Cherya Cavanaugh: The Margin

Tracy Hayes  1:05  
welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast with your host. Tracy Hayes, my guest today is one of the most respected agents in Northeast Florida. Her and her husband lead a top producing team with over a decade of experience, much like many of her co Keller William team leads, I can see she runs her team a little differently. She was an education major, taught for 14 years before becoming in the real estate let's welcome Shira Kavanaugh, the CEO of the Kavanaugh team, to the show. Thank you so much, Tracy, thank you. And first of all, let me just share that I have been so incredibly inspired by all of the people in our industry that you have hosted on this show. And I really appreciate what you've done for our industry. You've gone outside of the box and created this podcast. And I really enjoy when a new reel comes through, and I get to just learn not from other real estate agents, but other people in industry, everything from inspectors to mortgage people, title people and so thank you for creating this space for us to learn about each other, because we're kind of like little islands out there it is, and you're making me blush a little bit. I really appreciate that comment, because there is a lot of work that is put in behind the scenes. I mean, this hour hour, we'll sit here and chat. It is the easy part. Yes, of the production, I know, obviously I have someone that will take the audio, but I do spend quite a bit of time cutting those reels. And as I try to tell everyone, and they're being told, you know, do video, do video, I'm failing forward with it, and as we talk pre show, hopefully we got a little different setup here today, which, for those who've been on the show, I'm going to go to this shot here to show. I actually changed the room up a little bit. So yeah, sure, and I are facing each other a little bit. And so I'm constantly improving forward. And know that you're out there, it's being recognized. I appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely, not only improving forward, but you're trending forward. So love it. I like to think so again, we're going to, yeah, we're definitely going to on these reels between, I kind of dropped trying to, I kind of dropped the tick tock. I found it really wasn't going anywhere. The the because everyone wants that, that that three seconds of attractiveness, right, that you're going to attract, and when you're just like, shooting a reel someone making a profound statement about real estate business or whatever, that's not really Tiktok. Doesn't seem I'm not doing it. I haven't learned enough there. But the between Instagram and then all these, every one of these reels are out there on YouTube, yeah. So your customer goes and whether they're searching you or so, you know, maybe a real estate agent searching in a subject matter of fact, Susan Hansen's video this morning, she was talking about, she has investment property, right, giving tips on how to find, you know, quality renters. That's already, you know, in less than an hour, has got over 1300 views and, you know, so hopefully she'll get two or 3000 views just today, but they're out there, and it's in a library. And my goal always was that if someone searched you right, they're going to see not only the audio podcast, but they're also going to see the reels, and you know that sort of absolutely plus, for those of us who are local, nobody can match CC on Tiktok. So she owns the world, and we're going to let her

Tracy Hayes  4:22  
so All right, as I kick off every show, yeah, tell us a little about you know, Where'd you grow up? Yeah.

Cherya Cavanaugh  4:28  
So both my husband, Tom, and I had the privilege of growing up in Ocala, Marion County, a beautiful part of Central Florida, horse country. I grew up on a horse farm. He grew up on a lake. And I'll start with an interesting fact about us. Go for it. We were in the same kindergarten class, yep, so that's where we met. Tom will tell you that he's been chasing my up my skirt ever since.

Cherya Cavanaugh  4:52  
And we did not grow up together. We were in kindergarten, and both of our families moved to different areas of the county, right? And we did.

Cherya Cavanaugh  5:00  
Not come back together until my senior year of college at University of Florida, go Gators and we met again through our moms, and our moms exchanged our phone numbers. We met again, and it's been a great journey. So, okay, so where did he go to school? Also, Marion County. We just went on me from college. Oh, hard knocks. Okay, all right. So he, okay. So he he left the area, but then came back looking for you. Nope, he stayed in the area. Just said, it's a large area. Okay, so, but we were at two separate ends of the county. Oh, I see. And so I was in the north end, which is horse country. He was down by the villages Lake Country, and grew up on a lake, and his background is in construction. Okay, so his dad was a profound leader in our community. Owned Silver Springs, attractions, the springs there, and Tom built all of the water park and all of the slides. Oh, interesting. And so he came up through construction and had that background. So it was great, yeah, yeah. Okay. So you go to University of Florida. You're an education major, yeah? So you're just, thing was like, Hey, I'm gonna be a teacher for 30 years. Well, yeah, I was really running away from real estate. I grew up. My mom is a real estate oh gosh, phenomenon in Marion County. She's awesome. She has been in real estate for over 40 years now. She's 70. Well, Mom, I won't tell your age, but she's in her 70s, and she's still doing transactions. Yeah, she was president of MLS, she's been on national committees. She's been to Washington, DC with our pack, and she's just been a trendsetter. And so she got me into the business as soon as I got my driver's license and a beautiful camera. On the same day, I'm like, Mom, what's the camera for? I need you to go take pictures of all my listings. Hey,

Cherya Cavanaugh  6:54  
so she put me in business the day I got my driver's license, and I would travel to her listings, go take the photos, take them to Ecker drugs, dating myself. Get them developed. Wait, you know, do the express one hour and bring them back to the office. Tape them onto the homes and lands ad and I would type on the typewriter the descriptions of the houses. Oh, yeah. So that dates me,

Tracy Hayes  7:21  
and it's actually not as you know, you think about it, and really, it's really not, actually that long ago. It's not, thank you,

Cherya Cavanaugh  7:27  
Tracy, you're making me feel better. Thank you. So, so that was kind of my introduction into real estate, and so I worked with her, alongside of her, all through high school, part of college, and I'm just a very type A personality, so the chaos did not seem attractive to me, right? Because real estate agents are all over the place for the most part, and my mom did it well, but it just wasn't something that I wanted to see myself doing,

Tracy Hayes  7:57  
isn't it? One of the it's one of those industries. There's there's a characteristic. I fall into that characteristic where there's something to do. We just dive in it and we do it and we figure it out on the way right where a lot of people want, you know, hey, I got to know what's around the corner, most real estate. Just, just open the door right first, and yeah, I could see where it says some of the attention to detail in especially that world where they're, you know, today, the technology kind of brings everyone, everything to your desk. Yes, you know, there you're, yeah, I gotta send these pictures off, and then it's gonna be printed in the magazine, and then this, you know, this house is gonna sit there's this, you know, yeah,

Cherya Cavanaugh  8:32  
is just a longer process. But I grew it, like I said, grew up on a horse farm, grew up in an agricultural family, and and loved that, and so I went to school, and I'm an agriculture education major, so my degree is in horticulture biology, okay, and so that was just something that I really enjoyed, and I was able to teach high school kids. So I graduated. I was 23 teaching 18 year old boys how to run a greenhouse. Yeah, that was super fun.

Tracy Hayes  9:01  
Well, I was an education major as well, so I've done the student teaching and all this stuff. For some reason, I stepped right out and got into sales. And 23 years ago, or 22 years ago, I did go, as in between jobs, let me go teach. You know, here in Florida, they were hiring, you know, they'll hire you, and then you you know, you know, get your certification. I had my certification, but had already been a decade I'd been out, but I realized quickly I don't have the patience. Or, you know, I've said on the show before, I'm always someone who's in your face is because they care. That's how I grew up, right? Today, if you're in someone's face, it's because I think you're trying to demean them, right? They don't understand that you're actually you're giving them attention because you actually care. That's right? Yeah. So I, yeah, I'm and I'm from coaching. People laugh at it. I'm more of the Bobby Knight coach, so I don't fall off. I don't have the fluff for today's Yeah.

Cherya Cavanaugh  9:50  
So to fast forward, so Tom and I, a few years later, we're, we are big family, and like I said, he was hired on with Del Webb Pulte in Ocala. Love where the next to where the village is is, and he got promoted, they took our family out to California. So we moved across the country, four kids, a dog and a cat, and we loved it. It was an incredible opportunity,

Tracy Hayes  10:14  
not California today, I would imagine, you know,

Cherya Cavanaugh  10:17  
I would tell you we were surprised. We were surprised of what good people are there, regardless of what is promoted on the media. There's some really good, good people there, and we had the privilege to meet them, to work with them. And so we were in California for seven, eight years in the prime of raising our kids and and had our fifth child while we were there, and then the market crashed. So here we go. What do we do? You come back home. So 2009 2010 Tom, did I think 43 riffs with his country, his company, a riff is reduction in force, and he was number 44 Oh, wow. And so we're like, well, we have five kids, two are in college, a dog and a cat, and we had no income. So other I was still teaching. And so we decided to load everything we owned that was important to us. He said, Baby, you get 1u haul, put everything in it that's really important to you. So we did, and we took I 10 from San Diego to Jack's beach. And his brother has been a resident here in Jack's beach for many, many years. And he said, Dude, just come, come to the beach. We'll surf and figure out what you guys are going to do next. So that's what we did. And we took that drive and a lot of a lot of faith and a ton of prayers.

Tracy Hayes  11:43  
So that you had, you had in your resume, I believe you had Del Webb on there. So before the crash, did you is that when you made your first step into and working with Del Webb out there during the crash, during the Yeah,

Cherya Cavanaugh  11:56  
so we came here and we were, you know, establishing, getting our boys in school, taking care of our girls, and what are we gonna, you know, kind of figuring out, spending a lot of time in prayer, going, Okay, God, what do you have for us? What is our next step looks like? And we discovered Naka tea. And at the time, Naka team was kind of a naysay. It was nay say, Naka tea. Nobody wanted anything to do with Naka T and it was, why would anybody move out there? It's over the ditch and, oh, it's never going to come to anything. There was no Publix, right? There was nothing, right? And we saw it as a diamond in the rough. We're like, we

Tracy Hayes  12:33  
know the Del Webb community out there was one of the first community out there, right?

Cherya Cavanaugh  12:37  
Del Webb, Coastal Oaks and Austin and Kelly's place. I call it so the manager of polti the time was the man who had originally hired Tom in Ocala 15 years ago and said, Hey, I need some help. Why don't you share? I get your your real estate license and come help me at Del Webb, because the market has crashed. But guess who has money? Exactly 55 and over people. Yep, they have cash, right? They don't care that the markets crash. In fact, they're ready to capitalize. Yes. So that kind of shares the trend of of who we are. We've learned how to triumph through tragedy is probably who we are as a couple of when there's a tragedy, we've learned, let's triumph from this. Let's find the diamond in the rough, and let's learn how we can grow.

Tracy Hayes  13:33  
Are you, you know, obviously the predictions in this current, you know, change, which, I think, where you're basically coming on, almost coming to a full year, to where we started to see some the volatility. Rates started to come up. Lot of things out there, you'll say 40% of the real estate agents are going to be gone, which means, you know, 40% of the mortgage industry as well. Are, you know, are going lose? Are you? Are you? Are you starting to see that? And then, like you said, because I'm saying thing I was doing mortgages all through that time, I started no five. And so, you know, I know what it's like to go thin and to kind of hold your breath for a little bit before you break out the other side. But we're also in a little bit of a little island here in, I don't know, a fall of Florida, but I think definitely our area for sure, because there is still such a high demand, low inventory, which we had more people want to sell homes, you know? So we can move them in, move them out. But the reality is, when we do have a good home and price it right, it goes over the weekend

Cherya Cavanaugh  14:27  
absolutely and so we are still seeing even the post covid community come to our area, yes, so maybe they held it out through covid and stuck it out in Ohio or California or New York, New Jersey, and now they're going, Okay, we're back into life, and it's just not where we want to be. Yeah, it's not where we want to raise our family, right? It's not the education that we want our kids to get,

Tracy Hayes  14:58  
or the we've got the. The first family member came down during covid, yes. And they're like, Yeah, you can work remote here. It's great. Taxes are lower. Our kids are out playing in middle of March, outside in their shorts, you know, as we were talking earlier, you know, and they're like, oh, okay, well, maybe I can join you. I was listening to something this morning. I don't know what was a discussion, but basically, you know where we're even I think it was gonna be before covid. I haven't heard the numbers postcode. Even before covid, we were getting nearly 1000 people a day.

Cherya Cavanaugh  15:28  
It's the same, you know, we were just at the SMC breakfast last Friday with our St Johns County president of Chamber of Commerce and Eddie creamer. Who is our if you get your tax bill, you know who he is, and they gave some great stats, and it is still 1000 people a day moving to Florida, 100 people a day moving to St Johns County. Yeah, still, yep, right now. So we are so incredibly fortunate that we do live in a bubble and we are able to still welcome people. Has it slowed down a bit? It has but we're still steady. We are we are still, you know, when you stick stay true to your systems and your processes, but mostly when you stay true to your commitment, then you're going to continue to be successful.

Tracy Hayes  16:14  
Do you see, really, the only thing I think is slowing us down is the the entry price point. Do you think it's because, because of the demand is high? And obviously the builders say, well, we can charge this much more for because people are paying for it, right? That you know that price point in St John's County, it would probably be 150 a day if we if we had some entry level price point. But our affordable housing is obviously a challenge right now in the area, and then even in Jacksonville, to find decent housing, unless you're going to, you know, renovate it or something. And then that's not always great, because every, you know, everybody wants something all new and

Cherya Cavanaugh  16:50  
shiny, right? Well, yeah, and that is still available to share with you. An example we just worked with this sweet newlywed couple. He's a JSO officer, and he works a beat, you know, a little bit everywhere. And so they wanted to get out of apartment, because the rental prices are crazy, yeah. So we sat down with them, and we did a consultation, and, hey, this is how you can own. And he bought a brand new house in Uli and more than willing to do a little bit of a drive. That's not a big deal.

Tracy Hayes  17:20  
Yeah, that is a, that's a whole nother area that's about to explode that whole mess, pretty much, I think you're gonna see, you know, right up to the Georgia Line. Yes, it's not beyond. It's kind of the last, last little hidden secret of Florida. Yes, so to speak. I think there's still some stuff on the West Coast, you know, some of those rural, real roar rural areas up in the corner of the Gulf. But you know, definitely on the ocean side alone, 95

Cherya Cavanaugh  17:44  
so as of as agents, if we're willing to open up our parameters a little bit and then bring our customers into those parameters, they're pretty willing to to look at that as well.

Tracy Hayes  17:57  
That brings up a great point. There's there's no doubt some of the agents need to start making some trips up to Nassau County get familiar with what subdivisions are going in up there. I know Nassau County is working really hard. I think it was over your maybe year and a half ago that they were at the SMC breakfast talking about the infrastructure they're putting in. That's right, yeah,

Cherya Cavanaugh  18:16  
that's another thing that we learned is, you know, we all know St Johns County school system is number one. Nassau County is number two in the state. So it's a great alternative.

Tracy Hayes  18:26  
And clays, I don't know where clays are, clays on the cast. Yeah, Clay's not that far behind, if they're not number three or four. And when that expressway, the First Coast expressway, comes in, I mean, it is. That's another, that's decades, that's 20 years of housing 100% going.

Cherya Cavanaugh  18:43  
We've been saying that all first quarter clay is on the cusp. So get ready. We're gearing up.

Tracy Hayes  18:50  
I was fortunate enough to put a dual loan for a couple. They bought a manufactured home on 20 acres down in Palatka in the fall, and I was really happy to do it for him. It was like 360,000 and I was like, because I said, dude, in 10 years this, this is you're going to double the value because you're sitting on 20 acres. You can do a lot with that, right? Yeah, type of thing subdivided, or whatever. That's true. All right. So you're, you go over to Del Webb, yeah.

Cherya Cavanaugh  19:15  
So our, the manager there, which was also a very good friend of ours, listen, in our business relationships matter, and never burn bridges. And what we've learned so we had not seen him in 15 years, and we just picked up where we left off, and he's like, Hey, I need some help in Del Webb, both Tom and I did that, and it was a great launch to get us started and and then we just realized that there is an opportunity here. There's no real estate agency in this area at all. It was over all over at the beaches, and so we kind of navigated, what would that look like for us to launch that and and we did. So we went out on our own and launched the Kavanaugh team and opened up an office. That you know, helped with our brokerage at the time to open up an office there in nakati.

Tracy Hayes  20:04  
And it was, do need to update your your LinkedIn, you know that, yes, you told me that I went on there I go. Hold on a second. She doesn't. She's not there anymore.

Cherya Cavanaugh  20:14  
Yes, I gotta update it. So it's been, it's been great to watch that grow. We've been so fortunate. I think we've sold about 1500 ohms in Northeast Florida over the past 10 years. It has just been an incredible blessing.

Tracy Hayes  20:28  
Let's talk about the two different types of brokerages. Obviously, where you were at there, they put an office. I mean, you can't get a better location versus the, you know, the virtual offices in that particular situation you were, it's right in the honey spot of where growth was going to go on. It's still going on to a point. And even, you know, as transient as our our area is people moving in and out of Naka T, that office is right there. What, what did you see by having that, really, that, you know, location, location, location, office, as far as you know, the walk ins. I mean, did it pay off 100% because obviously, you're paying high rent,

Cherya Cavanaugh  21:10  
definitely paid definitely the walk ins paid off. And, you know, it's interesting, because I collaborate with other agents across the country, across the nation, you know, do a lot of masterminds, and a lot of them are in the virtual space. And I'm, like, the only cheerleader for, you know, walk ins, and it is important and and, you know, we are, we are working on that. That is, you know, one of the reasons why we joined Keller Williams is because they came to Tom and I and said, Hey, we want a physical location in North St John's County. We don't have one. Would you guys lead the way? Right? And that. So it was an opportunity for us to come into ownership as well as launch a physical office. So, so you'll see our physical office here pretty soon, in North St John's County.

Tracy Hayes  21:57  
Oh, I was gonna say, I'm like, Okay, what are you talking about? Enlighten us. Where's it? You do we have a space already

Cherya Cavanaugh  22:02  
contracted, or we are in negotiation? Keep a secret for now. Yep, we did have a space that we had signed a lease on near beach walk, but it has not gotten off ground. So that's the other you know, difficult part about St Johns County is you have a little bit of retail space, and then five miles of woods, and then a little bit of retail space. So kind of taking a little longer, but we're working on that, and

Tracy Hayes  22:29  
we're, I know some I was talking to another brokerage because they were looking to go, and I was pointing out all sorts of places. And, you know, especially as you go further out, I do believe river town is still not even Right. Like, I mean, there's so much stuff going out and out towards Bartram High School, yeah, and so forth. So, I mean, so you're, you're coming into Christina Welch's stomping grounds here, a little bit. Well, we had negotiations on this, yeah, toes.

Cherya Cavanaugh  22:58  
I mean, she is just so dear to me and dear to my heart. So we, we do a lot of great collaboration together. And listen, nobody can rain on her parade, even if you try.

Tracy Hayes  23:10  
Yeah, she is she? Well, I brag about her all the time on the show, obviously known her as so your initial, you know, going to the brokerage. And if you want to mention them, that's up to you. I don't mention the other broker, but your was the initial thing, more the brokerage from a location thing, or why did you choose your brokerage before Keller Williams,

Cherya Cavanaugh  23:31  
yeah, why do we choose it really was relationships. I'm gonna just keep going back to relationships. When I was at Del Webb, I had a couple of agents who would bring me customers. Kim Sandberg was probably the reason why I went to REMAX at the time, and she would she was just great and authentic and true to herself and high level of integrity. And so when I was looking for an office to join, I was like that, I want to be with someone who does their business like that. And been in the real estate world for a long time, even though, as an education, my husband was in real estate, my mom was in real estate, his mom was in real estate. So I knew what to look for, and it was a great opportunity. And so we went to those owners. They were only over at the beach, and we went and talked with them. They said, You know, we've been offered a space in nakati. We were not sure we're gonna take it. We're like, Let's seal the deal. So it was great, and we are so grateful for that opportunity. Our time there, we were never unhappy with that brokerage at all. It just was an opportunity for us to build on our own wealth.

Tracy Hayes  24:38  
Well, as you, if you're listening to the show, you know, I like to drill in because I there's, there's new agents out there, those agents who are kind of feel they've hit a lid, because they're maybe, you know, the value that one brokerage can take you to, all of a sudden it tapers off. Maybe they're not, as you know, chasing it every day and always improving on their values. Sometimes the values taper off, and you go look somewhere else. Right?

Cherya Cavanaugh  25:00  
Yeah. We were not looking, but we had hit a ceiling. Yeah, we were at the top of our game. We were in the top 1% really the top half percent of REMAX. I was in Adam, conscious, CEO, private mastermind. I mean, we, we had really hit the top of the ceiling where we were, but we then we realized we need something that can become passive income, or something that we can build upon, so that, if we were to stop showing homes tomorrow, where we could we continue to grow and to receive, you know, an income.

Tracy Hayes  25:36  
So how big is the Kavanaugh team at at that time, versus where you're at today?

Cherya Cavanaugh  25:41  
Yeah, we're about half of where we were at that time. And awesome teammates, when you made, yeah, there was a little bit of a separation, which was great. You know, I'm always good. I'm always about a good cleansing. So it was good. It was a good opportunity. You know, once something that Keller, Gary Keller says is you have to go small to grow big.

Tracy Hayes  26:07  
Go small to grow big. Okay, that's a real right there. So in your eyes, that literally meant, hey, losing some people is fine, because we're going to trim the fat, so to speak. Yeah, so we can run faster or run further,

Cherya Cavanaugh  26:23  
run deeper. It was all about depth for us, and so it was good for us to scale down, to go small, so that we could really look into the depth of what we're providing for our customers. And then the other huge factor of our business is in our involvement in our community. And when you are so consumed with managing agents on your team, can you really be a leader and a servant in your community? And that's really important to us,

Tracy Hayes  27:00  
so that that I'm going to jump ahead in my normal routine here. Because what you might my question, always, I always like to probe everyone and get everyone's opinion on the fact how important is, if you're talking with you know, I'm sure you get approached all the time. People are thinking about getting in the industry. For sure, what are you telling them, as far as, what were they? Because every brokerage is different, as you you know, ReMax versus where you're at. Keller Williams. Now you chose because of what you felt Keller Williams is going to add and take you guys to the next level. How important it is to sit down and what are some of those things, you know? Because I think obviously, a lot of agents getting in, they don't know anything, right, right? So they don't know what to ask, right, but that, you know, there's people out there like yourself, I'm sure, are welcome to, you know, have coffee with them, or stop by the office, or, you know, just chat on the phone and say, Well, you know, who are you? You know, who where. You know. I think the agents that have gotten off to a great start have either luckily matched with the right brokerage or searched out the right brokerage that matched them right? Yeah, right. So when you're you trim down the team a little bit. I imagine some of those members on the team were just kind of more filling space because they weren't really clicking with your style by trimming them down. And you know, what did you I guess, what did you learn by that process of trimming out some of those people, because I assume that they were really successful, or felt it because it was because you're in Tom's Mojo they were getting. They were successful. They moved with you right where others like, oh, just

Cherya Cavanaugh  28:32  
actually, actually, I'm going to stop you right here, because I do you know there are top producers, and guess what we found, we had trained them really well, and they replicate. They've replicated what we taught them, and they've created their own team, and they've been extremely successful. And Coco Chanel said the biggest flattery is being duplicated.

Tracy Hayes  28:58  
Oh yes, yes, you created other leaders. You created other leaders. That's absolutely, that's a true leader. Will create other leaders. So those, those people graduated to go out. But, I mean, did you find, though, that they're, you know, like you said, you were getting you were getting big, from the standpoint it was taking a lot of your energy away, yeah.

Cherya Cavanaugh  29:17  
So, you know, at first, we kind of hired people to fill in the that void, and we realized, Wait, this is not, you know, what we're looking for. We are not looking to be a 20 agent team. That is not who we are. We're so relational. Keep going back to this relationship piece that's so important to us. We are so relational. We want to stay relational with our customers. And again, I keep going back. We're such servants and leaders in our community, and we wanted to make sure that we had that time and energy to be able to do what is really important to our heart and soul. All right,

Tracy Hayes  29:54  
so I'm gonna drill. We're gonna we're gonna take this one more step, yeah, because I think a lot of agents get in the business. You know, at least initially, that you know, they look up to you. They look up to Christina, Cece, and, you know, Sarah Rocco. And so far, I want to be like them, yeah, but it takes another really, do you really want to be like them? Do you really want to, you know, where their energy is going? It's, you know, Christina. I think everyone, she succeeded, and everyone looks up to her because they saw the grind that she put in. Yeah, she was there in 2008 at the Watson on 210 Yeah, you know, trying to take walk ins or whatever, and handle and she trudged through it, yeah. And then obviously, joining Keller Williams in, you know, I know early on retention. Retention is a big thing if you're trying to grow a team, yeah. And she slowly has mastered that with some, you know, having really great people around her, that that inner core is growing. So it's not easy. It's not something that happens overnight, where you see some of these people wanted, they want to grow a team all, oh yeah, I'm gonna, I want to have 10 agents by the end of the year, and it takes a lot, yeah, yeah.

Cherya Cavanaugh  30:56  
Be careful what you ask for, exactly, exactly.

Tracy Hayes  31:00  
So, I mean, in your experience, and what are some of the, you know, I think it's important that we fail forward. Yeah, there's some things that you probably you did you had to learn from. I mean, you learned from it. So that was the positive aspect of it. But obviously, you know, doing it today, or if you were coaching someone else that was trying to start a team, what are some of the things that you guys, you know, did early on. Like, you know, I would tell Don't, don't do that.

Cherya Cavanaugh  31:24  
Yeah, I would say, because we're set, we're trusting people, and we have such a high level of integrity, we think that everyone is that way. And you kind of get burned sometimes

Tracy Hayes  31:36  
with that or naivete, yeah,

Cherya Cavanaugh  31:40  
and that's okay. I'd rather be that way than than critical, but just protect yourself. And you know, I've been so fortunate to be a great colleague of the other leaders in our industry here that we share contracts with each other. Probably didn't have a steadfast contract in place with my agents that that that protected us. And so it, it did hurt us when we we did a bit of a transition. And, you know, your people, their true colors come out. And so I would say, you know, just have those parameters, those boundaries in place to protect yourself and to protect your business and all of your hard work, because we kind of just opened up our black book and gave like you said, we we did the grind. I mean, when Tom and I started our business in 2012 just the two of us Told Sold 62 homes just ourselves, we were, you know, curled up in the fetal position at the end of the year and barely married, and we trudged through that, and then hired on our first team person to help us so that we could stay married. And then we kept trudging through, you know, like you were talking about Christina and doing persistent Yes, yes. And brought on people, you know, and then just open up our business to them, but we didn't protect, you know, the hard work that we did and and that's okay, because, like you said, it produced leaders, and it's great to have other leaders in this industry. You know, none of us, if you're a top agent, you realize you can't have it all right, and nor do you want it all, because then it doesn't allow you to leverage your energy and your passion for what's really important to you and what's if we're honest with ourselves, what's really important to us is not opening doors on lock boxes, it's opening doors on personal development. That's what's really important to us

Tracy Hayes  33:41  
All right, so to you and Tom, but obviously you bred that into your team, yeah, especially these people that have spun off and started their own teams. How do you because I've read a lot more books since I've been out of school than I ever did in school. People, I say that to some people, they look at me funny as Yeah, it's, it's different when you're reading for what you feel is your own personal we often, we're at school, oh, we got to read this text. We got to read this, you know, novel or whatever. For the English class, the English teacher chose it right where, if you choose the book yourself, yeah, it's on you diving into that. And how did, how did you coaches imagine, you probably had some people that wasn't natural to them, to kind of coach them up and encourage them make them to a point where they wanted to do it

Cherya Cavanaugh  34:27  
one and two, develop personally. Personally, yeah, it's just, it's a big part of our culture and our team. We start every year with a vision retreat where we take our whole team off site, and we rent an oceanfront house overnight, and we spend all day diving into personal goals and then business goals. So we start with the personal and where are you going to grow as a person? Where are you going to be your best for your family, for your. Own growth in your spiritual life. And then now let's help bring your business goals to lift up those personal goals. So we start there. Well, just by your,

Tracy Hayes  35:12  
you know, the people you spun off your your own numbers, you must do really well there. I think people imagine there's a lot of those events going on because, oh, that's what Shira did. We're gonna go do that. But actually, what happens there, and how you structure and set up the situation to create it that obviously, I'm sure the term they gotta that you want them bought in, for sure, and when they put out their goals, you're gonna get them to buy into their own goals, yeah, and hold them accountable, yes, and that's, to me, that's that's the difference in leadership. Holding that event, anyone can do

Cherya Cavanaugh  35:45  
that anybody could do it. But when you are with your team, and you've got, like, big boards stuck to the windows and you're writing, it's not a PowerPoint. It is like an interactive experience where you're overlooking the ocean, we give them time to kind of break off, go put your toes in the sand, like, provide an environment of inspiration, and then those goals. And nothing has been better. Last year, we helped four people on our team buy at their own personal home. Awesome. That's amazing.

Tracy Hayes  36:14  
Yeah, well, you're changing the trajectory, which I often see, especially with a lot of a lot of the younger agents. You know, we've, you know, we've got a lot of single moms and so forth in our industry, and to see them step out from literally nothing. Jordan Ferrers, you know, she was living paycheck to paycheck, or even Melissa Ricks, I mean, what, you know, and her story and coming here with literally nothing and where she's gotten is very inspirational. When you're, you're obviously bringing on the right people. You've gotten to that point as Christina has, you're, you know, you're a little more selective of who joins your team, absolutely, what are, what are some of the things that today, you know, when you've got that prospect in front of you that wants to join your team, or maybe you think, thought, you know, you saw him on the surface. Hey, come in and talk to me. What are some things you're kind of looking for? What, what kind of questions are you asking to because I think it's not everybody that's going to buy into this. What you were talking about, the vision boards and so forth, you know, I'm saying, so you have to pre respect. Is this someone that's actually going to buy into our culture? Yeah. What are some of the things you do to prove a simple

Cherya Cavanaugh  37:20  
question is your money? Is your motivator, money or a mission? Money or admission? Is your motivator money or a mission? Emission? Just a mission.

Tracy Hayes  37:35  
Oh, a mission. I thought you made like admissions on a car or a mission, a mission

Cherya Cavanaugh  37:44  
money, or is it, is your motivator, a mission like you're on a

Tracy Hayes  37:50  
title, this, this podcast, money, or a mission that's, that's gonna be the title. So how do you tell me how we're sitting here talking, how would you bring that out in me to find out that's, I mean, you're, you're kind of asking that question. Yeah, if you, you ask that question directly, like that,

Cherya Cavanaugh  38:08  
Tracy, you because I don't think any role play, right? Yes, here we go. Hey, Tracy, hold on.

Tracy Hayes  38:13  
Let me put both cameras on me. All right, we're gonna, we're gonna role play

Cherya Cavanaugh  38:18  
this interview. Absolutely. Hey, Tracy, thank you so much for reaching out to me, and with your interest of real estate, I'm truly honored, and I hope that our time together will be beneficial for both of us, and that regardless of whether we go into a partnership or not, that you walk away with some value of our conversation. So share with me when you reached out to me and said, Hey, I got my real estate license, or I've been in the business for about a year, I'm really looking for a little bit more thinking about your team. You were recommended to me. What is your mission in today's conversation? What are you hoping to accomplish?

Tracy Hayes  38:54  
I want to find out you know more about your team. And if we're we are a match. You know, with a little bit of experience i i do have. I'm just looking, looking for

Cherya Cavanaugh  39:04  
something more. Okay, so as you're looking for something more, share with me. What is that more? Is it financially to gain more? Is it to to grow in your your personal life? Is it to accomplish something that you need to accomplish in your your life. What is that more?

Tracy Hayes  39:25  
Well, I mean, ultimately, you know, I have a family, so we need to provide. I mean, that's the basics of what we do. But I always feel that, you know, by by improving myself, that the finances will will fall behind, although it's important you don't want to go out and, you know you can do whatever, but if it doesn't actually doesn't pay very well, it may not feed your family. So you obviously knowing that my effort in improving myself will equate financially to meet my my needs.

Cherya Cavanaugh  39:55  
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, we're all about what we call the survival number. Mm. So what? And that's what we start with on our team, is, what is your bottom line, survival number, and, and we can do all of the things to help you reach that survival number. Very, very well beyond that, what does life look like for you beyond that? I mean,

Tracy Hayes  40:17  
you know, to be able to, you know, take a vacation without, you know, being concerned about what it costs. You know, within reason, and you know, to, you know, give my kids the best they can. And, you know, put a prepare for their college funds and so forth, as well as, ultimately, the the day I can't work anymore.

Cherya Cavanaugh  40:35  
Yeah, absolutely. So it's wealth building within your family to provide for your family, yes, and then it's also building experiences within your family, creating memories. Yes, 100% Yeah, yeah. That's what we're all about. In fact, we often say that we utilize real estate to make magical moments around the Christmas tree. Okay, seriously, yeah, because that is what real estate is all about. It's taking a family, whether they're on your team or as a customer, and going, how can I ensure that their life maximizes their memories around their Christmas tree?

Tracy Hayes  41:16  
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 backend 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 streamline media link in the show notes and discover how partnering up can supercharge your path to real estate excellence. So you break away from our our thing. You know, I always remember you haven't been different sales, you know, there's, there's sales people that they get that first check. You're hanging out in occoty, you're in a you're the highest price point in the county, and probably in the air in the region, really. And, you know, you go out and sell a home, you're getting this, get a pretty decent check. Yeah. And wondering where those are those people going to vanish for two weeks? Yeah, after they cash,

Cherya Cavanaugh  42:23  
sure, yeah. We call it the the cruising realtors, commission cruisers. They get a commission check. They go on a cruise, right? Yeah, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  42:34  
No, interesting. Good role player that actually, I'm gonna cut that. We'll cut that reel out there for that, that would be, that's, that's a good one. What did you What are some of the things you picked up, whether it was from Del Webb, obviously over to REMAX, and that you in, that you brought into your team today?

Cherya Cavanaugh  42:51  
Yeah, I would say, you know, it's, it's a buzz word that I don't that I feel like is overused. But what else do you do is truly providing an exceptional experience to your customers. And that started with doubt, Mr. Del Webb himself. And if you worked for Del Webb, you had to read his book. Was required. It was part of your graduate like, you can't get your first lead until you read the book, the quiz and, you know, and so Del Webb himself was a man of excellent experiences. And when Tom first went to work for Del Webb, before it was bought by polti in 1996 they still had like the ash tree things outside with the sand outside of the door. Do you remember those? And it had them

Tracy Hayes  43:48  
one downstairs here. Well, I don't know if that particular model, but there's, there's a thing with the sand and

Cherya Cavanaugh  43:54  
the sand, yeah, and it had his emblem imprinted in the sand. I mean, I guess

Tracy Hayes  44:01  
it made sure the janitorial staff cleaned it out. Yeah,

Cherya Cavanaugh  44:06  
yes, attention to detail, yeah. You know, having like every little thing, show your exceptional branding and be an experience.

Tracy Hayes  44:18  
All right? Well, that's, I mean, that's, let's drill down there, because that, I think that that's something I've you'll find to be a commonality in a lot of the top producers. You know, they there's the, you know, whether it's doing different events or their past clients, because we always ask you, what are you doing to stay top of mind? Yeah, you know, you mentioned you worked really hard. You know, that first year you had 62 sales and but you kind of got, what you, I read, you were telling me was, you kind of got away from, like, following up on those people and really, you know, cultivating them for their referrals and so forth, or future buys, or whatever that when you say, you and I'm going to use, I'm going to use the analogy the Disney. Experience, right? You want to give them that magical, yeah, experience. What are some of the things that that you, you know you're training your people to do, but you definitely do with your people through the process to make sure they're they're given that little touch.

Cherya Cavanaugh  45:14  
Yeah? So it starts with the the first conversation when you're entering into a relationship to help, when with their real estate experience. And then, you know, talking about a partnership together. And you know, everyone in their life has their go to necessary people. So you have your family doctor, you have maybe you're maybe not a family attorney. You need a family realtor. And so we have those conversations. We are your family realtor. So we are now here to help partner with you to manage your real estate portfolio, even if you only own one home that is a that is the largest financial asset, typically of your portfolio. And so we're here to partner with you, to help you manage your real estate portfolio. And then we also because we know you, we know the intricate parts of your family. We're also here for your brother and your sister and your aunt and your uncle and your neighbor and your son and your daughter. And so that has come to fruition out of this conversation to where we have some of our customers who started with one transaction, and I have one family. I'm now on transaction number eight in five years with their family, and because I we are their family realtor, they wouldn't think of calling anyone else, right? Because we know all of the intricacies, and so sometimes that means just a phone call in the middle of the week, on Tuesday at two o'clock going, you know, hey, Joanne, how's your daughter doing? Right? I know she was struggling a little bit with some mental health. Is there anything that I could do? Could I, you know, drop off something to her, and get really personal with people when they ride in your car for a long time.

Tracy Hayes  47:04  
Well, actually, well, that tells me something right there, because I was actually going to, how do you when you're training your, your newer agents to buy, to buy into your, your vision here, which obviously works, but to give them some examples, I think, you know, a lot of lot, especially new agents. They're, you know, one. They're nervous because they're haven't done enough transactions like, you know, you can do them with your eyes closed. They're not there yet, so they're kind of distracted by that part, sure, yet sit them down and have this conversation with them. When? When do they do it? Because I imagine a lot of times you're especially, someone comes cold, hey, I want to go see this house. And so you're, that's, you know, you're going out and doing, are you sitting down sometimes in that house while you're showing it to them and and just kind of say, hey, you know, this is how I work. And then you go on with your,

Cherya Cavanaugh  47:53  
always sit on the couch in the house you're showing always, always have your customers sit on, I mean, they're buying a home, yeah, they need to sit in the living room. If you're not sitting your people down in living room, should not be showing houses.

Tracy Hayes  48:06  
That's, there's a little tip right there. That's a real right there. Sit on the couch. Sit on the couch. You're gonna

Cherya Cavanaugh  48:12  
be your living room. Well, let's, let's go. Those conversations come right, right. Quality conversations come from couch moments.

Tracy Hayes  48:24  
A good one quality conversation. Some couch moments. I do like that, but you know, I never, you know, when you think about someone selling a car, right? You want to put them in and let them, you know, smell the new car. You want to put them in that seat and so forth. You know, I've never had anyone say, Not that you're the only one doing that, but I guarantee there's a lot that aren't actually taking a couple of moments and sitting down at the kitchen table or sitting on the couch and actually putting them in

Cherya Cavanaugh  48:51  
in the house, in the house. And so you ask, how do how do I implement this into our agents? We talk a lot about margin, and I'm kind of against the grain. I'm not a big fan of time blocking, because I feel that it steals your margin. And so you have to have margin in your calendar. You have to have margin in your time space to sit on the couch, to have those conversations, to make that phone call, to pop by your past customers and say, Hey, I just wanted to pop by and check on you guys. Do you have 10 minutes I can come over and you walk in and you sit on the couch in the same room that you let them sit in when you help them buy the house, right? And then, oh yeah, you know? And I was talking to my Aunt Susie. She's, you know, in Ohio, she's got to get out of the snow. And if you have anything coming up, I think she's ready to move down here, you just doubled your business right

Tracy Hayes  49:51  
by taking that little bit of time and talking about, I think the, you know, the rush is, you know, like I said to to show them the house. Do you like it or not? Move on? On to the next one instead of taking that couple of minutes, especially if you because I imagine, before you even sat on the couch, you've already had conversations their needs and wants and so forth. So you're not even showing this house unless it was something that would possibly match what they're what they're actually desiring there. So you're there now it's time to close the sale right sitting them on the couch for a few minutes and let them, let them reflect on what they just saw. Because, I mean, would you agree? I mean, well, not that a lot of people aren't looking online, they're looking at pictures, but a lot of times they'll whip through the house, and I oftentimes think they whip through the neighborhoods too, and not realizing, you know, some of the things that are around them are not around them and so forth. And then they, if they move in there, then they might, they may have buyer's remorse, or they may say, Oh, the Publix is that close. That's great. I didn't even

Cherya Cavanaugh  50:45  
realize, or I can't buy this house because the glare coming in from the transom window is is going on to the television.

Tracy Hayes  50:51  
It's gonna work. So now this is, this is on your website, of your team structure, and I don't there might be other people that are just not on a website, but you have a couple designated supports people, Selena and Rebecca. There you have your listing agent, Carrie, I'm sorry. And then you have Paul Clyde, Karen and Liam are your designated buyer's agent. One of the challenges, I think every real estate agent in my I go back to Sadie and Luke. Newcomer group. Wonderful. They would, they do their business. But one of the things is they, they said they regretted was not hiring that, that first assistant earlier. They should have done it a year earlier, right? They obviously, after having them and realizing how it freed them up to do money making activities by doing but obviously, like a lot of you, should I do it? Should I not? How should I do it? What you're again coaching, you know agents on who want to set themselves up for teams or even just grow individually as a solo agent, right? You know that are that are producing? How do you when you know, at what point are you recommending that? Hey, you need to have your own assistant, or you need to have an assistant share with somebody because you're getting too busy this back office stuff is taking too much

Cherya Cavanaugh  52:07  
of your time? Yeah, absolutely. So as soon as you make your first commission, check, hire an assistant, the first one, first one, full time. No, no, not full time. But there's enough in our industry. There's enough people who you can hire as a third party that may not be your assistant, but can help you with your contract management. And you know, it's roughly $300 per contract. Find that person, because in the real estate industry, we wear so many hats, and you cannot be good at wearing all of them. So unless you want your hat to be crooked, you need to help find somebody who wears that hat better than you, and that is key right off the bat. So if you're really good at having conversational couch moments, you are not really good at contract management, I can promise. And this comes from, like an recovering a personality, you know, and so it's, it's finding your leverage of your strength and making sure that you optimize, you know, the things that your personal strengths, and then getting assistance in the things we weren't. That started early on for us in our marriage. My husband Tom, he will publicly let you know that he's dyslexic, and as you may or may not know, some of our greatest leaders in our country are dyslexic, and because they're very good at leading and speaking and presentation and coaching and rallying the troops, but they can't write a damn letter to all

Tracy Hayes  53:46  
of them. Had a good assistance

Cherya Cavanaugh  53:49  
and our early years of marriage, if Tom had to write an email to the President or his boss, he would write the bullet points. Email it to me, I would fill in all the gaps, do auto correct on all the language, and then send it back to him to send it on right, right. And so that's an assistant. So an assistant may not be this full time in house, person that takes care of all of your things, but it is someone who can help you leverage your strength

Tracy Hayes  54:21  
the couch moment brings up an interesting thing, because I think you'll love you. Oh, the real estate agents, you know, because we run our business 24/7 that's, that's real estate. If you're supporting real estate, you know, I've got to be available. You know, at the hours when they you know something, they're calling for a reason, right? They need a pre call, because they know if they don't get this in, they may not get the house. That's why they're calling, not waiting till the next morning. So I know I've got to act you sitting on the couch made to some people think, oh, you know, she's just kicking back and kicking it. But, but they they take away the value of that is actually your, your part of your job description. You. You are creating that relationship because you're already marketing for the next one, that's right, and you don't have to run back and you know you'll get the kind of because you know you're gonna have that support that's going to do that. So it's giving you that time, or obviously they're probably working on someone else's contract or following up on an appraisal or whatever it is, but it's giving you that time to sit there on the couch, because that is actually your marketing dollars. That's, you know, your marketing I mean, to that, I think a lot of people discount that, yeah,

Cherya Cavanaugh  55:27  
yeah, they do. So you do need that person in the background that is always ready, readily available. And let me just give a huge shout out to Selena and Becca. I mean, without them, they are my right hand and left hand who make all of the magic happen in the background. And they're so much better at it than I am, and so I again, it's another opportunity of empowering them to be good at what they're what they are good at.

Tracy Hayes  55:56  
You mentioned something earlier about your your time was taken away from the would you phrase it, your your the activities that you want to do, personally, your community service and that sort of thing, you know, whether it's serving there or even if it's just downtime to where, you know, you can go home and just go out to dinner. I'm sure you guys talk business, but, I mean, we all talk shop, or just go watch a movie and not be stressed. You know, stressed out, like, oh my god, I gotta do all this stuff because tomorrow, because you've got Selena and Becca taking care of that. You know, at five, six o'clock, you know, you've done everything you can. You're prepared for the next day, whatever that you can actually take that time. I mean, how important is just having that, that free mind time.

Cherya Cavanaugh  56:45  
Well, you're gonna make me cry because it I'm ashamed to say it took eight to 10 years to realize how important that is. But it's not just your admin. I mean, yeah, Selena, Rebecca, they are amazing, but it's your team too, of knowing that while I'm out of town, all of our customers are going to be taken care of by our whole entire team. By, you know, I took on a listing the day before I just left on a trip, and with very important gentlemen to me, this is our fourth home transaction together, and Kari took on the listing and did all of the things with a high level of excellence on my behalf. And I was able to, recently, just go to Uganda and do a humanitarian mission trip, and did not take my computer for the first time ever at grad school, because you couldn't, we weren't. We couldn't take our computers and so and everyone was like, how are you doing? Are you, like, totally stressing out? I'm like, No, I have such a peace and confidence in the team that we've been able to have the privilege to coach and build, that they've got this right. And not only do they, they're not going to just skim by, they're going to do it really, really well. Yeah, while we're gone, while I'm gone, Tom didn't go, but I literally just got back from Uganda and never opened an email, didn't respond to a text, didn't get on social media, was just able to passionately serve in a way that's important to me personally, and know that these incredible people were maximizing their strengths

Tracy Hayes  58:29  
and but while you were away, your mind doesn't stop no and you probably came back with some, you know, some new adjusted goals or or new processes that you thought You thought you could approve, that you've probably putting off for a while. That's because you didn't have time to think through them, right? But now you actually took the time, because you shut off their stuff off, to refresh yourself and refresh yourself

Cherya Cavanaugh  58:51  
coming back 100% Yeah, and that's the margin that we're talking about, right? Is you have to have that margin, and not just small marginal moments, but large marginal moments, so that you can become creative, and so that your vision can flow freely, and then you come back and hey,

Tracy Hayes  59:13  
well, I mean, if you were lucky enough to sit there and have couch appointments, or would you call them couch conversation, couch conversations, where you were doing two or three of those a day, you'd be worn out, Oh, for sure, and over time. So you have to step out a little while and let all that, let your brain catch up. I always think it the, it's like a, you know, the returning the book to the library. Yes, you know, it doesn't get on the shelf right away. It takes, you know, a day or so before the librarian gets it back on the shelf where it should be, yeah. And I really think our my mind works in a simplistic way, that way, and you need to take that time. Why we sleep is one of those times that's being done. But being able to just go out and be occupied by something else, but your mind is going, you know, thinking of, oh, yeah, I need to think through that. And you're, you know, multitasking. That's the word. Multitude your brain's doing one thing, or you're physically doing something else, all right, so are you actively recruiting right now? Or what? What is? What is the Kavanaugh team? Yeah.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:00:10  
So we never turn down a coffee conversation ever, because you never know what's right around the corner. And so we always really enjoy getting to know people face to face and having a conversation, some similar to our little role play, and so that maybe that if we're not the right fit, we can help guide you to another area. So something that me and Christina and Cece and Sarah, we we share resumes and this person didn't work out for us, but maybe it'll work out for your team or structure. You know, we do that a lot, and, or maybe we just kind of give you some honest truths about what real estate life is like and that maybe you didn't realize. And, and we have those raw conversations and so, but to answer your question, we are not actively searching for new agents, because, as you and I talked about, we're still looking for that stabilization in our market, and so we want to make sure that we don't over promise financial security to someone who joins our team that we can't produce. Right now, it's really important to us. We have a single dad on our team. We have a single Bachelor on our team. We have a married couple. Paul and Kari are married, we're the only source of income, right? So for us to provide stability and income to our team is really, really important to us. And so until we get to the point in our real estate market that we feel we're in overflow, then we're not hiring at this moment,

Tracy Hayes  1:01:37  
at least, at least some sort of pot. You know, I think we have our positive trajectory in Northeast Florida is fighting the National Economic scene. What do you think is the most important you do? Because you use the term CEO is on some of your stuff. I was going through your social media. What is the most important thing you do as the CEO

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:01:58  
of the Kavanaugh team? Yeah, run our business like a business. And big fan of coaching. So coaching is is a catalyst, key to your development. And so we've been receiving coaching all of our lives, and one of our coaches said the important, most important thing you can do is to learn how to work on your business and not in your business, right? And so as a CEO, that's what you do. Read a great book last summer that talked about three things that a CEO does, is create vision, know your numbers and produce momentum. And so that's what I do, is create Help, help our team. Create vision, know, our numbers, make sure we're hitting those, those numbers, and then, you know, make sure that we've gotten forward, more forward, moving momentum, well,

Tracy Hayes  1:02:55  
that the answers to those three things is the value you bring, right? I mean, so if you're you're looking at your numbers, and we're not here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna come over I'm gonna coach over here. I'm gonna make adjustments over there. Types of things you're still producing yourself. You're still doing your own I do personal business or how do you I do

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:03:13  
people who are close to me in relationship, my pastor, who's actually shares this building with you? Okay, when he calls me and says, Hey, shara, we need to move to St John's County. Personally want to work with them, you know? And it's not so. I never work with someone to take away from my team. It is someone who I just have a very personal relationship. But even my my neighbors on both sides of me, they just helped their moms move here, and I gave that out to my team, right? Like, hey, right. Karen is going to take great care of your mom. She's awesome, you know, trained well. But if it's something that's someone that is personable, personal, yeah, my life, then that's all, that's all that I work with. And Tom's not in production at all.

Tracy Hayes  1:03:53  
We you gave me the three parts of your CEO qualities where there's vision. Give me the three vision, numbers, momentum, momentum. So put something to that because, because I think that all equates, you know, it tells you what, where the value needs to be added. So you're always adjusting those things. You know, when you're is coaching something regularly scheduled on the team, or you do it when it's needed. Do you know, you know someone has a team member, or they know that, hey, every Monday morning I've got my half an hour share.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:04:27  
What? Yeah, yeah. So first of all, both Tom and I are regularly coached. So we receive coaching. And then, yes, our team, we do a little bit of team training on our Tuesday morning meetings. We meet every Tuesday morning like clockwork, and then, and then we'll do some off coaching moments. Typically, Thursdays, we meet for lunch and set like we just did a lunch and learn and and talked about the fence riders. That are happening in our industry right now. What'd you call fence riders? Fence writers who are riding the fence in the industry,

Tracy Hayes  1:04:57  
riding the fence riders? Okay. I was thinking something totally different. Yes, the fence riders. Yeah, did you put something out on social media about someone? Put something out about, oh, I know they were having some sort of panel. I see it was Jason at first, because they're so how to get people off the fence. It's our last panel, or going to be, no, it's the panel they're coming up.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:05:14  
Jason, where that idea came from?

Tracy Hayes  1:05:17  
In that, I think that's another thing in makes a difference in true leaders. I have seen, you know, I'm old enough to have been managed by many work for different corporations, small and large, and where, if you call a meeting, or you're going to have a lunch and learn you're actually planning and you expect everyone to show up, you have to make sure the value is added 100 it's not just a cha. Cha says everyone has, we're too busy for that, right? You know, maybe we plan a night every quarter to go out to dinner or something for that, like decompression thing, right? Where you just talk about whatever and get everyone's family caught up to create that bonding thing. But when it comes to learning, what I found is a lot of lot of sales managers. They just their leadership is out there to make sure, hey, there's an agenda. Yes, we're going, and I want my team to leave with this.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:06:12  
And here's the mission. Yeah, yeah. You know Tom Cavanagh says often two things about meetings. One, we don't have a meeting just to have a meeting exactly, just because it's Tuesday at nine o'clock doesn't mean we have to have a meeting. If there's if there's not a mission to accomplish, we're not having a meeting, right? And then two, we never discuss administrative breakdowns in a meeting. Interesting. It's not no dirty laundry, that's right. Those are not in a meeting. Those are one on ones, right, right? So you don't show up and talk about administrative breakdowns that, because that doesn't build the momentum that we talked about.

Tracy Hayes  1:06:47  
Oh man, this is value. This is huge. Do you just tapped on something very huge. And I think those, hopefully, those are listening, or I will cut this out. It's real, yo. Because oftentimes you have that sales meeting and what's the first thing they want to do is air the dirty laundry, right? This is what went wrong. And nine out of 10 people in the room had nothing to do with it, right? But now you're bringing them down. So what do they start? Start thinking about, well, they screwed up last week, and maybe they raised their hand like I would be one of those people that would raise their hand and say, Hey, all right. Well, this is how you fix it, you know. Or this is what we should do differently. You know, I could see why that went wrong, is because you're not training them that type of thing. But yet, hearing that dirty laundry is negative. It's not adding to any momentum.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:07:32  
It's not so we always start every team meeting with a celebration. Sometimes we have to find something to celebrate. Yeah, sometimes it was a crappy week, and that's okay. We always start a team meeting with a celebration, always, and that launches the momentum of the meeting. And then you get into all of the other

Tracy Hayes  1:07:51  
aspects, amazing, amazing advice, positive, and make sure you when they leave, there the you're in a positive momentum. Some meetings will be better than others, but that they're leaving, I just, I just feel a lot of times when I plan an event, I want the realtors or whoever's in the room to leave with something. I'm not, it's not there, although I know the fringe benefit is that they came to the room, you know, and they, I got to meet them, and, you know, be face to face with them, but that they leave with something, right? And because they're not coming back to the next one, if they, if you don't leave them with value the first time, right, they're gonna be like, Oh, that's just a BS,

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:08:28  
yeah, time is too valuable to not provide value, right?

Tracy Hayes  1:08:31  
100% we mentioned earlier, we're talking about Christina, because I think, you know, what's totally catapulted her in, you know, obviously, fighting through the growth periods and so forth. We talked about it when she was on is retention. What are some of the things that when you're looking at adding value? I mean, obviously retention has got to be in your mind. What are some of the things that you consciously are doing to make sure you a particular agent's happy? And if you have a story, you don't have to mention names, but where you thought maybe someone might have been nothing about leaving but you, but you brought them back to say, hey, you know what you are on the best team. There's grass is not greener over there, right?

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:09:09  
Yeah, you know I would say that anyone who has left our team has left because of a personal situation, not necessarily. I've never had anyone leave our team and and because they were intending on going to another team. I've had I've had someone who we've let go and then ended up on another team. But no one has ever said I'm leaving you and leaving here because I'm going to do go here and do this. I've had people get married, or they moved, or their husband got a promotion, they didn't need to work anymore, or all kinds of things, but

Tracy Hayes  1:09:46  
it's you want to do real estate as a hobby,

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:09:51  
or a family member got sick, they needed to take care of them, and so, so, yeah, so talking about retention is, I think it goes back to that vision. Is we create that vision in the beginning of the year, and we really, really focus in on and hold them accountable and help them achieve those personal goals. And when you're helping people achieve their personal goals by utilizing your business as the catalyst to achieve those goals, why would you go anywhere else?

Tracy Hayes  1:10:19  
Right? You know, I can read that through you is because you figured out the value add. I always bring it back down there because it was Sarah Rocco says, when you start, when they no longer see that you're adding value to them, yeah, they're gone, right? And you've, you have obviously figured that out early, and that are always working on how you can add value consistently to them. Yeah, it seems, based on the pictures on the web, on your website, there that you have a fairly mature team didn't look like there was too many. As far as the sales people, didn't look like there were any 25 year olds on your team. We have Liam. Liam said, Okay, Liam, you look more mature than that. But my initial observation looking at the pictures so it looks like most of them have, I mean, what's, what's the least experienced person you have?

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:11:05  
Well, that right now, it would be Liam, yeah, and he has, he's been, what's his, yeah. So Liam's great. He came from us. He was University of Florida graduate. Go Gators. We were hired. No, I hired Liam. You know what he said to me in the interview? This was amazing. I said, Liam, tell me one of your your best attributes about yourself. And he said, I'm really good with forward facing conversations. 25 year man,

Tracy Hayes  1:11:33  
well, he picked up something. Maybe he was reading one of those books hired.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:11:38  
I don't care. What else you can do if you can have a forward, facing conversation at 25 years old, you that is profound. Yeah, that is profound. So because he was quite inexperienced, he didn't have his real estate license yet, he was our marketing for he has a degree in communications and journalism. He worked for ESP and collegiate at University of Florida. So he did a lot of so he did our marketing for about a year and a half while he got his license. So one of his personal goals was to get his real estate license. So we helped him leverage working, getting paycheck and getting his license all within that first year and a half while providing that so in January, he just launched into being a buyer's agent, okay? And so he's out in the field and working with leads and doing a great job and and, you know, launching his own own career.

Tracy Hayes  1:12:28  
So well, my my question was from the mature team of, what are you training on? So obviously, recently you were talking about getting people off the fence. You know, we talked about it pre show a little bit about, obviously, interest rates being up where some people said they thought they would be going down. They're trending up right now, back, you know, back in the areas you know, that are starting to get people to put them on the fence, you know, it doesn't make sense for me to to move right now. And, you know, leave this lower payment to take on a higher payment. Is that extra room really important to us that right now, that type of thing, or the location,

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:13:03  
it's interesting that year, I have a clients right now that again, I think I this if, if I'm able to get them to move forward on this next house, this will be maybe our sixth or seventh one together. So again, relationship. They trust me. They know my expertise, and they are considering selling a home in occoty to move to E town to a villa for low maintenance. They're both ready to retire in the next year. But by selling their home that they got 3% and now going to 6% is that really worth it? So we had to sit down and do this whole picture scenario like spreadsheet with spreadsheet of going, Okay, your home here has this equity that is phenomenal, right? And it also has this maintenance.

Tracy Hayes  1:13:52  
And what does that cost you a month? How much is that

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:13:54  
not only costing you now, but the home is now seven years old. So if you wait three more years to sell it. Guess what else you're going to be doing adding a roof. Are you budgeting for that?

Tracy Hayes  1:14:04  
I swear. Are they making these roofs out of tissue paper? Because I swear.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:14:08  
And you know, and you want to change the countertops because you got the ground the brown granite, and you want to change, you're gonna have to change the carpet. And so let's start adding that into your monthly, existing monthly payment. I know it's not technically costing you, but it is in three years, right? And then let's look at your new payment

Tracy Hayes  1:14:31  
with a larger down payment. Because you sold the home, you got to take the equity over how much you actually really go to

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:14:36  
borrow, right? Yeah, yeah, yep. So we're having to take the people that are sitting on the fence and show them the whole pasture. Oh yeah, both sides.

Tracy Hayes  1:14:46  
I, you know, early, when I first, you know, got in the business in in 2005 Quicken was a refi shop, and that's all we were doing, sure. And, you know, the thing was, and of course, at that time, you know, you had all these crazy low. Loans, where they would allow these people to go cash out to 100% of the value of their home and so forth. And, yeah, that's what you did. You structure, well, you know, if you, if you what you're paying now for all these credit cards, here's all your expenses. Now we're gonna, you know, we're gonna pay off that 40, $50,000 and now, you know, now it's a free up cash. And of course, people just went out and ran up their credit cards again, but, and then their values dropped, yeah, oh, I could tell you some stories. There a lot of cash out to pay off. It was, unfortunately, I think a lot of us beat the beat the Joneses they got in that house. Good. Woody grew so fast, and then they're like, well, we got to get a new car. We got to, you know, we're not going to drive this, you know, small SUV. We got to get a suburban or the Cadillac escalator, whatever, yeah, put a pool in whatever, yeah, those types of things. How important in the team? You know, we talked a little bit earlier about the virtual office versus coming into the office. How important, especially with with newer agents, you know, someone's been doing it for five, six years. They've got their business. Maybe they're just living off referrals. They could, you know, they can have their virtual assistant or transaction coordinator back to the office. They don't necessarily need to come in, but the newer agents to show up every day like they are on a nine to five job and show up at nine o'clock. And how important is that? And I mean, do you recommend that to your team? Do some of your more senior agents, or will we catch them in the office in the morning when they're taking care of some admin stuff or making phone calls?

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:16:29  
Camaraderie is the best catalyst for production. So camaraderie is the best catalyst for production, because when you get the energy in the room with everyone involved on the same mission, then that catapults a production mindset. And so whether you're on the team five minutes or five years, we are very strong proponents of an office environment. And so knowing that you're not going to spend every day, all day, there, we do have two, two days a week, are you're you are? We are face to face for sure. And then, typically, several times throughout, not necessarily for the whole day, but yeah, morning, two or three hours. Yeah, yeah, two or three hours, we are face to face together and and then, you know, our Mainstays, you know, Selena's typically always in the office. I'm in the office as much as I can, and want to be there so that, you know, the door is open and you can pop in. Hey, have a quick question. Or, Ash, I just had this situation, how should I approach this? Or, you know, my players were about to move forward, but they pulled back. And, you know, so just being available, well,

Tracy Hayes  1:17:42  
I mean the importance of that story you just told us about the people moving to E town. You have to share that with your team, because most of them are not, have not run, I think. And I see this in the in the mortgage world as well. Obviously, I my first 12 years was in a call center type environment. Now, granted, I did start working at home in 2008 so really it was probably the first three years I was in a call center with hundreds of other people listening over the cube to other conversations, or we were being recorded, and you sat in group coaching and listens to these conversations going on, or talking about how you could just simply walk over to your manager say, Hey, Here's the situation. I got this guy on the edge where, yeah, well, let's do this. Let's go. Let's go back to him and talk about paying off those credit cards and restructuring it this way, and the same way you were talking about you would not get that if you're sitting at home or on your on your you're not getting that shop talk

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:18:36  
right, so to speak. That's what our Thursdays every Thursday, we have lunch together, and that's what our Thursdays are about. We typically don't have a specific business agenda. We want it to be conversations, and so those conversations we want to either be what's happening with your clients out in the field, or sometimes it's conversations for us to be personal with each other. Hey, did Timmy win his All Star game? You know, gosh, you just took your daughter off to college. Are you guys doing okay? Do we need to break over a bottle of wine, you know? And so it creates that camaraderie, both in business and personal.

Tracy Hayes  1:19:12  
What do you think is the number one reason most agents, statistically, are out in the first two years? I think now, I think that 80%

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:19:19  
Yeah, it's astounding. It's so hard for me to answer that question. I think because I'm such a over accomplisher, I can't imagine over accomplisher.

Tracy Hayes  1:19:30  
Yes, I'm gonna put that up with strategy,

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:19:37  
yeah, lack of guidance, maybe lack of Hayes. Think it could run the spectrum, maybe lack of motivation, or maybe having an HGTV mentality of this is what real estate life is like. No, probably not believing that your real estate business is a business, and treating it like a business,

Tracy Hayes  1:19:58  
because you're taking that. A couch conversation and not realizing, yeah, it's a conversation, but it's act. It's business, business. That's part of the part of the psychiatrist that you you're the consulter that that agents are from what I from what I can see in my studies, you know, and why I asked the question is to brand that, how important is if you want to get, if you're looking to get in the real estate agent, be a real estate agent, or maybe started, and you're in a minute, six months, and you're kind of lost, because you went with a virtual thing, and there's no office, and you're kind of lost that you need to reach out to someone like yourself or Christine, or see some of these agents that are doing it, been doing it for a little bit, and sit down and say, Hey, here's my personality. Because the thing is, now, which it's always been there, but people are coming to discover is, you got to find out what you like to do, right? You know, you may like, Yeah, I like showing houses and stuff like that. But obviously you have to prospect, which is, you know, 90% of our jobs, and you know, what is it you like to do? So when you're working, you're coaching your team. And I know you're getting that kind of coaching yourself. Yo. How are you helping them find that go to

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:21:07  
Yeah, so you just have to make you know a lot of people you you'll hear, most people will say, I got into real estate because of the flexibility. Yes, flexibility, free time. Flexibility is your enemy, yes, so the sooner you learn that, the better. And if you are getting your nails done at three o'clock on Tuesday, you're not running your business the right way, you know. And or if you're at the beach at 10 o'clock on Friday, you're not running your business the right way. So it's you've got to be intentional about every moment, and may and also be intentional about every movement. And what I say by movement is an intentionality like if you are with your customers, and you go to lunch, you look scope out the room, just like you did today with this podcast, you determine where's the best view for my customer, where, where am I? Bringing in the subliminal, you know, decision making moments and so couch conversations, same thing, you're sitting them in the best place. And so being intentional about your day and every moment of your day is the catalyst of making sure that you're successful.

Tracy Hayes  1:22:25  
I've brought it up several times on different shows that we there should be a panel of top real estate agents. Oh, no, not one of those panels. Yeah, Jason's paneled out. I don't understand I told him. I said, Dude, why are you keep doing these things? You're killing us. Okay, but anyway, spread it landmark. She says panels are overdone. And I totally agree. Yeah, I have my you want to go? You want to hear my little rant about, here's my challenge. And I talked with Austin prick about this is oftentimes the subject is very narrow, not narrow. It's very broad, and no one is prepared you. And the reason is because you're you're inviting top talent in, hoping that people will follow the top talent in. But when you actually, don't actually have that goal that we talked about earlier, after you do a couple of them, people realize this is just a shoot the bull session, and they don't come to the third one, but if you actually have them come in prepared with I want you know you're going to talk about this and you're going to talk about that. So again, the people who are watching that panel actually leave with something other than the fact they were in the room with some top

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:23:37  
producing right? Yeah, that's my pet peeve, the value add value for sure. Yes, which is why you're the trendsetter in this.

Tracy Hayes  1:23:43  
Tracy, all right, that's enough of that. Well, let's, let's close out with this here. What, what differentiate, differentiates the Kavanaugh team from others. Sell me the Kavanaugh team to, you know, because I imagine we get, you get calls, we'll do it, not to an agent, but to say, say it's a buyer or seller. Yeah, you do? What is the Kavanaugh team going to? Going to give me versus another real estate agent or another team? Yeah.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:24:10  
So I would say in a nutshell, it is that we have made our mission more than about making money, but our mission is to help our customers make memories and to leave a legacy. All right, song, and I know that sounds very foo, foo, yes, but it

Tracy Hayes  1:24:32  
there's a lot of reality how you express that across them. Because if you the typical person, if you said that to them, and they're just, you know, because we know we have some people who are actually like, well, you know, what percent are you charging me to sell my house? You know, they're just right down to that kind of thing and so forth. But I've assume, you've, you've got a way to kind of warm them up, you you know, the advantage of you because, like I said, they're selling that house, it's, you know, buyer comes in. We don't know what buyer is going to come in. So if they sell. With X team over there, versus the Kavanaugh team, they're probably gonna get the same price. You're both charging Five 6% or whatever you in, you know, so the dollars are saying, but what? How do you, how do you warm that person up in your way to kind of, kind of close them when you kind of, you're at that point in the conversation was like, Hey, I gather you're gonna close them or I'm out.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:25:18  
Yeah, yeah. I mean, 30 plus years of negotiating in real estate is pretty profound. To have that ball in your court. And so if you're a numbers person and you're looking for that top dollar, then that's where our extensive expertise and that's the leaving the legacy is. We are. We are very big proponents of helping you get to the best bottom line you can on that Alta, because it's the generations in your family that it's important to it's important to you, but it's important to the other generations in your family, and so again, helping them see that bigger picture. And because of our 30 plus years of real estate experience and expertise, then we can negotiate on that, on your behalf to make sure that that is the mission. That's there. I like it, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  1:26:15  
That was that was better than the first statement, the first statement you put on your website, first that one, you would say live, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. That was the answer I was looking for. Yeah, great, great. All right, I'm gonna finish up. Did you have any, did we have you have some, any notes or anything that you want to say about the team, or anything? Well, we got on there. I think we covered a lot. We've been we're going, we're coming. We're at an hour and a half actually. Yeah, it goes by very quick. So my last formality question I put on every episode, is it more important who you know or what you know?

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:26:46  
And why say it again, who you know or what you know? And why, definitely who you know? Why who you know makes you who you are.

Tracy Hayes  1:26:58  
So you're you're a total believer, and you are the five people you surround yourself with, 100% right?

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:27:04  
Yeah. But first of all, and this is where my faith comes in, and I know that I'm a child of God, and so nothing else matters, because that's who I know, and that's who I am.

Tracy Hayes  1:27:18  
Finish with that. I appreciate you coming on. I think we had a, this was a great episode. There was a lot of tidbits. I think there's definitely a lot of reels. Hopefully, some of the, I know some of the other Keller Williams people, hopefully we're watching or will watch it later, and some of their people are watching it because there's you, you put, you put out some really gay great tips, and just, you know, reasons why you're successful. I mean, I think some people don't really understand why they're successful. They did it and it worked, and they're like, I don't know. I just showed up and you didn't really break it down and try to understand how you were successful again, to create those other leaders that you were talking about earlier.

Cherya Cavanaugh  1:27:55  
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for creating this environment.