Mike Rolewicz: Basics, Perform At A High Level and Consistency

Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast. We have another Penn State grad on the show here of two episodes in a row. This top producing real estate agent leads a team here in Jacksonville under exp. He entered the business in 2018 where he quickly sold 12 million his first year in the business in 2022 his team served 66 families for over 45 million in sales, which they had one sale for $12 million which hopefully we're going to hear about that story. His team donated over $20,000

Mike Rolewicz  2:07  
I've told all my friends that have been on here. I'm like, Guys, it's not as big a deal anymore. They're letting me on.

Mike Rolewicz  3:36  
Know the industry you're in, didn't know that had no staffing background. Know the market you're in. Did not know that moved here. Now, granted, we were able to trade on his 15 minutes of fame in a big way. But the things I did learn from that business that apply to real estate is it's all relationships. Yeah, period. That's it. It's building relationships, listening, understanding context before presenting solutions. So when I had the opportunity, thanks to the gift of a cancer diagnosis in 2016

Mike Rolewicz  5:54  
I mean, here's the thing, we have an inspection period. That's our try before you buy. Yes, right now, but no, it's a lot of a lot of things were transferable to a point, right? I would say, if you were the best candidate, I'm like, Hey, hiring manager, listen, Tracy man, he's like, the house in the cul de sac in the best school district. You better hire him. Get that offer out before someone else does right now, I'm selling the house in the cul de sac in the great school district. We were using it to, yeah, we would bring on. Actually, they used it for me. When they hired me as the manager of the store, they get to get me right in there, almost like the next week, you know, only a few days later, we didn't, you know, go through this whole, you know, they figured the background check would all come back. If it didn't come back, then they could just right. Let me roll. Yep, the young Mike 2022, you're, you're at Penn State. What was your vision of a career? Did you have? You know when you went into Penn State with some idea what you wanted to do? And so business for sure. So finance major, again, started with a big insurance company, USF and G at the time, financial analyst, honestly, I was a glorified data entry clerk. If you really looked at what I was doing, just I didn't feel I was making an impact. I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, so while I was at USF and G on the weekends, I was washing executive cars and power washing decks and staining their decks. And all through high school, I worked two or three jobs, so it's always been in there. And then the staffing came along. I was actually living with a good friend of my brother's guy started a staffing company. Was really young. He'd be asleep when I went to my corporate job on the couch, in like, shorts and a T shirt when I get home, drove a Lexus three years older man like Dave. What do you do, and it's

Mike Rolewicz  7:42  
like, I don't have staffing company. I'm like, well, please tell me more. And I actually helped him build a couple little databases and access because I was learning that and just got to see the inner workings. I'm like, wait a minute, the barriers to entry are pretty low here. So when Greg, he was drafted by the Redskins, so we're both hanging out in that Baltimore, DC Metro, and then he gets the opportunity to come here. Came down for a weekend, I want to say January of 95 went back, gave notice. As soon as I got back, I'm like, wait a minute, this this town is crazy about this team. So gave notice, told my parents, hey, I'm moving to Jacksonville, and I'm gonna start a staffing

Speaker 1  8:37  
So took a burn the boats mentality, which has always been my approach. I do not once I make a decision. There is no plan B. So you grew up? Where exactly did you grow up? In the DC area? Would you so Columbia, Maryland, about halfway between Baltimore and DC? Yeah, amazing place to grow up. Loved, loved, loved it. One of the La Crosse hot beds. So that's how I ended up at Penn State, was fortunate enough to be just good enough to help drag the team GPA up and get a couple minutes here and there

Tracy Hayes  1:45  
to Angel wood Jacksonville, the foster closet, American Heart Association and the human collective. Let's welcome the team leader of the 904 home guide team of EXP Realty. Mike rollowitz to the show.

Mike Rolewicz  1:59  
All right. Thanks, Tracy. Appreciate you having me in. And obviously you've continued to lower the bar allowing me on.

Tracy Hayes  2:14  
Well, what I what I find interesting in just doing the research on you. And, you know, obviously I dive into LinkedIn. I always cross reference, obviously, with it when social media just it when social media, just to get, you know, build some questions and so forth, is, you know, the career change, you know that that you had, you know you had, you had a previous career. You're not 25 years old. You were out there doing stuff, and how you transitioned in real estate. And obviously, I think some of the show, I would imagine, there's some things that you learned, good, bad and different in the corporate America world that you were in previously, and then that's really made you you took the good things and put it into your real estate business.

Mike Rolewicz  2:51  
Yeah. So the corporate America life, honestly, only lasted for two years for me. So that was 92 to 94 ish worked for a big insurance company. Realized real quick, I'm not cut out for this, so there's an entrepreneurial spirit. So actually, my first company was started in Jacksonville as a staffing company 1995 what happened in Jacksonville? Jaguar? Yep. So my original business partner was a good friend at Penn State, one of the first 10 players the Jaguars ever signed. Greg Huntington, the mangler, big shout out. He's still here to this day. Works with waste management, and so he and I had this idea, we'll start a staffing company. If you read a book like how to start a business for Dummies, we did the exact opposite.

Mike Rolewicz  4:09  
to evaluate everything sold that company, real estate, was just a natural I've owned seven or eight homes over the course of the time we've been here, and it's always been something I really enjoyed, and what I missed at the end of my staffing career was the three foot conversation. Everything was being pushed to Hayes. Just get the resumes into the portal. We'll let you know if we're interested, versus being able to sit down with the hiring manager and say, Hey, Tracy, tell me your pain points. Tell me what, what you need. Tell me the company culture. We need to hire too. So once all that got pushed down, I realized I gotta, we're gonna try something new.

Tracy Hayes  4:47  
You know, I see because I've dealt with in previous to my previous career, even though I've been mortgages for 17 and a half years prior to that, in telecommunications, I was working with a company they that was one of the things they you. Used was the attempt to hire almost to kind of get a feel out if this is an employee they wanted to keep right. Try before you buy. Try before you buy. Yes, exactly. And you, you have to, obviously, someone dug into that company's, you know, all tell they're, obviously they're still what's remnants are left around the country. But obviously everyone was part of FIS now, yeah, I believe. So there's some of the, some of the people were still there. But obviously everyone in Jacksonville remembers all tell stadium, go back to the Jaguars again, and so forth. But yeah, that, I remember that person coming in regular basis, coming in and, you know, making a stop by. Obviously they all tell already had the account. It was, No, this was down in Naples at the time, but you had to go in and, you know, you had to find these companies that needed it and then obviously sell the service that, you know, tried before you buy. You know, is actually not a bad idea.

Speaker 1  5:53  
No.

Mike Rolewicz  9:09  
until my senior year. But you want to talk about amazing friendships that were made to this day. We've got a program now called teammates for life, where we're actually mentoring student athletes that are there now, and I can tell you, I'm glad I played when I did. It was not the pressure packed environment that it is now, and the Internet wasn't around so well.

Tracy Hayes  9:30  
Well, I grew up in the Northeast, and obviously the cross, you know, especially in, you know, the Connecticut, since the Ivy League schools, that's kind of what you when you lacrosse, is the first kind of place that you look to, and it slowly has grown, and obviously we see it here in the schools here. And I noticed there was a period of time you did some coaching here with La Crosse as well. Yep, on your resume. Yeah.

Mike Rolewicz  9:52  
So helped out with the Ponte Vedra Riptide, which was the rec program. I didn't get into travel ball. I just I liked having my weekend. Is free travel, like over here to creeks or to Fleming Island. Yeah, the sport has grown incredibly. And Ponte Vedra, they're an absolute powerhouse in the state, and they've got kids committed this year. I think they've got one going to Denver. They've got one going to Dartmouth, Air Force Academy, army. They put out some serious, serious talent, and a lot of it is through that, that feeder program, we get these kids started at eight, 910, years, at 10 years old, and they just continue on through

Tracy Hayes  10:30  
now I, you know, I've grown up in sport. I've officiated basketball, baseball, softball. I'm kind of just with football now, and have been for the last decade, it was the only time I have is because I know it's either Friday night or, you know, I was doing college ball on Saturday. That was it. Did basketballs all day through the week, but La Crosse is a sport I never got around my high school did not have it or anything at the time. But do believe it probably has it today. It doesn't get the air time. I mean, occasionally catch my catch a game on ESPN or something where they're showing some of the colleges, where are these younger kids picking it up? Is it really just through their parents? Or how is the sport being introduced? Because it is, is growing. I

Mike Rolewicz  11:10  
think in Florida, it's the migration. It's all these people from the Northeast that have moved here that are like, Hey, kids to play lacrosse. And when you talk to parents whose kid no offense to baseball or soccer. When the parents get the kids involved in lacrosse, even at that lower level, they're like, wow, this really fun to watch versus those other sports. And you know, with the younger reaches you're you're gonna have that group of kids that are just like, you know, I was one of them when I played baseball. I'm like, I'm just looking around, what's going on before, right? Well, lacrosse, it keeps you a little more engaged, because you never know when that ball could come down to you or you might take a shot at some point. But I think a lot of the growth has just been it's a very fun sport to play. It's a very fun sport to watch as well and play year round, which is nice too in Florida,

Tracy Hayes  12:03  
all right, so we're advancing forward here. You're what starts to you own multiple homes, but what actually gets you in, or what happens in your life that says you want into, you know, to make that leap in 2018 and get into

Mike Rolewicz  12:19  
real estate, right? So unlike a lot of agents that I talked to that want to join our team, it wasn't selling sunset because that wasn't around yet. But honestly, when I went through my cancer battle, which was debilitating, and I spent a lot of time just watching TV, because that's how I had the energy to do. Watched a lot of HGTV, Million Dollar Listing and all this. And I'm like, geez, I could do this. Seems okay. Let me give this a try. And again, it had always been on the periphery of, hey, this is something that maybe I would investigate or look into. And I remember when I had the conversation with my wife, I rolled over one night in bed. I'm like, Natalie, do you trust me? She's like, of course, yeah, what do you mean? Do you trust me? I said, Do you trust me to be the provider I've been for this family, and it'll be very uncomfortable, probably for a while. And she's like, what's going on? And I told her, I said, Listen, I just I don't see myself five years from now running agility staffing anymore. Like, I don't see myself with this passion to get back to the Business Journal fast 50 or to be in the top X percent of staffing companies. I just I had lost a passion for it. I told her. I said, I know I can get myself on that business journal list of the top real estate agent. Like, I need this new challenge so I'm the risk taker in the family, my wife, and this is the yin and the yang that you need. She likes comfort and predictability. But we structured the sale the staffing company, where there was no earnout, there was no second bite at the apple, straight cash transaction. I told the people buying. And I'm like, listen, non compete, you can put until I'm in a pine box. I'm not coming back, even as we're, you know, finishing due diligence, getting to the end. Natalie's like, Are you sure you don't want to make that two years? I'm like, burn the boats, baby. This is what we do. We are looking back. We're only looking forward. And honestly, the only regret is that I didn't do it sooner.

Tracy Hayes  14:23  
Yeah, that's actually come with the of many of the real estate agents that I have, I've on the show. I mean, that's, that's actually they all would say the pretty much the same thing.

Mike Rolewicz  14:31  
Yeah. Now it's I thought I was leaving the craziest business, right? People, sending people to other people. And emotions can run high. Yeah, that's the one thing I miscalculated. This business is much crazier.

Tracy Hayes  14:44  
All right, so initially you do an investigation of the different brokerages. Did you know someone that said, hey, just come over here. What was your your your choices there initially, because one of the things I like to you know, if there's an age. Agent, or someone who's thinking about being an agent listening to the show, everyone is really get drilling down. It's important to make choose the right brokerage that's supportive to you, that meshes with you, you see eye to eye. Too many agents have gotten well, some agents have gotten really lucky, and they're still with the same brokerage, and have been for 15 years. They're, you know, and they really like it, and they're doing well, so they don't look to move. Others have started places and been there six months a year, and realize they're not getting a lot of value. And they quickly got to move. What were, what was going on at that time, as far as your choices of where to take your license and hang

Mike Rolewicz  15:35  
So, great question. And at the time. So I got into coaching. I know you talk about that quite a bit on the show, so I got into coaching before I even had my license. Like I'm not going to make mistakes. When I had my staffing company, I was blessed to be in some CEO groups. So I'm always trying to figure out shortcuts and find somebody that's been on the path you want to be, versus trailblazing yourself. Excuse me, so I would talk to my coach a lot about what, what do I need to look for, right? And even at the first time you hire a real estate coach right away, yeah, okay, cool. Just again. I don't I need to fast forward, so especially coming in in this chapter in my life. So even at the Tom Ferry event, I asked the guy leading the whole event. I said, Hey, here's here's my story, right? I'll have the check equity. Can buy leads, can do whatever he's like, Look, you don't need to be on a team. Go. Sold. Okay, great. Then what is it to look for in a brokerage? So talk to quite a few in town. It really came down for me. It was training early on, just to know what I'm doing once a minute transaction, and then just a brokerage that had name recognition, because I, at the time, I had this hallucination that that was very important in the consumer's eyes, which now I've otherwise it's more about the agent and their professionalism and their business. So started with the Ponte Vedra office, Berkshire, Hathaway, Home Services, or Kevin Wagaman, great training. Trained me up well, taught me well, had opportunities to sit open houses for other agents, and spent, I guess what, mid 2018 till June of 2020. Is when I made the switch to exp because that's when the model needed to shift for me. It needed to go somewhere that was more team friendly and honestly, where more of that dollar stayed with the agent and not the company. Because I needed that to grow right, to pour back in to the business, and the decision to exp, some folks I had met in coaching. We're with the XP. And just when I started talking to these folks, I'm like, Okay, here's this group of people again, that are where I want to be. Proximity is power. So align myself with a group within exp where I forget the exact stats, but it's very tilted that the group I'm aligned with these are the top, top, top producing agents among the 85,000 agents within exp

Tracy Hayes  18:07  
surrounding yourself by other successful people. And then there's a I have a special guest next week. I'm doing a little different show on Wednesday. Her name is Heather Monahan. She's written a couple of books and is a keynote, big keynote speaker. And she says, you one of the things I'm re listening to her book again, just prepping for that show. And one of the things she says is, don't take advice from people who haven't been where you want to go.

Mike Rolewicz  18:33  
110% Yeah. So the haters, they're great. They're fuel. It's great. Like honestly, my mother, when I started my staffing company, that's who I was going to prove wrong. Like, I know there's something wrong with me, but, you know, but that's where with this group, and that's why I've even started a local mastermind here, because I just want to contribute. I just want to help everybody. That's I did see

Tracy Hayes  18:57  
that I saw that advertised on Facebook. Tell us a little bit about that.

Mike Rolewicz  19:01  
So it's a offshoot. Again, I just there's no original ideas. Tracy in my book, I just rip off and duplicate from others. So, you know, some of the folks, a couple layers up for me, I guess within our exp organization, started a mastermind that actually I'll be dialing into today at one that started as this local one in San Diego. So myself and Steve Shane, who's another team lead in the area, were like, listen, we should do this. The Jacksonville market needs something like this to bring agents from all different brokerages together to solve problems, right? Let's figure out, Hey, how are we communicating the market message now? How are we communicating interest rate changes? How are we going to improve our listing presentation? Just figure out ways to help, right, right? And the better all the agents are in the market, the easier Our job is, right? So that's what we're trying to do. Is like, look, let's level up, everyone. One and just see how we can help. And it's been very, very well received so far, excellent.

Tracy Hayes  20:07  
How long have you guys actually? It's every Wednesday at one

Mike Rolewicz  20:10  
no, we do it a couple times, two or one or two times a month. So I think we've done every couple of weeks, roughly, yeah, five total. We did, I think three in towards the end of 22 and then we've done two so far this year, and our next one is February 16.

Tracy Hayes  20:25  
So you put that out there to any, any agent, yep, any agent, exp, any brokerage wants to chime in. You know, listen to talk. I'm doing a similar Well, it's not necessarily a mastermind, but Tom Rieber with cross country mortgage, well known in the area. We're doing on every Wednesday at lunchtime, we're doing 30 minutes, and we bring in a top, another top mortgage loan officer, to talk about some of those things that you guys are talking about. Like, you know, how to how do we want to talk about the rates? What is actually what other people seeing in the marketplace and so forth? And the phone that's not sitting in front of me is ringing, right? So I'm gonna ask my next question so you can go making sure you have a really successful 12 months. Tell us how did that ramp up with you, or did you just like, I mean, soon as you got you got going, but tell us about those first 12 months, maybe some of the trials and tribulations and some of your successes that maybe you still do today. But what was that? That because you were, you were moving, you were learning or failing forward, learning forward on there, how did you, you know you because you were awarded by Berkshire Hathaway for that first 12 months, and 12 million for any agent, anytime you know, is above average. Here it's above average for the jack's real producers cut off, you know, the top 500 so you're already in the top 500 and you know, even back then, you probably would have been in the top 300 at those numbers, if not better. So tell us how that got started. Did you have a mentor? But kind of give us some color in that first 12 months.

Mike Rolewicz  21:52  
So first 12 months, here's the great thing, and new agents, listen closely. Took me, I think, four or five months to close my first deal. So it was just pouring into what my coach was telling me, get back in touch with your sphere, Mike, and let them know. And this is, this was one of the challenges, and why I felt at the time Berkshire Hathaway Home Services was the right choice, because I had to decouple Mike rollowitz from staffing and couple that into Mike rollowitz, real estate professional. So it was just learning the business, learning the product. I would every caravan. I'd want to go see homes and I'd want to figure out, hey, why is this one not selling? Why is this home selling? I had a spend on Zillow so that helped with some deal flow. Early on, was doing some other internet lead gen following up, but I just I was disciplining myself. I was having to relearn a schedule. When I sold my staffing company, I had a staff. I had a team that I could lean into and could go do things, and the business ran without me.

Tracy Hayes  23:03  
Oh, you are the business now, yeah, and wakes up with your alarm clock. And the

Mike Rolewicz  23:09  
problem is I told my wife and I was in a CEO group called 12 mavens in town. I remember Jeff Davis, who runs that saying when he sold his company, he had run a real successful company that did like artwork for attorneys or something. So when they'd go to trial, they'd have these great graphics about soft tissue injuries, whatever. But he sold his company. Told his wife, no employees for five years. So I'm like, I'm gonna do that. So I told Natalie, no employees five years. So you know, 2019, calendar 19. I do that, 12,000,020 20. I'm up to 22 and I'm like, oh yeah, oh, now it's real and it's happening. So that's when I realized, okay, got a part time transaction coordinator, pay per file, type of solution. Then tried the first iteration of my team that was a hot mess disaster. Didn't have structure, systems, processes in place, didn't have a good contract, Team agreement, marketing services agreement. So stepped back, and then 2021 said, All right, now we're going to relaunch the team, but do it right? And that was a real inflection point to leverage my time. Get a full time director.

Tracy Hayes  24:26  
All right, so yeah, you got some really good stuff here you would you say you went four or five months before the first sale, if I heard that correctly, yep. I mean, again, for those new agents out there, or an agent who's kind of stuck and you've gone 234, months. I mean, what's going through your mind at this time? What? What grounds you to stay on path? And were you? Were you starting to go? Maybe I need to try that, or maybe I need to try this. Or were you like? No, I'm staying with it. I'm sticking sticking to this plan right here. Because it's eventually going to bear fruit. That's well said.

Mike Rolewicz  25:03  
So I would I fell for a couple shiny objects, for sure, and but I always kept my focus on, how do I just build relationships, and how do I get in front of people? And that was always the goal, and it still is to this day. So agents starting out today, if you want to. And granted, I'm probably biased as a team, lead if you want to fast forward your career, accelerate, get into deal flow. Find a great team that has the mentorship, that has the deal flow, not necessarily. Don't just go for leads. Go for leadership, go for the leverage that team can provide so but I never lost because I looked back 20 years or 23 years when I started my staffing company, it's like we we went from zero to anything good for a couple years. I mean, I don't know. I just love that my wife, almost 25 years now, saw potential in med, because when we met, she worked for a client of mine, a cold storage warehouse, and literally, man, I was not doing well. You know, credit card debt, to start that company long ramp up couple work comp injuries early on. I mean, it was learning experience after learning experience. So, and that's where the coaching came in, because that my coach would ground me. He'd say, listen, we're we are getting distracted here. We know what works. Let's run the plays that work over and over. And I just came back from a Tom Ferry conference, and Phil Jones and every realtor should read exactly what to say by Phil Jones, every place he would go during his career, and they'd ask him, you know what? What's your secret?

Speaker 2  26:49  
The basics perform to a high standard, consistently. Period. Basics perform to a high standard, consistently. That's it.

Mike Rolewicz  27:01  
That's the game. So now, right, if a new agent is coming into the business, if I can look at your calendar, I can look at your schedule, and I can predict your

Speaker 2  27:11  
success without fail, I got to write that down, basics,

Mike Rolewicz  27:15  
perform to a high standard performed. High Standard consistency. Then he would say, sprinkled with a little bit of magic consistency, is,

Tracy Hayes  27:23  
is, is obviously the the word of foundation gives the foundation there to it all and more you were talking to. Of course, I, you know, we mentioned already that you had a coach during this entire time and kept you focused. And, of course, you relying on your, you know, your your past success and understood what it took to get there and reach it to a high level, that you were there, that you understood this, this stay the course. And you know, when I'm, I'm out here, you know, I put a lot of stuff on social media. So I go on social media and I'm, I'm, you know, I listen to YouTube or podcasts just to say, Hey, what are they doing differently there? And that sort of thing. And that's they're talking about the same thing when you, when you're being a YouTuber, just keep doing it. You every day, you perform a little better than the day before the next customer you're with, you're going to be a little better, whatever, the next house listing appointment you have, whatever, getting a little bit better. And then the but the bottom line that wraps it all together is consistently, you got to just keep doing it every day. Yeah,

Mike Rolewicz  28:26  
there's there's you're going to pay for. You're going to have pain one of two ways. You're going to have the pain of discipline, which is doing what you know you should do and when you don't want to do it, or the pain of regret. To me, the pain of regret is much, much worse,

Tracy Hayes  28:41  
you have to be old like you and I to know that, though.

Mike Rolewicz  28:45  
Yeah, it's lesson learned over time. But I'll tell you this, Tracy, there's a lot of agents that I mastermind and network with within the ferry organization, within exp much younger than me. I'm chasing them, yes, and they're where they are because of the discipline, because of the consistency, because I know there's certain agents, if I try and call them between nine and 11, it's going straight to voicemail, yeah, because they're in a block of time revenue producing. And they're like, listen, nothing gets in the way. Excuse me in the way of this. Yeah. So if, if you can discipline yourself in that way and know the things that you need to be doing successful follow. So again, show me your show me your schedule. I can show you whether or not you're going to be successful.

Tracy Hayes  29:40  
So to create a nice YouTube short here in your first Well, what I wanted, what you know now, if you, you're, you know, you got a few agents on the team, and you're coaching them, you know, they came brand new. What are three? Three must do things that you're, you're telling these. These new agents that they must do, especially in, you know, even the first six or 12 months, they must do these three things. What would be those three

Mike Rolewicz  30:07  
So the three things, number one, conversations are your currency if you're not creating conversations. And then it's real important to know what to say once you do but that's number one is, are you creating conversations? Number two, do not be a secret agent. So you're going to have to in the world we live in. People find us through reviews. They find us through social media. So put out there that you're a working agent. Show that proof of competence. Do some storytelling. And number three is study and learn the market. Know your numbers, know the data, know what days on market are. One of the things I'm tracking really closely right now. Tracy is inventory went way up, flattened. It's starting back down.

Tracy Hayes  31:01  
That tells a story. It tells a story that we're still in an inventory constrained market. Yep, prices don't go down in inventory constrained markets, even when the interest rates went up. So the gas came off for a little bit. Now the gas pedal is being pushed down a little more. So know the market conversations are your currency, and do not be a secret agent. The education piece there, you know, getting the knowledge. How important I press this on a lot of shows. You just expressed it there, without me even asking that the you know, you it's easier to have the conversations when you are out there educating. And a lot of times, obviously, if you're a lot of people who are getting educated or taking in new information, obviously want to share it, oftentimes with whomever will listen, you know, and you could talk. But how important is it to go down and fully take advantage of what's going on at the local board as far as classes? Not just to get your CE, whether it's a CE or not, as you know, yeah, you got to get your credits. You know, if you're down there taking, take the contract course several times by different people, that's been recommended a lot. But then also, like said, maybe join the mastermind at one o'clock, pick up a nugget someone else is doing something, or they read a book that they thought, you know, was really good. Maybe they're recommending or something like that. Or obviously, I mean, every day, I think you got to, you got a panel, right? You're going to be on tomorrow, on to go and catch a nugget there. How important is showing up and participating and making that part of your work day, week or month? I think

Mike Rolewicz  32:35  
it's critical, because you're never in a vacuum, you're not going to learn all you need to. So the 10th of my the 10th of every month on my calendar is circled, even though I start checking probably on the eighth, because that's when the nefar drops their new market stats. So every month. Now that's a video that shot that moves to our sphere, to our past clients, just to keep people up to date. But that market knowledge, one of the things that I'm learning now is, well, I've known this, but I'm really internalizing it. Now, information will never change anyone, so you have to know it, but it's knowing how to present it as well. The heart decides, the mind justifies, okay. Problem is, I'm a high analytical, high D type personality, so to me, it's all logic. Come on, this is super logical, right? But you have to understand the heart justif or the heart decides the mind justifies so it's figuring out when you're having those conversations, okay, what? What is that fear or what? What pleasure is somebody seeking or pain that they're avoiding, and where does the data fit in with that? And you know, of anything, real estate is very hyper local.

Tracy Hayes  33:48  
Now, you mentioned there a couple things you do. You're doing a video. Austin preck, you know, does his video beacon lakes, and he's, he's obviously goes around and talks about why more agents aren't grabbing onto a conversation with another real estate company. This morning, you were doing a zoom call, and you know about doing some sort of video. Now, with this chat, GPT, this artificial, I can show you how to create videos without you even being in it, if you want to, if you are that

Mike Rolewicz  34:15  
bashful, yeah, I did one for Tamaya. I'm like, Hey, I just, we have a listing in Tamaya. Say my needs a pool home in tomorrow. I got a great one, but I said with my videographer. I said, Listen, let's go shoot some of the amenities, because I want to do one of these neighborhood videos. So when someone Googles living to or living in moving to Tamaya, Jacksonville, Florida, I pop up and I use chat GPT and like, talk about amenities and the builder and this, it creates a nice four great paragraphs for YouTube where I can just do the voiceover, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  34:47  
yeah. Are you coaching? What is your when you're bringing someone on, are you looking for them to kind of have that same attitude towards that you have towards the video? Because obviously, every. All the big professionals out there. It's, you got to be doing video. You got to be doing video. But I'll pull up everyone's Facebook, and there aren't many actually creating that log, that that library, right of information, yeah.

Mike Rolewicz  35:12  
So I tell everybody, listen, I'm the oldest and ugliest on our team. If I can do this, you can, and it's a fact, and that's where people are getting their knowledge, and that's where they're starting to make decisions. We sold two homes last year where the call came in. Hey, Mike, I saw your video. I want to talk to you about purchasing a home some high dollar stuff too. So that's one of my big rocks for this year is more video content and the stuff like you mentioned Austin, where it's hyper local, hyper specific neighborhood focus, not market staff, everybody cares about, or they only do when they're at that point. But having evergreen content out there, these are like unpaid employees for you, whether it's on YouTube, which is probably the best because YouTube, let's face it, it's a search engine. It's not a social network, right? Something that we post a real in our Instagram, that feed you got a day or two of life somebody can search, right? Best Realtor in Jacksonville, or best Realtor in the beaches, whatever that is, YouTube's gonna stay there forever. It is. It

Tracy Hayes  36:21  
is, it is a library after library. And I am really lost on the on the neighborhood thing, because if you owned a neighbor, literally, you can make a living if you are known as that person, Leah mask. And she also does the same thing I was when I had her on, she was talking about that farming that neighborhood and getting up, and it took four or five, six months. But of regular, consistent marketing, what it doesn't necessarily have, it could be just the postcards those win two, if you're consistently sending out the Market Report, those people right, what home sold? You know, everybody wants to know. From that standpoint, I was chatting with my teammate, actually, this morning. We were talking about YouTube and and what and how to do it. I said, Well, you know, you can make this fancy video, like this guy here on Instagram, but I'm going to tell you right now he is, he is leaps and bounds so far ahead of us. He's actually got someone totally professionally doing that he makes. He's going around speaking nationally. There's someone who has a lot of technological background with basic agent doesn't have? Now, if you got the money to pay for that, you're already took it an advanced step, but just creating information. I had a customer we were ended up over a text message, and he said, Well, I'm not 100% sure about the house, but if I pull my credit, I'm worried about I have a I have a little 62nd YouTube short on what happens to your credit when it's pulled for a mortgage, right? And he I sent it to him, he said, great video. By being the informational resource, like you said, anybody Googles that neighborhood, your video is going to pop up. It could be three years old, it's going to pop up, right? Yeah,

Mike Rolewicz  37:56  
yeah. So Tracy, are you telling me just putting up one video is not gonna get me business.

Tracy Hayes  38:01  
No, not. No, no, you need to fill that thing.

Mike Rolewicz  38:05  
So again, back to I'm looking at the notes you took. The basics perform to a high standard consistently. It's and what I'm beating in to my agents and my team, and they're probably sick of hearing it, but I'm not gonna stop guys. It's a long game. We're playing a long game here because we're one of our core values is relationships over transactions. We're not chasing transactions. Conversations are currency. We're building relationships. A great way to do that is that knowledge broker approach to having content that educates informs, if it entertains, hey, even better, yeah, but building that over time. And, you know, social is a great way of doing is, is in, you know, if you watch my Instagram Stories, you're gonna see when I'm out showing properties. You're gonna see places I like and enjoy that we partner with for local deals that we do giveaways with. So just being a part of that community and getting valuable content out business will follow eventually. But don't just don't always think this is that one, or don't overthink, because my crappy video will outperform the one you over thought and never posted 10 times out of time, I don't care, 100% of the time. So ask, ask my team. I want to take Mike. I just when I do something, I do it. It's done. I'm on to the next.

Tracy Hayes  39:29  
I tell, I tell people all the time, when I went on, you got to you do you just do it. And you you might stutter, but you know what's great about the subtitles, which I've heard a lot of people actually watch the videos a lot of times with their sound off, depending on where they're at. And in the subtitles, you can take out ums and ahs and I knows right.

Mike Rolewicz  39:48  
And then you can spell your name right, because it's always got my name spelled on this caption app. Let's change that.

Tracy Hayes  39:57  
So tell us about the 904 home guy team. How is it structured? Forgotten to actually count the number, but you got a half dozen roughly there, you know, agents, but support staff as well. Tell us a little about them so

Mike Rolewicz  40:09  
myself and six agents that are in production. And then we've got a full time operations director who is licensed, but she does not want to transact, which is another learning lesson. If you're going to hire that role, if you're building a team, do not go after somebody that wants to use it as a stepping stone to get into production. Two reasons why, oftentimes are not going to be the right personality fit to have the detail orientation, the steadiness in that role, because agents were were more social butterflies, and then you're gonna end up replacing right? So she's been an absolute godsend to us. She came from Zillow. She was with a large Keller Williams team before, so the I think we have 14 pending deals now. No sweat, she can handle it. We've and that's another thing that I learned, even in staffing, sometimes you kiss a few frogs until you get the right one.

Tracy Hayes  41:05  
That's gonna be my little. I'm gonna go my little. I'm gonna put myself on in over the past year and a half, I've dug into my bit. In the mortgage loan officer world and your top producing mortgage loan officers are setting themselves up the same way a top producing real estate agent does as well. If you are the front pace that brings in front face, that brings in the business, you are the one making the relationships. You're the one you know, creating the videos, making that your job is to make the phone ring. You make you, make the phone ring you. There are people like this individual you're talking about here who love to sit in the cube and do what they do and support their if you but you got to spend the time to interview the people and find who likes to do that. And that's where all these, some of these personality and disc tests, disc tests come in as I'm sure, your coach, or as the mortgage coach that I had, they could tell you who is a loan officer and who is the loan assistant, and you do their personalities and these, you know, and plug them in. Don't hire them when they're really their personality is a loan assistant, thinking they're going to, oh, we'll just get them there, get their feet wet, and then to become a loan officer, because they do see the money the loan officers are making, or the real estate agents making go. I want to, I want to do that. But then what you do is you set someone up for failure. In my opinion, you they make that leap, and then go, oh, you know, now some of them have probably made that leap, you know, all the power too, but unfortunately, lots of times, and then for them to step back, sometimes you lose them all together, and they go somewhere else, right?

Mike Rolewicz  42:38  
Yeah, now it's, it's hiring to personality and their strengths, and the challenge sometimes is to your point, right? You're the you're the face of the company. You have to know when to do that handoff and to do it right. So guess what we do? Tracy, a video. Congratulations. You're under contract. Meet Edna. She's now taking over, and here's why you do not want she's in the video with heart. Yes, awesome. And she's explaining she's future, pacing them. Hey, here's what's going to come next. And I tell them, Listen, this is for your benefit. You like, granted, I can find a mistake in a contract faster. However, everything else you do not want me handling it will go terribly wrong. Deadlines will be missed. So we, you know, we, we let them know why there's that benefit. And also, you know, I believe agents should be looking for three things in a team. It's leads, Leadership Leverage. She provides our team a tremendous amount of leverage, yes, to be able to focus on the things they do best, relationships, showing homes, getting right, getting people where they need to be. So I view my role very heavily now, less the Rainmaker, more leadership and okay, how do I pour into how do I contribute agents to grow them right? Because that's where leverage comes for me, is being able to have agents that

Tracy Hayes  44:06  
you're, you're their in house coach, yep, you know, you're the, you know, that's your leadership role. You're the in house coach and and try to obviously duplicate what, what you were able to do to

Mike Rolewicz  44:14  
some level. That's it, and that's the, that's the name of the game. I love that

Tracy Hayes  44:19  
tip agents that are listening, video, the video of the handoff and your assistant being in there. So they see the face if they're looking at it on the on their computer screens or on their phones. Your brain does not differentiate whether that person standing in front of you or it's a video, and the fact that you're doing it there now they have a face, this person who's going to be calling them, and they're obviously, she's going on and saying, Hey, I'm going to be needing this, or this is what's going to happen. And roll it. I love that I used. I when I was working with a builder and doing a high volume and saying the same things over and over, multiple times a day. I had to put it into a video. This is what you're going to expect. Here's your loan estimate now, boom, here's the important thing. Put it all. On a video and an email. So the husband and wife saw the same thing. In your case, you sent it, you sent it to the buyers. Everyone sees the same video. Everyone's on the same page. No one thinks they're being left out, right? Yeah.

Mike Rolewicz  45:11  
So I've got a series of the 10 steps of the home buying process, a little series. So we're sending those out automated throughout the process, and then add Nana to her credit. I didn't ask her to. She came up with this every week. She shoots a video every Friday or Monday. Hey, Tracy, here's where we are. So last week we went through inspections. We're waiting on the repair requests response, or whatever that looks

Tracy Hayes  45:35  
like. Some weeks, a little bomb, bomb video or something like that.

Mike Rolewicz  45:39  
Yeah, in Bomb, bomb, she makes a nice thumbnail, personalizes it, letting them know, here's where we are. In some weeks, it's Hey Tracy, nothing happened last week, and it shouldn't have. We're through inspections, final loan approval. Your lender may be reaching out, but at least so people know, because that's the worst thing. Same on the listing side, you need to be updating your clients. Hey, here's the showings we had, here's the feedback, here's what's happened in the neighborhood, since that may impact your value. So one of the pillars I built, and I'm, I'm actually revisiting it now, were expired listings, and one of the things I heard consistently was listed to home. Never heard from that's not good. So communicating, letting them know. Hey, here's what the market obviously thinks of our pricing, if our showings are down, or just sharing, hey, here's how impressions we have.

Tracy Hayes  46:29  
Bring in the third party, factual data, right? Yeah, the houses that are sitting on the market, we're finding, or this is what's nationally, they're saying is going on, you can bring in the support your sport, you know, because obviously they probably went against your pricing plan, and boy, won the charge. We we

Mike Rolewicz  46:43  
give them 10 days usually, like, I won't take a listing if I think the seller is in a diluted state, right? But if I'm like, hey, you know what now, Grant, I don't think aspirational pricing has a place in the market we're in right now. It did six, eight months ago. You could, you could try. So now we actually bake in a price adjustment. If, when we look at the data, and we're looking a lot more at active and pending than we are sold right now, because we're looking at the competition to say, okay, hey, if, within 10 days, we don't have one of these two activity metrics, a certain number of showing or an offer, it's already baked in. So there's one critical conversation we don't have to have. It's already been it's like, Okay, here's where we are. We agreed. I'm going to send over the change authorization get signed.

Tracy Hayes  47:31  
I love your the bomb, bomb video that your assistant's doing. And that could be, you know, I'm thinking that that can almost be a graduate, step for a lot of agents, just take the phone. Hey, Mr. Mr. Smith, hey. Nothing changed this week. We're still waiting for that, you know, inspection report to come back. You can say that without having to take without having to worry about it being edited or anything, and you can really start to be used to holding the camera do it for 20 or 30, if that long, it doesn't even have to be that long, right? But people will remember the video as if you came to them and stood in front of them and said that, versus an email that you know, probably the you know, you know, as a lot of us, we get so many different emails we might, we might read it, but it never planted where the video will

Mike Rolewicz  48:20  
and they can watch it back if they have questions, right? Oh, let me see. I think they mentioned some. Let me see about I

Tracy Hayes  48:27  
always liked it because you could send it to the husband and wife. Both of them saw it. Both of them heard the same thing. You weren't talking to one, and then the other one was going, Well, did they tell me everything that? Yeah, all right. Talk about chat G P T. So I had chat G P create us some questions. All right, cool here. So the statement I gave chat G P T was create 10 compelling, passionate and inquisitive questions for a real estate agent who has had great success in five years in the business and leads a successful team. Questions should be unique, thoughtful questions that are rarely asked of top

Mike Rolewicz  49:03  
real estate professionals, it's going deep. Let's go, what

Tracy Hayes  49:07  
is the key element that sets your team apart from others in the industry?

Mike Rolewicz  49:12  
Key element is, I'm going to say empathy, is we really take the time to get context before we go jumping in and showing homes or trying to problem solve, we really want to figure out what is, what are we looking to achieve here? Right? Everybody's got different goals. Investors, first time buyers, trade up, trade down, second homeowners. So really, I think taking the time to understand that, and I think that also comes through and where I'm trying to grow as a leader is leading with empathy and to understand. Hey, Tracy, like we talked about you wanting to hit this number this year, we're not on track. Tell me what's going on versus get back on the phone. Get back on the phone, right? Try and figure out have. Things change, like, is this no longer than or is this no longer the goal? Where do we need to course correct?

Tracy Hayes  50:08  
I thought you were actually, you were leading into even the, actually, even the conversations you're having with your potential buyers. You know, what their goals? Were you specifically talking about your team on that question the

Mike Rolewicz  50:18  
second half of it? Yeah, I was trying to figure out it's like, get context before presenting solutions. What would

Tracy Hayes  50:24  
you say? And I'm throwing you on the spot here, so if it doesn't come up, maybe we'll come up later in conversation. So if you want to say, Let's push that one to the side, what would be? Because I imagine you train them and say, hey, you know, here's some basic questions, just like a loan officer has, you know, hey, you got to ask this and this, and how long they lived there, and, you know, the dates of birth, right? The standard stuff, what would you say is probably one of those unique, or more probing questions a lot of agents actually don't ask, but because you're trying, you're trying to really get into what, you know, the client's brain, so to speak, and how they're thinking of what this next home they visualize is, what's a unique question that you kind of have in that series, I

Mike Rolewicz  51:01  
think a great question we ask everyone now, whether it's an open house or an initial buyer consult. Hey, Tracy, help me understand your current situation. That's it. And just let them talk. You know, tell me about they're gonna either tell you about the house, the neighborhood, the importance for pets or kids. So tell me more about

Tracy Hayes  51:20  
your current change of the current living situation. That's why they're going to a new one, right? So just tell me about

Mike Rolewicz  51:24  
that current living situation, and that way it's it's an opportunity to gather some information. Tell me about the home you're living in now they'll tell you, you listen, hey, what works? What doesn't? What would you

Tracy Hayes  51:37  
change Exactly? Exactly that that really goes, because there might be something in there like that they put on the low priority list, but really deep down, like they'd love to have that backyard for the dog, but they're, like, willing to give it up, because maybe they want to, you know, be the schools or, you know, where, where their kids are growing. But do they able to go to find that house and go, Oh man, this has got the

Mike Rolewicz  51:57  
backyard. Yeah? Trust me, people care more about their dogs than they do the schools anymore, especially that millennial generation. Let me tell you, it's the dogs they got a big vote.

Tracy Hayes  52:11  
Hey, folks, this episode was produced by streamline media, the number one media company for helping brands generate content that converts I knew I wanted to start a podcast to reach more people and bring value to the world, but I did not have the time or the knowledge. Streamlined media became my secret weapon to building my show. They handle all my back end work, production and strategies to keep my show going strong. If you're in the real estate business and looking to make content that generates more leads and brings in more revenue, check out the streamlined media link in the show notes and discover how partnering up can supercharge your path to real estate excellence. All right, so here's a good one for those might be. This is actually a good one for the for your panel tomorrow too. How have you navigated the real estate market during the economic fluctuations and still maintain success. So we know chat GBT is only good through 2021 so it doesn't even know what happened in the last, basically 24 months, roughly 18 months. So yeah, I mean from, from going to where you you know you're getting offers before you stick the sign in the yard to some of these things, if you're not priced right, you know you're talking a little bit about having the built in price reduction, how are you coaching? And then the kind of add to that question, how are you keeping your team motivated? To understand, this is how this business works. There's ups and downs.

Mike Rolewicz  53:38  
Yeah, because so a lot of my agents are newer, so they've never they had not been in a normal market, right? They didn't come in when I did in 2019, or 2020, pre pandemic. So adjusting their expectations no different than adjusting buyer expectations is, listen, we got to go back to performing the basics to a high standard consistently, and just go back to that and what are those things you're best at? And for every agent on my team, it's different. Some were really focused on their sphere, because they've been here a long time. I've got one that's owned a dance studio for 20 plus years. I'm not going to set her loose on internet leads. It's not her best. Yeah, so it's figuring out what's that pillar for each agent, and then helping them dive deep into that. And here's the best path, and understand we're playing the long and I think that will get you through any market ups, that shifts, pivots, whatever words people are using, crack hasn't happened, but you've

Tracy Hayes  54:42  
mentioned, you said the long game a couple of times, and it's been something that I again noticing, you know, well as I prepare for the podcast, and then I'm listening to every one of the agents stories and going through and, you know, hearing how they're successful and where some. Times I'll meet some agents who are not there yet. They're they've done a few transactions. May, you know, and it could be just their lifestyle. Maybe this, you know, hey, they'll do a half dozen transactions a year. They're fine. Their spouse may be, you know, doing really well. So that's just the school. But my perception is that a lot of them are only thinking of, you know again, that next trans chasing the transaction and not realizing this is a long and I think you're a poster child. If I could say I'm gonna put myself on I'm gonna put myself on the video again here a poster child from the standpoint of you went four or five months before you got your first deal. You stuck with it, you You relied on your your past successes, to understand what it took to ramp up that, that sort of thing, where I think a lot, a lot of them are chasing that transactions, and that's why they only get a few over the course of the year, a little bit longer term now, and they're this, I didn't make enough money last year. I need to go back to taking a w2 where, if they really packed it in like you did the four or five months of sticking stick and sticking with it, and all of a sudden you hit a tipping point, yeah. And it came to you. I

Mike Rolewicz  56:07  
think you have to detach yourself from the outcome, which is easier said than done. But honestly, if you ask clients of mine that I've worked with, they'll tell you if backing out of deal is the best thing for them. That's what we need to do. I activities and outcomes are very different things. Focus on the activities. Visit my agent. Intro video, I say, focus on what you can control. Focus on the value that you bring. I'm very much a control the controllables type of person. I know what I can control. I know what I can and I'm not going to try and overpower somebody for a transaction. It's not going to work. But you know, one of the things you asked earlier is, what makes our team different after the sale? I challenge anybody to steal one of my clients after a sale, because we love on them. We do events, we make sure we're in touch with those people. Anything we can do to help right? When hurricanes are coming through and I've got people that are second homeowners along the beach, I'm on the phone, Hey, Mike and Deb, do you want me to go move your furniture in? Whatever those things are, right? So just focusing on that, that servant heart, which, again, another core value of our team. Yep, those are the things that will carry you forward. And sometimes you just got to put your head down and know, just trust the process. It will work out. It just may not be tomorrow, but maybe six months from now, and it's at 3x of what you could have got today.

Tracy Hayes  57:41  
Yes, that is a common theme of the top agents, is, is being that. I call it concierge. You're there for them, for, you know, whatever it needs, or you're thinking of them. It's another it's an opportunity. Oh, the hurricane coming. Oh, yeah, you don't live here. You want me to go move your furniture. I mean that that right there, what, what might have taken you 1520, minutes drive by their house and take care of that very their perception is they owe you one in a way, in a psychological way, they're like, man, he's thinking about me. I need to make sure I'm thinking of him when next time someone's talking about, you know, buying real estate in the area. All right. Next question, what kind of support and training do you provide your team to help them reach their full potential?

Mike Rolewicz  58:29  
So team meetings every week. We've got an onboarding through trainual that has a library of great training we've got a 12 week sales training platform in there called sales velocity. We need to get back to it. We were doing Wednesday kind of office hours training. We would do open house, scripts, buyer consults, CMA, deep dives, whatever those things are. So I try and tailor the training more at the agent level through those check ins, because again, what works for you may not work for someone else, but here's something I also firmly believe, I can't make anybody productive. All I can do is facilitate an environment Tracy, where you choose or choose not to be productive. So I try and give every tool for success. So there's an agent that just joined our team, and she's crushing it two under contract, former military the hole we were looking to fill for a long time. And as we're talking about the tools and tech stack that we provide at her old brokerage, she was paying for all this stuff herself, well now it's built in like, oh, wait a minute, we already have that we have that we have that we have that. So $300 came off of her expense sheet because now she's aligned with us. So having those tools, but again, if you don't use them, it's garbage in, garbage out. So we'll give you the tools, whether it's. Bomba Lolo at our pricing, the art Canva and our full time market director that we've got. So we give all the tools, but it's up to that agent to use them to their full advantage

Tracy Hayes  1:00:14  
as exp helping they imagine they have some in

Mike Rolewicz  1:00:18  
house. So exp has a wonderful tech stack and CRM KV core, honest to God, though we don't use it. So we had Sierra interactive with ggms Prior to joining exp. So we just, we took that relationship forward. But I know KV core, it's 600 a month if you're not with exp. With exp, it's part of your 85 bucks a month. So and there's great tools in there. When you get a listing, there's a marketing center so it knows you get a listing, it puts together all this market material where it's got all the photographs. You just pop them in plug and play. So those tools help. We're Luxury certified now. We're part of the location team within exp. So that gives us some opportunities. And then one of the big lead sources for our business is Agent agent referrals. So when I go to a Tom Ferry conference or exp con, my goal is I'm in the friend making business as many people from feeder markets. Now we're focusing on that military.

Tracy Hayes  1:01:21  
Yeah, you've got that logo on your shirt that says Florida

Mike Rolewicz  1:01:26  
for home guy team. Like, let's go. If you got a need, we got you covered. So at nine of this morning, we had a breakfast brain dump meeting. And I'm like, here's the stack of cards. You know what to do? Get them in. I'll shoot a bomb, bomb video saying, Great to meet you. We'll keep you updated on the market, and hopefully that leads to business. It's great business for our agents, because it's somebody that is already choosing us. We're already at that, know, like and trust level. I'm

Tracy Hayes  1:01:52  
going to switch. The next question was, well, actually, I may still ask that one, but I forgot to ask you about the it was like $12.2 million sale. Yeah. Would you tell us about that

Mike Rolewicz  1:02:01  
so gorgeous home on the ocean. Cronk Duke design, Andrew Howard did the interiors on it. This was somebody I coached their son in La Crosse years ago, and we've stayed in touch. And he runs in some CEO group circles that I used to run in when I have my staffing company. And he, like many, just saw the appreciation and was like, Hey, wait. I think, think this is, this is an opportunity to cash out some equity. And, you know, go from this one home to three or four different properties. So the challenge was that fell out of contract three times. So we and one time it fell out Tracy because of Ford f1 50. All right, you got to

Tracy Hayes  1:02:46  
tell me. Have to tell me that.

Mike Rolewicz  1:02:48  
So just like people buy for their pets, people with Ford f1 50s didn't fit in the garage, like children to swing it the way that building on the ocean, it's tough, right? Because you don't have a whole lot of depth in those lots before you get to some setback requirements. So you came up this driveway, it was like, wire shaped, and you went out and this guy's like, to turn it and get it in there. It's just not going to happen, leaving it out in the salt. And this, that and the other, I'm like, wow, this is interesting. That was the one that I was going to double in. So I really

Tracy Hayes  1:03:18  
wanted that again.

Mike Rolewicz  1:03:21  
Just pull myself away from the outcome. But we got it sold. Great family from the Northeast moved in. I think they're loving and then my sellers are building a pretty impressive home that's going to be just down the street on the other side of the boulevard. And so it was that was one where you look at it and it's, it's a great gift, well. And as we look at our goals this year, we have to adjust, right? That dollar number, so last year was 45 million. This year, our goal is under 20 homes and 60. So you take that one out, even though we'll right, you know, our unit count will go up, the volume won't go up, a whole heck of it, well.

Tracy Hayes  1:04:00  
So the next question actually was, what is a particular challenging transaction? Have you found and sometimes dealing with some you said you're getting into the luxury market? Who is? Who is more? Better words, I'm gonna say, finicky or something. Can can make some of the transactions more difficult? Are those million, $2 million home buyers? In that case, that was 12 million. But I mean, the are they a little more finicky, or really, sometimes dealing with the three to $400,000 ones can can be just as challenging?

Mike Rolewicz  1:04:28  
I tell my team, and I tell everybody, the next easy transaction will be the first. So they all have challenges. Yeah, I think would you find it the higher price points? And we, we sold a home on Roscoe recently, and you get to that price point, decisions are made faster, because these people are where they are, because they don't overthink. They make decisions. They make that decision, they go all in. And when it's a yes, it's a yes, and when it's a no, it's a no. So no, a lot of the challenging ones are especially now what's become challenging roof age. Water Heater age. And some of these, I buyer properties where the seller is not willing to put a new roof on. So two deals died recently just because of that. It's like, listen, they cannot ensure

Tracy Hayes  1:05:13  
were they unwilling to do a escrow hold back or anything. I mean, correct? I know they don't want it. They didn't they. They had their profit margin in there. And that was it. That set the buyer had to buy the buy the new roof. They didn't

Mike Rolewicz  1:05:24  
care Exactly, right? And a lot of these, I buyers, the profit margin is red. It's the other way. So there's a couple where you're seeing they pay 400 and they're selling it for three and a

Tracy Hayes  1:05:35  
quarter. I mean, just as an educational piece for those are out there that are listening the you know, if the seller has the equity but doesn't have the cash, we can do an escrow, hold back and do the roof and you know, as a lender can set that up. Obviously, if you're going to do a rent, a renovation loan in any way, whether it's a Fannie Mae product, Freddie Mac product, or an FHA or VA renovation, you can do it, but you have to have that subject to value in there, if that, if the price is already maxed out, and that new roof isn't going to, actually, you know, change the price point and they have little to no money down, yeah, you kind of stuck in a corner there. And

Mike Rolewicz  1:06:13  
that's, that's where we were on this. And there were other issues, right? The Challenger electric panel, but the roof was the one that was keeping

Tracy Hayes  1:06:20  
it. I've seen the Challenger electrical panel come up a lot lately. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike Rolewicz  1:06:25  
Insurance has become a tough, tough go, right? What do you

Tracy Hayes  1:06:29  
reckon when you're when you're going out right now to a listing appointment and they have a roof that's kind of in that, you know, obviously north of 10 years, maybe pushing 15, you know, we're starting to narrow down who will actually insure it. What kind of conversation are you having with

Mike Rolewicz  1:06:44  
them? Either build into your price or say that you'll put a new roof on prior to closing we get it under contract. So we had two last year that during contract to close, a new roof went on because it wasn't, it wasn't going to be insurable, and even a cash buyer is still going to insure their property. By and large, they don't have to. It's not a lender requirement, but somebody that's a savvy investor is going to ensure

Tracy Hayes  1:07:10  
property too much money laying out there to not put an insurance policy. And, I mean, and it makes a huge difference. I mean, the insurance companies, especially, you know, the north of 10 years now, you know. And if you especially, you got someone north of 15, there's only a few companies that are going to do it. They're going to charge your charger the new buyer when they get insurance, or charge them a lot to do it by putting the new roof on, it could be saving them 150 $200 a month right in their insurance policy.

Mike Rolewicz  1:07:35  
And that can be the difference to a deal getting better.

Tracy Hayes  1:07:37  
I'm bouncing down here just for time. Ah, here's a good one. What is your approach? You mentioned this a little bit earlier, but let's dig particularly in here, in into anyone who might be thinking about, hey, you know, I might I like what Mike's talking about. I want to go talk to him. What is your approach in developing a successful team culture, and how has it contributed to your success? And I want to kind of lace that question with, I mean, some of the successful teams that we talked about, you said, like these young people nine to 11. You can't even call them because they're doing their dials out right? But I talked, I know I've interviewed some of them. They're, they're required to be in that office nine. They're required to be in the office nine to 11 and making those phone calls. That's the regimen they set in. And obviously their leadership says, You want my leadership, this is what you're going

Speaker 2  1:08:25  
to do, how what's your attitude towards

Mike Rolewicz  1:08:28  
so mine, I we hire more to the culture than we do to a production stand. So you know, not to use color for language, but if you're not in a home and you want to sell six to eight homes, there may be a place for you on our team. If you want to sell 24 homes, there's absolute place for you. So we, we really do, I like to to the individual level and motivation and find out, like, what's what's that number for you? Where, where do you need to be, and how do I get you there, and then the development just becomes doing the math backwards. Okay. Tracy, you want to sell 12 homes this year. Okay, what are, what are the pillars? How are we doing? Is it? Zillow, lead your sphere is referrals, agent to agent through the team like where, where is. And our agents are incentivized to self develop their business, their splits are higher, so I'm always looking for ways to help them do more of that business where they're making more, because I don't have to be as involved typically either. So that leadership aspect is really figuring out which levers are we pulling, and then working the math backwards and then asking them permission. What can I hold you accountable to? I can't hold you accountable to my numbers. It's not going to work, right? I and I can't want it more than you want it. And I think that's a challenge a lot of team leaders, myself included, is that we want it more for our agents and sometimes the agent, and it's a hard lesson to learn. There, and that's where you just go back to that empathetic discussion of, hey, so tell me what's changed, like, what's going on? And it could be, there's familial troubles, there's financial you just never know what's going on in someone's life, and that always leads into work. It's going to you can say, oh, no, I separated. I leave it at the door. It doesn't

Tracy Hayes  1:10:22  
one of the things that you're talking to some of the the top team leaders, you know, met Christina Welch on like, a month ago. And I've known Christine a long time, so we really dug into her business, because I've seen it grow and bringing on the right peoples, and I imagine you interchanging with those people, as we talked about very early in the show, that that have done it. You know, you're talking to these other team leaders, and so bringing on the right agent. And sometimes we do have this being, when you're in a hiring position, you see this person like, Oh, my God, you have such great potential. And we kind of almost see ourselves in them or something, and you want to but really, when they actually step in the door, they're not, as you know, they don't have the motivation, they don't have the work ethic, whatever, you know, those those things, how are, how do you how are you dig out to kind of sift through those who are going to rip your heart out when they leave, because you just like, Oh man, that person has so much potential, but they just don't. They're not going to make it. So we know that's going to happen. I mean, there's no numbers forever. No one stays forever. And then, you know it works for some and doesn't work for what are some of the things when you're when you're having in that initial chat with that, that agent coming on the team that kind of help you decipher Is this someone you know that you you can and you want to pour into, because that's what you're going to do. A lot of energy and some money into that person, you know, with with your, you know, career and experiences, hoping, what are some things you kind of do to kind of fish out to see if that's this person is going to stick more than So,

Mike Rolewicz  1:11:52  
yeah, great question, and an inexact science to this day, a lot of it is Just finding out going in the context, okay? Why real estate? Why? Now? Why you right? Why? Why, at this point in your life, is real estate the thing, and what was the thing before? And why is that no longer that thing? And then the why is the most important? What's that purpose? What's that underlying? If it's, I just love architecture and showing homes probably not going to work. It's I want to serve people. I want to help people. I'm a great sales person. I want to transfer it to this. Because at the end of the day, even though I'm a team lead now, at the heart of it is a sales business. So understanding and knowing that that has to be the driver, and just again asking those questions, if you don't hit this what? What are the consequences for you? What does that look are you letting yourself down? Are you letting family down so that we can go deeper on them and figure out, Okay, how much pain are you willing to endure, whether it's short term or long term to get to where you want to

Tracy Hayes  1:13:03  
be, what's very interesting, your architecture or and like to show homes probably not going to work. I have a real Christina Welch says, if you're, you're coming here because you've watched HGTV, and that's why you want to get in real estate. Yeah, it's sales. Yeah, you're getting, yeah. She said that it was exact same word, so you're saying that I was laughing,

Mike Rolewicz  1:13:23  
and just replace HGTV with selling sunset. That's just not it. There's a great meme that was coming around recently, you know, it's top of it. You know, here's Rachel and somebody having this amazing lunch in Beverly Hills, and then there's somebody crouched over a bunch of papers on a set of stairs eating a sandwich, right? That's reality,

Tracy Hayes  1:13:41  
or cleaning a toilet before showing?

Mike Rolewicz  1:13:44  
All the time. Yeah, all the time, yeah. I said that $12 million Listing before showing if we had a nor'easter. Guess what? I was out there with the invisible glass. I'm literally cleaning windows, because that's what people are buying. They're buying view. All right,

Tracy Hayes  1:13:59  
here's my last formal question. All right, again, from chat GPT, how do you envision the future of real estate industry, and what steps are you taking to stay out of the curve? Yeah. I mean, obviously we have these predictors, what's what's going to happen tomorrow, what's going to happen this summer, right? That's what everyone's talking about. Oh, April, May, we're going to see this, yo, the other dam is going to break, kind of thing. And I had an agent saying, and then NAR posted, oh, rates are going to drop. Blah, blah, blah. And I actually responded to the NAR post. It was a Facebook post on on their site. It's the whole and said, you, first of all, you should not be saying this, because you don't know, lenders have really either gone out of business or taken a huge crunch and lost. 40% of the loan officers have not renewed their licenses, just like they said, 40% of the real estate agents going to have 40% of loan officers have dropped out. Margin compression is the word that the Capital Markets Group and all the lending side have talked about that, which basically means their profit margin that's been. Very slim and has been for a long time. For rates to significantly drop, you're going to have to have the government come in and do what they did for over a decade, which is the quantitative easing and putting money into the marketplace. So to make those predictions, I say you need to hold back, and probably not, you know, I think they'll stay the same, but again, trying to predict what's going on in the future. I think, from the agent standpoint, and you running a team, it's one thing yourself, because you're nimble, you can change tomorrow morning. It's up tomorrow morning. We're doing this, but as a team, you've got to watch which, and again, motivate your people so they don't get distracted by what's going on in the marketplace like we've seen in the

Speaker 2  1:15:38  
last three or four or five months. So what was the question?

Tracy Hayes  1:15:42  
The question is, what are your How do you envision the future of real estate industry, and what steps are you taking to stay ahead of the curve?

Mike Rolewicz  1:15:50  
So I think it's always going to be a relationship business. At the end of the day, every business gets commoditized. It's a fact, and there's still, this is, for most people, the highest value asset that they have. So making sure that you're an absolute part of their financial team. So there was a survey done, I think it was 80 plus percent of people don't consider their real estate professional part of their financial team. I want, I like to think, and maybe it's hubris on my part that for a lot of my clients, I'm part of their financial team because we're giving guidance and advice and information that's driving decisions with their biggest asset, whether that's Hey, what was our primary homes now going to become a rental property and we're going to go buy another Home. How do we navigate figuring those things out? And one of the big things that's happening on a national level, a lot of agents aren't even aware of this, is there's a lawsuit right now that says, Listen, the buyer's agent compensation shouldn't come from the seller anymore. So what are you doing to prepare for that? You better have a value proposition for that buyer that says, Listen, here's where I come in. Here's where our value is in the transaction. Oh, by the way, going to cost you. It didn't used to. So if people aren't preparing for that, that's going to be, that's going to be, I

Tracy Hayes  1:17:14  
have heard of this, who's leading, who's who's kind of trying to front that, because obviously, from a real estate side, yeah, you I mean, as much as people like to, you know, Chase first time home buyers. Well, you're gonna chase them. They're gone. I mean, you're gonna take this huge market since, I mean, because they haven't saved up enough money to pay you

Mike Rolewicz  1:17:30  
too, right? So it's a number of states. I'm not exactly sure who I know, Nara is involved at some level in it, right? But that's a conversation that I'm not necessarily having with our team right now. We're focused more on this, this shorter term

Tracy Hayes  1:17:46  
but, well, those are short term thinkers, those people in the lawsuit, short term thinkers, yeah,

Mike Rolewicz  1:17:51  
so, you know, and I think Ricky Carruth put this up this morning, and he's like, Look, I've never heard a top producer blame the market on good days or bad days. So it all goes back the basics. Perform to a high standard consistently. So that's just strip it all away. Play the long figure out what your best lead pillars are. Try and stay away from the shiny objects to the extent you can. Knowing that my phone that's been ringing during this whole thing, probably two of them are trying to sell me referral leads. Probably three lenders just like you. Yeah, we're always getting or they're trying to recruit you. Exactly we're always getting marketing. Figuring out what are the best lead sources for you? What are you best at? And go all in on those. Have any given day you shouldn't have a to do list of 10 things, right? Three? What are the three most impactful things I can do today? And that can change. It might be over the course of the week. It may knock out 10 things. Or maybe those same three are that important?

Tracy Hayes  1:18:59  
I You that is such wise knowledge right there, you've got to just keep the book. Keep keep the boat into the wind. Keep steady on course. Like you said, your your the basics, performance, consistency. Keep the keep moving forward. I remember reading a book in college that I can't remember if it's a macro or micro economics book. One of the analogies that uses, you know, if you're if you've ever been out boating and the wind's blowing, well, if you're going into the wind and over the waves, it's a little smoother than going Sideways. Sideways gets a little little crazy. We're not used to that action. And if you start steering a little too far to the right or too far to the left, it's going to get a little rough. And just keep steering, keep the boat into the wind, you know, as you're going forward. And that's to me, that's what you're saying. Keep doing those basics, performance and consistency through the wind. Yeah, are you going to sell as many homes as when the market was, you know, last June? Maybe not, but you're going to continue going forward that you're going to sell every home you possibly. We could sell, or have an opportunity to sell or buy in the next June, telling, you know, the market, you might not have as many buyers, or the inventory is down, but you're going to maximize whatever. You're going to get your percentage of the marketplace

Mike Rolewicz  1:20:13  
for sure. Yeah, yeah. And you'll gain, this is an opportunity to gain market share, because those 40% or more, that will be, that's your opportunity. Actually, this year, last year, we didn't have a close until February, 10, 2022, great year. Yeah, help 67 families. We've had five or six already. Got a goose egg in January. So really only last year. This year, we've closed five or six. All right, like we're pacing in what in this down market, right? I think everybody just they, they stuck their head in this. A lot of people did October through December. Well, we kept going. Look back 90 days. Whatever you were doing 90 days ago, you're bearing the fruit today, right? So that's again. We just got to tell people, listen. I think a lot of solo agents fall into this trap busy. They get into deal flow and transaction forget, oh crap. I gotta keep lead generating, but I gotta stay in conversation with folks versus deal doctoring, and that's why we love having enough to say, Listen, handle this, and we can go get you more.

Tracy Hayes  1:21:19  
Actually, I'm gonna throw this so you you had a great first year. You mentioned this earlier because this is a dilemma a lot of agents have. Almost every single one that I've had on the show you. Second year, you almost doubled that there, and then you started to get bogged down, like you said, you started burn out a little bit, and that's when you realized you needed to bring on, I think you used a part time transaction coordinator. You heard that say, looking back today, in someone going through the same, you know, knowing what you know now, when would you have hired or brought on that transaction coordinator? Would you have waited, really, the second year? Or would you have probably somewhere in that, in the middle of the second year, you know, after the $12 million first year, in other words, brought with someone on

Mike Rolewicz  1:22:04  
sooner, yeah, usually my regrets in business are doing things too late. And that is an example, because, well, two things happen. You get to this point where you're so busy deal doctoring that I was falling victim to not staying in conversation and lead generation and just the time leverage of all you know, I again, my wife, my kids, they my kids are now 20 and 18. When I started my first company, they weren't born. They hadn't seen what Startup right now, part of me, I look at it as a blessing. They got to see them because they got to see their dad go out of his comfort zone, reinvent himself on the heels very bad news that, to me, is a gift to them. However, it was tough in those moments where I'm working 6070, hours a week, every weekend, and not be able to do things that we need to do under the guise of being a provider, when I had the resources to go hire someone so

Tracy Hayes  1:23:09  
a couple more million Possibly, yeah, so

Mike Rolewicz  1:23:12  
it's, it's, it's figuring out. And really now I look at my time I'm like things that are not dollar producing. I shouldn't be doing it all, and that's hard for agents sometimes, like, I'll have people, oh, I can't make the mastermind. I'm going to this inspection. Text them back. Like, you actually go inspections. Like, check yourself. There's what's the value you have? There are you? Do you have the infrared gun? No go for the last 20 minutes

Tracy Hayes  1:23:41  
if you keep the buyer's dad away from the Yeah. I do know some of the selling, selling agents going to the inspection. Is that really even why? Why would they? I know some that do it, the selling agent. You mean the listing agent, or the listing listing agent going, going, when the buyer is having the home inspected.

Mike Rolewicz  1:23:59  
Yeah, some, I mean, sometimes your seller wants you there, and if that's the case, I'll try and figure out who on my team can be there. And I was, I just asked the question back like Tracy, what's what's important to you about me being in that inspection? Well, I just want to make sure they don't do anything they shouldn't. Well, they're licensed, they're professionals. I'm probably not going to stop them anyway, right? So it's figuring out, what are your as an agent, team member, even team lead, like, what are those highest value activities, and how do I leverage, whether it's virtual assistants, which that's topic for another day we're looking into, or just having that in house person to be able To do what we do best as a or team, or when I'm at home as a husband and a father, is figuring out, how do I leverage myself to compartmentalize all those things?

Tracy Hayes  1:24:51  
All right, we're gonna finish up with this. Okay, my formal question. I forgot to get asked it last on the last episode, but I'm gonna ask it today. Mm. Is it more important who you know or what you know, and why

Mike Rolewicz  1:25:03  
it's important people know how much you care, contrary an answer, but that's, that's, it's very important to know the right people, but they need to know that how much you care, or if they're going to introduce you to someone, how much you're going to care about that person, right?

Tracy Hayes  1:25:22  
Flip Theodore Roosevelt, it's not how much you care, it's not how much you know, it's how much right?

Mike Rolewicz  1:25:26  
Yeah, they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's that whole the heart decides the mind justifies. So I don't care how much I know. If I can't get to you at a heart level, doesn't matter. It's not going to matter at all. Because if I'm just spewing numbers at you and trying to prove you wrong with my data, friction, separation, it's not going to work. Well, yeah, and it's that's the heart level, then the head level. So I think it's definitely who, excuse me, who you know is important and but apart a point in our business where our sphere is much more important than it ever was, because now I've got people looking to transact and refer friends or refer kids, so I've got to lean into those relationships. But at the same time, somebody asked me, What's going on the market? And I don't know. Can be a problem, right?

Tracy Hayes  1:26:13  
No, you got to know some. Sometimes you can get numb in this business of everyone's opinion. That's a fact, 100% 100% anything you want to you want to add on here toward the end of the show here, because I'm going to wrap it up.

Mike Rolewicz  1:26:27  
Not really. I appreciate the time the conversation, your level of research. I love that you knew what was going on here when we got here. And just, I'm having a blast in this industry. So again, I wasn't looking for a cancer diagnosis at age 46 to snap me out of a comfortable yet what was becoming kind of mundane existence, right? So when people are going through seasons in their life, always know that there's a higher purpose, right? And our pastor said, listen, when you're in those seasons, you we all think God's role is to lift us out of it. Now, sometimes he just takes you and rubs your face right through it to teach you that lesson. And that's when I decided to sell my company. I said, Listen, I am not going to go into this and not do it to the glory of God, because it then I'm then I'm playing small like there's no way that it was cured of cancer, right? And that great. It was a good the type I had. The diagnosis was good. The treatment plan sucked. Lost 35 pounds in a month. Anybody tells you it's diet and exercise, it's I wasn't working out at all. It's all which in, couldn't put a thing in, but to come out of that. So just people, when I see them in those seasons, I just want to help. I just want to encourage and say, Listen, there's likely something on the other side that's better. You just don't know it. And I didn't, so I didn't sell my company until yearning after, you know, going through, right? Of course, a treat. But every day I was in there, I'm like, I just don't think this is it anymore. And now we're like, Okay, I'm exactly where God

Tracy Hayes  1:28:14  
wants me to be, loving what you do, and you can make a good living doing it and helping others. And it's obviously something you can do, you know, for a long time, until you don't want to do it anymore.

Mike Rolewicz  1:28:24  
Absolutely. Now it's all about developing others and just transferring that skill 100%

Tracy Hayes  1:28:30  
I appreciate you coming on Absolutely. Thank you, sir, absolutely. Please leave a review for those of you still with us, and please check out the YouTube channel Mike. Stuff will be up probably by the end of the week. In the weekend, we'll start seeing some good reels. I'll be posting it up. And is the full episode. Obviously we'll be there for those who couldn't see it live. So thanks for tuning in.