Why 87% of Real Estate Agents Fail (And How to Avoid It)

 If your business feels chaotic, overwhelming, or stuck… it’s probably not a motivation problem—it’s a systems problem.

In this video, Jennifer Staats (Founder of Stat Solutions & Chief of Staff at Easy Home Search) breaks down the real reason 87% of real estate agents fail within 2 years—and what to do differently.

We dive into:
✔️ How to build simple, repeatable systems (without over complicating it)
✔️ The “yellow pad” method to instantly organize your business
✔️ Why YOU might be the biggest bottleneck—and how to fix it
✔️ How to delegate effectively and actually trust your team
✔️ Avoiding “shiny object syndrome” that kills momentum
✔️ Making smarter decisions about tools, tech, and growth

If you’re trying to scale your business, create consistency, or just feel more in control day-to-day—this is a must-watch.

💡 Remember: Success doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from doing the right things—consistently.

👇 Connect with Jennifer:
linkedin.com/in/jennifernstaats
staatssolutions.com
Explore her CRM platform: Sure Send 

📲 Interested in learning more about licensing or mentorship?
Connect with our team here: homeguys.com/yt

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:11

On today's episode of the Home Guys Podcast. They already have a system in their brain. But yeah, you're getting them to get that's one of the hardest pieces, right? Like getting them to get everything out of their head.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

I think you have to be aware.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I think you need to be aware that you're the bottleneck. The boys were just like, oh, gentle figured out. And they just that was the culture we built.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Kind of like almost like kind of putting a mirror up in front of people, too, and being like, hey, like you need to take a little bit look at yourself, be a little vulnerable.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

So hey everybody, welcome back to our Home Guys podcast, Home Guys Nation. Um Shannon and I are on today. I know you're usually used to seeing James and Dayden, but we've taken over. And we have Jennifer Statz with us, who is we're super excited because she's an operations-minded, systems-minded um person in with real estate experience. And she's um she's been behind the scenes. She's the founder of Stats Solutions, um, chief of staff at Easy Home Search, and a best-selling author. She's built her entire career around a single stat. 87% of new agents leave the industry within two years. And that's not because they lacked motivation. Usually, you know, real estate agents are very motivated. Um, it's because nobody built the systems and accountability around them. Um, you know, they, as we know, with a lot of this, you're just kind of thrown out there and need to figure it out. Um, so this really speaks to something about how you can be successful when you've got the support and the systems behind you. Um, and today we're going to dig into why good people leave good companies and how to build operations also that run without you in the day-to-day when you put those systems in place. Um allow for your success. So, Jennifer, thank you so much for being here. We're super excited. Thanks for having me. I'm excited too. Yeah. Um, so tell us a little bit kind of about your background, how this evolved, and what you're doing today.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

So I got my real estate license at 20. I don't know why. Everyone asked me why I did that. I don't know what, I don't know what made me make that decision, but I got it at 20. Um, I had an opportunity to work in an office while I was also selling and figured out that I was really good at the office stuff. You know, I kind of like came in, I think I was supposed to be a receptionist. I instantly was like got switched to being an office manager. Um, and I was also selling. So selling at night, and then I was managing the office during the day, and that kind of transitioned into director of operations roles. And long story short, we wanted to move from California and there was like, there's no way. I'm just gonna go get my license, start knocking on doors. I also didn't really want a full-time job at the that exact moment. And so I started my company called Stat Solutions about eight years ago. Um, about six months ago, I had the opportunity to join Easy Home Search and kind of made that plan to kind of back out of my current role or my business and have other people run it um while I'm doing something I'm really passionate about. And now I'm chief of staff at Shursend. So it's been a long ride, but it's been fun.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, and that's usually how that happens. Like you especially once people realize that you've kind of got that operations mind. Um, and I know Shannon's this has happened to Shannon too. They're like, oh, here, you can just organize all the things and um you know, build build this out, the SOPs and the systems and the you know, manuals and all the stuff. And um because it it is it's a different mindset, it's it's a different um skill set that you need for that.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

And yeah, it it really is. I mean, and and we've mu worked mostly in the real estate industry, that's kind of where my focus has been. And I just love being able to see what like an agent is struggling with, and I can see this like simple path. Like, I just yeah, oh, this is how do you not see that? Like, let's do that for you, and they're like, wait a second, what? Like, I overthought it, I overthought everything about it, and I think it's a lot to do with like us in the real estate industry. We're always watching other people doing things, we're always watching social media and videos and all of these things that tell you you've got to do all of these millions of things. Yeah, when really sometimes there's a simple way to just start to do it, and then you can add on more complicated things later, right? As it evolves, yeah. I just think that's where a lot of us get stuck, and then you know, I tell people, let's just start out real simple, let's execute on the real simple to where we know we can repeat things and then we can make it fancy. So it's like, yeah, it's like a one agent thing or a big company. To me, it's all the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Absolutely. And we actually we talked about that last night where you know, it doesn't matter what industry or um, you know, when we started this company, I was pulling pieces from all my different jobs that I'd ever had. I'm like, oh, actually, this will help me organize this and this fits here. And I think it's hard, um, especially in the real estate industry and especially for us in the investment side of things, um to really have those systems because everything you're constantly pivoting. Like the market is pivoting, you've got staff coming in and out, the technology is changing. Um, so keeping up with all that and and having a consistent system um and maintaining that as all the shiny objects are flying around, and and especially with um, you know, a lot of agents or visionaries or entrepreneur-minded people. Um, so getting them also to follow a system. I guess that would lead me into a course, how do you how do you do that? Because that is that's a struggle. Um, but how do you get them to buy into the the systems that, hey, this is important, this is gonna help you. Um, and like I like keeping it simple. We have to keep things simple.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

With with any of our clients across the board. I mean, this is how I start any company, this is how I help people build out their shirt send accounts, like all of it just starts with like, okay, you're very successful for a reason, right? Okay, you sell X amount of houses, and this is where they usually come from, and this is how you do it. They already have a system in their brain, they just don't really know it, they're just really good at something. They're like, oh, this just comes naturally that I have to call and follow up with them, and I've got to do that's a system, but they just don't look like that, right? So generally, like I always have I've always done this thing I call the yellow pad technique. And whether they actually write it down on a yellow pad or a Google Sheet or whatever, I don't care. But I just have them start by okay, what does your day look like? You get a new contract or you buy a new property or you start a new company, what it just write down the brief. I don't need anything crazy, just write down what you did. Okay, that's I mean, that's kind of simple, right? If you get them to do that, yep. They go, okay, we can just put that into a checklist, and a lot of that's repeatable. So if you're doing social media for the week or you're selling a house or you're buying a house or you have a new client intake, usually there's a checklist that goes with that. I send them any welcome email, I get them a contract, I get the signed contract back, this is the contract I send them, this is the email I send them. You now have a full checklist that they've already been doing, they just don't realize it. And then you all of a sudden have there's your draft contract, there's your email template. All of a sudden you have a system. It's nothing crazy fancy, but if we're trying to get that into anything, right? If we're trying to get that into a CRM or we're trying to get whatever that system looks like, we can easily do that. You start out small, and then we make it so you can repeat it over and over again, the exact same thing. Now, to get the owner to buy into a new piece of tech or a new system, it depends on the person, right? Um, I mean, it just depends. Oftentimes I just remove them from it altogether. Like I'm like, hey, if we have enough staff or whatever, you just make sure they've they're you're if you are CC'd on that email, you check off the box or whatever. We can take it out of their thing altogether. I mean, if we have a CRM, I can make the email go from them, right? Like they don't have to send the email anymore. I can put like merge fields and I can all of those fancy things. Some some owners are different than others, but the the how I get them to really buy in and say we've got to do it this way is that I can show them, like, okay, you sell 30 homes this year by yourself. You your goal is you want to get to 100. You don't just do that. If you've already been working full time, you don't just magically have three times the amount of time. Like, we have to create systems around it, we have to create leverage, we need tech. How can we do that? I don't necessarily always need another two people. We can leverage a lot of it by having email templates, a CRM, all of those things. And all of a sudden, what used to take you an hour because you had to go through your cell phone, you had to find their email address, you had to find the address. It's now all in one place and it's more automated. Great. Now we can even do more with less people, and then we can start layering on the fancier stuff. So, like with me, most of our clients have been residential. So it's like mainly I hear like two things always get dropped. I always forget to ask people to leave me reviews. I always forget to send the gift, you know, I always want to do the closing gift or something like that. Well, now you can add those two steps on the end of a closing workflow, and now you know you're gonna do it because the tasks are gonna pop up or it's gonna pop up for whoever, and now you can't clear out your stuff until it's done. So you're either gonna do it or now you know who you didn't do it for, and now you're really spotting where the gaps are.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

So there's a couple different ways I can get owners to kind of see the light, creative accountability, but yeah, you're getting them to get that's one of the hardest pieces, right? Like getting them to get everything out of their head. So yeah, they've been using like oral processes and systems or like the storytelling ones, like where they just get passed like verbally from person to person. So now you're like creating that system around it to make it so it's efficient and there's accountability behind it.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Love it. Absolutely. Um, so our audience is a lot of um investment entrepreneurs. And one thing we always hear, we we go to these mastermind meetup groups, and and one in particular, um everybody they get up and they kind of present about their business and where they are, and it's kind of a uh peer coaching thing. Um, and more often than not, people are like, I'm stuck in the day-to-day. So that's a good for our audience, that's a you know, a good easy way to kind of get them to transition out of it, like just pick those little pieces or pick a a few things because they they constantly they're like, I can't, I'm I'm stuck, like I'm in the business, I can't get out. I mean, I Shannon, you know, I can think of like five people that they create their own bottleneck, yeah. Yeah, so and I saw um on Jennifer on some of your talking points, like how to avoid and get them out of that bottleneck. Um, so those are some the ones you just talked about, some good tips. Yeah, what what else, how else would you recommend people to kind of clear that hurdle?

SPEAKER_02 12:05

I think you have to be aware. I think you need to be aware that you're the bottleneck. And a lot of us don't figure that out. Yeah, sometimes they yeah, they they don't even see it. You just don't even see it, and there's a variety of reasons, right? Why? So, like a lot of people that I work with, they come to me for a variety of reasons. They either want to start something else or they're burnt out or they're just not able to scale. And it's all the same. If we create systems and leverage, we can get more time back for whatever you want, and that's you can do with that chunk of time with whatever you want. You can either scale the company to do some to do more, you can do something else, you can just get back more time to do with your family and friends and maybe take a weekend off. I mean, that that's like one of like the basis, and that's like why I get so excited about operations because I'm like, I can just make this so simple that now we don't need as much of you, and now you can spend your time in your zone of genius or doing whatever you want. So if you want to go buy more houses, you want to do more deals, you can, but sometimes we have to almost like sometimes when I'm growing companies, we learn more about ourselves than we do about people around us because we realize how we're reacting to specific situations, and you have to really look internally for like why am why am I having a hard time with this? I'm maybe not letting go, I'm I'm being the issue here, and uh like a lot of times when you're working with me, it's like I'm giving you the heart to heart. I'm like, you are the issue, like it's simple, I think it's simple, but I think that's it's true with any business, all of us entrepreneurs, like you are getting in your own way in a variety of reasons. So if you can you know streamline even just little portions of your business, it doesn't have to be huge because most of us like overthink it and you're like, oh, I've got to like you know leverage the whole thing. No, just take a small portion. Look at your day. I really hate sending out contracts. I don't know why, I can't explain it to you. I hate negotiating contracts, I hate sending them out, I hate putting them in DocuSign. Like, it is the worst part of my day when I have new clients coming on. So, like, for that, even though it's small, you know, could be an hour to a week. I delegate that to someone else. They can do that perfectly fine. I don't need to put stuff in DocuSign, they can follow up on signed contracts, etc. I can now spend another couple hours doing something different, and then you just take little small chunks of that, and all of a sudden you're like, I have 10 hours free every week. What can I do with this? Do I go to the gym or do I build another company?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

It's up to you. Yeah, exactly. And it's and and that's where we find um it gets overwhelming to they they know they need help. Um, and and some of it's a trust issue, you know. A lot of uh the entrepreneurs, it's like I built this, this is my baby, nobody's gonna have the passion and do it the way I want it done. Well, no, they're not. Um, but through the the hiring process, and we've really dialed that in over the 10 years, um, but through that process, you can get somebody pretty close. You can find somebody um with the skill set and that buys into your culture and the vision, and um and then yeah, like you said, just start handing off small pieces. It doesn't, you don't have to hand off an entire department, like here, take it all. Just start handing off those smaller tasks that you know what, I just really don't want to do this. And Shannon, who are we talking to? Um that we were telling exactly that. Uh, but someone we just said that yesterday to somebody's like, just give them this little piece.

SPEAKER_03 15:55

Yeah, just to give them a piece of something a high, you're you should be doing the higher dollar revenue things anyway in that position. And a lot of times we end up because sometimes as entrepreneurs, I'll just put myself in that bucket too, but we uh don't want to delegate because we know we can do it like really fast and quick and we can get it done and we trust ourselves, and then we get stuck on that, and then you can't scale, and then you can't multiply when you're the only person doing the things. So Jen, Jen had to uh work on delegation last year, right, Jen? And you got worried about it.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

I was the catch-all. Like we started this company, and the boys were just I say the boys, my husband and his friend, but I the boys were just like, oh, Jen will figure it out, and they just that was the culture we built. And so even though I, you know, I hired an assistant and Shannon, we brought Shannon on as a fractional COO to kind of um help us transition and to scale and to take that next step. But she was like, Okay, you can give that to Anna. Anna can take care of that. I'm like, oh, yeah, I I can do that. And then it became kind of a I kept telling Anna that I felt like the devil wears Prada. Every time I would ask her to do something, I felt so just and it was a it was an adjustment for me. Um but to lean into that, takes a yeah, to lean lean into that, and she's like, it's it's okay. I I I got it. Um so I think yeah, it's it's definitely a mindset shift.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

I think what Jennifer said before is like really important too. And uh this is why sometimes we have to be like the CEO whisperer when you're working on like trying to manage operations, because like what you said, Jennifer, about kind of like almost like kind of putting a mirror up in front of people too, and being like, hey, uh like you need to take a little bit look at yourself, be a little vulnerable, like realize that maybe just maybe you're causing some of these issues or that you're causing the bottleneck. And like those are some of the most delicate like conversations because sometimes as entrepreneurs we let our ego get in the way. And so, like trying to figure out that balance between like, I really want this to work and I really want that time freedom that like you and Jen both were talking about, and how to balance like this is my company with I really want to be able to go to my kids, you know, vacation.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah, you can't do that if everything's on you, right? Like you need, you either need people or you need technology that you can trust that are gonna like keep some things running. I mean, I know I wouldn't be able to do anything that I've been able to do without tech and the right people. I mean, there's people on my team that 100% they can do things better than me now. Like, I'm like shocked sometimes. I wouldn't have ever thought about that. And they're like, Yeah, this took me five minutes. It's like I mess with that for 30 minutes. Why did I even just not because I do the same thing. I feel bad asking them for help because it feels like such a silly thing. Yeah, and then all of a sudden, you know, I'm spending all this wasted time. I mean, the people we hire at Sure Send are some of the most, you know, genius people I've ever worked with. And I I just spent, I mean, I still do it like yesterday. I spent the entire day just looking through everything and delegating things out because I was like, I can't feasibly do all this stuff on my list and do it at the level I want to do it unless I'm delegating things out. And it's like I just delegate, we've got a big team, so I just spent the entire team like all day just can you help me with this? Can you start this? All time-consuming things that they're capable of doing, and then better yet, they're learning things they weren't able to before because I was just holding everything to do it myself. Absolutely. There's so many layers to it where you just have to be like, Why am I why am I stressing myself out with this? I've got tech to do this, I've got people to do this, get it off your plate. Now you're like, ah, okay, now I can work on higher level things.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Well, and empowering them to like be able to learn it, like what you're talking about, like then that builds trust in you that they can take it over for you and you don't have to. So it's okay to like not completely hand something and just be like, Can you start this? And then, like you said, a lot of times you'll learn that, like, oh, they can do it better than me, or they can get it done faster than me because they can focus on it and they have this, you know, focused time that maybe I don't have.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah. Well, and that's you you mentioned, you know, having teams of people. Um, and we've just in the past year really leaned into having VAs. Um, we tried it in the past, we didn't have uh, and you you do need to have your systems dialed in. Um you know, you need to have those roles and those expectations, and then you can, you know, we found you can see in my area. Okay, I can hand this off. If you've got five hands on a bucket and everybody's kind of just diving in, um, you know, it's hard to to delegate, it's hard to adjust those roles and and those um tasks. But just in the past year, we've added what, five maybe virtual assistants. Yeah. Um and it's an international team. Um and it's been amazing. Like we had specific job descriptions. Um, yeah, we and they're part of our team. So they are they are constantly in. I think you can, I don't know if you guys can see down here D, her name popped up. Um, but so she's one of our virtual assistants in the Philippines. And I met with her this morning. We have a little morning huddle, and then you know, using WhatsApp, we're able to stay connected. And I I think that's been important for us. Um, is really dialing in that what the management is doing, what everybody's role is, and then um that allows you to scale, that allows you to kind of take that next step because then you can see what you can hand off.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah, it's a good trust in. Accountability, right? Like you can see, okay, this is what's supposed to happen, this is who's doing it. Is it done? Is it not done? Why? And like, I'm always the type of person that I look at it like if it wasn't done, I don't necessarily blame the person. I look at like, did I train them properly? Did this was a system correct? I look at that first, and then I'm like, wait a second, okay. We've talked about this three times. Like now you know this is your responsibility, like it wasn't done. Let's talk about it. But it's it that's important, especially when you're growing with people, like everybody and they want to know that too, right? They want to know what their job is, they want to know when they show up tomorrow what they're supposed to work on. They don't want to like show up every Monday and literally just have no idea and just be like, you know, delegated to, right? They want to know, like, this is my thing. I want to own it. People like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Absolutely. Um, and then yeah, encouraging them and and that that feedback and that coaching. Um Shannon, what other questions do you have?

SPEAKER_03 23:12

Tell me about like what um we talked about the agents like not staying. Like, can you talk a little bit about what you see like that does work to get people to stay and like kind of building that out?

SPEAKER_02 23:26

I think there's a couple different layers to that because you're too we could be talking about like agents on a team, and we could be talking about like an individual agent. So like I'll start off with like an individual agent. Like, okay, there is a large percentage of agents that don't last, right? And really, it's not because they weren't motivated, they come in here, they pay their dues, they're really excited, they're like, I'm gonna be the next million dollar listing agent. I've got this. Yeah. And then they log in day one, and depending on where you're at in the world, you might be at a brokerage with systems they provided you, you might just be like off on your own, signing up for your own CRM and et cetera. And then you sign in and it doesn't tell you what to do. And then you're on videos watching all of these things, and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't even know. Okay, like, yeah, I put my contacts in the CRM, but it's not telling me who I should call. Like, I don't have any tracking on that. I don't, I just don't know, right? And then you go down the YouTube rabbit hole, and you're now you're what thinking that you need to do materials and you need to do all of these things, but you're not really sure like what direction to go in. And so I think it's kind of like what we talked about earlier, it's just like the basics, right? Okay, agents need to be just doing some of the basics, maybe working on like a couple different sources of income and stay focused on like who their personal, like what their personality is, right? I have different agents that we work with that are like, I would never cold call anyone. Okay, there's other methods of making money, right? You could do door knocking, you could do Popeyes, you know, a lot of people have like, you know, a good sphere of influence. Like, look at that. And I think the basis of a lot of what agents are doing is your CRM, that's your contact management system. Where are you putting all these people? And are you setting certain expectations with yourself to put a number of contacts in there? Are you reaching out to those people? Are you keeping it up to date? And then, okay, once you start doing deals, do you have a consistent system to do those deals with those people? And then afterwards, do you have consistent follow-up? There's not a lot of like out-of-the-box stuff that tells an agent how to do that. So then you're this brand new agent with a brand new license and you're becoming an operator of your business by trying to figure out who to call and what to do and what systems to set up. And it's hard, it's just not easy. Um, the same thing on the the team side, you know, if you're if you're a team and you're bringing in all of these agents and you're making it so difficult for them to show up and do their job. I I have single-handedly seen a million times where agents, you know, the team leads change a bunch of tech and all that stuff, and they burn these agents out because truly they're still learning how to sell real estate. And now you're telling them I've got to learn how to, you know, do this and do that and this techie thing and blah blah blah. And it's like just making it simple. Things have strengths, too. Yeah, like one system, try to condense it into one system if you possibly can. Um, my husband's in constriction and he always gets so shocked. He's like, I just don't understand how you have like 50 tabs open right now to do your job. And I'm like, it's just how real estate is you just have so many things open, you're doing all the things because you're the content creator, video editor, and all these things. So simplify it, right? Until you start selling, and then you can make things a little fancier. Like, you know, if you need if you want to go do Popeyes and stuff like that, start with your list in your CRM with everyone's addresses, start tracking those things you're doing, and then do that, and then start on the next thing, and then track your results by what happened there. But you don't need to have 50 tabs and a million programs and spend$20,000 on tech. Like, keep it simple.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

Yeah, I see that a lot where not not just in the agent world, but in like CEOs and entrepreneurs too, that they buy all the programs, buy all the education, sign up for multiple masterminds, and there's no way they could even possibly watch everything that they signed up for, much less actually implement it. So, like I think that that's a big piece there, too, is like the connection between having someone that is the operator and having implementers, like people that are actually going to take and make the systems, or people that are gonna take the tech and make it so that it automatically does the system for you and connecting those two pieces so that, like you said, the people that are not great at operations or even administration stuff can stay in their genius zone. And then um the people that are great at that are pushing forward those things every day.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Conferences give me nightmares. Like when I know a bunch of our clients are all gonna go to conferences all at the same time. Oh, I tell them, like, you're gonna take notes the entire time, but only bring 10 things back that you might want to like implement. You do two, okay. You're you're yeah, no one had to limit James and Jaden.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

They the first couple years they joined every mastermind out there. Um, and they once a month they were going to a different one, and everybody had different ideas, different tools, like this is working really well here, and this is working really well over here. Um, so they would come back and go in one direction, and then next month they'd go to another one and come back and okay, we're gonna go this way. Well, no, last month you're saying we're gonna go this way. Um I had to I had to kind of put the kibosh on okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

So you're yeah, to your point, like Jennifer, like that uh yeah, we tell okay, go bring back 10 things, but like eight of those things go on the shiny object board. We put them on this, like we have an actual board in our sauna that's like shiny object board, and that's where everything goes, and then you can you can try to implement two. And um, but that comparison thing that you mentioned earlier is like the biggest thing there, right? Like people here so and so is doing well, and so they're like, I gotta do whatever they're doing, but that's just not the case. Like their business is probably very different from yours, even if you're in the same industry, like each market is different. Um, there are things that transfer over, but there's some things that don't. It all depends on like your makeup of your team and what you're doing. So, how do you how do you combat some of that? Like where you're saying, like, don't don't let comparison steal your still be the thief of joy, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Yeah, I mean, it's hard, right? Because I I'm totally like an innovator, innovator. I want to like look at everything that's out there, but then we also have to say, okay, let's say we already have a tool that's working really well for us. Okay, and it might be our website, it might be our CRM, whatever's working really well for you. Maybe we don't want to change that. So if you're coming to me and you're like, oh, I have this really amazing new website provider, but it doesn't integrate with our CRM, I'm like, okay, let's just hold on one second, take a look at it, let's see what how this is gonna affect everything else. So I'm looking at any idea like that, right? Is it tech? Is it an I, you know, a new person, whatever? How is that gonna affect everything? Do we have the budget for it? All of those things. What is it gonna take to implement that? Do we have the bandwidth, you know, with everything we've got going on? So I usually take a couple different step approach to looking at anything, um, and then say, okay, that does sound like it would make sense. That might fix this problem we have, or that might get us to the goal we have for this year. Um, but a lot of times we we just call it the vision board. So we move all of those tasks onto the vision board into a sauna and we just leave them there unassigned until we have a little bit more bandwidth later. Um, so but it's with anyone. We all get excited. Look at what this person did, it was so cool. Okay, it's gonna take 10 people to run that system. It doesn't make sense versus for our workflows, all the things. Let's maybe table that and maybe come back to it, you know, once we switch XYZ.

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Yeah, I like to always say, especially because we don't want to like discourage that visionary or that innovator attitude like you're talking about too. Like, so I always say, that's such a great idea. Let me take it back and take a look at it because that way their excitement that they had, like we get to keep the excitement. Yes, you learn some new fun things while you're at your thing. And then when we go back, then I list all those things like you're talking about, like how does it impact other people, which I think is like a big thing people miss a lot, is that they don't they think about how it affects them and their bottom line. They don't think about all the employees that are always already doing all these different pieces and how whatever we're about to implement is going to affect those people that are actually in the trenches doing all this stuff every day. So, like go back, list like, okay, here's what who it would impact, here's how it would impact our bottom line, here's what it would help with and good things that it would do. And then are they outweighing each other? And then come back and be like, okay, I think this is something we should pause for right now because we're this is our main focus, right? Is this still our main focus? Okay, then we have to do these things to work to that. And that's hard because like they there's not a lot of patience in the visionary mindset, and that's part of why they're so good at it. But it's like it's that taking the integrator or the implementer side, you gotta be like, let's slow down a little bit and see if it matches where where we're all supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Well, and someone pointed out to me too, like to the visionaries, and this was really cool. Um, but you know, they bring you an idea, and it is our job to go, okay, wait a minute. Like, what does this look like? And to them, they hear that. Um, and this was a a good conversation that James and I had. Um, and to them, it's like you're trying to stop me, you're trying to slow me down, you're trying to um in fact it's the opposite, is what what we're trying to do is figure out okay, is is this really something that's gonna help? Is this something we really need? Um, how can we get it done? How how can we support you in in this initiative? If this is something that we want to move forward with, it's like we're actually trying to help them accomplish that goal by asking those questions, but to them it's like no, I can't do that. Like, no, I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm trying to figure out how we can do it. Yeah. And he he kind of a little light bulb went off. He was like, Oh, it's like yeah, that's and if it is, you know, that brings us to also why it's important to have those goals every year, like to have those conversations about what are our steps, where where do we want to be? Um, that strategic planning piece, because it keeps your focus. And then when the shiny objects come up, how does that tie in, like Shannon said, to our goals? And then, you know, is this does it build on what we already have? If this is this a whole new thing we need to dive into, do we have the resources to do that? Um, so it's yeah, it it's uh an interesting is it a whole nother company?

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Like what's what's a whole other company? What problems is it solving? You know, is it a fancy thing, or is it solving like a major thing within the company? And then it's maybe something to look at. But I think, and then it's like a lot of it's seasonality too. Is this the right time of the year for us to be diving into whatever we're looking at, or are we gonna mess with production? You know, are we gonna mess with buying properties? Are we gonna buy mess with you know selling properties? So I look at some of that too, where I'm like, okay, well, if our slow time is winter, let's start implementing that in September, October. So we have a couple months during the slow time. So then when we ramp up, we're all not just like on fire.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Absolutely. And and some of those things too, it's like, do we have the budget for that? Like some of these bigger ticket items um that are coming to us, and it's like, okay, well, yeah, we did not budget for that right now. Like, so let's put that in the calendar later this year, or hey, that's just gonna have to, we're gonna have to put that for next year, and we can look at because for instance, this year we had two ambassador program or sponsors, um, brand ambassadors, that's the word I'm looking for, that we were looking at working with. Well, and they they're both higher ticket items that going into this year, they kind of came up last summer and through the fall, and looking at them like, okay, we can only pick one. What's the better fit for us at this time? You know, and so we put the other one on the agenda for next year when we come into September, October, Q4, and we're doing more of that diving into that budgeting. Okay, is this here that here are all the things, whether it's technology or you know, different marketing strategies, um, here's here's all the things we had on the shiny object board. What what do we want to move forward? So um, you know, and I think I know as far as James and Jane go, they appreciate keeping those front and center so they feel heard. Um, and and they have, hey, we still have these out there. I know you guys threw it out randomly, but it's still here. We just need to see where it fits in. Yeah. Love it. So um, well, anything, um, anything else you can think of. If if people have questions or um, you know, interested in picking your brain more about you know, systems operations, what it's uh your your different businesses. Um yeah, you uh how can they reach out?

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Yeah, the easiest place to find me um is either just gonna be Facebook or LinkedIn. Just my name, Jennifer Statz. My Instagram is really easy to find. It's Jennifer the Realtor. I've clearly heard that time. Um, and then if you want to check out SureSend, uh we have monthly options at sure send.ai. It's a tech-driven uh CRM platform that's built by agents and operators. So it's it's completely customizable. So we're building it for really any industry so you can come in and sell the way you want to sell.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Okay. That's yeah, that's awesome. That might be a whole nother conversation about that. Maybe um we'll have you back on to talk about that because AI is, I mean, it's a it's a hot topic right now, and um how we can utilize that. That is one of the things talking about for you know, keeping things on um strategic planning. It was a big push this year. How can we utilize and implement AI into our business? Um so yeah, that that'll be a whole conversation.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Yeah, anytime. As you're um going on, I know you're going to some different podcasts and stuff right now, Jennifer. But as you're doing that, like what's the one message like you would like like everyone to be able to hear from you?

SPEAKER_02 38:12

I think just given like my background and my passion is that you can build a business the way any business the way that you want it to run. Like it doesn't have to be one cookie cutter thing. Um, you can create this like amazing life and business that can work together would probably be the thing that I would leave with everybody.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

I love that. It fits right into what we do because like the Home Guys Nation, like as we help people like set up home guys in their local market, like it's very customizable. And like while we're giving them all the tools of like everything that the home guys have built up in Minnesota, we're also like helping them figure out how to make it their own in their market.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Love it. And how to uh, you know, we call it doing life together, everybody that we uh you know partner with or or bring into the family, I guess, is um, you know, there are people that we we want to spend time with, they're people that we believe in. Um, and so we call it doing life. And yeah, it's been a roller coaster of a ride, but you know, it's it's a it's a great time. So um if anybody's interested in more information about home guys, it's homeguys.com. Um, you can find us on most of the socials, Facebook, HomeGuys USA, uh YouTube, James and Jaden are usually the faces out there. So you can go to YouTube HomeGuys USA and find what James and Jaden are talking about. Um, and reach out. I know Brady will put our contact info somewhere on the screen here when he puts it together. And we will see you next time. Thank you, Jennifer. It was a great chatting with you. Thanks. Nice meeting you both.