Business
Nate Joens: All right. Welcome everybody to our third interview with the top ISA. We're really excited about this one today with Alex Vincent. Robby T is, of course, joining us from Hatch Coaching after one of their very successful webinars, it sounded like, of their own. Again, for all of you watching, my name is Nate Joens. I'm with Structurely. We are joined today by another top ISA, like I mentioned, Alex Vincent of the Simone Group.Nate Joens: This is going to be another detailed discussion about how she's running her ISA team, how her practices might differ from other practices of ISAs that we've had on the prior webinars in this series. And with that, Robby would you like to introduce Alex?Robby T: I love it. First of, if any of you don't know, I only call Nate, Nate Joens like the rapper Mike Jones. And if you want a funny laugh, just go look up who Mike Jones and it's going to be the worst song you ever heard. Some every time I see Nate I think of-Nate Joens: Not very good.Robby T: Not very good. Anyways, Alex, super excited to have you on today.Alex Vincent: Thank you.Robby T: I first had the pleasure of meeting you... Was it about a year ago now?Alex Vincent: Over a year. It was December 2017.Robby T: December of 2017. It's been far too long. And we were doing in-person league immersion trainings, and Alex came up here with a team member, correct?Alex Vincent: Courtney. Yeah.Robby T: Yep. Yep. I remember you... Too many names, faces. You know how it goes. But what I loved is... Alex is, I believe, one of the most talented ISAs I've ever met. And I think, when you were up here, you just naturally showed that you get this role. And I think we have a lot of the same core beliefs. What I was most impressed about is: Alex is not afraid to share her opinion. And we had about 30-some people in the room, and I love it. You were very direct, you gave your thoughts. And more importantly, if you didn't agree, you named something. And that was really cool.Robby T: So, super excited to bring your perspective to the role. In a moment I kind of just want to have you start off by telling us about you and who you are. I'm disappointed that baby Elliot isn't in the webinar right now. And I was kind of hyping that a baby would be involved. In crisis of leadership. But I get it. I get it.Robby T: Anyways, Alex, tell us about you. How the heck did you join the Simone Group? And just give us the 101 on Alex Vincent.Alex Vincent: Yeah, so. Commenting on Elliot not being here, she would've cried. It would've ruined the whole thing. So I definitely want to be [inaudible 00:02:55] of that. But yes, normally she is with me. I bring her to work every day. And... All day long. And it's actually a really great conversation starter. I think it's giving me an edge, not going to lie.Alex Vincent: So joined the Simone Group back in 2017. And this was with the intention of building an ISA department, helping build up the team in sales. And it's been so rewarding. Our director of operations, Zach, was actually a close, personal friend of mine for years. And when he was kind of talking to me about our brokerage and the team, and the goals and kind of vision, really, it definitely drew me in. The ability to build something and have this kind of start-up feel, but with the support of a team that's been around for years. And the leverage and the money, which is a big part of startups. It's a big sore spot for some people.Alex Vincent: It just... It really elevated me and brought me into some high level conversations. So I'm really excited to be here. I love Mondays. Not many people can say that. So yeah, we're just... I'm really excited to be a part of the team.Robby T: I love it, I love it. So, every team in brokerage... We kind of talked about how that drew you in. What are some of those key things, like... There's a buzzword, right? Culture. And culture's just a placeholder in my world. It's a word that has so much more meaning than just culture. Give us some insight, like what drew you in? You said you wanted to build something, the startup feel. But if you were to say, "This is why this culture is really great," what would it be?Alex Vincent: "Why is this culture really rare?" Well, you know, we are all workaholics, if you will. And we all like to play hard.Robby T: Sure.Alex Vincent: And I think that's been really awesome to be a part of over the past couple of years. You know I'm also, like I said, I've known a couple of teammates before I even joined. So, you know. Opening day, baseball season's a huge day for us. We all take off, we all go out, we all cannot remember the next day.Robby T: Yes.Alex Vincent: You know, it's things like that. Some of us are very family-oriented. Me, personally, I was just out for the past four months. Had a pretty crazy family trauma experience with my child being born and being brought into this world. She was in the NICU for 73 days. So the team being extremely empathetic to that and supporting when it all first started happening. And even months later, it was well, "Well how can I help you?" As a response to everything. I think it's just huge and even more of a win for me. And even more of a reason why I try to work as hard as I can. While I plan... Why I will plan on being on this team for as long as I can.Robby T: I love it. Can you see yourself leaving your team, Alex?Alex Vincent: No.Robby T: Is that something that has crossed your mind?Alex Vincent: I have people reach out to me all the time. It's actually really flattering about... I don't know if you've ever hard of EXP Realty. It's like brokerage... An online brokerage [crosstalk 00:06:16]. They reached out to me. I've had other... Keller-Williams teams reach out to me, which is like a big no-no. But it is what it is. And it's super flattering and the answer is always the same. It's like, there's nothing that will make me leave here at this point.Nate Joens: Right? Can I ask a question on that? I was just listening to the "Is your culture wrong?" webinar, or was it a podcast that we had done two or three episodes ago?Robby T: Yeah.Nate Joens: I think one of the things that stood out quite a bit for me, hearing about the culture at Hatch Realty with their ISAs was... And this is a repetitive theme that we've talked about before, but a lot of people think that ISAs are the lowest on the totem pole [inaudible 00:07:05] organization. What have you done on your team to flip that?Alex Vincent: That's a really good question.Nate Joens: Or how is it positioned in your team?Alex Vincent: That's a really great question. So, an ISA... You know, I'm like one of a very small team [inaudible 00:07:21] in Maryland that have my role specifically. A lot of other teams, what they tried doing, was making ISA a stepping stone to becoming an agent. Where we know and where we've learned from seeing other teams fail at this time and time again, is that this is just not the way to go about it. Someone who's going to love being an ISA probably won't love being an agent. And vice versa. I have absolutely not interest in being an agent and showing houses and nurturing a client outside of the office in that way. I love being an ISA and that's just a personality thing as well. So, just two completely different people.Alex Vincent: And then also, they're not only acknowledging that it's not a stepping stone and that it's a role in itself. But also acknowledging kind of the numbers and the importance. You know, my role... I'm in charge of 80% of the business. It's a lot. And me being out for four months was hard for our team. We actually had to scale back our goals for the year, which is crazy to think. That that's... I didn't really think of it in that way when it was happening. And when I came back, it just made me realize even more how important I feel and how everybody is here. In our operational staff is super important. We've just become crippled without key players.Alex Vincent: It's important to everybody's like that in our team.Nate Joens: Robby, have you already asked Alex about some of her numbers?Robby T: I was... Literally where I was going to go was... You opened the door to 80% of the business it comes from the ISAs. So let's walk through it. What are some of your numbers? What is your... Eric asked earlier, "What's your baseball card look like?" So, tell us your baseball card.Alex Vincent: Sure. I'm going to give you 2018, because I think a full year really captures a lot stronger than a couple months in. Especially with my history over the past few months.Robby T: Cool.Alex Vincent: Let's talk about buyers and sellers separately. So for set appointments we have 305 buyers of 2018. 185 for sellers.Robby T: That's all you?Alex Vincent: No, this is the corporate sum of our team. But for buyers... Specifically buyers, like over 90% is me. And sellers are over 80% is me. 305 and 185 is a team.Robby T: Cool.Alex Vincent: Broken down, so we very much focus on conversion which I know you probably want to get into. That's a big topic for you, Robby. But broken down from kept, taken, pending, closed, for buyers kept. We'll go all the way to closed. We'll say 77 closed buyers, 56 closed sellers. So for our conversions we definitely missed the mark, but not by much. You know, we have let's see I kept a set ratio for buyers was at 55% for 2018 and 57% for sellers, which is a lot lower. Our goal was 70% for year. So we missed the mark by 14% and 12%. So that's something we're definitely focusing on this year for sure.Robby T: I love it. So is the pain point in your world the kept to set, from a quick perspective?Alex Vincent: Yeah, from a quick perspective, we did really well to taken to kept last year. We were over target. So what I learned in the beginning of last year, even if you separate it by quarters it's a lot stronger later in the year. Is really how to prequal stronger. How to seek commitment differently. And really how to nurture a little stronger, too. You know, knowing that it shouldn't necessarily be the agent's role to keep someone on their pipeline for longer than 3 to 5 months.Robby T: Sure. I love it. I want to share something that changed our world because our conversion last year in 2018 was 35% set to close. And that's below where we want to be. The number that we have been at has, I think, healthy is 39, 40%. 50% is crushing it. And in one of the cases it was our kept to set was our pain point. And one of the things I would love to share with all of you on this podcast today is: we started doing something extremely simple. And it sounds silly, but what we started doing was something we called a group text. And what that would look like is: we started introducing the prospect in a text message to the agent they're meeting with. And like, creating a group text. And every single time the agent responds and then the lead responds. And since we started doing this probably two months now, Jim has not had one person flake.Alex Vincent: Wow.Robby T: So I think. You know, I was reading a book called "Influence" by Robert Cialdini. And he talked about how if there's the more people that know about something, the more likely you're supposed to fill that commitment. That's how we're hardwired is. The problem was, we were handing people off to an agent, and they didn't care about that agent because they had never met them. And it's crazy how one text of going back and forth creates buy-in.Robby T: And we're seeing ridiculous conversion numbers jumping from kept to set. So, just wanted to share that with everybody. Might help you guys. I don't know if you're doing it, but it's super valuable in our world.Alex Vincent: I love that. We definitely have our agents reach out via text message within 24 hours of the set. And you know, also reach out within 24 hours of the appointment. And even focusing, too, on making sure that you're scheduling the appointment within a reasonable time. You know, the end of next week, obviously, that might not be as strong unless there's certain circumstances like they're coming in from out of town, et cetera.Alex Vincent: We work with video calls, we work with a lot of people that move to Baltimore. Johns Hopkins, Underarmor, Amazon. They're all huge companies.Robby T: Sure.Alex Vincent: So you know, just different ways. I think kind of what you're tapping into is knowing your consumer and communicating the way they want to communicate, right? Definitely agree with that.Robby T: I love it. I love it. Nate, go ahead.Nate Joens: Yeah, so yeah. Those are awesome numbers. You guys are sharing some very insider secrets, I feel like. This is all really exciting stuff for me to hear and understand. Since I don't think we've really dove into the numbers as deep as we are now in our other episodes. This is really interesting.Alex Vincent: I know way too many numbers. Not as much as Jim. Jim got his email to contact ratio. We don't need to get into that.Robby T: He's next level.Alex Vincent: But yeah. And kind of going into that, I couldn't do any of this without Zach. Zach is our director of operations. And he is the guy that filled out our conversion tracker, which is where all our numbers get plugged into. All the business reports into that. And being able to really dissect every single contact to appointment, to take in pending close, by quarter, by month, by day. It really does give you a lot of insight into your business and know where to focus on kind of, earlier. We know that, "Okay, we need to focus on our cap to set." We're talking conversion, we're talking working more effectively.Alex Vincent: And transparency, too. For the team. Because you know, as an agent, you might be so focused on one part of the role or the job. Where at, ISA obviously focuses on another. Being able to be in sync is so important. So that we can be better together. Because my numbers don't matter if my buyers agent isn't closing any deals, right? Because then I'm not making any money.Robby T: Truth.Alex Vincent: So that transparency is just so important knowing your numbers.Robby T: What is "Knowing your numbers" in depth? Can you give us a specific action that's been taken because you've seen a red flag in your numbers. Can you give us an example of something you've done to change what you're doing because your data, your metrics showed, "Hey, we got a hole here."Alex Vincent: Hey, I mean, just coming out to North Dakota was one of them. That was one... Hey, obviously we're missing something here and we need to learn more. Let's do a conversion training with Ravi. That wouldn't think for us. We pivoted... I literally came back from that and said, "All right. Throwing everything away. Starting over." Gave everybody anxiety in itself, for good reason.Robby T: Sorry, [inaudible 00:16:17] Group.Alex Vincent: Yeah. So, but, it really helped. And I have a coach. I always recommend everybody getting a coach. And like I said, knowing where to focus on being able to tweak the conversations. I know recently one of my biggest tweaks was instead of asking somebody, like a cold call for a withdraw and expired of. You know, "Your house is beautiful, was even motivating you to sell it in the first place?" To making it to, "Well, what originally motivated you to sign a listing agreement six months ago?" Just that little change, I've seen a huge difference.Alex Vincent: So training, coaching. Huge.Robby T: I love it. And Alex, are you the only ISA on your team? Just for perspective?Alex Vincent: Right now, yeah. I brought someone on last year. Unfortunately it didn't work out. And with everything that's happened in my personal life, we decided to put things on hole, scale back a little bit. 2018 was going to be a rebuilding year. We brought on other agents and unfortunately those partnerships did not work out. So we are deciding that 2019 will be a rebuilding year as well. Which is fine. Have you guys... Are you guys familiar with the book "Predictable Success"?Robby T: I'm not actually.Nate Joens: Mm-hmm (negative).Alex Vincent: Great read. Highly recommend it. It talks about different stages of a business that we're all familiar with. But what it does is it puts it in perspective of building. Talks about this fun stage where basically as an agent, you're kind of just, "Sales, sales, sales. Driving, driving, driving." And then this whitewater stage where it's saying, "Okay, now we're putting an operational role in play in order to make sure that sales and ops are working cohesively for the client." And this stage takes about a couple of years. So we're in this whitewater stage, if you will. And our goal is to get into this predictable success stage where there's this cohesive balance. And we're almost there. We just need a few more talented people to really help us grow in that role. In that stage.Nate Joens: What the size of your team is? And the roles?Alex Vincent: Yeah, so right now, we only have one buyer's agent, one listing agent, three ops, and me.Robby T: Wow. So you're leaning.Alex Vincent: What's that?Robby T: You guys are running lean.Alex Vincent: Yeah, it's really cool. You know, there's other teams in our organization that are doing just the same amount of business with ten different agents. We are really happy and brag about how we'd rather have really key, effective people doing what ten people can do. One person doing what ten people can do, I guess.Nate Joens: That's very much the wide versus deep model that Eric was talking about in a few episodes ago. I can't remember which one, but it's a really interesting dynamic that some people... It's not that either model is wrong or one is right or one is better than the other.Alex Vincent: It's different.Nate Joens: Yeah. It's different, which is really interesting.Alex Vincent: Yeah. Yeah, we love it. We're bringing on potentially to other agents pretty soon. We're now in final talks with them and that's going to be huge for us. We're in some other talks that I can't really discuss right now, but we're about taking over the world. What we know is that the top ten teams in the nation are pretty much operating in this same way. You know, you can talk about different models: referral models, et cetera. But when you get to a certain point, everybody's business looks the same.Alex Vincent: And so that's what we're modeling our business after. Because we want to get there and we want to get there well.Robby T: Sure. And I know you guys don't have many people on their team. If I had to guess, the people you do have specialized, heavily in what they do. Is that fair to say?Alex Vincent: Yes. Yes. Absolutely.Robby T: And I believe... And I'll share my perspective on this briefly, is that we're going to see a complete shift in real estate. Where if you want to be a competitive real estate company, you cannot be a generalist. The generalist-Alex Vincent: Exactly.Robby T: The generalists, they are going to be pushed out of this industry over the next five to ten years, because tech is going to replace a generalist and provide better service than you can at a lower price. And what's going to have to happen is you're going to have to highly specialize leverage companies that provide superior service if you want to have a company that competes having a future in real estate. And I've been... I mean, there's a lot of people talking about this now. Gary Keller calls it the "tech-enabled agent," which is just one way of saying that. I think that it's going to be even more than that. I think you've got to have people that are extremely focused on making sure that this transaction is some of the best service available.Alex Vincent: Absolutely. I love that you kind of opened that up for me. We... With everything that happened over the past year, you know. Mark, Zach, and myself really sat down and said, "Okay, this is an opportunity for yous to rebuild, to sit down." We actually scratched our admission values, et cetera. And redid that. And we're really excited, and it pumped us even more. You know, our mission now is to revolutionize your relationship with real estate.Alex Vincent: And it really inspires us being able to say that. You know, we know that we want our service to go beyond a transaction or a sale. You know, in big-picture thinking that means being an all service team. You know, that someday that would mean everybody's specializing in something specific. If that's helping people move, if that's a lender, a title company in-house. Big picture thinking. You know, what does this mean? Where is the industry going? We have people we talk about Redfin and Zillow. It's "How do we best serve our community?"Robby T: I think far too many people view tech and these other companies as being a threat. And I've always argued that the biggest threat to real estate is not really tech. It's poorly performing agents who provide terrible service.Alex Vincent: Agreed.Robby T: And Zillow is going to get their fair share of the pie as well as Redfin. And good for them. Like, let's... I mean, if people took that energy and poured that into themselves to become better, to provide better service. And pour it into their clients, they wouldn't have to be afraid about the demon that is on the other side of the river. So I guess just from my perspective, focus on you and how you can bring your game to the next level. That's how you are going to make it through this transition. [crosstalk 00:23:11]Nate Joens: I have a point kind of on this topic.Robby T: And that's a whole can of worms. I'm going to put a stop on that, because I can go on forever and it's [crosstalk 00:23:16]Nate Joens: It's maybe a multi-pronged question. But I'll just start it off by: could you, Alex, could you tell us a little bit about how you specialize? You know, Robby has always said that his ISAs are the only ones to touch team leads. Is that your role? Are you the only one who can tough team leads? Where are you getting leads from? Where are you sourcing them from? Where are they being distributed? Things like that.Robby T: Good question.Alex Vincent: Sure. So everybody's in charge of their own core. We actually have all of our leads... Well, things definitely changed. We were the last region to be touched or impacted by the Zillow, I don't even know what you call it.Robby T: PA-4.Alex Vincent: Yes, thank you. So previously, it was a lot more in our control. Now it is, as you call it. So it's important, if it's just me, it's important that somebody answers the phone so that goes to all of sales. Whoever answers the phone. Otherwise leads actually get dumped into a pond and I lead generate off of that. The sales department is more than welcome to do so. However, they generally don't because they have me to do it. So core, a previous client I've already built relationships with. Our agents will reach out to our agents and that's absolutely fine. But besides that, all of it is on me. The cold calling, the bulk in for our expires and withdrawns. I actually tap right into Zillow for sale by owners that are listed. And of course the Zillow that comes in.Alex Vincent: I can't remember off the top of my head, I want to say last year it was like 30% of our leads were Zillow conversions and the rest were repeat referral bulk-in. Et cetera.Nate Joens: Go ahead, Robby.Alex Vincent: That's always a question. Yeah.Nate Joens: That was basically based in-Robby T: I want to go in... No, do you have any more follow-up pieces that go along with that, Nate? Okay. Cool. So I want to dig into this. Alex, tell us what is the biggest pain point that you run into when it comes to being an ISA? Because there's people that are going to listen to this that are brand new. And let's be real, it's not always sunshine and rainbows. I wish. But what are some of the biggest pain points that you go through in the role? And what advice would you give to somebody regarding those pain points, regarding on how to get through them?Alex Vincent: That's a good question. So for me with where I am in the business, for me right now it's hiring. I'm so picky. And with that hire that didn't work out last year, it really shined some light into how much more picky I needed to be.Robby T: Sure.Alex Vincent: Anybody that's coming into this role with the expectation to grow the role, the department, the team, leverage is always going to be the most difficult probably for anybody. In any role. Not just an ISA. As an agent. Et cetera.Alex Vincent: You know, I guess maybe starting out in the beginning for me it was building a pipeline. Last year we really focused on seller nurtures. And that really helped us keep on pace with our listing conversions and needs. And so what that means is that when you focus on a sell and nurture, I mean, how do you define that? You just [inaudible 00:26:57] that somebody that's been willing to talk to you within a year that wants to list their home within a year. You know your motivation on why you want to list with them. Or why you want to list their home in general.Alex Vincent: And you know, that's pretty much it. And so basically having a goal of saying, "Okay, how many seller nurtures am I going to get a day?" So I say, "I want to have five people that are commit to talking to me within the year that want to list with us. Or at least have a conversation with us.Robby T: Sure.Alex Vincent: And that's been huge. Building that pipeline. I mean, I'm 20% lead gen, 80% follow-up now. In the beginning when you're just starting off it's usually the opposite. You're like 80% lead gen. And you can kind of get into this mindset funk, if you will, of constantly trying to get people in where I think the common misconception is focusing on need conversion. A lot of those appointments will be in the follow-up. And not in the initial call because you're not just focusing on the appointment, you're focusing on building a relationship. And with the right person, if that makes sense.Robby T: I love that. I got a follow-up question with that. When did that switch happen? Because you talked about in the beginning it was about 80% stuffing the pipeline and then probably 20% converting it. When did that switch happen? When did you feel that switch? And it doesn't have to be specific but roughly when?Alex Vincent: I would say within six months of the role.Robby T: Six months?Alex Vincent: Yeah, I rebuilt it within six months of starting I really felt it coming to fruition. And even as we started growing there was this constant, what's the quote? Gary Keller said that "Even NASA, their ships are on route 3% of the time." So you're constantly adjusting and changing and that's how I feel all the time. We're constantly adjusting and changing. So there's a little bit of, you feel like you're being moved back sometimes as the team starts making changes, adding people on. Changing systems. That's also that white water stage, if you will. If you're familiar with predictable success.Alex Vincent: But as long as you keep that pipeline strong, you're always going to see these things coming to fruition.Nate Joens: Can you share how many people are approximately in your pipeline right now?Alex Vincent: [crosstalk 00:29:16] Six months for sure.Nate Joens: Last couple of months or so? Can you share how many people are in your pipeline like now, or you're just maintaining at a given time?Alex Vincent: Sorry, can you say that again? I didn't hear that question from the beginning.Nate Joens: Yeah.Alex Vincent: Oh, that's a good question. So I have like five hundred right now. And I need to get through them. And that's just from me catching up from being out.Nate Joens: Robby, how many do your guys have?Alex Vincent: If I'm being completely transparent. But-Nate Joens: Robby, what does Jim say that you manage?Alex Vincent: [inaudible 00:29:59] Say that one more time?Robby T: We were talking about this the other day. And I want to say the number probably was five to seven hundred per ISA that have been in the role for more than a year. Give or take. And I think... And I actually I don't get as concerned about having... I'd much rather have too many people in the pipeline than none, first off.Alex Vincent: Yeah, I definitely have to-Robby T: Yeah, I wouldn't stress about that. And I do think that from my perspective that one of the cheat codes... And I've recently started writing a book, because I'm a nerd, calling it "Lead Conversion Cheat Codes" and-Alex Vincent: Well it's about time since you've read so many.Robby T: Yeah, exactly. I'm excited for it. But one of the cheat codes is that with your follow-ups you have to prioritize it. And every single one of our follow-ups is labeled A, B, C, or D. Because when I actually follow up with someone, you want to make sure that you actually you follow up with your As before your Bs before your Cs before your Ds.Alex Vincent: Exactly. Being able to prioritize your leads. We do that as well.Robby T: Correct. Exactly. And that makes it so that 500, if I had to guess, it's probably broken down to the majority are Cs and Ds, if I had to guess.Alex Vincent: You are correct.Robby T: And if you don't call that person back exactly a year later, they don't care. You can call them back ten days late and it doesn't matter. With your As, if you call back ten days late, you might as well light, I don't know, a couple hundred dollar bills on fire. So. Anyways, but yeah. We're kind of in the same ballpark.Alex Vincent: Yes. And to address: someone had a question about having 7500 leads in their system. How to go? Prioritization is key. And setting rules for that prioritization are non-negotiable. So As are, for this is how we do it. And this is something we've kind of ripped off and repeated from Hatch, but As are first thing in the morning. People you need to connect with right away. If this is somebody that came in at 10 PM last night through your website, through Zillow, whatever, right away. Usually you want to connect with them usually between 8 and 9 AM. And what we know from just data and research is 8 and 9 AM. And then 3:30 and 5:30, or some people argue 4:00 to 6:00, whatever, are the best times to reach people. Because it's right when they're getting into work or right before and vice versa, leaving.Alex Vincent: So connecting with those people first and then calling them a couple times a day. Sometimes I'll try to reach them again before during lunch hour or before I leave the office. Vulcan, I try to get out of the way immediately. Again, same reason. Catching them before they go into work can be powerful. Also, catching people before they've already been blown up by 50 million realtors and are already pissed off is really important. If you've ever called Vulcan or a similar system that also reaches out to expired withdrawns, basically you know you've called too late in the day. You've already been cursed out enough and you don't need that any more in your life.Robby T: Amen. Yep.Alex Vincent: So reaching them is really important. And that's pretty much my 20% lead gen. You know, sprinkled throughout the day. If I'm behind on goal, I'll definitely add more later in the day. I feel like I'll do Fizzbows through Zillow are really easy easy. That's actually my easiest to convert, personally. And they should really be anybody's because in theory they're the most motivated. But, yeah. And then the rest of it's follow-up meetings, trainings, et cetera.Alex Vincent: When you have so many leads in the database, it's really hard not to feel overwhelmed. I know I am somebody that has that "Too much on my desk" feeling constantly. And trying to battle that is just a mindset thing. Knowing as long as you keep going and chipping away, you're not going to be really able to do all at once. And there are some system you might want to put in that are, of course, going to be more automated to help you achieve your goals and kind of help that feeling be alleviated.Alex Vincent: But for the most part, a lot of it for us is coming through leverage and prioritization. For sure.Robby T: I love that. And you said something, Alex, and I want to make sure everybody else heard is if you have 7500, the first thing that you should do is chunk it. And don't worry about 7500. Take 50, 100, 200 leads at a time and attack those. I think that when we talk in 7500 and you try attacking all of them, it causes you just not to take any action. You got to break it up into smaller bite-sized pieces.Robby T: So start somewhere. I typically want to advise you want to start with the newest opportunities that are the highest quality and work backwards to the, at the very end, have the oldest and the lowest quality up to that came through. I will say this, though. I say lowest quality for one reason. For my perspective is, just because someone signed up four or five years ago doesn't mean it's a dead lead. That's where everybody goes wrong is, we confirm leads consistently and that sounds so ridiculous that are four, five years old. And we called hundreds to firms and never heard a thing. So don't give up, don't write it off. But make sure you're working through the 7500 with the cream of the crop first and then work backwards.Nate Joens: Kind of switching gears, I have one follow-up question on advice. Alex, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to a seasoned ISA? Rather than a new one?Alex Vincent: [inaudible 00:35:53] Don't be afraid to go back to basics. You know, as someone that's been out for so long and coming back into it, I had to go back to basics. Don't forget about training. As good as you think you are there is always opportunity to get better. Like I said, fairly recently I've been calling Vulcans for leads for two years now. And recently we made a switch and I'm seeing a huge improvement, and that was just a suggestion from my coach. So training, a coach, don't just fall out of those back to basic that mindset. A lot of people to usually kind of blame agents for this and ISAs can be just as guilty of this: is falling out of that schedule or that routine. You know, they'll think, "Oh, I'm doing great." Well don't forget the work you put in three months ago was really makes you feel like that right now. [crosstalk 00:36:51]So mindset, always mindset.Robby T: I love it.Nate Joens: You talk about the different stages that you're in as an organization or a team or a business. What does does leveling up to... I mean maybe you can tell us like what does leveling up the first time, so maybe after that first six months feel like? And then what is the next level look for you guys? How do you guys know that you're leveling up to the next stage?Alex Vincent: Leveling up to me looks like my numbers just getting bigger. Just being able to capture more people and help more families. And being able to have that talent or that leverage to be able to train them to do the same thing. And that's another reason why knowing your numbers is so important. You want to know where you're going. You have goals. You need to be keeping track of them. So you know for us right now, it's definitely building out that ISA division. We want to be more ISA heavy than agent heavy. You know then building out the ops division, knowing that we shouldn't be having one ops person to every five agents or something. It would be really [inaudible 00:38:09].Alex Vincent: And just being service oriented as well.Robby T: Sure. I love it.Alex Vincent: Yeah. So we're really excited. We're really happy. Even though we took a step back from me being out and us having some things that didn't work out last year. Which... It sucks. But it really gave us some more insight on what we should be doing. It gave us an opportunity to pump ourselves up in an even better direction. So we're just trying to get things rolling, if you will.Robby T: I love it.Alex Vincent: Anyone who wants to come to Baltimore and wants to interview as an ISA, email me! We're looking for talented people.Robby T: Don't reach out to my ISAs. Keep your hands off. So I love... Alex, first off, this is really, really good. I think you've brought a lot of different value than you've brought on the show that was a lot more systems oriented. And systems are key. And obviously you guys have that dialed in. You're constantly looking for your flaws, which is great. I do want to give you major cred. There is not another ISA, I don't think anyone in real estate, having a baby on their lap calling leads. And it's just... If you're an agent and you're saying you're too busy to call leads, I'm sorry. But I mean, you just don't have an excuse. So I love that you're taking full ownership and there's no excuses there, so that's really cool.Robby T: I'm excited to see you scale the ISA department for you as well. And when we have you on next time, hopefully there's another person that we've brought on that's had some success there. But as always, we've got to end on a nerdy note. Being lead peak and all that good stuff. So I always ask: do you... Are you a Star Wars person? Do you like Game of Thrones? Maybe other? And you've got to tell me why.Alex Vincent: Okay. My geeky... So of course, Game of Thrones. If you don't like Game of Thrones, I don't think we can even be friends. Just as skeptical.Robby T: Hey now.Alex Vincent: And the funny thing is, when I watched the white walker battle I went to go see the new Avengers movie the day after. And it was just like so much, all within a 24 hour period.Robby T: That's a lot.Alex Vincent: But yeah, it's definitely Game of Thrones. I don't want to spoil anything for anybody. The books are amazing, I highly recommend them.Robby T: Oh yeah. A little graphic. A little more graphic than the show, which I didn't think was possible.Alex Vincent: More graphic. More characters, you know. Like a book, I guess, it's just always more detailed.Robby T: I want to do one spoiler real quick.Alex Vincent: Yeah.Robby T: There's one spoiler for Game of Thrones I've got to share. There's a Starbucks cup.Alex Vincent: Were you watching, did you actually notice it?Robby T: I didn't. I didn't. I had no clue. And then I saw it, I was like... I went back and saw it and was like, "Dang!"Alex Vincent: People were mad about it. I actually thought it was kind of cool.Nate Joens: An Easter egg.Alex Vincent: Then it was like, "Surprise! There's been a Starbucks cup in every episode and nobody's noticed it [inaudible 00:41:27]" or some crap like that would be awesome.Robby T: I love it. The firm real nerds understand.Alex Vincent: Love it. Yes. And I think it's just funny because as I interview people, the nerdier you are the more you kind of enjoy this role. Is that really sad to say? But it's so true.Robby T: There's a reason we call them "Leads Geeks."Alex Vincent: Yes.Robby T: I mean, look, Nate's a nerd. And I hope people know when I say that you're a nerd and Alex, you're a nerd. That is a cool thing. That is me giving you a label of... A term of endearment. In a good thing. I just love that that's a place we're at.Alex Vincent: And the opportunity for growth in this role is insane. Pretty much wherever you go, you really... I would hope, at least. In any team it opens up a lot of opportunities and doors. And financially as well. It's just the books that I have read since I've been brought into this team. The way I operate in my marriage, I've become a whole different person. And I would hope that anybody in this role kind of takes the opportunity to get themselves networking with as many people as possible. And you know, reading as much as you can. About the role, about the business, about business in general. The skills... Just DISC. Just something as simple as DISC. And you know I'm a DI and my husband's an SI. And I can't tell you how much we... It's great. Just to be able to acknowledge that. Schools like that.Nate Joens: Recommendations? I don't know, it seems like we should be asking everyone for book recommendations.Alex Vincent: "Predicable Success," One of my favorites.Nate Joens: "The Ideal Team Player."Robby T: I like it.Alex Vincent: And "The Ideal Team Player" is something I'm reading right now.Robby T: Cool.Alex Vincent: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Just started that. Yeah, definitely. These are more business. Not just ISA-directed. They're more business books. You know, but, at the same time, if this is actor, present yourself where you want to be, right? You know. If you're an ISA starting out with the opportunity to grow, read these books because the level of conversation you'll be having not just externally with potential clients, but internally with your team leader with people you may want to fulfill that. You can feel yourself elevate.Nate Joens: "Lead Conversion Cheat Codes" is the new one?Robby T: Love it. Give it time, give it time.Alex Vincent: You're going to send me one, right, Robby?Robby T: Yes, yes I will. The Robby... It is... Writing is a fun, yet difficult process and I bring it up cautiously, but knowing that she will get done this year. So pretty excited about it.Nate Joens: Alex and Robby, as always, I appreciate both of your guys time today. It was very exciting. A little bit different than our other ones, which is just a great flair to add to our interviews with the top ISA. And Alex, you are definitely a top ISA. With that, as always, I am responsible for bringing out the famous yellow bucket today, apparently. And we will begin our giveaways as we do here on some of our webinars.Nate Joens: So here's the famous yellow bucket. Just so you know, we're giving away two old lead bundles today. 50 leads each, two winners. We will follow up with you guys via email. The winners, everyone who either registers or was on this, this will be available as a recording via email, YouTube, and on the ISA radio. So without further ado, we have got: Cathy Thoth. Thoth? Cathy Thoth. After I get this... No, unfortunately not.Robby T: And Robby T!Nate Joens: You have too many leads.Robby T: Am I eligible?Nate Joens: And the second winner [crosstalk 00:46:08] is Sunny Binder? [crosstalk 00:46:11] Binder? Binder. All right. Well, congrats guys. Let me just write your names here. No, he's got it. Perfect. I will follow up with you guys shortly. Alex and Robby, thanks again for your time today. Make sure you subscribe to the ISA Radio. We're getting caught up on our episodes-Alex Vincent: Thank you very much.Nate Joens: If you missed any of our higher episodes of our Interview with the Top ISA series, they're available on the Structurely YouTube as well as the ISARadio.com. That is a must subscribe. Available on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify. Anywhere that you can listen to a podcast, it's available. All right. Thank you! Take care everyone.Robby T: I love it. Thank you, Alex. I appreciate you talking!Alex Vincent: Thank you for having me.Nate Joens: You're very welcome.Alex Vincent: Goodbye, guys.Nate Joens: Goodbye.