Today we have Don Lawyer on our show. Don comes to us from Dallas Texas and specifically Arlington and has been in real estate since 1986. With 32 years of successful background he owns a 12 person team. Don talks to us about his decision to leave Keller Williams and joined EXP. He explains why he started looking in other options and talks to us about his research and final decision. 

 

Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video.

Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.  

 

In this episode:

• Research and due diligence 
• Thoughts of the conservatives
• Profit Sharing
• Growth in leadership
• Differences between EXP and the Keller Williams system
• Collaboration inside and across EXP
• EXP Stock Investment
• Collaboration the culture the willingness to help

Want to Learn More about eXp Realty?

If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Don to inquire or ask questions.

Contact Don:

Phone:817 657 9159

email Don@DonLawyer.com

 

 

TRANSCRIPTION

Kevin: Welcome to the show Don.

Don: Thanks for having me on.

Kevin: I'm looking forward to the conversation today. I know that you are a... as I've had it described and I've gotten to know you. You're a real professional real estate practice you've done your due diligence and I mean there are a lot of people like you out there in the real estate business. But before we dive into your decision to move your business away from Keller Williams and over EXP for those that aren't familiar with you why don't you give a little bit about your team and your real estate practice.

Don: Sure. I got in the business in 1986. I was 19.. I've pretty much been doing this my whole life to do anything else. So glad it worked out so far. Thirty two years I have a 12 person team now 10 of us who work with the clients and into admin. Last year we did 260 sales for 67 days.

Kevin: And you're in the Dallas Fort Worth or specifically Arlington Texas area.

Don: Yeah we work the whole DFW area located in Arlington.

Kevin: Fantastic and I always bring that up because I know there'll be plenty of people listening to this both within EXP and outside and you know want them as we'll get your contact information at the end to be able to know where to send those referrals if they have them for your area. To tie that down so they know who they're listening to.

Don: Thank you.

Kevin: Well you know when I first ran across your name and you know like Gene Frederick and you and many others we were all with Keller Williams for a long time. It caught me off guard because I know you were like a staple and a main major player in that Arlington Market Center and you're from my perspective a somewhat conservative very smart business guy. What made you decide to take a look at it in terms of options for your business specifically about EXP. In other words somebody has been around for a number of years. Something changed and then in 2017 you made some decisions after seeing you go year after year with Keller Williams. What made you decide to start looking at options.

Don: We use the name Keller Williams in this interview. Because I referenced everything to that previous life because what with a lot of the same reasons why I was sent to court one craved two years before I saw the Keller Williams business model and I didn't ever see anything like that. As far as the profit sharing and the culture of sharing and examples when people sold a lot more than me. So when I saw that started with I am now and then saw the EXP business model. There is always good things about Keller Williams but it made even better. From an ownership standpoint where you can earn stock are doing the same things you do every day to sell as many houses as you can and on the revenue share side. That was an added bonus. High was actually the number two profit sharing agent in the Arlington office but not because I was a great recruiter it just kind of happened organically over time. When you have some success and people ask you how it's done and the environments that you're ran and just naturally attraction people. So I did well over there Gene Frederick ran the numbers for me one day as a favor and found that it was at least four times as much on the path to make inside if I had the same amount of people. But the EXP vs Keller Williams probably the number one thing was the stock that I never had a chance was with Keller Williams in 2005. So they were still ramping up but the EXP now reminds me of Keller Williams teams in the late 90s. Kind of missed out on some of that opportunity and now seeing the way you see it set up and the massive growth in the medium leadership and just the massive amount of talented people involved in these really excited about the opportunity. The one word that I kept using over and over again was the word opportunity and I couldn't get it out of my head once I knew more about the company.

Kevin: For listeners I know that you took a measured approach. I mean we certainly probably have the fast movers like Brent Gove and if you listen to his interview I mean he moved in like 10 days and I know that for many people listening that's not their personality that's not their style and there's nothing wrong with it there's no judgment in this. But for those of you listening to this Don is going to be the guy you want to look to if you're look a bit more measured right. You started this and I think you probably took what five or six months to kind of work through the numbers. OK. Eight months.

Don: I think eight months now is eight. Yeah. Sherry Eliott. I think I can own stock in the company that I worked at and then watched it and met with Gene Frederick and talked with a bunch of other people and then started noticing top agents around the country move over in you know there's something to this. There's too many smart successful people that are changing and they didn't need to be my team and the top team in the area and loved being with Keller Williams I was definitely happy over there. I was not going away from anything that was going towards something... That was just a better version of what I had before. They take me awhile. I mean I wish I would've made that decision a little bit early but I am a pretty cautious and I was working at the worst case scenario. And you know once I made my decision and jumped right in on the most fun I've ever had. It's amazing. After 32 years you kind of get into you know the routine of doing things and this is really exciting to be involved in this company.

Kevin: I want to come back through a couple of things and like I mentioned at the top of this and you have also reiterated we'll talk a lot about Keller Williams and they are a great franchise system. I was not there in the early 90s. I know plenty of people like Gene Frederick and others that were I've got involved with them around 1999 or 2000. And so when you look at the state of EXP Realty and you use the word fun it's kind of like when people talk about what it was like in the mid 90s although the company is very different from a standpoint of being a single brokerage and you got experiences you and I met in person last week at the shareholder summit in Vegas right? The culture of the company is different not that it's bad to compare it to Keller Williams but it is very different coming Keller Williams has got a very top down approach right. They have international and regional directors. And then you have the Opie's and then you have team leaders and then you have an AC and all this other stuff where you and I were at the shareholder summit and we could walk up and talked up the board of directors we could talk to Glenn the founder everybody is highly highly approachable and I don't know about you but that really blew me away as to how authentic the culture of the businesses.

Don: I completely agree. It was really as I got to know the leadership. Number one I got to meet them all and that was amazing when you get to know the character. You know their successes in the past. The vision may have. So the company just really feel like you're in good hands that they've got and Glenn had a great Grasby ahead of his time on the model and where the future of this business of setting well future world of cloud base now. But when you are around people and so it possibly you can call them text them e-mail and they get right back to it again reminds me of Keller Williams when they were much smaller. It was just a little bit different set up that it was so nice to reach out to the other question you could call Jason Guessing and happy to answer any questions or meet with you. It's it's amazing. It was really encouraging after I met them all I really knew I made the right decision.

Kevin: Well and it's also I'm sure you went to a family reunion and mega camp which are great events at Keller Williams. But what I noticed immediately and I want to get your take on it is the icon agents and the masterminding between top producers. Well if you have a franchise system that I just described and they do two events a year maybe you also attend a couple of Mastermind events. The amount of online collaboration across the country because everybody's collectively together not just a couple of times a year but daily blew me away too. If you're a producer and you want to interface with somebody like Don and you're not in his market center and you don't happen to be at one event per year the EXP is where you want to be because I'm sure Don you agree the amount of collaboration across the company is incredible isn't it.

Don: Yeah that's interesting because after a while you go to a reunion to make a camp for 13 years you're going to see the same people and hearing the same things which is great up to a point that really gets the best interactions. More on the smaller you know the people on stage are only getting so much detail. So you learn a lot in the hallways and the other kind of smaller get togethers where that's where the real information came to be or at least what I was getting the most out of. And I'm seeing that pop up all over the place with EXP of just getting people that are getting together because everybody is on the same page. I mean as good as the profit sharing system with Keller Williams is that how it effects culture. The majority of the people... I was in a really good office in Arlington and the culture was fantastic and they were highly profitable. Having a good combination that is even more so with the EXP. Truly everybody is an owner you know once you start giving people stock and they actually own a piece of it and then everybody truly wants to help everybody else. And that's what's amazing everybody I've never seen so many people excited about where they work and what a fun ride.

Kevin: You talked about everybody having fun again right here Gene Frederick all over the country and every time he present saying this. And for many listeners of this podcast they may have heard us talk about this gene certainly made that statement during his interview with me but it's true. You'll have people that came from any number of companies independents other franchises. And the thing that universally blows them away is how much fun everybody is having. And this goes along with the collaboration. I mean I know that on today that we're recording this. There was a webinar here and I had a management consultant tell me that she listened to it and she said I am blown away by the high level.. she works with clients in the mortgage and real estate industry. She said the amount of collaboration the enthusiasm the excitement that I heard on that webinars is incredible and as a matter of a point two of those four women that were on that web and are today are at the EXP for less than a week. The enthusiasm and the culture is contagious. I mean once people see this it's hard to unsee it. I mean in other words some of the and nonsense in the marketplace is the reason that Gene and I started this podcast we want you to be able to listen to top producers and other players in the market in their own words. I mean Don you've been here for how many months now.

Don: At four and a half.

Kevin: You know it wasn't like you showed up last week. So you've been here you know... based on what I see online in the workplace and other things and meeting you last week I would describe you as even more enthusiastic than the first week you showed up.

Don: Oh yay. To some extent you don't know and you don't know and I was surprised at how excited I was about the business making up each day. This is the exciting part of something smaller that you know will probably be the biggest company around. I mean this business model I don't see how any other company in the way that can compete and it's exciting to be on the ground floor of that opportunity. So I mean I expected appose cool thing ever to get stock on and sold out who icon program or get cap back. That's amazing. The revenue share is great. The culture I can see was the same or better and I didn't expect this to be so much fun. In the meantime. It was a nice surprise.

Kevin: And the momentum has picked up enormously. In other words you talked about taking you know eight months or so to do your due diligence and then you've joined four and a half months ago so we're talking about your first exposure to the EXP realty was a year ago approximately. And so when you look at what happened after October and the amount of agents that are your peers people that have enormous massive businesses that used to join the EXP brand go with sort of a pioneer right he got in quite a while ago but the rate at which they're joining currently as we see it here in the spring of 2018 is incredible. I mean we had one week where just out of that number one franchise system we talked about they had two or three players join that was close to a billion dollars of volume. That's the kind of volume that when you look at what Swanepoel and other people talk about as the game changers in the industry I want to come back to your point Don about the growth of the EXP unit and you know people like to basically Papou this comment on social media but you know the company did 25000 sites last year. Everybody in the industry has a hard time figuring out how to measure and have metric for EXP. The challenge is nobody's ever grown this fast. So the number that blew me away and I want to get your take on this Don is so the company did about five point eight billion last year in 2017 about 25000 sites. You and I were in the same room and they put up for the first quarter 10000 close transactions and 10000 pending. And you could hear an audible gasp in the room because people like you and I can connect the dots and go. We're going to roll by probably to 40 50000 or more sides this year easily. And even even if the company didn't adding more agents but the fact that we're adding them at 350 a week into the company who knows how big that transaction number is and swampall this week in Miami just put up a slide. And he was talking about the big franchise systems and he basically said if you get to 10 billion in volume you're in rare space. Now that's a franchise system. Now in the brokerage world there's only two or three that have ever done it right. It's the big ones like NRT and you know home services and they did a buy acquisitions both for Prudential and long and foster. But the EXP I think this year will be the year that they absolutely validate and blow away the industry if you take that existing number of closed first quarter plus pending transactions that puts you as of the first week of April when that number was released at 20000 the company did 25000 sites last year. It's not hard to connect the dots. You know there's a lot of noise in the marketplace that the company is not... you know it's a recruiting based company they're not really doing a lot of production. I don't know how if you're listening to this you can actually say that with a straight face and if you're at a franchise system and that's a you're talking point. Shame on you. You should be embarrassed.

Don: Two years ago that was true but not now. There's so much momentum that's why you know and you said earlier I was conservative. I definitely wouldn't describe myself that way. But I was as I was leaving my former office said OK worst case scenario. This is a total failure. This company will be the number three company in you know three to five years worst case. There's just too many talented people coming over when the business model is so good. Somebody actually understands what it is and to get getting their credit permission. I don't understand why you want to be anywhere else. Also again when you have a culture where everybody wants to help each other at some point it's the number one company when the most successful people are there and willing to help. And it doesn't get any better than that. Oh yeah. And you get the ownership. Oh yeah and you get to share somebody a commission that you happen to attract and people and even attacking people just happens naturally you don't have to be a recruiter and you know spend a ton of time on it they're just there's so much today that the people are going at it calling you and wonder why are you news tell them why can't we see it. You can't unsee it.

Kevin: It's absolutely true. And so if you're listening to this and you've got you're a rainmaker and you have a team or you're out of a franchise system and you're a capper or you do two or three caps per year you know between the icon program the other ownership opportunities don't think that this is something as Don says where you're going to come in and have to be the equivalent of a team leader or a manager in an office. It happens based on a combination of curiosity and excitement and enthusiasm. The company has a very contagious and compelling value proposition and that's why when you see people come in I see these comments again and again you heard it today in this interview people are involved in profit sharing. Right. That happened naturally because of the enthusiasm at that point for that franchise model and it's happening even faster in the revenue share model. And it happens naturally people when they see the value proposition will join and it's not like you're going to be out there hard pressing them and cold calling. So if that's your concern. Have a conversation with me. Gene Frederick Don any of the people that you may know or have heard on these interviews and you'll find out that as a company the culture is not that at all. I mean we have a lot of people that have people coming into the revenue share groups and it's a lot of as a combination if you like Jay Kinder off the hook. When you listen to his interview I mean it actually ran off the hook when he made a decision to leave Coldwell Banker and come over to EXP. I want to come back to the equity thing because there's some interesting comment you made while you were doing your due diligence. You went and bought EXP stock. So in other words you're conservative enough to know I need to spend some time on this to figure it out. Although as an equity investment you started investing and I want to give you another story because I think this will resonate this is probably going to be sort of a dirty secret and I think the franchises and the others are going to hate this when it comes to be. I've got a very good friend in St. Louis he works for a coal banker. I'm not going to mention his name but when he and I were talking about the EXP he said I'm very aware of it. I'm not in a position to move my business. He does way over 100 million dollars a year with his team. He's got a big team. He said I would tell you though I'm getting close to making more money on my investment in the EXP equity than I do net in my business. And the real estate practice I've been in it for 35 months gives and or loan officers that are in the stock have been in it for several years. So what's interesting is I'm finding more and more players in the real estate marketplace including agents. Maybe they're not and maybe they're conservative like you and they have moved yet but universally I'm seeing people buy the stock. I think what they realize is this is a game changer for the industry. They might not have done their due diligence yet or maybe they've got other things going on in their world. It's not right to move their team but I don't know how often you run across this but I've seen it become very very widespread.

Don: I'd probably heard Chris when I did it I thought I was doing something unique but we had over 10 or 20 other people willing to give us all the opportunity. I was so well in a way by the business model I wanted to buy the stock and they watch and see how things are going so I know at minimum 10 people read about it. So it's amazing what is an interesting thing that I have is I owned a small percentage of the market center and obviously I had to sell my percentage that when I moved. But it took all the money from that and put it in EXP stock that I made as much money in the four months I've been here selling my KW ownership as I did for the four years that I own a percentage of my KW.

Kevin: Yes and that's pretty incredible.

Don: May have been this good timing but you know you know no predictions about the stocks going. But that was after four years of being an investor in New Orleans Workers Center and in for months they made the same amount of money.

Kevin: That should blow people away. Right. In other words if they hear that there is a misperception in the marketplace that owning an office and I'm not just going to pick on KW market centers but owning an office in a franchise system is highly profitable. That's not to say that some offices don't make a lot of money but the owners of those market centers with very few exceptions are not making a boatload of money. There are a few exceptions. That is not the case. Your experience is very typical. I mean we're getting more and more operating principles and owners whether they're a minority owner like you or they're the operating principle and they're coming in and selling everything and they're realizing that you know what. This is a machine that because I'm a professional and the real estate business I know how to make money I'm not laden with having to deal with bricks and mortar I don't have to deal with politics. I can just grow the business. I understand how to do that. And for those of them that have been in the franchise systems in the 90s they're still blown away by that clock rate and speed by which the EXP is growing. We touched on this a little bit. You know what this Lampel comments. I mean he's in a room of people in Miami as we're recording this and he's talking about 10 billion in volume being the magic sort of milestone when you've made it. Now EXP last year was at five point eight billion. If you just take the 20000 transactions that's in about another five billion barely into the second quarter. So you're going to probably see the company with more than 20000 agents and way way way north of 10 billion in 2018. And it's going to add that much volume in a year which is never been done before. All right. Other than acquisitions no company has organically grown at the rate the EXP does. And it's what you said Don it's the collaboration the culture the willingness to help. In other words when people come in to EXP and they hit the ground running it doesn't matter if you're a mega agent with a team and you do the kind of volume that Don does or you're a single agent you're a capper. All you do is go to the workplace and raise your hand and there's going to be tons of shareholders that are agents and others that say I got it. Here's the link. Go to this. Doesn't matter where you are it's not like being in an office or a market center where you're got to go make an appointment go sit down in somebody's office. The online collaboration as we've talked about is crazy and that's how they're getting people in up and running so quickly because there is no precise location to be awarded there's no bricks and mortar. And as Don talked about compared to it in person meeting or something at an office the ability for people to just raise their hand and say I need help with this or I want to know how to do this and have it happen is happening at a unprecedented speed within the company. So don't let me ask you this when you look at somebody potentially looking at the EXP right you have a team that does you know more than 200 transactions over 50 million a year a big substantial team let's say somebody listening to this and maybe they're conservative like you. Right. They've been looking at EXP for a while. Who knows maybe they own some shares already. What would you say would be the right two or three steps as far as due diligence that helped you pull the trigger and make a move.

Don: Well one another thing that just maybe that surprised me a little bit is for my team members the opportunity for them to buy stock at a 20 percent discount 5 percent of their commissions go towards the retirement program they gave they didn't have. Well that's the number one thing they have about the trade mission is they're all setting money aside in five or 10 years. Now there's a good sized chunk of money even at this not giving you anything you just Bokan just are pretty well. So me that point that it was a nice benefit. They were super excited about it.

Kevin: And I'm glad you brought that up because in some of the franchise systems and in the brokerage world the conflict between talent on teams and the Rainmakers that are the leaders and owners of the teams is an inherent challenge. Right. Didn't matter if you're a subscriber to the MRA book and you follow the model and you built it up that's when you sat in these mastermind's and these other events you would hear especially if you're in the top 100 like you're on the rainmakers saying well how do we retain our talent. There's a built in conflict in what he's talking about is in the EXP world, there is as a shareholder in incentive not only for people to build a buy stock at a 20 percent discount out of their commission they can take 5 percent of the commission but there is an incentive as well that when you're on a team if somebody does decide to raise their hand and Tierney Jordan mentioned this I've had a couple of guests do this say I want to help them succeed because their success as a shareholder in EXP means my success. That just doesn't exist in the franchise system right. You see people leaving market centers or offices you see them looking sideways at each other. Here the rainmakers want any team member to succeed because the company succeeds and they as shareholders succeed and that's a cultural difference that from the outside I don't know that the marketplace really understands that yet. In other words there's rainmakers on teams that listen to this and I would challenge you to call Don. He's going to have his contact information here at the end. Or talk to Tiernyor talk to Brett Gove and you'll hear it again and again. They want wealth and success for their team members and if that means down the road they're going to ultimately have their own team or go off on their own. It's not the big take away like it is in the franchise system is it?

Don: Right you're so involved in their success decides it's rewarding to help somebody in chief. That's one of their goals but you don't train up a highly talented person and lose him. You're so connected.

Kevin: No absolutely absolutely. So if somebody is listening to this and you did it some great due diligence. Now you said you had Gene Frederick run some numbers for you so you understood profit share versus revenue share and for anybody that happens to be in the KW system you can reach out to me you can reach out to Gene Frederick you can reach out to Don. We will find somebody to run your numbers for you right. You know that's something that Gene and I do every week when requested to do that. It's an easy calculation and a matter for us to do what either due diligence steps if there's a couple of them that you'd recommend because I know you did a great job of looking at this from a conservative perspective.

Don: This really was noticing bigger teams because that's what I was focusing on across the country move and it was all for the same reason as all for opportunity and some point you can tell a lot of households and you know I'm treadmill but you want something more weather its retire at some point when there's different ways to build wealth of passive income. All are doing the same things you're doing anyway and keep selling as much real estate as you can. So I just saw models and examples of people with more than me which is what I've always tried to do my whole career and learn from that and it's just you know I can honestly said time and time with me and just an example. You can find somebody that knew the KW system any better and who owns part of six KW market centers in the region. So that blew me away. I've never met anybody that I want to kill off of. So they're pretty good moneymakers generally. So the fact that he would do that is a great example.

Kevin: Absolutely. If you go and haven't listened to it yet if you're a listener to the podcast go listen to Jean Frederik's conversation where he describes the fact that the light went on and he realized that he owned Blockbusters and a Netflix world and he needed to make a big pivot. And it's a great story when he tells it in the interview with me and his conversation with Susan his wife and realizing that he was going to have to take that leap of faith and do it and make a decision and you know it's been a huge wealth creation event for him. And as I mentioned before we're seeing and more and more operating principles and others that own interests and market centers coming to us doing the due diligence looking at the numbers and then frankly they're divesting and doing that. We're certainly not professing that they need to do that we're not encouraging them to do it we're just providing due diligence. They have to make that decision themselves right. There are plenty as you said franchises that have locations and investments that are fantastic. They work for a ton of people right. We don't have everybody in any of these systems coming to us but we're seeing an increase. So that fits you know I want to get in touch with me. Get in touch with Gene Frederick we'll get you the right resources to do the due diligence Gene. As Don said would be a great resource if you're looking at it from the perspective of owning an office or regions and what does that mean. And I would encourage you to do that before we let Don go today if you're interested in talking to him because all of us as shareholders regardless of how you were exposed to the EXP you could certainly reach me as well my contact information is on the podcast page. We don't care how you got introduced to EXP. We're going to send you right back to that person. What we do care about is as shareholders getting you the right information. So Don if somebody wants to talk to you what's the best way to reach you.

Don: Cell phone 817 657 9159 and email don@donlawyer.com I'm happy to talk with anybody and like you said send them right back to the person who originally told you about the EXP because we're on the same page trying to help each other since you do the right thing and it will come back to you and you just want to make sure the right information is being sent out there because it is something a lot of people that are imitating and take information and you know it's not for everybody but certain people you know once you understand that you really get it. I mean just be prepared not to sleep but you know once you get the right people I tell you I didn't sleep for a month. This could not stop thinking about this company in the business small moving forward how is definitely the place to be. Last Sunday was for neighbor talking to people of all different levels. But I cannot wait for a few months since I heard about the EXP.

Kevin: And you're not the only person that has said that and I want to reiterate what you said Don which is you were all here is resources. We're all going to help you with your due diligence right. If I'm not the right person or Gene Frederick tonight or the person or if Don isn't going to get you to the right set of resources we're all about due diligence. What we don't want to have happen in the marketplace is the fear and uncertainty and the dissemination of information by franchise systems that's inaccurate based on things two or three years ago. And having people make bad decisions for their business we want you if you decide not to join the EXP do it based on the facts and the real information. I would challenge you to not get excited about it. We certainly are not delusional to think that everybody is going to join the company right. That's not going to be the case but we'd much rather have you come in. Raise your hand. Look at it and make an informed decision and decide because the second thing and I'm going to leave you with this thought as a listener. The number of people like those people were talking about earlier in this episode that own shares that are at other companies or are in the mortgage industry. The number of people that refer agents even if they didn't join that do join the EXP is a huge number. It's a weird phenomenon. If you had this happened yet but Gene and I are seeing this and we're hearing this from people all over the country that you know I talked to this person their business is going through a chaotic time and they have a team. But we got three referrals this week out of their market for agents that lent to them because they knew they were looking EXP and for whatever reason in the business they could move all three of those agents join. Right. It's an interesting phenomenon because like you buying the shares before you joined. We've got people referring people to XP that aren't even here.

Don: It just makes too much sense. I tried to poke holes in it every way I could and it certainly had plenty of time because it took forever but every time the more I learned about the model knew the people that created the model and were executing the model just is the perfect hybrid of everything good about some of the other companies and it's just not just to me goes back to ownership. When you give people ownership in the company they're all on the same page. It attracts the best people and it's just as exciting to be a part of that.

Kevin: Absolutely and that's a great note to end on Don's contact information. He gave you it will also be in the show notes. I appreciate you coming on the show.