About

Nate Joens: Welcome everybody. My name is Nate Joens. I'm the CEO of Structurely and welcome to the... What are we on, the fourth episode of the top ISA series?Robby T: I think we're actually on... Is it six?Nate Joens: I can't even remember.Robby T: A lot. We're on a number. We're on some number of the ISA series.Nate Joens: Yes, whatever number it is, we're excited to be here with Robby T from Hatch, as usual, joining us today with Tyler Stracener from the Novak team at eXp Realty in Everett, Washington. Robby, give us the intro to him, or Tyler please introduce yourself.Robby T: For sure. So, obviously I go by Robby T for one simple reason. My last name sounds like the pharmaceutical drug and I joke that it sounds like that with all the problems and none of the money. So I have no qualms with calling Tyler, Tyler S. So Stracener, Stracener, whatever your crap is, I'm just going to call you Tyler S though this whole interview. If it [crosstalk 00:01:06] undo it.Tyler Stracener: Yep.Robby T: Anyways, super excited. We were supposed to have Chris on today and something that came up, a family emergency, and, frankly, super excited because I reached out to Tyler. I've had the privilege of coaching him now for a while and although he is somewhat new to the game, not been doing this for years yet, his skills are unparalleled for being at this level of the game. And he naturally gets it.Robby T: It's deceiving, but he's a tall man. If he were to stand up, he'd kind of disappear on us. And is a former basketball coach and fell into the ISA world. But I've said enough about you. I would love for you to kind of share about yourself Tyler.Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Right there. I come from a huge basketball background. Lots of coaching, lots of playing. Plenty of injuries, which ended my career. And a lot of that just kind of translates into what I'm good at now, and that's relating with a lot of different people. But then also just the personal competition with yourself 24/7 and the performance aspect has always been something that's been there in my life and has been a motivation for me to keep pushing forward.Robby T: I love it. And you guys have a pretty large ISA department, don't you guys, Tyler? It's how many ISAs now?Tyler Stracener: Well we've got three ISAs now.Robby T: In addition to you, or three total?Tyler Stracener: Three total. So I'm one of those three.Robby T: Awesome. And you oversee that department, correct?Tyler Stracener: Correct, yeah.Robby T: I love it. Good, good. So I think one of the coolest things I want to make sure we hop into today is you talked about how you were a coach for basketball, and I'd love to hear, how is that coaching of basketball translate into coaching and leading your ISAs?Tyler Stracener: Well, I really believe that coaching is coaching. It doesn't really matter what you're coaching. Early on in my coaching career, I started off coaching third grade boys and went all the way up through high school coaching boys. And then I made the abrupt change to be the varsity head girls coach at my old high school.Robby T: Ahhh.Tyler Stracener: One of the questions that I just... For some reason it just kept coming up, of, "Well, how are you planning on adjusting from coaching boys to coaching girls?" And my answer was, "Basketball is still basketball." It doesn't matter who's playing it. It's the same thing. But then making the switch to being an ISA and leading our ISA squad, I've really found that coaching is just coaching. It doesn't matter what you're coaching.Tyler Stracener: So everything that I do now is still things that I did when I was a basketball coach. From putting trainings together, what people will need to work on, observing every single day. That's kind of one of the biggest things that I do as a coach. One of the habits was watching the players as they're walking in the door. Are they sluggish, do they have a hop in their step, what's their gait like, are they excited? Do they come in together, do they come in separate? There's so many things to watch. And I still do that with the ISA squad now. And how they walk in the door is kind of that immediate, "Oh, today's going to be a good day." Or I might need to throw in some motivation into the day.Robby T: I love that. Good, good. So, I mean if you were to summarize, you said it a couple of times, coaching is coaching. And what is coaching? And obviously you've coached boys, you've coached girls basketball. There is one difference between the two, by the way. The balls are slightly different in size.Tyler Stracener: Slightly.Robby T: Slightly. That's all I know about basketball. Let's be real. Anyways, what does coaching really mean? If you were to break that down, what do you think coaching really is if you were to summarize it?Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Really, the act of coaching, I really think it's one, building the relationship, and if you don't have the relationship, the trust, and the respect, no matter how good of a coach you are, the technique, it won't be heard. So that's really the first step, is really building that relationship with whoever you're coaching. But then past that, you have to know them so well that you know exactly how to coach them. I'm sure that you can relate to this Robby, is how you coach me isn't necessarily how you coach somebody else. You have to take a different approach. And understanding really where the person comes from. And sometimes knowing them a little bit better than what they know of themselves. Sometimes pulling out those harder things that they kind of ignore or just neglected along the way. But really, the act of coaching, I really don't think it's the telling them what to do, it's... this will resonate. Asking the right questions to lead them to figure it out themselves. Because that's really where people learn best.Robby T: I like that. So, one's relationships, two's taking a customized approach, and then three, as opposed to telling, I think that the phrase I always use is, you help them self-discover. And the funny part is that being an ISA, frankly, we can just call ourselves coaches. That's really if you think about what ISAs do in the real estate process, is they're just coaching somebody and one big ah-ha that's really played into this, is if you're coaching someone stories change naturally over time, right?Tyler Stracener: Yep.Robby T: And when we're having calls with leads or you're coaching somebody, the reality is that the story should be changing, new information should be coming to the table. That means you're doing your job well. But maybe we'll just petition to change it to ISAs are coaches. That's the new label.Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Yep. And, when talking with a basketball player, really figuring out why they play this sport. Why do they love it, what's kind of their motivation, is the same thing when you're talking with a client. Why are they really wanting to do this? And so now, once you have that, you know how to continue forward and keep coaching them through the process to achieve what they really want. If you don't know that, you might be leading them in the wrong direction.Robby T: I love that. Nate, go ahead.Nate Joens: Yeah, no. I'm just taking it in. That's pretty interesting. Could you just give the listeners a little bit of a high level about your team set up? Where are you getting leads, some of the tech that you're using, what's the day-to-day process look like for you and your ISAs?Tyler Stracener: Yeah, so the day-to-day process, we come in here, we're all in at 7:45 going through role plays together. And then once we start hitting the phones... Really just kind of quick tech stuff, we use Infusionsoft as our CRM and we get leads from many different lead sources from Zillow, Redfin, all that stuff, sign calls. Our ISAs actually handle all the sign calls, so that's been kind of not so much of a recent change, but it's been a game changer for the ISAs. We've had a lot of success with just us handling it.Tyler Stracener: But as far as the handling leads as a whole, the ISAs aren't the only ones getting leads. We're kind of a hybrid, so to speak, where agents are still handling new leads, ISAs are handling new leads. It really kind of helps one, hold everybody accountable, but it's not like the agents are just sitting there waiting for appointments either. So, we kind of work on a floor shift system where you have designated hours of when you're responsible to make sure that no lead falls through the cracks and you're 100% responsible for making sure that those leads are contacted. And then everybody's dialing almost all day. Really just trying to create as many conversations as we can.Nate Joens: That's interesting. I know that's a different model than what Hatch takes, in that ISAs touch every lead first. I'm kind of curious to hear what your opinion, Robby, is on that... on letting agents take the leads directly.Robby T: So, what I'll do, Tyler, if you just want to lean to your right, I think it's your right, yes your right. There are very few real estate teams that hire agents that come in and know they're going to be making the calls like an ISA. And Mike and Rachel have built a culture that this is their absolute standard. And Tyler, I think you guys are unique that this is normal in your world, and if somebody can't make the calls as an agent, they don't cover their floor shifts. If I had to guess, they're not going to be around long. It's a part of your culture that you're going to be doing that work. So when you come in as an agent in you guys' world, you're signing up for that and you know what's coming.Robby T: So, I think, that's the first thing I would say. There's obviously, literally, 1,000 different ways to play this ball game, but I think as long as... The ISA role was created for one simple reason. Let's just be real. Because when agents get super busy, the first thing that falls off is lead generation. And that's why the ISA role was really created was agents weren't making enough calls, they weren't doing it. And what I love about Mike and them is they've hybrided it and what we've seen happen over time is the ISAs are getting access to more and more opportunities. You guys are just slowly earning it, which is the best way to do it.Robby T: Where I see... And I used to advocate for this, by the way, as a coach. I used to advocate, hire an ISA, shut off the flow of leads to your agents and give it all to your ISAs and that has disastrous consequences. I'll own that. And I've told many people I made a mistake there. And the reason is, is that you bring an ISA in and the reality is, is they're like a new 15 to 16 year old driver and if you just give them the keys to a brand new Range Rover, AK the brand new high quality leads, two things are going to happen.Robby T: Number one is they're going to crash it because they're a 14 to 15 year old driver. And now they're driving a $100,000 Range Rover. What did you expect to happen? But, secondly, the reality is if you want to be a successful ISA, you can't just convert the Range Rovers. You've got to be willing to go and drive the 1990s Honda Civics, or if you drive a Civic, I used to drive a crappy Matrix. I've now upgraded to a somewhat new Subaru. Family stuff, right? I have a family safe car. The point being is if you give an ISA all those brand new leads right away, they accidentally crash the car, and then they become a little bit entitled because if you give that kid a Range Rover and then you say go drive that junker, they're going to say, "Nah." They're going to be frustrated with it. And I learned that lesson first hand at the expense of some of my clients and it sucks. But now I advise, go the path that they're going of have the ISA earn the opportunities to get the leads.Robby T: So, give them the crap, have them earn it, and eventually get the better stuff.Tyler Stracener: Yeah. And to kind of build on that, giving a kid a Ferrari as his first car, knowing how much power is in a Ferrari, they're never going to get out of second gear. And so learning how to drive a stick the hard way when the clutch sticks, you're going to learn how to appreciate the smoother clutch. And it's going to be when you start getting those newer lead sources, you're going to be able to hold a conversation so much better because you've had the... I kind of call them little fist bites within the conversation of objection after objection after objection. But then you get these leads that are more motivated and right away the answer is, "Yes, I do want to be making a move." Now you actually know how to handle that conversation because you've had so many hard ones in the past.Robby T: I love it.Nate Joens: Good point. Yeah, yeah, I like that. It makes a lot of sense and I know we've kind of brought up that Range Rover analogy before and it hits home very time.Tyler Stracener: Yeah.Nate Joens: Tyler, can you kind of talk through what is the lifecycle, the career path of an ISA and an agent on your team?Tyler Stracener: So really when Mike and Rachel started this team, they had the envision of we're going to be the absolute Navy Seals. And we're not going to be like Seal Team Three. We're going to be Seal Team Six. And we're not just the elite, we're actually the elite of the elite. So really the standards that we have are extremely high. Sometimes people come in here with a gung-ho attitude and within a week, I mean I've seen it first day, they decide that this isn't quite for them. They might be well-suited somewhere else, but as far as the standards that we have, really it takes somebody who is a little I guess screw loose to really dive in to this team and start showing up and getting shit done right away.Tyler Stracener: And to kind of talk about some of the standards of... We keep agents on the phone for a reason. The number one thing that we've seen that people leave over is because of the phone. Whether its they're scared of it or they can't produce on it. And so that's why we start everybody there. As the ISA team, I really encouraged all of us ISAs that when we have new agents come in, that we're the ones setting the standards on the phone because we're the specialists on the phone. And the harder we work, the higher call volumes, more appointments, more conversations, they get to hear us more, which improves their ability on the phone, too.Tyler Stracener: So really the ISA team as far as the phone goes, we're the ones who really set the standard, whether its quota, so to speak, or it's just this is what we do. Just because you make so many phone calls, doesn't mean you get to leave. You're here. We make money off of appointments, so do they. They just get to take it a few steps further.Nate Joens: Sure.Robby T: I want to dive into that real quick. I think one of the coolest things that you said was, "You guys didn't want to be elite, you wanted to be elite of the elite." And you talked about how you guys have people that come into your world with a little bit of a screw loose. And really that screw loose, I think if we were to find something, is some form of hunger. There's got to be something that causes you to push yourself through a ton of discomfort almost every single day in some way, shape, or form. And then, of course, the reality is when we're hiring people, sometimes people say they're hungry and then they get into practice and it's not there.Robby T: And one of the biggest things I think really... and I'd love your perspective. You said you have very high standards to kind of protect being the elite of the elite. I'd love to kind of hear some examples of that, Tyler, of what does that standard look like and what teeth does it have? Because I've always said that, and we say in our coaching business, that a standard without a consequence is merely a suggestion. And I'd love to hear how you actually make it a standard.Tyler Stracener: Yeah, so, as we've talked about, our culture is huge. And a lot of the times it's our culture that really kind of weeds people out and lets the cream rise to the top. And so we're always in the office, agents, ISAs, we're in here, especially during the morning power hours from 8:00 to 11:00, agents are in the office. They aren't leaving. And us ISAs are here all day. So we're kind of feeding off of everybody, the energy is definitely high. We work hard and play hard.Tyler Stracener: But when it starts to just becoming playing hard and standards aren't being met for us ISAs, 200 phone calls a day, 1,000 a week, or you're having at least five appointments hold in the week, because really you could set a 100 appointments in the week and none of them hold, and it doesn't do you any good. So really having the stick ability in your appointments is where it really helps the team.Tyler Stracener: So when that's not being met... Really for the ISA team and agents, kind of your gold nugget is a brand new lead. Because that first phone call on that first day is where most leads are converted. So that's the consequence. If you're not meeting certain standards, then new leads get kind of taken away from you until you prove yourself otherwise. So, floor shifts, you're being taken off of floor shifts. Agents, they're coming off of the ISA round robin where if an ISA sets an appointment, usually it's a very good appointment. So having that taken away from an agent is kind of a detriment to them and their business. So those people really work to try to stay within the new leads, like the round robin for leads staying within the floor shifts. And for agents, it's making sure that they keep getting ISA set appointments.Robby T: Hmm. I like it. Would you mind, Tyler, you said the first thing that you really have high standards in regards to is your culture. And obviously culture is a very... It's a buzzword throughout business. And culture to you, to me, to somebody else could be drastically different. So I'd love to hear, if you were to kind of briefly describe what your culture is, just so we can have some perspective on what is the Novak team's culture really look like.Tyler Stracener: Yeah.Nate Joens: Can I jump in here? Another thing I want you to touch on that I know I took away from meeting you guys in BAMF is your open office Tuesdays when you let other agents come in. Could you touch on those, because that's a really cool idea that I'd love people to hear.Robby T: Yeah, that'd be cool.Tyler Stracener: Yeah, so I guess I'll try to explain our culture from those people that come in on Tuesdays of what their first impressions are. I guess if I were to sum up the office in one word, it would be loud. We're all together, nobody has their own offices, my desk is right next to the rest of the ISA squad. So everybody's having the conversations. When we're working hard and we're killing the phones, creating conversations, we're all having conversations, so the office is loud.Tyler Stracener: But then after that 11:00 a.m. and kind of put the phone down for a little bit, take the headset off, let the ears cool down, that's when the humor in everybody starts to come out. And we start really relaxing together and there's jokes that it's almost like a room full of brother and sisters. We're all teasing each other, getting in the little sibling arguments. But when you have a group of people that when it's time to work and everybody dives in head first 100% and you're kind of going through the trenches together, nobody's really left alone. But then also when you do make it out on the other side we're still there together and celebrating the wins, ringing the bell, high-fiving. I mean I guess the best way for me to explain it, is it's almost like a locker room experience. There's a lot of teasing. Yeah, it really is a lot of fun. Even though you're working your ass off every single day and kind of the grind is wearing on you a little bit, your teammates are right there behind you and you know that the support's there. And that's a big thing within the culture, is that if I don't trust you to have my back, then I don't know if I want you there.Robby T: Truth.Tyler Stracener: Kind of the thought process, especially when I'm interviewing ISAs, is would I want to be friends with you outside of the office? I don't have kids yet, but I'm sure that when I do, would I trust you to babysit my kids? And that's something great that we've been able to have. I know that agents have it too, but the ISAs we have a designated day where we go out to lunch together and it's the best, we're just together right there.Nate Joens: I like it.Robby T: Loud, fun, playful, and it sounds like you guys really deeply care about each other above all else. I know that when you were at our mastermind BAMF, that's Chuck in your world. And Chuck is a lead agent on your team in some way, shape, or form, right, Tyler?Tyler Stracener: Yes.Robby T: And the guy is...He's a bigger dude. He dress so dapper, looks so good. And the dude just exudes love. Just you can tell that he deeply cares about everyone, about everything he does. And obviously that's at all levels of your organization, whether it's Rachael, Mike, you, and the rest of the team as well. I think that's another thing I'd say your culture really exists of. There's a lot of love in the place for each other. It's one of those things... I think the commonality we have, we're not as loud in our world, but the fun and playful side and the love and caring is super key. So that's great. I love hearing that.Nate Joens: Really quick, can you explain what open office is?Tyler Stracener: Yeah. So the open office, yeah, it's two Tuesdays out of the month where we have outside agents. A lot of times they're starting team or they're an individual agent just trying to find that next step within their business. Mike and Rachael open up the conference room, open up the office and they come in, it's a little bit more of a classroom setting where you really get to ask your direct questions of, "What lead sources should I be focusing on? What skill sets should I be improving? What's working right now? What should I kind of anticipate down the road?" I've been able to sit in on a couple of them and really they start from the moment that a lead comes in until its closed. And they go through the whole process of best practices. Really, if there's any question that you have about real estate, asking it to Mike and Rachael, you're going to get a very quality answer.Tyler Stracener: I know that I feel lucky enough to learn underneath them and really see their... They're the ones that created this culture, they're the ones who their first year sold 75 homes between the two of them. And they know how to get it done. They know how to get shit done.Robby T: That's awesome. I love it.Nate Joens: A lot of people would be fearful of giving their competitors that much inside information. I think that's pretty cool to see how you guys open that up.Tyler Stracener: Yeah. And a big belief that I brought from basketball is you should do what you do so well, that you could give the other team your playbook and they still can't beat you with it. Just because you run it so well. So, I mean really our culture is kind of starting to expand outside of the team of we don't just want each other to succeed, we want everybody else to succeed to. So if we have the opportunity to help out some other agents, because ultimately we see it as our responsibility, whether somebody works with us or not, they need the best experience when it comes to buying or selling their home. So making sure that all the agents within our community work at a top tier level, that's awesome. We're happy that we can do that.Nate Joens: Yeah. So if you're listening, Tyler wants you to succeed. That's it.Robby T: I love it. That's why he's here.Tyler Stracener: Yep.Robby T: I love it. Good, good. Anything else you want to hit on regarding their team and stuff, Nate, or should we switch gears a little bit?Nate Joens: Yeah. Go ahead and switch gears.Robby T: So I kind of love... Obviously, being an ISA isn't always fine and dandy. It's not always the most fun thing. I'd love to... First off, maybe we start with what's your favorite part about of being an ISA and then what has been the most challenging piece of being an ISA? So I'd love to hear both of those.Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Really I think that the greatest challenge and the greatest success as an ISA, you could talk to 100 different people and they'll have 100 different answers. For me and my own experience, the greatest joy and success that I have is the true connection with other people. I am a high I. I do like to be around people, I do like talking with people. So being able to do that and really building, again, that relationship with somebody over the phone and truly connecting with that person. I mean, there's times where you're just completely surprised that somebody feels comfortable enough to tell you some of the things that they're telling you. And so to be able to relate with somebody, even from a distance, that's kind of one of those greatest things.Tyler Stracener: But then also the hardest thing as an ISA for me is the times where you hear some things going on in other people's lives. I've definitely comes to terms with some of the reasons why people want or need to make a move are not going to be pleasant. An example, actually this still kind of plays over in my head, it's really still there, but it's a great example of... Called this lady, she really needed to sell her home. It was like, I need somebody out today. It needed to happen fast. So I kind of had to pump the brakes a little bit. "Well, okay, what's kind of the reason for the urgency here?" And had to go a couple of layers deep, but eventually what came out was that her 11 year old daughter had died three months before and she can't stop seeing her daughter playing in the hallway. And so she just needed out of that house.Tyler Stracener: And now telling, it still hits. And so for me, you've told me plenty of times, don't be the sponge, be the mirror. And it's so easy for me to be a sponge, and that's what makes me so, I guess, successful at relating with people, but, again, now going into the next phone call, I'm still holding onto that. So kind of letting those types of things go is, I would say, the absolute hardest for me. If I had an ISA that, "Oh, oh, okay, you know, onto the next phone call," and it didn't affect them at all, I'd be looking at them like you don't have a heart.Robby T: You're a psycho.Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Yep.Robby T: That's crazy. Just an off question on that, what percent of people do you think are buying for fun reasons and what percent of people are not buying for fun reasons? Or selling of course.Tyler Stracener: Yeah.Robby T: If you were to put a number on it, what percent are really doing it because they're happy and it's something that's a positive thing, and AK, they're really full on pursuing pleasure in some way, shape, or form, and then how many people are trying to escape some form of pain, from your experience?Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Really, if I had to split decision I would say that it's 50/50. And really those are the only two reasons why somebody really is making a move. They're running away from pain or they're running towards joy. It's up to us to figure out which one is going on so we can help them and lead them in the right direction. So many divorces, but also so many people just got married and the want to buy their first home. Baby was born, or somebody passed away. Those are four very common stories that we hear on really a daily basis.Robby T: Yeah. For some reason, 50/50s always been the number in my mind as well.Nate Joens: I'd be interested to do that on the Structurely side, because we actually can tag messages, and we do, and we have things like mention tragedy versus new child and new job. So we have a pretty granular look, and if we see one of those on all of our conversations, that might be a fun data analysis that we could run to prove if the 50/50 hypothesis is close.Robby T: I like it. That'd be cool to see. And I think the bigger thing is, the thing we should probably talk about is, the fun ones are easy. Like if they got married, that's easy. Anybody can do that. Where you earn your money is navigating the nasty conversations. I've always called them the Ds, debt, divorce, death. Just seems like all the bad words start with D. Hopefully nobody's name starts with D here. But, it's just death, divorce, and debt, those three things have really... significantly impact people, and those are tough conversations to have. And that's where an ISA [inaudible 00:34:28] I say earns their money, because you can't make assumptions in those conversations. In the fun ones, you make assumptions, you'll be fine. In the tough ones, if you make assumptions and if you don't listen, I highly doubt you're going to convert that lead. Those people are going to walk out the door.Tyler Stracener: Yeah. No, I definitely... 100% there. When somebody gets married, everybody, "Oh my God, congratulations." But when somebody says, "Yeah, my husband just passed," the last thing that they will want to hear is, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry." If I hear that on the phone, no you're not. You don't know me, you don't know what I'm going through. You don't... So, that's probably one of the hardest things at the beginning of those conversations is to not say you're sorry and to be okay with not saying it. Because a lot of times you want to say it so bad, but really listening to them and asking the questions of, "How are you doing?" If you have an instance where you can directly relate to that, just say, "I've been through something similar. How are you doing?" That's definitely one of the biggest things. For some reason, I'm a magnet for these conversations, so I've definitely had my fair share of practice over the last 12 months.Robby T: Yeah, I think on that note I listened to a call once where somebody said that their mother died and the person's response was, in the call, "I'm sorry, I know what you're going through, my mom died too." And even if your mom dies, that person doesn't want to hear that, because your relationship with your own mom is not the same that they had. Unfortunately, it's dismissive. And it's a script we've been taught. And if you really think about it, I'm sorry is really for the convenience of the person saying it so you can move on. It's not for the advantage of the person that's actually going through some pain. And if you all want some help on that, go check out Brene Brown and just look at empathy versus sympathy, because she is the OG of empathy and gets this better than anybody else. But yeah, there's just so many... For me, and when I've talked to our ISAs, it's almost always we come up with 50/50, so Nate, I'm excited to see the data you all have in your universe to see what those numbers look like.Nate Joens: Yeah, yeah. That would be interesting. Yes, so this was kind of an interesting... I know before we jumped on we said, "Let's cover the tough calls." I said, "You mean phone calls or like [inaudible 00:37:24]?" We've actually just covered tough calls, like phone calls. So, how about we move into tough decisions. What are the tough decisions that you have to make as an ISA?Tyler Stracener: I mean, as I said earlier, our culture is huge. The first thing that I do is really try to build a close relationship with ISAs and agents and kind of be that... Kind of lead from the front and try to know how to motivate them and encourage them to keep moving forward. So you build such a strong bond with people when they do come in, that now when those standards are not being met repetitively, then it's time to start thinking about that tough decision of are they the culture fit and are they meeting standards? And really making that hard decision of do they stay or should they go? And that's always such... It's a hard decision because it's like you're firing your sister. You don't do business with family for that specific reason, but when you have such a strong culture you kind of start to become a family.Tyler Stracener: So when you're having those hard conversations with your own teammates, that it really starts to feel like that you're firing your sister or your aunt or whoever it may be. But, in all reality, kind of relating it to the types of phone calls that we have of knowing exactly why they're here and why they're working so hard and sometimes just spinning their tires trying to get some traction, to know that is huge in these conversations because sometimes it might be best for them to achieve that somewhere else. And by keeping them around, one, you're just delaying the inevitable, but two you're holding them back because your culture and your environment and the position that they're in might not be the best position for them to achieve what they really want to do in life. That rationalization doesn't make it any easier, but it's a great way to kind of think through it and really you come in from the perspective of we want what is best for you. This isn't an us decision, it's a we decision, which is huge.Robby T: One of the mantras out there in business is hire fast, fire fast. I'd love to hear your thoughts Tyler on the mantra of hire fast and fire fast. Ooh, can you hear me?Tyler Stracener: You guys there?Robby T: Yeah, we can hear you, just not see you.Nate Joens: Can you still see me Robby?Robby T: I can. Can you see me and hear me?Nate Joens: Yep. That's weird.Robby T: That is weird. He's just frozen. That's a good photo. I'm going to take a photo of that.Nate Joens: [crosstalk 00:40:59] Unless he comes back, we'll pick that question up. Do you want to answer Debbie's question, Robby? It's a good one for you.Robby T: So what is a good response when dealing with a D. When you hear that terrible news, what is a good response to acknowledge it without derailing the conversation too much? I think the first thing you have to really do here is we need to know that Ds are almost always of two different types. They're either a DI or a DC. And really I think knowing the difference is key. The way you're going to tell the difference is an I tends to be more of a social, direct person, but they talk more with some feelings and they tend to be a little more outgoing. The DC tends to be a more quiet, analytical, soft, and they're talking in details.Robby T: So I think the first thing you really got to to do is you've got to properly mirror and match. What I've always said with DCs... What we talk about actually with DIs, what we just talked about absolutely plays of role playing where Tyler said something along the lines of, "How are you doing with that?" Sometimes I know in my case when somebody's gone through hell... Oh, dealing with the DI, thank you, yes, absolutely, okay, I see. This helps either way. Thanks Michelle for that clarification. I think sometimes it's okay to let them know... Yeah, I misunderstood it. Sometimes it's okay to let them know, "I don't even know what to say right now, but I appreciate you sharing that with me." That's a common response.Robby T: I know in my case I was talking to a father and they were looking to move and sell their home, very similar to Tyler's situation because they had accidentally backed over their kid and killed their child. And there's nothing to say to fix that. There's nothing you're going to say that's going to do it and I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember is I didn't say I'm sorry. There was silence. And I said, "I don't even know what to say right now. I appreciate you telling me that." And what I've found is the silence in that moment will be one second or two seconds, and it feels like it's 50. It feels like it's going to last an eternity. What I have found is when I've done... because when I used to say the I'm sorry to a death, divorce, is it creates... it moves on and there's no depth to it.Robby T: And the same thing happened in a conversation I had with... and I did a TED Talk on this actually... with an elderly lady whose husband passed away in a motorcycle accident. And I think what happens if you say I'm sorry, you might be able to move on and get maybe some more logistical details of what they want to do, but you're not going to build a connection with that human being. And I think what makes us human is us being compassionate, connected human beings, and being empathetic... What it does is it drives connection and sympathy drives disconnection.Robby T: So on top of that, go read Brene Brown's stuff, but empathy versus sympathy is super key. And I hope you all take this, and it's not just for the Ds, the death, divorce, debt. It applies to when your spouse or your friends are going through a crappy day. I know that a lot of us want to just fix things. I know I fall victim to that and sometimes someone wants to be just heard and really heard, so that'd be my couple thoughts on that.Robby T: Thanks for that clarification again, Michelle, appreciate it.Nate Joens: Tyler, you can hear us now, right?Tyler Stracener: Yes.Robby T: Ah, there you are.Nate Joens: I'm going to ask that question one more time. Robby, what was it? What are your thoughts on hire fast, fire fast?Robby T: Yeah. What I was asking Tyler was there's a common mantra in business of hire fast, fire fast. And I would love to hear your perspective on hire fast, fire fast.Tyler Stracener: Yeah. We were actually having this conversation just yesterday as a leadership squad. It's kind of funny. It really shows, with all of our experiences, is when you know it's time because for about the last 36 hours, you just know that it's going to happen. Whether you've been part of the decision from the outside looking in. That's what's so great about our culture is that how that person is operating within the culture will tell you what you need to do next. And then on the hiring side, how they integrate themselves into the culture. So we definitely... We do hire fast. We try to get people into the office as fast as possible. We have people shadow and kind of try to drop them in the culture as a test run, and if they fit, awesome. If not, we got the answer right now. But as the team grows, as we progress, things change.Tyler Stracener: One of the things with the Novak team is that you're going to have to get used to change if you're not used to it already. And so when those changes are happening, the team's growing, a lot of times the team kind of outgrows the individual. And the culture, again, will start to bring those people to light, and really our culture is just an arrow. That's really what we see it as and it really makes things very obvious and easier to detect.Robby T: Cool, got it. Nate, you got any other questions you want to make sure we hit on today?Nate Joens: I don't think I do, but if anyone does have one, feel free to shoot it our way now or forever hold your peace. We might be able to get to it quickly, but I know we're probably going to wrap it up here shortly and I know we like to wrap it up in a certain way, so go ahead and [inaudible 00:47:54] Robby.Robby T: I love it. So, Tyler, thanks again last minute, coming in clutch, showing up, appreciate it a ton. It's cool to hear you share about your culture and what you guys are doing out there on the west coast. What we always like to ask since I'm not seeing any other questions, is what is something that makes you nerdy and my favorite piece is would you prefer Star Wars, Game of Thrones, or Other? Maybe something else.Tyler Stracener: Ooh. Oh, okay. Well, first, I guess the nerdy thing that I do, we kind of touched on this earlier, is with music and the lyrics. I'm like finding the double entendres in there and for some reason language is something that has fascinated me, especially recently. I see that the ISA position kind of revolves around the language you use, so that vocabulary is important. And going into music, it's very fascinating, honestly. I've sat there for hours listening to the same song, just kind of dissecting what they're actually talking about. So, the story behind the music has always fascinated me.Nate Joens: That's cool. I like it. What are your favorite books? Any books to recommend for us?Tyler Stracener: Yeah. Definitely any Dr. Seuss book I'd say is great.Nate Joens: Awesome.Tyler Stracener: My favorite book is actually one of the first books that I really got kind of almost fascinated with. It's called The Hurricane. It's actually about a boxer who... professional boxer was about to fight for the championship and his nickname was The Hurricane and he actually got framed for a murder that he didn't commit not too far before his fight for the belt. And went to prison and then just these random people came through and helped. I've never been like a fiction reader. But for a personal development, one that's big on our team is Extreme Ownership and then definitely follow that up with The Dichotomy of Leadership. Definitely those two books together, you'll be able to grab a lot of nuggets out of those.Nate Joens: Awesome. I love it. Well, cool, yeah. Tyler, I really appreciate your time today. Doesn't look like there's any other questions. Do either of you guys have anything, any final thoughts to add?Robby T: Oh man. I'll let you go first if you've got any.Tyler Stracener: Well I didn't answer the Star Wars or, yeah, what was that?Robby T: How dare you. Star Wars or Game of Thrones or something else?Tyler Stracener: Yeah, if I had to choose between Star Wars or Game of Thrones, I'm definitely going Star Wars. But if I were to choose anything over it, especially right now, because I just binged watched the third season, is Stranger Things. That show's awesome.Nate Joens: Awesome. Stranger Things.Robby T: I haven't got around to it, I need to do that.Nate Joens: Yeah.Tyler Stracener: Yeah, you need to.Robby T: Awesome.Nate Joens: Well cool. I appreciate your time, Robby and Tyler. For all of you listening, again, this will be sent out to you soon-ish. I don't exactly know when that is.Robby T: [inaudible 00:51:38]Nate Joens: As well as available on the Structurely YouTube channel and the ISAradio.com. Always got to drop that link. So make sure you subscribe, that's for the podcasts. And, as always, thank you guys and we'll talk to you soon.Tyler Stracener: Sounds good.Robby T: Peace y'all.Nate Joens: Bye.Tyler Stracener: See yeah.Robby T: Bye-bye.