model not so much different brokerage models, but there are some really good teams that are running some some good programs and then it came time to. I couldn't manage, I managed because there was a health issue with our previous manager. So Sandy ended up having terminal cancer and you need someone to sign documents. And I wasn't gonna leave Judy high and dry. People were coming to me with questions. They went to Sandy for a cup of coffee and That's right. Yeah. I could hear him hum was the only thing. R.I.P. But so they're coming with questions anyhow. So I knew the numbers from an ownership standpoint, what was coming in, kind of what was going out. I was signing checks and realized I saw the risk. and what is out there as a brokerage. I saw the money coming in. I saw ways to increase that without really changing a whole lot of structure. No one was let go. Everything may remain the same. In that model, it cost to have agents. If they weren't selling, it would cost me 5,000 a year, just shy of 5,000. By the time you paid corporate heirs omissions, You had to pay for everyone who was flipping a switch. They were an active agent in Century Lock, whatever the old showing systems were. 50 bucks a month, 50, 50. We start to have 10 or 15 people that aren't selling. I let them make the decision to retire or go in referral status. We weren't making money really going backwards 50, 60,000 a year. They went to referral status. They were happy. I forced them to be like, what are we doing here? Are we playing office or are we selling? So I knew that I could use the funds from, the first downstroke was all my money. And then I had four payments, all mine, about half of it was mine on the next one. The other was profits for my 25% that I owned. And then the last two installments were all company profits that bought the company out. So, and we got, we, we ended up raising net profit. I doubled net profit from And we were about the same size company. How did, how did you enjoy that as a, challenge So I really enjoyed it. Cause what I was doing was that when I got out of grad school, running that person's business and looking at the books and you remember Jana in the office. So granted she was office manager and I gave her a task of, I'll give you one half of what you helped save me in one year. And it was, yeah. So it was a, we've got the cash, because I'm saving, because I went through the 08 mess, right? So I know that things bad can happen. And so we were hoarding cash as a company. No one got that go during COVID. Everyone got paid. Nothing changed. Everyone just got paid. And I said, we've got cash. Instead of a one-year contract for internet, give me a four-year contract. see the lowest amount you can get. All my contracts, we extended out. If I pre-pay, they give me 25% off. And most people say, yeah, you can pre-pay me for four years, stuff like that. So I ended up giving her a nice bonus when it came time. She's like, you were serious? And I was like, yeah. Like, yes, you're doing a good job actually to do, but I'm honoring what I said. You got one half of year one. I get all of it in years two, three, four, five and going forward. Right. Yeah. But I knew she would bird dog it and. work on every- That's incredible. Trust her, right? She handles all my checkbooks and the company stuff now. And it's nice to find someone that you trust and is on your side with things. And if you treat them fair, she's been around 20 years. So they will tend to stick around and go through some bad So, REMAX, you're there, you own I think it was seven times and it's already twenty two now so i think it was a total of seven i know i read up one time on franchise fee. So i finished out a franchise and then five years and So you go from REMAX to real broker. Talk about that move, because I remember at the time seeing that substantial splash, especially because they're brokerage not in our market. And I remember when I joined EXP, Drew was the first guy in central Indiana, and I was shortly after him. So I knew what it was like to make that move early. I'd love to hear like what was behind you over 20. Drew and Drew and I moved in, I think it I contacted Stacey Gillen with 3Max and she was my owner liaison. And I said, Alex Montagno is gonna leave and go to EXP. Oh, you're crazy. They got these little figureheads and you're in this world where it's remote and that's not what agents want. And I was like, I'm telling you, he doesn't go to office meetings. He's very independent in his learning. He's got a vision of what he wants to do. He doesn't need to pay us this much money. Now, some of that money goes up the ladder. So everyone thinks, oh, you made this huge amount. No, we made good money. And I would say we're probably the most profitable REMAX You announced you were leaving. You called me or whatever happened. I called Stacy immediately and said, Alex left. She's like, what? And I said, remember I called you a year ago? These newer models are what agents want. I love the people that I've worked with at REMAX. There's a lot of great companies in town outside of that brand that are more traditional, I know REMAX since I left in the US has lost 24,000 agents. There is not much left for Remax in our marketplace in Indianapolis. I mean, they have some footprint, but goodness, it was all there was when I came to Remax in 2014. It was like the Yeah. And I forget the number, but $24,000 at $2.89 a month times 12 is $83 million that they're not collecting in the U.S. as a company. And I saw these numbers keep coming down. I'm the one that reads financial statements. There's an emissions insurance conferences for real estate, right? I'm sure you go to the marketing and all the video stuff. I'm going to the emissions one, right? So I knew it was changing, I could feel it. And then COVID happened. And some conversations, I forget, started right before COVID, maybe just after COVID. No, it was after COVID. We had 20 some agents that rented space from us in the office. Then we went down to like 13 post COVID. I let them out of their contracts. You need money. You're not selling like I'll eat it and rip up our contract for office space. But I knew that it was changing for agents. And I was trying to think we can't keep taking that much out of agents' pockets. There's got to be something different. So I was down the exp path because I like that model. And there were at the time maybe one or two others that were kind of similar, but they weren't big enough. Sure. And then I linked on to a member of Simon Property Group article that linked me to a real article and really had 1200 agents across the US. I was like this sounds a lot like a model that i like called monday and said hey what more information is available sign you up and i was like no no no i'm in a franchise owner we got seventy five eighty agents this is a longer conversation how this will work out so talk with tamir our ceo. three, four, five times the COO had conversations and then realized, I think, I think this was, this is where I want to be. It was work hard, be kind was their, you know, their motto. And it just seems I could get behind. I walked away. So I didn't renew and we had some offers from other companies in town. The Wilson family would be just fine. And, but I'd have to go in the office meeting and say, Hey, this is the best for everyone. knowing that no one really went there, good people, but they're going to pay six or 7,000 more just to be there and probably not use those extra services that they have. Every agent from my old model to reals would make between, I ran the math on everyone, between five and 20,000 more. That's awesome. So one of our agents, her husband had a stroke and he's no longer working. And she stood up in that meeting and said, Jim doesn't know I'm going to do this, but I called 50 past clients and said, what do I do and where do I work? And she posts three, four times a week about real estate. more so than any private agent that we had at the time. What do I do and where do I work? She said all 50 said you sell real estate, not one can name where I worked. She said Jim said he can save for her scenario $20,000 a year. I had to pay for my girl's college. So that's another 100, 120,000 by the time this kind of happens, I've got to take his word that this is where I should be at. So the huge vote of confidence when she stood up and said that, didn't know she was going to say it. And it's all played out that way. We've grown from, you know, like 40 agents to 220 or so, 225 in the state. So a little bit slow growth at first, and now we're starting to catch fire where it's other companies that are coming over and other people referring from out of state and whatnot. So yeah, so it was time, I kind of, you asked the transition. It got to not be fun. cashing the owner's checks of the remix. It was great at first. These are big checks. These are, these are great. And he got to be like, all right, I'll take it in. I'll cash it. And that's maybe sounds calloused or whatever, but the fun had, had left and that the environment of who I interacted with as an owner had changed. Michael Burke and Muncie had sold. And there's some other people that I interacted with a lot. And it was my support network as an owner that those people had left. and got bought out or whatever. So I was looking for the next thing and I realized towards the end of owning, I love when I had to go out and show a home for two hours. I got out of the office and I had fun in sales. And I realized sales were fun for me. Now, if you go back to when I was 18, I was a pretty shy kid. So you ever say you're gonna be in sales, 100% commission sales, I would have said, you're crazy. There's no way I would ever do that. So I started, my wife said, you need to find the fun and get back to enjoying your job. Not that I didn't enjoy it, it became a job. And How do you feel? I mean, you've been in the seat for a handful of years now. How do you feel about your decision and how do you feel about having the fun? Because you were talking about stuff earlier and I wanted to get this in then, but it's even better now. It's like one of the things I remember just sitting having office next to you like. Look, I had a lot of fun when I worked at Remax. Now, it may not always have looked that way because of the stress and the compounding nature of what I made the job to be, but I enjoyed the people that were there and I enjoyed our conversations. I learned so much. And it was like, there was always fun. It was like, you'd be talking about a game or we'd be talking about a deal or we'd be talking about growth or business or anything. And it's like, there was so much to learn from those things. So like, So I had a one-year non-compete where I couldn't get paid from the company. I could sell. So I kind of stepped back and said, I just got to take a breather. My sales did go down, but I needed a bit of a breather. So I was probably down 30% the year I left. And then the last three had been three of the top five years. Some of it's because the market's gotten, I mean, the pricing's gotten better. But I did, but then I missed getting the phone And then you people like to feel needed. So there's no phone calls my dad said this retirement someone said hey are you having fun retirement and he said you walk out the door and then no one emails you and no one calls you it was actually kind of a lonely. and depressing kind of conversation I was listening in on at his party. He went back to work six months later and he did all the crap that salespeople hate to do. Put together binders in his world and get some quotes from vendors and then they need to give it to an Alex who would just go dazzle him with like, here we go, it's all shiny and cool and then you get the sale. They loved him because he was doing the hard work. What he realized was he was missing interaction and I was missing interaction to keep me motivated in my sales. So after about a year, we added me in as a regional broker. So second in charge. Drew's name was on everything. I could still sign and answer questions. I try to keep us out of legal issues or I like our paperwork. I like our contracts. So call me with contract questions. Call Drew to like, where do I find the marketing piece to go in and add my photo? I don't care about that. I hire that out. It's not it's not my jam. I know what I want. I'll tell someone what I want and they'll put it together type of thing. But I kind of miss that. And then it was time for. Drew been doing it for four and a half years. So recently as of April one, I'm now the managing broker for everyone in the state. So now I'm outside of my board and I'm in Naira up north and Syra down south and 11 or 12 different boards and different MLSs. So it comes with a different challenge. Also don't want to stop learning and being pushed because it's easy to get in your lane going, I make pretty good money or pretty good sales, right? And just kind of coast off. I'm not, I don't feel like I want to coast off and get to the age of like, well, I'm just retiring. Uh, it's like, I'm not, I don't feel that old. I'm like, you know, I'm still doing leg day, but, um, yeah. Um, I feel like it's a new challenge for me. which then puts me into my scheduling and my days, and it is more on my plate the last two, three, four weeks, whatever it's been, of scheduling and then expectations met by agents. All agents want is someone who's gonna call them back and answer their questions, they're freaking out. Half the time they didn't do their homework, and now they're freaking out, right? Advice to agents that are watching is like, when you're not busy, go learn something. Like one, there's all kinds of free podcasts, like Jared James, the Tom Ferry's, like find whoever it is. Network with, I contacted the number one agent in the state, didn't know who he was at the time. I had heard of him, right? Asked him for a job. Fast forward, he ends up working for me because I own it and he's a salesperson with me, right? So things had changed over. But go contact the 10 best agents you can find or 10 that you, see online that you want to be like, ask them out for coffee. Everyone will go meet you for coffee. Everyone's got an ego and they like to be called to say, hey, you're someone I want to learn from. If they say no, good, good. You don't want to waste your time with them because it would have been a waste of your time. They're not going to share. Find someone that shares it. Remember back in the old office, it was an open door office, meaning if you wanted, I'm sure you probably have something of mine and I have something of yours with a different logo on it, a process of when you append a property, what do you do, right? transaction tracking. I know my sheet got dispersed all across the office and people modified it for them, but get around some people that will share information with you. And if not, just get to a different crowd, right? And then the whole, you're the sum of the five people you hang out with is so true. I try to tell my kids that, right? If you want to get to another level, then hang out with people who are at the level you want to get at. And sometimes you're in the middle of that. Sometimes you could be the top person too, and that's okay. But you gotta share. When I get asked to do a panel, which I say yes most of the time, if my schedule works, I have to prep for it or realize I'm not making my phone calls either. I'm not doing my work. It's a kick in the butt to go do my work. And if I'm on a panel, my sales increase over that next month. I can't It's funny you say that. I'm doing an AI mastermind. It's the third one of these I've done, and it will be less than a calendar year. So the third one in, I think, 11 months. And I was like, man, I don't even know what to teach about AI right now, because from day to day, what comes out is different, and what products are different, and the number of products, and all these things. Crazy, but what I've noticed since scheduling it, it got put on the calendar, March 28th, that I'd be doing it or March 30th. I'd be doing it April 30th or whatever. And I remember. Like when I started the month, it was like, I need to just start spending. And now it's like hours and hours a day to the point where like, I mean, look, you know me, I can't do anything tech wise. I just built a website in cloud code over the course of like two days. And it's like, people are like, what are you doing in there? Like you're, what are you doing? Your office lights are off. You're like, you're just hammering away. And it's like, you have to just immerse yourself in the education of what it is. It's like, you know, like you said. Yeah. Where are you You know, I see myself in this managing broker role for another year Definitely not long term, although I would like to do it and then take a break and then do it in like seven years where I'm sandy drinking coffee and, you know, in Florida week and answering questions type thing. I do see myself. So we've got a lot of good 20 year olds, a lot of other grads. coming out that are joining us. And it's fun to be, again, the old guy in the room. I feel like I'm watching some Jim and Alex's in that crowd and they're doing their, they're forming their own meetings and stuff. So surrounding myself with some younger agents, nothing wrong with experienced agents. Sometimes it's nice to have a fresh view of, well, back in 2006, we did it this way. And it's like, man, that form's changed or man, you just got to I'm in this middle ground of our 70-year-olds love technology. They do. And then our 20-year-olds are like, it's fine. It's my 40-year-olds that get glitched in the problems. And it's like, don't try to fix the system. Just use the system. It works. Someone smarter than me put it together type thing. But going forward, I would like to bring some more agents along with us. My model would be, team, you're on my team for a year and you're off. Soak up as much as you can, and we're going to promote you so you're successful. Now, in our models, there's a way to monetize that going forward, right? But you get me for a year, ask all the questions, show up to every meeting. But your goal is, is you graduate from my team. And it's more of a mentorship team than routine. And then you go run with it and see if i get one out of four to become an alex running something fantastic without people you have thirty five forty five whatever it is a large number right that and watch them grow. People said in the past like i get satisfaction because someone else did well. You actually do, right? I love to see people succeed. I can have the same success if I put it forth the efforts, but seeing someone put forth the effort and succeed. And I had a lot of people who gave me opportunities, two and a half million in mortgages making 25, 30 grand a year. Someone gave me some opportunities along the way. I always tell people, if you show up, I'll be here for you. You skip out on me three times, I got to move on to the next person, right? We all have excuses. And yes, sometimes you get sick and sometimes there's kid issues. I can't have an issue every two weeks when we're supposed to meet. If it's important to you, it's important to me. I use that a lot. I'll be here. I'll show up at five a.m. if you want to meet, but you can't cancel on me five minutes before and expect to reschedule tomorrow morning at nine because my tomorrow's already booked. Right. So I'm pretty I'm pretty open with that. Judy did tell me years ago, you got to soften up a little bit. I don't know, man. I don't know. I had so much going on that I don't have time for downtime. I do have a lot of downtime now because we're not at sporting events all the time. One's off in college and Blake's driving. He's doing his high school hustle stuff. So he's got job after job after job. We're actually bored on a Friday night going, do you want to go to dinner? I don't really want to but I don't want to sit home all night and we're looking for things to do as we try to almost get into the empty nester stage of life and there's plenty of other things to fill time and whatnot but as far as work goes is. A lot of the same sales actually think I'll get busier as Blake leaves the house because I have more free time. I can work 84 hours a day a week. But now it'll be I don't work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday mornings because I'm flying to Florida for a trip and we'll come back Monday, Monday afternoon. That'll be my hours. I don't work. But with the way technology is now and the way offices are set up, being remote, I'll probably get my license in Florida. So it'd be great to sell homes here, get them an Airbnb type of setup in vacation spots for people, spring break and fall break down in Florida, and figure out that model of how do we get them in. Most people don't want to do it because they don't know about it. How do I do it? Where's the money? Nope. We've got a management company. We've got cleaning companies. We'll manage it for you. You've got an $800,000 house equity here. Let's downsize to $400,000 in a townhome. Take that $400,000 cash, move it to Florida, and get your investment property going so that when you retire, retire, that one's now paid off. We sell this one. Sale, sale, sale,$60,000, $80,000 chunks for each family I can do that to. that want to do that, they just don't know how to do it or the comfort level. So they know Jim's up here and then Jim's down there or someone on a team could be in that capacity or referral partners in either city could handle that. I don't think a lot of us really retire in real estate. But if the money was there, I could also see I'm done. Are you still gonna send referrals out and whatnot? So a lot of the same. I would also join the team. in a capacity where I don't want to handle the day-to-day, or I just want to run operations for a team, or I just want to be in sales, whatever that will look like at that time. I don't have to be a team leader. I can be on a team. I can add value. I can still make money and fund what we want to fund as a family and do that. My mom's around town, my dad passed in 2020. So we're not going anywhere. Mom's in town, my in-laws live in town. I'm not leaving town by any means, but we're a more mobile community than we've ever been. And I see my friends and talk to my friends in Colorado more than I do fraternity bros that live in the neighborhood. So, I mean, the way we communicate and That's awesome. We, um, the podcast called action solves everything. And so. You know, I'm somebody who cares a ton about taking action. It's, it's been a huge part of my life, whether it's like right or wrong or when, or when's right, when's wrong or whatever it is. It's like something I've always done is just continue to move right foot in front of left and just keep moving forward. So we ask all of our guests on the show, um, this question at the end, and I'd I asked this question, lots of people, what did you advance today? Did Did you make a phone call? Did you advance your health today? And that's a win. I mean, that's a huge win. That's what you need, right? Did you, was the relationship advanced? If you say I didn't advance anything, your day's not over with. You gotta advance something. There's small steps every day. I tell agents when they're talking about sales, have you ever lost 20 pounds in one day at the gym? No. You got to go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you know, have a day off. You've got to be consistent, right? Six, eight weeks for habits to form. And the habit is contact two past clients. You already worked with them at one point in their year. I'm going to make some agents are afraid to call their clients in transaction. They are your client. You're making money. They're paying you. They like you. They hired you and not me. they're afraid to call. I don't know, rejection or a hard conversation. Once you, we used to, I don't know if you still do it or not, but we used to do it. Mark analysis for your clients, right? And you call 200, 300 people in a month's timeframe to give them an update on what, first one or two are hard. After that, it is super easy. People are afraid to have that first conversation. So as far as action, take small actions. Um, to break it down to a gym, go on a half mile walk, increase it, go another thousand steps a day. Right. And then maybe throw in some weights. So in, in, in the, your career, it's. I don't feel like talking to people today. Cool, that's okay. Go listen to a Jared James podcast on what's going on in the market. He's pretty tuned into what's going on. Yes, they're all trying to get followers and do their thing, but advance something. Lock it in and do that before 10 a.m. Do it while you're on the treadmill at the gym for 20 minutes and just listen to a podcast. You might learn something. Get around people that are encouraging to you to succeed. And don't be afraid to call agents that are productive to say, I'm your relief valve. When you can't do a showing, call me. We need help with something, call me. If you just want me to drive you around for a day, because you're so busy, I'll drive you around. Because you're going to hear seven hours of conversations, and how do they work, and they don't blow up on the phone on an inspection. Just be their driver with no pay. And you would learn so much. So back when we started, the phone calls on the signs had to go to an office phone number. Now you can put yourself, right? They had to go in and call the switchboard person up front, right? Me and Fred Kortz, I don't know if you remember Fred or not. Fred, he worked with, he was like 86, still pretty sharp. He and I would fight for the phone. Sales call line one, it was who could answer it first. If he got it, I'd listen. If someone else in the surrounding office got it, I would listen to see how they handle objection or what questions were they asking. So that, you know, to go back, it was, it was what action, what action steps do you do every day? Have a plan of something to do. My Friday text call, my text, anyone moving to Indy. Sometimes it's just that simple. So if you're afraid to, Get in a pocket, you have video in front of you, right? And if you're gonna do a video, just send a video. I got a deal done, we're closing next week. And I said, why'd you choose me? And she said, actually I went to chat GPT or whatever and said, what agents sell the most homes in Noblesville between 300 and 400,000? That's a pretty small window. My name came up as a top three, had no idea. I got back to right away the question she asked and then i did a quick video it was a friday had a sweatshirt on this going home is later in the afternoon and said hey this is jim i'm not available tomorrow morning i'm taking my daughter to the airport at five am with her college friends for spring break i'm not canceling that and it's pretty early and i have an appointment at noon already because i'm busy but i can meet all day sunday if that works for you to send me a text back. Did it once, hit send, didn't watch it, right? And I asked her, so why'd you pick me? She said, I really liked that video you sent me. It was quick to the point. I knew you were a human being. You cared about family and you were busy. So you fit us in two days later on Sunday. And that's all it took to get the business. She says she canceled the other three agents that were gonna go out there. Wow. That's all it took was something simple. It wasn't like a big glossy print and I was 30 million a year. And I'm this, it was just a quick video of me in a hoodie saying, Hey, thanks for the opportunity. I can meet you Sunday. So But people like seeing everyone's human. We all make mistakes. We all stutter in our own way. We all have our own delivery. That's why people, if they know you, that's who they know you as and Yeah, a little better every day, right? Yeah, a little bit better. Jim, this was fantastic. I'm so grateful for your time, and I'm sure the listeners took away so many great things. So thank you so much for everything you've offered, and we just really appreciate everything you Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for the invites. It's fun watching you grow and watching your team excel. You're doing some awesome things with Lockstep, and I'm sure it's going to double, triple in size, and you're affecting a lot of agents' lives. for the better with putting their families in spaces where they, why they joined. And you probably gave them, here's, if you do the work, here's where you're going to end up at, right? And you're probably honest with them, but you got to do the work, right? It doesn't come easy. You put in a lot of work to get to where you're at. And sometimes people try to knock people down. Nope. the Biff awards of the world, right? They've put their time in and they will answer their phone. If I call Biff now, she's going to answer her phone. Cause she's putting in the work, right? So as long as you put in the work and you're affecting some, some lives. So it's fun. It's fun to watch it, watch you grow. Thanks Awesome. Thanks so much, Jim. Sounds good. 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,