Tom and Katie Jervis: The KST Group

welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast. Have a great show today. Have a brother and sister who have teamed up to create a successful real estate brokerage here in Northeast Florida. As a matter of fact, one of them was in their high school stars of the future club. Just remember, you met them here on the real estate excellence podcast. One has a doctorate of law or JD, let's welcome the founder, broker Tom Jarvis and his star agent, Katie Jervis, to the of the KST group to the show. Thank you for coming on. Glad we met. You guys were kind of under the radar for me, I don't know why, but at the real producers event, and seeing you there and and getting introduced, and then obviously dug in and saw what you guys are doing out there. And I think you are the first I've had husband and wife teams. I've had girlfriend, girlfriend type teams together, but not a brother and sister, which is probably very rare, because I definitely couldn't do it

Tom Jervis  1:57  
with my sister. So yes, we do.

Katie Jervis  2:00  
We really do? Yeah? If that's one thing people get out of the podcast today, it needs to be that we are, in fact, other and sister.

Tracy Hayes  2:12  
Oh, that's, that's funny, yeah? Well, we'll definitely, that will definitely be one of the questions. I mean, I know I have it here on my list, yeah, because we we're going to dig into some of the dynamics, you know, the KST group and how you guys are doing it. But I want to start off the show literally. I mean, where are you guys from?

Tom Jervis  2:27  
We were both born in England, raised in the UK for a little bit, and we ended up moving over to the Bahamas when we were younger. I think you were sorry, eight. That was three or four time. And then when she was getting ready to go to middle school. Yeah, middle school at the time. The schooling wasn't, it is now, but it wasn't quite what, what my parents were looking for, for education side of things, I guess. So ended up moving across to South Florida.

Tracy Hayes  2:51  
Are your parents? US citizens and just were in or you're, they're actually awesome, okay? Because when you said that, and I'm listening, because I know you guys go past us all the questions every time, where I get it asked all the time, because I'm, I'm from New York, but, you know, I end up really growing up with the Cape Cod when I was seven. Everyone's like, where's the accent? Because I'm not from South Boston.

Tom Jervis  3:13  
Yeah, it comes out every once in a while. Yeah, no, ours are ours are long gone. I think some people think she might have a little bit every once in a while, but, well, I'm sure there's

Tracy Hayes  3:21  
certain words or phrases.

Katie Jervis  3:22  
Yeah, that's the thing. It's funny. I've had conversations with clients, and I'll say something, then they will say, Hold on a second. What you said was not American. Where are you from? So it comes out in a it comes out that way. But otherwise, most people think we're we're from here, but we're not. Adds to the story.

Tracy Hayes  3:39  
The the, I don't know if it's the tease I'm picking up on your teas, okay, you're not, yes, that's, it didn't take long at all. This is gonna, this is gonna blow up because we got the British actor on there. We got a great show. All right, so Katie, you actually, you go on, you go on to, well, you said you guys moved to South Florida. Well, let me step back a little bit. I want to jump into college just yet. I mean, what's it like? It sounds like for most of your high school you were in the Bahamas. How old were you when?

Tom Jervis  4:10  
Yeah, so we left the Bahamas. I was I was eight.

Katie Jervis  4:13  
She was, yeah, I was going into middle school when we left. So the predominant for most of middle school and high school, all of us were in South Florida. However, at the time, we were still spending a significant amount of our holidays, and dad was still back and forth for work, so the majority, I guess, of our trips and vacations and things like that were Bahamas. Very much. There for a significant period of time.

Tom Jervis  4:35  
It was a second home. But yeah, we got, like, all of our education, our meaningful education, was in the US. Yeah. Okay, okay, we went to the same school. So from when we landed in South Florida, what kind of work was your dad

Tracy Hayes  4:45  
doing, just working for the government or banking, or

Katie Jervis  4:47  
what was it? He got into real estate development, actually in the Bahamas.

Tracy Hayes  4:51  
Yes, interesting. Yeah, it's come full circle, yeah? Well, I just remember my thing is, obviously the reconstruction they had to have at. After, I mean that I can't remember the name of the hurricane, the hurricane that sat on the Bahamas there we had a few years ago. And what you know, how they had to reconstruct, although the islands are pretty good at way they way they have built themselves to withstand storms like that. But that thing sat on that island for so many days at a time, or an islands, I should say. And that's just made me think of that construction part. All right, so you, you, you go to South Florida, you go up there, you decide you want to get I assume law was your vision as a young person. Is that really where you wanted to

Katie Jervis  5:32  
go with it? So it's interesting. I went to law school iron, weirdly enough, actually, not to be a lawyer. I don't think I ever really had intentions of being your transactional or litigation lawyer. I'd always kind of had a passion, I guess, for nonprofit work, and so that was where I saw my law career taking me. At the time, when I was in law school, I was working for a nonprofit. I did kind of dabble in and out of some law firm and get that experience, but my heart was kind of always in nonprofit work. And so after graduation, I moved to London, kind of went in the nonprofit space. But I do have a law degree, 2015, yes.

Tracy Hayes  6:11  
Well, since we're on that, on that subject, obviously some point you decide to change careers. Was there something about did that you thought it was, that it wasn't, or maybe it could have been the company you worked for. What made you change your idea come back to the States, and obviously, we'll eventually talk about how you got, you know, jump in here with your brother. Yes.

Katie Jervis  6:31  
So I was actually at the end of my contract in London, and it was kind of one of those decisions where I had to decide, did I see myself being in London forever, or did I eventually want to be back in the US. And I loved, I loved being in the US. And that kind of seemed to be a no brainer. And then the opportunity presented itself for me to get involved with Tom and kind of what he was doing in the real estate space. So I said, why not? Let's give it a go. And here we are.

Tracy Hayes  6:53  
Yes, so All right, so we're inching along here in this time skip Tom, we're going to go back a little bit. You're you don't go as far as the school, if I saw correctly, you just get your bachelor's degree, which, there's this thing that says that a students work for the C students. Is that, does that follow here something?

Tom Jervis  7:13  
I certainly wasn't an academic, but no, we very much work together. But no, generally speaking, I mean, I was not a big school guy, but came up here just to go to Jacksonville University. So I'm graduate of Ju. That was really the one thing that brought me up to Jacksonville. We really have any ties up here or anything. Thought about playing baseball. Didn't end up working out since, and then kind of got involved at school and ended up enjoying my time out in Jacksonville. And so was there from 2012 to 2016 after I graduated, did a little bit of, did an internship while I was in school, advisors for financial advisor there, and then hopped over with a friend at Prudential for a little bit, and kind of did some more in that space. And really fall in love with that industry. It wasn't something that I really necessarily saw myself doing. It's It's tough. It's a challenging business.

Tracy Hayes  8:00  
Real Estate is tough, but at least you have people could touch and smell a house.

Tom Jervis  8:03  
Yeah, and it's a little I just think the conversations you're having are generally a little bit more enjoyable, a little bit more optimistic. It's typically something you're making a phone call and like, hey, when you die, you got to make sure you got your life insurance policy Right, right. Have a morbid conversation. I'm generalizing the business, but overall, like, really enjoyed the relationship aspect of it. And, you know, there's obviously a lot of crossover between the two in terms of interacting with clients and, you know, getting them organized with the but it was chatting with with my dad one day, really, and he would just kind of broach the subject with me. He's like, Hey, have you ever thought about it? And I was like, Well, why don't I just look into it, and not to really breeze through it too quickly. But ended up looking into it, and then got started at one of the bigger firms in Jacksonville, and then shortly thereafter, we decided to open up our own brokerage.

Tracy Hayes  8:46  
So how much you said? Because you said your dad was in real estate development, how much were you guys? I'm saying you weren't involved directly. But as kids, growing up, just knowing what he was doing,

Tom Jervis  8:59  
we lived on the community. So he built about 76 houses in the Bahamas, and we lived there. So we obviously saw it and interacted. I don't know if we would say we were, like, heavily engrossed in what he was doing, necessarily, but obviously, like, we literally lived it. So right, you're not unaware of what's going on, but I don't think we're, like, sitting at the dinner table. Hey, Dad, how was work? You know that that kind of component to it, but

Katie Jervis  9:22  
yeah, I think it's also kind of funny like it that definitely wasn't really part of his trajectory. He was in a different industry prior, and really it wasn't in either of our trajectories up until a few years ago, either. So I think is just from a family perspective, we got to see what he was doing. He enjoyed it, obviously, which is why kind of the idea came to fruition. So, yeah, definitely a full circle moment. But I don't, I wouldn't say, yeah, like you said, we didn't sit around talking about real estate. I think we just maybe are all naturally people.

Tracy Hayes  9:57  
I'm a strong believer a lot of our young people. So of course, today they can go online and see a lot of different other careers. But, you know, as old as I am, I mean, we didn't, I didn't have cell phones, and till after college, we obviously weren't using email or, you know, have any anything to have to do with the Internet. You know, in as far as careers are concerned, or where people go, I think you only know what you know, like if your parents were a teacher or a bank, whatever, you kind of have an idea what that's all about. And that where you know that, well, that's a viable option. That's I've seen, that I know kind of what's what's going on there, so to speak, even though you weren't directly, you know, he was building houses yourself, you're exposed to it, seeing, you know what's going on and what's behind the scenes of that, that that there, all right, so Tom, you jump, you you start KST first before you go on there. So this large brokerage, I mean, you can name them if you want. I don't name the other brokerage is what you find there, yeah, but Well, in between that brokerage and those previous financial firms, because I think a lot of what they do, as far as prospecting and so forth, cross relates to what definitely does. So what are some of the things you took from there? You took, you know, when you're starting envisioning KST group and actually creating it, what are some of the things you're, you know, in your your imagine you're putting your ideas, either in your head or down on paper, some things you stole from them, because your experience, I wouldn't say, stole you. Some things you experienced, there that you took to KSD

Tom Jervis  11:24  
group, yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that the main couple points and sort of takeaways I had from my experience there was, probably first and foremost, was environment in speaking of the office and culture that they created, I think, unfortunately, in this business, it is one of those where you feel as though you're on your own, right? Like, there's this sort of idea in the industry, your independent contractor, you got to figure it out on yourself. Like, sure, you may get one or two things from your brokerage, maybe a few postcards, maybe a couple websites or CRM, but it's like, it's pretty much like, hey, once you get in and onboarded, like, good luck, right? And I didn't think there was a lot of camaraderie in sort of participation from within the office to, like, kind of help each other out. There's a lot of backstabbing, and a lot of, you know, kind of, I guess, intercompany competition, which, in my opinion, there's a lot of business to go around. Like, it should be a little bit more supportive. And then the other component was, I didn't feel that there was necessarily a place, and I was so young in the industry, and probably I just didn't see at the time that there was necessarily a place for younger agents to go and truly get support and help in growing the business. I mean, obviously it sounds really cool. It's very glamorized business now, well, go show a few houses make a bunch of money, and like, when you get in the business, you realize it's just not the case. But I didn't think that at the time, again, like that, there was too much of a place or somebody that was focusing on bringing some youth into the industry, because it is an attractive industry for a lot of youth. I think we've seen particularly even before covid, but since covid, like the whole work from home, crazy, a lot of people have jumped into the industry because one, they see it on Netflix and TV and all that good stuff. But two, there is a lot of opportunity in the business. So generally, we wanted to build a brokerage that was supportive of agents, genuinely help them get started in their career.

Tracy Hayes  13:03  
So, no, that's an excellent insight. I mean that that, I mean because, you know, I tell this, I've said it many times on the podcast. You know, when I grew up at the typical real estate agent was a spouse of someone who was already had that career corporate job, yeah, yeah. And they had that money coming in. And the in the real estate was more or less a hobby that led to, you know, just grew and grew depending on the area that you were in and how fast things were going on.

Tom Jervis  13:27  
It's like, after 20 years all, I have a good book of business, yeah. And after,

Tracy Hayes  13:31  
you know, you know, there's 140/3 episode, so 130 plus real estate agents, I've had a lot of sub 30 year old agents on that are really doing well leading teams. So your your vision there that, Hey, there's this need, there's this void here, that someone could literally come out of college or not even have a college degree, let alone, if they've, you know, can present themselves and have conversations and have no problem, obviously, prospecting. We'll get into that. But, yeah, there's, there's, there's a huge, huge void. There was massive void. So you're over, you're over there. Is he painting this vision for you at this time, or is this going on while you're over in London and you're not really knowing what he's doing? Yeah.

Katie Jervis  14:12  
I mean, he was kind of off to the races with it. I think he had a vision, and I 100% supported what he was intending to do

Tracy Hayes  14:20  
with was he telling me what he was doing? I'm trying to dig into this other sister relationship, absolutely, if you

Katie Jervis  14:26  
think about it, like I was one of those people. I was coming out of a career. I didn't have any prior real estate experience, so I was one of those agents that was sitting here saying, Okay, how can I grow my book of business? I didn't know Jacksonville. I'd been here once before. I think to visit you in college, and I was here for 24 for 24 hours, so we hopped on a plane, and I was like, I'm starting a new career in a new city. He was the only person I knew at the time, so in a weird way, I was exactly what he intended to build to work. And so I kind of became the guinea pig for, how is this going? To work for other agents. And I think it's turned out pretty okay. We seem to have figured it out. So, yeah, there's because

Tracy Hayes  15:07  
you're, is it? What are you at three or four years now, I

Katie Jervis  15:11  
got licensed in the spring of 2020, so spring, oh, wow, right.

Tracy Hayes  15:14  
Okay, so we're gone three years, really only two and a half. Because for first six months, they wouldn't even, you know, people were afraid to even talk to each other, yeah? So I, let alone a new agent, actually go out and interact with somebody in practice, yeah, talking to someone face to face, interesting. So, so I, I always dig in to what everyone's you know that first 12 months were like. So since Katie said we're on you. We'll go back in time talk about his first 12 months. But you come over and you you join him. What is Tom having you do? What does he learn? What is he pouring into you?

Katie Jervis  15:50  
So I think the first year, at least, for me, was we were trialing a lot of things. We were seeing what worked, what didn't work. I've been very lucky, I think, to have done really well in my first three years in the business, and I think that's a testament to what he built and what he saw for the company. Just from a first 12 months perspective. We were testing lead generation, we were testing marketing. We were kind of thinking through, what did we want in an agent, what did our team culture look like? So that was kind of, I feel like, what our first 12 months looked like. Obviously, it was crazy with covid, so real estate looked a little different then. It was a little more hectic than it does now. But from a brokerage level, that kind of was at least my first 12 months was me learning the business, understanding Jacksonville, and kind of what Jacksonville had to offer, putting myself out there, and then at the same time working alongside him to kind of build the brokerage and get that going.

Tracy Hayes  16:44  
Do you I want, how I want to word this question, just knowing when you started, and knowing what was going on at the time. As far as even though covid was going on, Florida was hot. I mean, it's still hot, but it was, it was gangbusters, especially that that period, and as we go into 21 where I think, obviously attracted a lot of people to get licensed and so forth, because it, it looked easy. You put a house up, you had multiple offers, probably, you know, within 48 hours. And you know, you were under contract by the third day and closing, you know, within 45 days of that. And so it looked really easy and you were able to, but where some people obviously get started and, you know, it's a ghost town, you know, I think Mike rollowitz, I think he went like six months before he actually closed his first deal. Still had a great first year, but it was all in the second six months for you. Were you getting some at bats, really, without having to at that moment in time, having to really try as hard, it's different now today than it was when you first get to start, as far as your customers making decisions and faster and obviously, well, inventory was still challenged, but I don't think his challenges is now you guys and, yeah, yeah.

Katie Jervis  18:01  
So I think so obviously, I didn't have a network. A lot of people that were doing real estate in 2020 in Jacksonville probably had some sort of network already established. I didn't. So I was heavily dependent on our Lead Gen system. I did get leads, obviously, relatively quickly, and I was working deals pretty quickly. So I would say, Yeah, my first six months. I, I think I got licensed at the end of April in 2020 and my first deal closed in June of 2020 closed about 7 million in my first six months. So, yeah, I mean, I was throw. I was thrown right into it and went well. So I don't know if that, I don't know if that's the norm, or I'm

Tracy Hayes  18:40  
gonna come back to you here. Well, I think most people will be like, especially the the older group are like, Oh, you had it easy. That's what they're gonna tell you, yeah,

Katie Jervis  18:48  
we focus primarily on the buy side too. So I think, I think it's funny, because covid allowed listing agents, and again, had a couple of listings, but primarily focused with buyers. I think for listing agents, it was relatively easy. However, not necessarily true for buyers agents, exactly, extremely competitive. You're under pressure, you're dealing with clients. Have to make decisions so quickly. I don't know if it was as easy for buyer's agent as it was for seller's agents in covid.

Tracy Hayes  19:16  
Let's dig into it, and both of you comment on it. I mean, it was, it was a time, and I think there even there's still houses today, if they're priced right, are still getting multiple offer situations, sure, but you're coming in, you know here, you don't have a lot of experience whatsoever, but now you're relying on him to what a couple years right? Basically, you have on her as far as putting forth that right offer. What are some of the conversations that you guys were having to make sure you were presenting the best for your buyer at that at that time, when it was hot?

Katie Jervis  19:49  
Yeah, I think it was just strategy. It was talking about, how can we be most competitive with what our clients were able to offer at that time, obviously, doing it in a way that wouldn't put our client. At risk as best as we could, obviously, with different wave contingencies and things like that, but it really is just strategy. And to be honest, I think that's a lot of where my law experience came to came in as well. Is just negotiation and strategy like that. Is what I was taught for three years, is you've got to represent somebody, and you've got to put your best argument forward. And so for me, that's what I was doing. I was putting our best offer forward, and he's always going to be my sounding board, even now with a lot more business under my belt, it's always, we're always going back and forth.

Tracy Hayes  20:34  
Well, but as a lawyer, you were, you're playing chess, right? Yeah, you're, you're, you're, you got to look, well, if I do this, this is what's going to happen to be the next three moves, right? And I think that in the negotiation you tell me, because you were on that side, that's what you were doing from the negotiation side, is you were, you were making the strategic offer, obviously, to get, you know, to be that final two or three. Then maybe you had to go in, you know, Hey, okay, then if they counter, we're going to do this knowing what your customer is doing. But you were actually planning two or three steps ahead, always ahead. And I think that that that would make the most sense of of your lawyering your because I you don't ask the question unless you know the answer, right? Yeah, exactly. You come in here, you tell me the other side here. She's getting started. Well, actually, I wanted to step back with you. We're gonna take a few minutes with you. Your first 12 months,

Tom Jervis  21:24  
probably a little bit different, yeah, than hers, not quite as successful, but I got it my first, I think almost my first 12 months were, were at a at the same brokerage, where I started in just a handful of transactions. I mean, predominantly from from friends and family, which was probably a little bit part of core principles behind founding KST was like, this is just unreasonable to expect that people can come in and only make a couple of deals in the first 12 months. So a lot of the focus shifted after we had opened up KST to like, how do we generate business? How do we find opportunities for people?

Tracy Hayes  21:59  
And so a little bit on you have her come over, but what you what you learned or didn't learn? Realize you didn't learn that you when she comes in, and she's your first guinea pig, as she says, What? No, what did you take from that other brokerage in your first 12 months? Or what didn't you take?

Tom Jervis  22:16  
Yo, so we'll put some dates behind it might help clarify. So open it technically end of 2017 so she didn't come over until 2020 so there was a two year period where I was basically working at Casey for 20 all of 2018 is predominantly myself. And then 2019 we took on our first seat. His name's Jordan Marson. He got started with us in January.

Tracy Hayes  22:35  
He's doing fairly well. I was doing grass 12 months, and looked his last 12 months.

Tom Jervis  22:39  
He's crushing it. Yeah. He's doing awesome. He's been absolute gem of a fine for us was was ended up a connection through through mutual friends, and we got together, I don't know, probably six or eight months before he ended up joining. But now, so he joined in in the beginning of 2019 and a friend of mine from college shortly after, in the middle of 2019 joined. And so it was really the three of us, for the most part of 2019 really starting to figure out how to how to close business. So I didn't do a ton of transactions before I opened KST, it was literally a handful of deals. When we opened up, we started building out a lead generation system, and then started to generate a lot more opportunities where I got my feet really wet in real estate, and really started to understand, on a transaction level, how the business operates, and what

Tracy Hayes  23:22  
was the first brokerage you're with, though, because that's you're going to base a lot of your, you know, even into the future of when you stepped in there, day one, versus her stepping into your office day one. From this, that's the standpoint, the structure I if you listen to podcasts, one of the things I always, we always dig into because I'm always hoping there's a, you know, if there's a new agent listening, someone thinking about getting in the business, or someone who has been in the business a year, two, three, and just not really producing it, because they're not, they don't know what they don't know, right? Sure, and so they're listening, hopefully, listening to the podcast. And one thing I talk about is finding the right brokerage, finding that right mesh, whether it's a brokerage that really specializes in green real estate agents, taking them from zero to wherever, you know, did that first brokerage really have a structure for new young agents like yourself?

Tom Jervis  24:17  
Yeah, so I would say they had some initial training involved. There's a, you know, a couple week period where you're kind of learning contracts and sort of, I guess, the core functions of the industry. But as far as, as far as actual, I would say, practical things or takeaways, there probably wasn't too many, I think it was more of a traditional brokerage in the sense of, like, it's kind of sink or swim. You're on your own. It's very big,

Tracy Hayes  24:44  
just one of the large brands. Yeah, it was one of the large brands.

Tom Jervis  24:47  
It was the no real brokerage at the time when age,

Tracy Hayes  24:50  
you know, knowing what you know now, and mixing with the jack's real producers, it sounds like, if you were looking today, you know, a lot of other brokerages that you probably would have gone to, because they were probably would have.

Tom Jervis  25:00  
Probably a little bit more with what I was, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  25:03  
structure and getting a start, because I think, you know, there's Ingalls and Volcker, they like to deal with, you know, someone who's been producing, yeah, type of thing. I mean, like, obviously, they would love, you know, Katie's production, or the other gentleman you mentioned, that's where they want to go. But there's others who like Watson. Obviously, they do their school, they start. They they love there's a lot of great agents this town. All started at Watson at one time or another, because that's the that's their bread and butter. But having those processes and systems in place is the term that that's been given to me. And you're you guys have been doing some trial and error and working through that. What have you found, as far as you know, building those processes and systems, because now you've brought on other agents, and now you have assistance and so forth. How important was it to spend some time of actually putting those foundations together?

Tom Jervis  25:51  
I think it's incredibly important. I think it's very difficult to last in this business if you don't have a sustainable process and something that you can replicate over a long period of time. I will stress till the day I leave this business with my agents. It's about consistent work over a long period of time, and there's just no shortcuts. That's just literally a fact of the industry. It's like you've got to put your head down and just work for 612, 18 months before you actually start to see legitimate results. Now, what you're doing in that time is probably dependent on kind of the advice you're getting and where you are and and what brokerage you're at, but I think, generally speaking, like having a good system and process, particularly in the day and age we live in, you know, kind of a nerd about technology and things of that nature, like, it's just really important on the agent level to have those pieces in place. At least from my perspective, I think it's changed quite a bit since, since, you know, I was first getting into it, but there wasn't necessarily that brokerage that provided a legitimate tech suite that was both user friendly and actually provided results as well. And so building something out along those lines was pretty important for

Tracy Hayes  26:50  
us as well. Yeah. I mean, I've definitely, you know, I've been doing this 18 years, and last five, six years, from the retail side, actually out, you know, with the agents versus working in call center environment, and I've heard a lot of the big names talk. They talk about technology. They talk, yeah, it's a buzzword. I think I asked I've when I first, I asked the question differently now than I did when I first started the show, about, like, you know, education. Well, I went over there because they had great education, or something like or great technology. Well, that's I found out. That's basically relative, yeah, maybe where you're coming for your what your experience, but actually putting the rubber to the road and actually making it happen.

Tom Jervis  27:31  
And it's only as good as a person using it right, like you could have, you know, an MIT grad, Bill, Geo, the best CRM in the world. But if you're not going to use it, and it's not going to right, it does really depend. That's why I think the user friendly component is quite important. Because if it's very difficult to learn, if there's a lot of moving pieces to it, the agents just won't do it right? They got in the business because they want to sell houses, they want to show properties, they want to meet potential clients. They don't want to be sitting in the back office all day. Otherwise, there's plenty of other roles that might fit them right. So they want to be out in public, and so if they have to spend hours on end learning a CRM, they're probably not going to and so ours is, like, really straightforward. It's follow up boss. It's, like, really well known. It's it's all across the industry, but it's just incredibly easy to use. And there's a lot of functionality that you can build out on the back end that doesn't require a lot of the agents to use, but it creates a lot of functionality within their their workflow.

Tracy Hayes  28:18  
You just made, you just made a statement that in I find in corporate America, we were talking a little bit about pre show, and my little corporate America experience with the podcast and so forth. But to understand what it is that a real estate agent, you know, there's, there's slight deviations of it, but what they're what they're supposed to be doing, they need to be the face they need to be, whether it's they're making phone calls, knocking on doors, whatever they're they need to be doing that and not spending the back end making sure the birthday cards are going out. Or, you know, those, those types of things, at what point did you I mean, it's, it's, it sounds to me, it's between the two of us. That's common sense, sure. But actually, if you do say this a lot to middle management and corporate America, they look at you like, like you're crazy. What are you talking about? And at what point do you start to you come to that conclusion that as you as the leader of the KSD group, need to either, you know, devise those processes, get the right software involves here, technology involved, so that Katie can be doing she does best. You know? When do you actually, when does that come to your vision? In is it through trial and error?

Tom Jervis  29:32  
Definitely through trial and error, and probably as we got through 2019, so, I mean, and obviously, as you grow, different things are required, right? So when it's just me and one or two other guys in the office. It's a lot more hands on, like you can manually do a lot more things. As you're getting 1015, 20 agents in, you need some just a more efficient way to handle the business. And so really, our tech suite is always a work in progress. I'm always trying to kind of figure different things out and implement different things. Obviously, AI, world has exploded in the last six months, and so. Brings in a whole nother challenge. But as far as when we understood that, I mean, I think a lot of it comes back to, like, understanding what the actual agent wants to do. I have the saying that I tell them that if you're in the office zero hours a week, you're probably doing no deals. If you're in the office 40 hours a week, you're probably doing no deals. It's this happy balance in between of like, you need to be in the office get your admin done, get your follow up done, but also you need to be out showing houses and with clients and things. So it was understanding, as you know, we the first handful of agents, including Katie that we hired, like, got off to a really good start. I mean, they've all done well, but like, understanding that the workflow that it took them to get there, and realizing, like, they want to scale past five, eight, $10 million like, there's got it. The time has to come from somewhere, right? You can't just magic more hours in the day. And so with recognizing that, I was like, well, first off, if I can cut out some of the prospecting that need to do, great, that's awesome. If I can cut out some of the admin work that need to do, great, it frees them up more time. My thing is always and the agents probably laugh at me about it. It's just like, I just want them to be as efficient as

Katie Jervis  31:01  
possible. Yeah, productivity is, it's

Tom Jervis  31:03  
a huge thing for us. It's just efficiency.

Tracy Hayes  31:05  
Well, like I said, it really a lot, you know, whether you know, I picked it up, obviously, from listening to podcast. I followed a gentleman in the mortgage world for a while, and actually took some coaching from them. And you know, he was explaining, you know, this is why, why he's making, he's had a million dollar month, like, made a million dollar w2 it's made $10 million a year. How he's built his his mortgage team, you know, throughout the world. And it's because of having, you know, just like the real estate agent as a loan officer, we're out prospecting as well. We're, we have to be out there entertaining, showing up at real producers, taking, yeah, sure, and all that type of stuff, and understanding that that's where that is, income producing. It looks like fun. And we are having fun because we that's why we do because we like what we do, right? And I think a lot of people, you know, they're discounting the fact that you know, you're you're taking someone out to lunch, maybe a possible client who's looking at beach houses is going to spend three, $4 million yeah, you're going to take them out to lunch, you know? And I should again, and I think of Shelby Florence with, she's with Compass now. She was talking about like she has restaurants where, because she's in the luxury area, where she has standing reservations on Friday night, because she knows her clients are, you know, she might have a client and say, Hey, I got this great restaurant. I already have a reservation for you. Just go on over, yeah, you know type of and understanding, yeah, that is fun, that it's it, but that is, that is actually part of the relationship, building process and being on the back end, ordering an appraisal or making sure the title work was ordered. You know that that's, that's not income producing far, but I can take some of my income, because we do make good income over here, and pay someone to do Yeah, or the brokerage can do Yeah. Well, yeah, you're bringing on. You're bringing on. So Katie, you come in. He is. He's gone through a couple years of trial and error. You're you're growing. Have you? Do you feel you found your, your, just your, honey spot your go to prospecting. What you do best? Do you feel you found it yet?

Katie Jervis  33:06  
I'd like to think so. I'd like to think I'm getting I'm getting close at least. I think it's a culmination of a variety of different things. I don't think there's necessarily one thing when it comes to prospecting, because obviously there's buyers and sellers all over the place. I think, obviously we do have our Lead Gen system. That is really what built my business, and especially my first year really got me going, I think. But otherwise it's just building relationships with people, putting yourself out there, like you've mentioned, going to events, being a little bit more faceY, using your friends, using your past clients, getting referrals. I think it's a multitude of those things that kind of help you build a successful business over time. But at the end of the day, it just comes down to the relationships. It's like, how many genuine relationships and connections can you build with people? They might not be a transaction now. They could be a year from now, or two years from now. So I think, in terms of prospecting, it's a multitude. It's all of those things. I don't necessarily think it's just one thing.

Tracy Hayes  34:02  
Well, I mean, so you assume you're still, you came here, didn't know anybody. You didn't have any friends here. He had his friends,

Tom Jervis  34:08  
yeah, yeah. Weren't buying out,

Tracy Hayes  34:11  
just, just beer, yeah. So you're, you're, you know, obviously having to make the financial expenditure for those leads to come in, where, where has your business shifted? Are you still taking a little bit of those, or have you shifted more into the I call it organic, which is, you know, referrals, past clients, and just constantly staying top of mind of those? Yeah, there's

Katie Jervis  34:33  
definitely been a shift in my business, especially over the last 12 months. I was definitely, like I said, very lead heavy my first 1212, and a half, 24 months, and then I would say this last year, it's definitely become past clients, word of mouth and sphere. I do still take a few leads from the business, but the majority of my business, I would say now, like is past clients or people that I've just met out and about, or referrals from friends and people. Life worked previously. This is

Tracy Hayes  35:01  
generally a tough question to answer, because I don't think many people think about it, but you mentioned relationships and building relationships with the clients. What are some things that you do and, you know? And it could be plainly just like, Well, when I meet a new client, I like to just, you know, I like to go meet him for coffee somewhere. Or, you know, how tell walk us through how Katie builds relationships initially.

Katie Jervis  35:23  
So if it was kind of a lead that we were getting through the company, then I'm kind of first thing is always going to be a phone call and just really understanding who that person is, what they like, what they don't like. The first part of the conversation isn't really how specific I'm just getting to know them as a person, and then from there, typically, trying to get them to a showing, depending on how close they are to wanting to purchase. And then it is just getting to know them, whether that's coffee, whether that's lunch, whether that's at showings inviting them to some of the events that we have. It's just nurturing that relationship over time. Whereas I think it's a lot easier if they're already your friend, or if they're your family, or if they're a past client, like the relationship is already there. And I think one of the things that we tell our agents a lot, too, is the the money is in the nurture. It's in the building their relationship. They might not necessarily be a client now, but they could be a client six months from now. So I think from an agent perspective, if you can do something that's genuine, and you can be consistent with and you can build just really good relationships with people over time. Your business is naturally just going to grow, and can go grow relatively quickly. And I think that's just it, just being genuine. Find what works for you. Find something that you can do day in and day out, and it

Tracy Hayes  36:39  
will happen. Give it. Give us an example. What are you doing day in and day out? Come on. Okay. Are you going to the is the gym a place I don't know, going every day?

Katie Jervis  36:48  
Yeah, I do. So I'm very much a creature of habit. I am. I love my routine. So it typically is. I have met clients from the gym. That's a big that's a big one for me. I'm trying to what else do I do? I think the other thing is, like, in our database, I'm consistently checking in with clients that have even showed a slight interest. I'm always in the MLS looking at data and properties that have sold. Or, you know, the standard realtor thing, are you setting?

Tracy Hayes  37:14  
Are you saying, like, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk to 15 or 20 people today, and it might be making some of those, just some touches of those semi interested peoples are you? Are you staying disciplined to something?

Katie Jervis  37:24  
I am extremely disciplined, and I think that's probably what has helped me in this business, is yes, I do. I am very consistent with my follow up and trying to talk to more people and connect with past clients. And so yeah, I would say that is the my level of discipline is probably what has helped.

Tracy Hayes  37:45  
I assume most of your clients are older, so

Katie Jervis  37:48  
actually, no, it's a mix. Ironically, maybe some of when I got leads from the business, they were probably a little bit older. But I think as I've settled more into Jacksonville, and I've met people and my I guess I've, yeah, just got more involved in the community. The demographic has shifted just a little bit. But I love all my clients. I actually think I talked to probably 90% of people on a regular basis that I've done business with.

Tracy Hayes  38:16  
You know, the difference of like, you said, like, whether you knew the person or not, but if they're just similar age, you're in that peer group, right? You might do some similar things and so forth. Versus, you know, sometimes when you're out, you know, Atlantic Beach jet, you're out there at the beaches, you could be running into that person wants to buy $2 million house, and they're, they're retired, or there's some, you know, retired corporate executive where, yeah, they're gonna be three months here and three months back up in Maine or whatever, or York or something like that.

Katie Jervis  38:46  
I think that's one of the things that I've loved most about the business, is every person that you meet is different. And so although the process of buying and selling a house is relatively the same, you go under contract, you've got your inspection, those kind of things are very consistent. It's the people that are different, and I think that's what I love the most, is no two days are the same, no two transactions are the same. And so I think I've just genuinely enjoyed building relationships with people, and that's, I think, probably

Tracy Hayes  39:13  
what I love just sounds like, you have, you have a natural curiosity of them. I definitely do, yeah, what they do, where they came from, and that's huge part of this business.

Katie Jervis  39:23  
Yeah, curious. I love, like I said, I've yet to have a bad transaction. I genuinely love every client that I've worked with, and I think that is why I can be disciplined, is because I do. I just enjoy it. I know the results will come. And the meeting the people has been a huge, a huge fun thing

Tracy Hayes  39:41  
for me. Excellent, excellent. So you're go back to Tom, you're you're creating, KST, you just felt you could just do it better, which is what every entrepreneur, every entrepreneur, right? That's probably the bottom line. They feel they could do something better, and that's it. So did you have or have you developed? All you know, one of the cornerstones of, you know, personal development, a lot of people been on, it's who you surround yourself with, who are. Did you have a mentor? I mean, did your dad? Was your dad giving you who who are people that you reached out to to learn those things that you didn't this

Tom Jervis  40:16  
was definitely my dad. I was fortunate where I started that I had a really fun broker. He was younger as well, kind of in his mid 30s, super nice guy, and kind of taught me a few things. And then there's also another gentleman, an agent at the brokerage, who does really well himself. And he kind of helped me on a transactional level, from a business level, is is predominantly my dad. I mean, he's done a variety of different things, been in multiple industries, started businesses, ran businesses, was an executive things of that nature. So just has a wealth of experience. And the thing that I guess he's probably, I don't know, impression on me quite a bit. It's just that fundamentally, business principles are pretty similar across all industries, particularly in the sales profession, right? It's just the products that changes, but the core functions of the job, being a good person, following up all the things she just discussed, pretty similar, regardless of whether you're selling. She you're selling shoes or houses and so understanding that and recognizing that, and then just kind of learning as you go. I mean, a lot of it is kind of trial by fire. I believe in for the agents as well. Like, when they get in, I they're on, even if they're a brand new agent, they're on the phones the first day, and they're like, they're starting to prospect a little bit and just get comfortable. Because the only way you're truly going to learn is by doing it. It's kind of one, one of the ways we handle our trainings, as well as, like, we'll have weekly trainings and different topics, but at the same time, like, if I train them on something today that they don't use for the next six months, well, like, when it pops up, it's like, they're going to come and ask me again anyways. And so a lot of the time we'll, we'll kind of see what they need on an as is basis. And that helps a lot. But as far as kind of mentorship and sort of, you know, that person you can call and it's, it's my dad. He's in the office every day more than anybody. Yeah, he's kind of involved, like, not that we're not this big corporate, more like a board level, if that makes sense, just to consult. Yes, he's not involved in the day to day. He does. He's not licensed, he doesn't do any of that, but he's a soundboard. Gives a lot of good advice, and just generally, very well experienced.

Katie Jervis  42:06  
And he's a little, I think what's helpful for us too, is like he's removed from the day to day of the business, so he can kind of, he's the one that's a little bit step back. And so he can give us, we know, I can go to him with frustrating clients, he's not involved in the transaction. So he can say, okay, breathe like, you know, he's a little bit far removed. And it's the same for him too, you know. Like when you're in the weeds, every single day, you're talking to agents, you're looking at who we can recruit, we're looking at how we can grow. And he's saying, Okay, let's kind of, you know, see, you know, sometimes when you're in the business, it's hard to see the forest from the trees, you know. And so he kind of gives us that takes, you know, take a pause and step back. He's extremely intelligent.

Tracy Hayes  42:43  
You know, I refer back to rocket fuel. Sarah Rocco gave me the book, but it talks about visionaries and Instagram integrators. But you do need that person outside looking in. They're looking at the, you know, to get the sports analogy. They're looking at the video, and they're going in and analyzing and then cutting out the clips for you and saying, Hey, you should have been over here, not over there at this time. You know you need, you need that person that can sit back 100% and I lot of companies, unfortunately don't have that person,

Katie Jervis  43:13  
I think, a lot of, sorry, a lot of his success too. Like, he's a visionary, like he can see long term, like I said, like, where we're kind of looking at day to day, maybe three to six months out, he's looking at like, Okay, what is the plan for the future? And he can see that. And I think his success has always been that he is that visionary, and so he provides that leadership and vision for the company, which I think he and I are both very fortunate.

Tracy Hayes  43:35  
Yeah, that is, that is priceless. What are some mistakes have you made? Ooh, that's a funnel. Look right in the camera for this. Yeah, that's

Tom Jervis  43:45  
so tricky. I think that's such a tough sort of I'm not sure if, like, mistake is the right word, classic, like, cliche. Oh, well, you learn from everything. I don't know. I'm not. I was trying.

Tracy Hayes  44:00  
Well, let me, I'll dig in a little bit see if I can draw it out of you. Yeah, you obviously, when you're with the previous brokerage, you had the vision of KSD, yeah, started you're now, you are the guy. What are some things that maybe you had some sort of expectations to happen? You know, obviously a lot of us get it, we will get excited and think they're going to happen faster than they actually do.

Tom Jervis  44:21  
Yeah. I mean, maybe that's probably the right direction of it is probably just underestimating the length of time that it may take to get where we want to be. I think when you're making a plan and you're kind of devising what you want to do with the company, a lot of things look good on paper, right? And then you have to put it into practice. And then that's where all these other variables come into play, and probably just maybe not, not anticipating a few different things popping up. But it's certainly nothing you know, catastrophic, catastrophic, or tragic, or anything of that nature that you know set us back so much, but I don't know, probably just, we just having, anticipating things moving much quicker than than maybe they have. But at the end of the day, like we, I always say this is we feel pretty fortunate to be in the position we are, and being pretty young in the industry as well, and having a lot of experience and having a lot of opportunity in Jacksonville. So sure, I think we in, if you asked me five years ago, would be a little bit further along, like, of course, you'd say yes, but

Tracy Hayes  45:17  
yeah, use 100 agents. Yeah, yeah. I mean, nobody saw

Tom Jervis  45:21  
covid and stuff coming to coming to or so like that all happens. And then obviously, as we transition through last year and rich, you know, triple overnight, then obviously that has a different effect on your business. So probably just expecting things to happen a little bit quicker than they did. But I wouldn't necessarily say there's one, like, something that we did totally blew up in her face, or was like, completely wrong or, like, hired wrong people, or like, you know, bought leads from the wrong place, or, like, builds wrong software, or something of that nature. It wasn't one thing in particular, but probably, yeah, I think we would have liked,

Tracy Hayes  45:54  
well, I think we all fail. Marketing is one of those areas where you kind of can fumble through, yeah, and just because you're trying to find out that thing. But this question goes to each of you. Well, well, you guys choose who wants to answer this one. First, you might have to think about this. What have you your your young people, what have you learned about yourself since you started in real estate? Learned about yourself maybe something you weren't doing didn't think you could do?

Tom Jervis  46:20  
Yeah, I mean, I think leadership is definitely one of those things that probably you don't anticipate being good at, and there's probably always a little bit of that self doubt. Like, especially, I was pretty green when I started. So, like, you know, are people gonna respect me, or people understand somewhat know what I'm talking about, albeit I don't have hundreds of transactions under my belt, I feel like a pretty good understanding of the industry and how things work. So probably sort of recognizing that people do respect and appreciate that. You know, even though I might not have this plethora of experience when I first got going, was maybe one thing that I looking back on it like, I'm thankful that that people accepted that and allowed me the opportunity to kind of take up, take up a leadership role, and kind of build some things out. So yeah, I would say that's probably one thing.

Tracy Hayes  47:03  
But yeah, yeah, that's good answer. Katie,

Speaker 1  47:07  
it's a tough one. My thoughts in my mind, are you being the lawyer? Rephrase it for me in a different way.

Tracy Hayes  47:18  
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. Streamline 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. What personal challenges did you have to overcome coming from a lawyer and sitting in an office? Because that's pretty, I imagine that's pretty much what you were doing to now, being front, facing and actually interacting with people I don't know. Like, is she a shy? Is she shy

Katie Jervis  48:18  
at all? Totally not shy. I just, I wouldn't say that there's net and again, this is not to sound one way or another. I think I don't know if I see it as a challenge, but for me, personally, I think it is why

Tom Jervis  48:33  
it seems it's difficult to look and reflect when you

Katie Jervis  48:38  
I think being an

Tom Jervis  48:40  
aggressive thing from her perspective, is just like showing up out of nowhere. I would say the one thing I recognize most about her is just like this, I'm gonna do it and figure it out. Attitude and like, there was never this. She wouldn't come to me and be like, Oh well, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this. I don't know if I'm gonna make this. It was just like, here's the plan, like, here's what we're trying to achieve here. Do you want to be a part of this? Yes, well, let's get to work, and then it wasn't, oh, you know, I'm having a tough day, or things that nature now, there's always bad days. And were you old in life, right? But it's just like, it's funny.

Katie Jervis  49:12  
I was having this conversation. Thank you, by the way, I was having, and I'll answer for him too. I think I was having this conversation ironically the other day. And I think I I've learned in my 20s how to be resilient. There was a I moved quite a bit just with work and took different job opportunities for one reason or another. And I think this, I have this level of resiliency that just enabled me to kind of pick up and do it like he said, right? And so I came into real estate, and I was like, I'm in Jacksonville, I'm not moving for the foreseeable future, and I just need to figure it out. And so that is kind of just what I've done. And I've recognized I learned really quickly what it takes to be successful in this business. I surrounded myself with good agents. I looked at what other good agents were doing, and I was like, I want to be that. And I. Think the one thing I've learned about real estate is it's not only is there unlimited list, you know, there's limitless opportunities, but you can be really good if you commit to being really good. And I think that is just where I'm at, is I am resilient, like you said, I can just pick up and go and I'll figure it out. But also just being committed being good, like I want to be good at my job.

Tracy Hayes  50:24  
When you go in to take a test, I'm a

Katie Jervis  50:26  
bad test. Are you a bad tester? Yes. Well if, if it was nervous, I don't get nervous. But multiple choice is not my thing. When I was I did. I had an English minor, and so I could go in and write essays. That's why I enjoyed Law School. Was because it was essays. I wasn't looking at multiple can't do multiple choice. I'm not, I'm not a test taker. She was stressing about the exam. Yeah, I definitely was like, most people do in two weeks. I was like, three or four months. I was like, I'm gonna take my time and do this.

Tracy Hayes  50:52  
Right? What I just from the because I have the same thing as I you know, a lot of people brought that up to you. You just go and do it. You take the first step, and and then what comes at you. You deal with it where a lot of people want to sit back and say, Hey, throw all the things at me first, and then I'll step in, yeah. And I think an attitude that, at least you know that I, when I go to take a test, I'm like, well, the average this test is made for average people. I see myself as about above average. I've read the material. I should pass this test. Yeah, I don't. I don't get as long as you prepare

Katie Jervis  51:27  
and you feel like you're ready to go. And I Yeah, and I think the other thing is, too is, like, I've realized, because of like, that I get to work with family. It is a family business. Like, at least I feel this way together, like we can't fail. And so I could, let's say we'll make it the simplest example, I could go to a listing appointment. Maybe I don't get the listing appointment, but what do I learn? It's not catastrophic. It's okay. We will go. We'll figure out how I can do better the next time there's this element of like we cannot fail. Yes, sir, things that have been thrown at us over the last few years, sure, everyone goes through that, but like he said, like, with our dad helping us out, and then having him, I can go all in because

Tracy Hayes  52:09  
exactly, you didn't have four kids at home, and don't get to steal, you know, it's

Katie Jervis  52:14  
like, I'm gonna be bombed because I want the deal, but it's not the end of the world. And I think that is the nice thing about real estate is like, Okay, we just we learn, and we move on to the next one, right? And I think not having to be dependent on anybody else, and having the support that I do nothing really ever goes wrong, like it's never as bad as it seems. And then I do want to get back to your question about him, okay? Because they do have to say this. What did he learn? Well, yeah, no, Patrick, Sister moment always he mentioned him being a leader, and he is a phenomenal leader. And I'm not, obviously, I'm a little bit biased, but his his temperament and his work ethic and his approachability, I think are why our brokerage has been able to grow, and I think it's why we have the agents that we do, and why our agents are successful. Obviously, we're in a great industry, great market, but it really comes down to the support that he provides all of our agents. Like I said, I'm a little bit biased, but he's, he's a phenomenal broker.

Tracy Hayes  53:13  
I'm gonna, I'm gonna take something you said and just and then what you just said, you felt very confident, because you felt like, well, if I didn't get this deal, I'm still going to eat tonight. And so you took that pressure off you versus other people are in different situations. Does he and his leadership role? Do you feel he takes a lot of pressure off the other agents, as far as, like, when they need him for negotiation advice or how to handle, you know, customer issues that may get a little heated, or that conversation goes on where you're like you're saying you go to your dad, is he stepping in and making them feel like you feel 100%

Katie Jervis  53:55  
Yeah, I think there. I think people don't appreciate how important it is to have a broker that is always available. And this is not a sales pitch, but he is always available. And again, I think it's just his temperament, his approachability, like ease with which he sees things, makes agents say, okay, like I'm in a bind, but I can call him, or we're going to figure this out. And I think that's one of the things that he touched on at the beginning that's really hard to find. It's hard to find people in this business that you can go to and say, like, Okay, I'm really struggling here, or I don't understand what to do with this client, or I'm not prepared for this appointment. Okay, well, he's gonna step in, and 100% we're gonna figure this out, right? So yes, absolutely. I think all of our agents would say he's he's always available. He's always happy to help. He shows up to appointments when they need it. He's always in the office. And I think when you like, he didn't have it at first, so he understands how important it is, whereas if you haven't had that, you might not know what you're missing. And so I think if any new agent does hear this, it is that when you are talking to other brokerages, and. You're looking at getting into real estate, you do want to find a company that is going to support you, and you want a broker that's always going to be available. So yes, to answer your question, I think he takes the pressure off our agent just by being available and being always happy to help.

Tracy Hayes  55:14  
Just having that, and I think it goes for any sales, but having, you know, been in sales probably longer than you guys been alive. When you have that sales manager that's going to, that's going to step in in, you have somebody whether, whether something goes awry, and they step in with the confidence you know, they don't. They're not emotionally they keep the emotions part out of it. I was cutting it real for Christina Welch, but all the things you were just describing are a lot of the the top, top brokers in the area, because they're giving their team that confidence that they're they're going to help them figure out the situation no matter what it is.

Tom Jervis  55:53  
I think that's what it really comes down to, because most problems you can solve, and like a lot of the times the agents call me, they know the answer question they're calling about. They're just a little bit unsure of themselves. They haven't done it a bunch. They want to hear somebody. They need that confirmation. So a lot of times I'll and what I like to do is I like to ask them a lot of questions as well. I don't, I'm not like, I'll give you the answers to the test. It's like, let's actually think and learn the the question you have. So that we don't necessarily have to do this every week. Yeah. And so a lot of times they're calling me. It's just confirmation. It's like, Hey, I was just thinking, Can we do this here? This is the strategy I'm thinking about for presenting this offer. How do you think about it? And so I love that aspect of the job, and I encourage that a lot. I'm like, please talk to me more often. Give me a shout. I'm always available. You know, I always say to them, like, I've literally never missed a phone call from agents. I don't I make that a point, because I do think it takes a lot of stress off. Yeah, it's just really important. Like, I just distinctly remember my first deal, and again, I love my record, so this is not a knock on him, because I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up seeing this, but he's awesome dude, but like me, not quite as available. He's got a family, he's got things of that nature going on. So remember being in the middle of my first deal, and, like, having no clue what I was doing. And like, that phone call you're hitting on a Friday night is like, hey, I'll call you back on Monday. And I'm like, I don't know if that's gonna work, you know? And so, like, that's been a pretty, pretty important thing for me to uphold and make sure that we have is part of the sort of culture in the office is that availability and just being able to answer questions, like said, most time they know the answer and it's they know the answer and it's a three minute phone call and we're done, and they're comfortable, they're confident we're getting a deal done. So that's a win

Tracy Hayes  57:28  
win for everyone. Well, that leads us in. Tell us how the Tom tell us how the team is structured. What do you got? I went on your website. You got a list. I don't know was there. I don't know. I didn't see who was a transaction

Tom Jervis  57:38  
in the middle of the rebuild needs a little cleaning up.

Tracy Hayes  57:43  
Yes, like, what kind of support do you have? Because I think that's, I think a lot of agents in we can lead right into recruiting, sure, because obviously agents looking at, okay, what kind of support are you going to give me if you want me to come over to KST? So tell us a little

Tom Jervis  57:56  
so I think maybe the easiest way for people in the industry to understand is it operates similar into a team, but everybody is a single agent. A lot of times, people think we are a team. That's not the case at all. We're a completely independent brokerage. I'm the broker. We run there. Everybody is a single agent underneath us, right? So there is no team leader. There's none of that stuff. However, as far as support goes, we provide everything that a team would, in terms of technology. So CRM, website, lead generation, things of that nature, support, obviously, myself being available, transaction coordinator, some marketing assistance, everything you need, from what I say is like first conversation to the closing table. And so you want somebody along every step of the way throughout that process. And I think it really starts with, you know, having the right technology in place and having a good a good CRM, I think it's so fundamental in this business. And it sounds really lame and it sounds really boring. And a lot of people like, oh, well, I like, I know I need to call Jim this afternoon, and it's like, okay, but you need, like, 50 gyms in your pipeline so that you have consistent deals, right? And I think a lot of people misunderstand that. They're like, Oh, I've got a couple people that are ready to buy next month. And it's like, okay, who's buying in three months, I don't know. Okay, well, that's probably something we need to work on, because you have to create that longevity in your pipeline. And if you're if you can manage it from your phone, your pipeline's probably not been right. And so you need some infrastructure.

Tracy Hayes  59:13  
You guys haven't been to enough companies to do, but you might have seen this in your previous company broker that you were working for. A lot of them have this great CRM, but if it's not easy to use, yeah, they're not going to do if they're not trained properly on it, they never really do it. I've had agents sit here that have been in the business for years, and you know, one of their big regrets, I wish I, you know, started my CRM early, but most likely, I can tell you from experience of being with different companies to go, hey, yeah, hey, we got the CRM, and they give you this, you know, 30 minute, hour long weather webinar, which no one's paying attention to. You know, I hate, I hate webinars. I don't think you truly, there's certain things for it occasionally, but to do your entire training on it, it's crazy, yeah, but they're not really. Hot, like, Okay, what is it you want? Because the CRMs do so much, right? Yep, I wanted, I want to take the name and I want to take it and put it on this list. So birthday card does Sure, whatever it is, and they're not breaking it down to that.

Tom Jervis  1:00:15  
I think it's sort of my responsibility to show them and clarify with them what's the reason we're actually using this? Because if I just show them how to they might do it for a couple of weeks, but if I show them what actually comes out of doing it successfully. I mean, she's a great example. She's really dove into the CRM and, like, genuinely use it for the last couple of years, and now, you know, she'll do 15, 20 million in her third year in the business. Pretty damn good. And a lot of that, I would say, is like, it comes from using that CRM. And here's why, I mean, it's the staying in touch with people, I said at the beginning, over a long period of time. And what's beautiful about our CRM, without getting, like, too nerdy in the weeds about

Speaker 1  1:00:53  
it, I was gonna ask that question earlier.

Tom Jervis  1:00:57  
It's stage based, right? So you'll basically have a communication stage of how frequently, frequently you need to talk to them. And then they these smart lists, is what they're called, yeah, run automatically, and so they'll only populate in that list when you need to check in with somebody. So if you have a base of two 300 people, like, if you had to comb through those two or 300 people every single day, you just give up, because that's just overwhelming. It's too much. Whereas, if the system just pulls out those people that you need to talk to on a daily basis. Then, like, she just checks in one hour a day in her CRM and her follow up stuff, right? And so it's not like, I'm asking the agents, hey, it's seven eight hours a week or a day you got to be in here. And like, you're really gonna have to, you know, grind out and learn everything in this it's just like, hey, get in check through your smart list. Make sure you're following up with the people you need follow up with, and like, the rest will take care of itself. I automate a lot on the back end for the exact reasons you've talked about. It's like agents just don't want to do it, and like they shouldn't necessarily have to. My goal is, like they need as much field time as possible, but you have to have a powerful back end engine, and we've kind of built that out so it's a give and take process. I mean, some agents use it a lot. Some agents don't use it quite so much, but I think there's a baseline that we get everybody to that's like, this, the grammar. You have to do this just because, like, it's coming from a place like, I genuinely want you to be successful. And like, I literally know this is the way. Well, it

Tracy Hayes  1:02:11  
goes back to what we're talking about before. You're handling, you're handling a lot of that. You're trying to make that back end so easy for them, and very sitting in front of the computer, because we get distracted, social media, whatever you never actually, you know what should have took five minutes is taking an hour and and that time you're you're just eliminating that because as a as a leader, you know you want everyone to be successful, but everyone's gonna be successful at different levels. Sure, if you can, you can get them up to a baseline and know that, hey, I've got so many agents, and they're all at least producing here you're obviously making, as the business, making the income that you expected. And then everybody goes above that is icing, right?

Tom Jervis  1:02:52  
Yeah, definitely. And you know, we have ice Hayes as well that will work through the CRM to do a lot of prospecting and things of that nature. We have some AI involved with it too. That kind of helps with some of the follow up, automated texting. So we take out a lot of the grunt work, because, like, I said, like, that's not why people got into this business. And so I think we can automate as much as we can, while still creating that human touch, that human component to it, so that from the consumer's perspective, we're not just like some robotic company just spamming them with unnecessary messages. So it's really important for us. And then ultimately, you know, we have a few more components to it, transaction, management, software, things of that nature.

Tracy Hayes  1:03:26  
Well, lead. It lead. Let's twist the conversation a little bit, because I had recruiting on here. Are you actively recruiting? Who are you looking for? And then obviously, blend that into what you're talking about, the benefits of coming over to KSD, as far as what you're doing on the back end to make their life easier so they can be doing more what they want to be doing, which is either showing the house or going to their kids ball game and hopefully getting both in right?

Tom Jervis  1:03:51  
Yeah, I'd say we're always recruiting, but I think there are some periods when we're actively recruiting and someone where just, you know, somebody comes by, if we're introduced to somebody that's always, open to a conversation with somebody, as far as, kind of what we're looking for, I think generally, we're looking for agents that have a little bit of experience, but nothing too wild, a little bit probably, kind of, I hate using the word younger, because I just think has these bad

Katie Jervis  1:04:16  
connotations. Yeah, fun, right, right.

Tom Jervis  1:04:18  
And, you know, I think, you know, you can kind of see us on social media, and kind of see that the group of agents that we have already, I would say our biggest thing is, like a full time commitment from the is we do not want part time people. There is a place in this industry for them, and there are many brokerages that will take them. We are not one of those. And I think it's really important to maintain that in the office. So we have a minimum of $5 million a year that our agents have to produce. We do a lot to help them get to that 5 million. I'm not an unreasonable person. Like, if you're brand new in the industry and you've been in for a few months, like, maybe the expectation is a little bit different, but after your first year in the business, I feel like it's reasonable target getting there and agents that want to be a part of something fun, something a little bit different, and kind of this new spin on a brokerage. And I think that's what's a. Lot of our agents are there for now. We've got a really enjoyable culture. We do a lot together outside of the office. We have incredible vendor partners as well that very much similar to to the way we operate and what we're looking for. And then the big thing is, like having a big vision and a big goal. I mean, we want this to be a very large brokerage, not just in Jacksonville. We'd love to expand throughout the southeast and wherever else it might may take us. And so I think if there's people that want to be part of something that's a little bit bigger than themselves as well, and being a part of a team environment is willing to grow and willing to provide opportunities. I mean, pretty much everybody that we've moved into other positions in the brokerage have all been with us from the get go. We're not parachuting people in from the outside. We're not outside on these massive recruitment trips. We're doing it and building it from kind of a grassroots level. And I think it's, it's really created a foundation of success for us, but also I think it's the culture where people want to work with other people in our office, and they want to bring their friends in. And so the agents are always reaching out. Hey, I know so and so in the business, they want to get together. They want to talk. I think every single person that's joined us has been a referral from somebody else in the office, which, like, says quite a bit about VR,

Tracy Hayes  1:06:06  
one of the biggest things, and, you know, I think one of the, probably the, you know, number, I think, by Jacksonville, Stan, just Jacksonville, they are Christina Welch's team, and I've known them when, from the day she started that she's gone through some growing pains. You know, I had her on January, and we were getting an update of, you know, what was going on and how, I don't know if it's three or four or five years now, she's, she surrounded herself with a core group of of leaders in there. Of course, they are, you know, buyers, you know, they do a buyer, seller, Keller Williams type thing. But retention, I would imagine it's just listening to you here. And I, you know, I don't, I don't know from other than what you've just, you know, everyone's heard you talk about, have you, you know, is that thought that you've had? Have you had enough people leave, come and go, that you're that your actual thought is on retention? Or have you been just because you're doing what you're doing, doing it good? You haven't had that challenge of of, you know, figuring out a way to be better at retention.

Tom Jervis  1:07:04  
Yeah, I mean, I think you you should always have a mind to retention, but I think it's about creating a good experience when they're there, and that ultimately leads to retention. As far as retention that we've had, I think there's maybe even three or four agents that have left. And I guess the easiest way to explain is, every agent that has left is has left the industry. They weren't leaving us to go to a different brokerage. They were getting out of the business altogether, right? So knock on wood for any of the agents that are watching. Hopefully none of them are leaving. I don't think any of them are. But no, we haven't had any agents genuinely leave because they weren't getting what they needed with us and wanted to go somewhere else.

Tracy Hayes  1:07:36  
All right, so new agents coming on. They're coming over talk to you. There's there the which was the words you just you used just a few minutes ago. Oh boy, instead of younger, dynamic, dynamic, dynamic,

Katie Jervis  1:07:48  
yeah, told me that they're like, stop saying Young. Just, yeah, dynamic. Just people. When you say dynamic, people just think, like, okay, young kids, fun and ambitious and bad,

Tom Jervis  1:07:57  
literally, not in each thing. Like, I don't care about the actual number. It's like, who you are, like, a mentality, and that's

Tracy Hayes  1:08:03  
excited about the industry, yeah, exactly, and so forth. What is, what is this discussion? What are you? I mean, really, just simply Spill it out. Because I think what you you went over a lot of your dynamics. When you want to break it down to that, to that agent who's really focused on front end, they don't even really know, you know, especially someone new in the business, they know what the back end even looks like. So a lot of what you're talking about, it's like, yeah, whatever. But because, I mean, in your experience, I mean that agent just coming into your office that may have a little bit experience, or is green, yeah. I mean, what are they, what are they wanting from a broker right now?

Tom Jervis  1:08:39  
Yeah, definitely. So I think it's similar in the fundamentals of the conversation, of how you talk to clients, or potential clients, is you want to understand what their needs are, what are they looking for? Why are we even having this conversation? There must be something that sparked it. Maybe I'm thinking about, well, what's getting you into the industry? And so I think if you understand what the agent is trying to achieve is really important, and then also making sure that the expectations are aligned. For example, in our business, we've had probably half of the agents have come in with a significant personal network, and so they've been in Jackson for a while. They're locals. They've been here, or maybe they've been in the industry for a handful of years, and they feel that their business is in a good place. They don't necessarily need a ton on the lead generation side. Whereas I might meet with some agents that are absolutely that are going to need the lead generation. So those two conversations are obviously a little bit different in terms of the support and, like, what the actual scope of work looks like. If you're need lead generation, you're a lot more on the phones. You're a lot more prospecting. I like to explain it in the way of, like, think of it on a spectrum where it's like, all the way on this side you're 100% outbound phone calls, and all the way on this side you're 100% bound phone calls. And the only way to transition to this side, which is like everyone wants to be, is by doing deals, right? And so I always say to them,

Tracy Hayes  1:09:45  
well, keeping up with your CRM sure all those which results,

Tom Jervis  1:09:50  
in my experience, it's around 40 to 50 deals, right? Where your business really starts to work for you. A lot of people want to avoid. They want to go all the way to this side of the equation. Without going through the crap of doing 2030, 4050, transactions, and there is just literally no scanning that. There's no avoiding it. And so I'll explain that in a lot of my interviews with with agents, is like, depending on where you are in your career, like we've either got a lot of work to do, we're gonna have to hit the phones pretty hard, and we're gonna have to do whatever we can to generate business, or we can think about refining your business a little bit more to things that you want to do, things in the community, things within your own sphere. If you've got 40 deals under your belt, like, how do we monetize that? And we're so

Tracy Hayes  1:10:31  
you're you're young enough and small enough brokers right now, so you're nimble.

Tom Jervis  1:10:36  
I think it's incredibly important. We want to remain that way, regardless of size.

Tracy Hayes  1:10:40  
So that new agent coming in, I think obviously one of the biggest concern is, yeah, where, where are they going to get their leads? Well, if they have been living here, what are some things that you're doing, or can you chime in a little bit on some of the things that you're coaching some of these new people to really attack their their sphere, because those are really the first weeks of phone calls. Is calling everybody you know, as we can download our phones now on these apps, yeah, and there's 1000s of people on our list, and half of them we don't even remember who they were. Yeah.

Katie Jervis  1:11:09  
I think one of the things that we've been telling our agents, especially as we've been brought on a few new agents this year, is kind of splitting your day, right? I think the prospecting and the phone calling, it probably the least enjoyable part of the job for most people. So you kind of have to put that as part of your day. Let's say you wake up in the morning. It's a book, eat the

Tom Jervis  1:11:28  
frog, eat the elephant. One one mouth,

Tracy Hayes  1:11:33  
there's another one. Eat the frog too. I think that that's a similar Yeah, tackle the thing you disliked the most,

Katie Jervis  1:11:41  
but it's, it's a necessary evil in this business. You have to do it. There's no getting around it. And then it's kind of like, okay, once you've knocked out a morning of prospecting and you know your admin and what does then the rest of your day look like? And for us, that's kind of encouraging our agents at this point in time to be out in the community. We have some and kind of, we encourage our agents to find out what they really enjoy doing. Like we have a couple agents right now that love door knocking. Okay, how can we support them in doing that? We have agents that we just hosted a coffee morning. One of our agents loves to do that. So how can we support them in that, showing up to events? There's just a multitude of other things that the agents can find time in their day to do what they love, provided that they've done the stuff that they might not love earlier in the morning. So I think for us, like encouraging agents to find that balance in their day to day. Because again, it comes down to consistency. They need to have a day to day routine, a week to week, week routine, that they can do over and over and over again, because ultimately that's what's going to get them the deals and the results. So I think for us, it's like encouraging agents to find that balance and really honing in on what they love about the job. Because unfortunately, there's just going to be parts that we don't love,

Tom Jervis  1:12:52  
obviously, social media. That's yeah. Now Yeah. Agents we have as well, pretty all pretty active on social media as it is. So I think that's a great opportunity for them, kind of working with that, with them in that sense too. Obviously, I'm sure you have found, like, it's, it's the opportunity of it's as big as an opportunity as you want to make it right now on social media, and so you can reach anybody at any time, in any place in the world. And so, yeah, I think it's just a multi faceted approach. We talk about, like, kind of lead pillars quite a bit. It's just like understanding you need to have a variety of ways to fill your pipeline. So at the end of the day, if you can always be adding to your pipeline, regardless of where they're at in their life cycle, their sales cycle, if you can just continuously grow that top number, the bottom number that comes out in terms of deals, will grow as well. So it's just adding meaningful context. Do you have?

Tracy Hayes  1:13:37  
So you you mentioned 5 million is what you you know you try to strive for as a minimum level. So if they're not on pace, or they're one of these agents who are in their first year, are you saying, hey, you need to be in the office at nine o'clock because we're gonna, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna do this as a team. There's gonna be three or four, get on the phone and use that camaraderie a little bit. Yeah, I wouldn't say we get them Eat That Frog or eat that elephant.

Tom Jervis  1:14:00  
I wouldn't say we mandate people to go in the office. Our typical schedule looks like Tuesday trainings, and those are kind of dependent on what's needed at the time. If we've got a handful of agents, we'll typically do that for like, a tech onboarding and just make sure they get it from me. And then Thursdays, we have team meetings. That's like required time in office. Obviously, there's no requirements in our business because we're 99 but it's encouraged time to kind of be around and have that camaraderie. And then a lot of it, I'll just do one on ones, whether it's like an informal or formal. We obviously do monthly and quarterly reviews, where we're kind of getting together and chatting with the agent and understanding what they're trying to achieve, as well as, like, what the future looks like for them. But then also, I'll just pick up the phone and chat and just see, hey, how are things going? What's going on? Do you need any help here? What's your pipeline looking like, do you have some potential deals in the works? If not, let's get together and chat and and really see how we can we can solve that and grow the opportunity base.

Tracy Hayes  1:14:48  
What challenges are you seeing the agents having today? I mean, what are they? What are they coming to you with,

Tom Jervis  1:14:54  
probably prospecting and just being able to do it consistently when it's. Not always the most fun thing to do. And I think a little bit, and it's just just a macro trend is also inventory is still an issue. Like, when you have those good buyers, particularly now, as buyers see the market softening a little bit, and they know they don't have to rush to get an offer, and it's like, okay, well, this house, like, is 80% of the way there in the past. They're like, I'm jumping on that. Like, if I'm getting to 90 or better, I'm in now, it's like, I'll let it sit for another couple of weeks, see if they do a price reduction, and also wait and see what else comes on the market. And so definitely dealing still with inventory issues. And you know, you hear in the news all the time, well, people aren't leaving their 3% rates. It's probably an accurate statement. But again, like, I think a lot of it is just building those relationships, finding potential opportunities, and then converting them once they once they get to the finish line, every everybody can do an East deal, right? A cash buyer, or somebody that's like, rock solid financing. They find their dream home. They're like, I'll pay any price. Okay, that's easy. It's the all the ones below that that are pretty challenging that I think, if you not fully experienced and maybe not quite comfortable having difficult conversations with your clients, it's probably quite a bit of what our

Tracy Hayes  1:16:03  
conversations are about. My wife had one this weekend where they made the offer on, like, Thursday, well, the listing agent actually let it expire, and then finally came back to him, and they're waiting, and they're waiting, like, well, he never responded YAY or day and like, what was so they went and found it. Actually found another condo with more square footage for a lesser price. And it was like, Oh, this is actually better. You know, listing agent calls back and they're like, that, man, we already went and found another place because you didn't even respond. Yeah, you let days go live.

Tom Jervis  1:16:38  
How do you crazy? That's probably another challenge.

Tracy Hayes  1:16:42  
Yeah, well, I always you got to have a sense of urgency, as quick amongst the head they call it ism it was the sense of urgency is the ante to play, and how some people, you still have to have a sense of urgency in this you don't know who else is looking at that property, someone you're if you don't, you drag your offer or drag your response or counter offer, and someone comes in with cash while you're dilly dallying around. Yeah, you What do you think you know, Katie, you're out mixing and mingling with some of the other agents. You're hearing. You know what other brokerages are doing. You're, I'm sure you're watching. You know, you hear when people come in and talk to you. I think, what do you think overall in our industry, that on a on a broker level, or even if you can break it down, maybe even a team lead, basically that leader, basically the role that Tom's doing, what do you think overall in our industry, they could all brokers could do better answer the phone.

Katie Jervis  1:17:40  
And I say that like very because I talk to a lot of agents, and that is the one thing that a lot of them struggle with, is getting the support and getting the help. And they feel lost and they don't know how to do X, Y and Z, and they're looking to other agents to help them, or they're looking, if you know, they might be a listing agent, they're looking to the buyer's agent to help them navigate the transaction, when really that is the broker's responsibility. So I would say, again, I'm not a broker, so I don't I'm probably not best placed to answer this question, but I would like that's what they're saying, just yeah, just answer the phone, and just be a little bit more available and be helpful. Because agents, especially the agents that I talk to, again, newer in the business, or younger in the business. It is that, like we just want the help. And I think that would be, that's what I hear, at least I

Tom Jervis  1:18:30  
don't I think availability is definitely a good thing. I think probably training is another component. I'll be honest with you, and certainly not trying to raffle feathers. But I just think, generally speaking, there should be a reasonable amount of agents per broker. I don't know if it's fair to go this, like, 1000 agents per broker route. I just, I just don't think it's good for the industry. I don't think it's good from the consumer standpoint. I'm sure you or your wife or you have those clients, and they're like, Oh, well, I had an agent, and he literally didn't know what he was doing. He almost screwed us. He almost got us he almost got us into a bad contract, like, whatever it is, and like, there's needs to be some general oversight there. And so I think having, you know, I the agents are thinking about making a switch, like having a good relationship with a broker or somebody within the organization to to genuinely answer the phone and answer questions. 24/7 Yeah. 365 when you pick your phone is, like, just incredibly important. It's, it's not often when things are going good, right? They're usually picking up the phone because something's happened. And it's not like, all right, by the way, I just got a sick deal done. Yeah, it's usually like, we're kind of in a mess here. I need some help. And so I think, like she mentioned, just availability. When you you hear it everywhere, and it's not just Jacksonville, it's not one specific team or organization. He's everywhere in the industry. I mean, almost on the Facebook groups and things like that. And you just see all the time, like people from other places, they're going into Facebook to ask questions that the broker should be resolving, right? Like, I mean, it's just one phone call, usually, like I said, talking about our agents, like they're usually not challenging questions, and most of the time they know the answer. And, you know, we often, you know, get into law. Legal trouble and things like that. In our business, a lot of times it's just like, hey, what do I do? Do I make this quick edit here? What amendment? What language do I use in this contract? Things like that. So the availability, I would say, is probably agent's biggest issue.

Tracy Hayes  1:20:13  
Katie, what do you think are three that you if you had a peer approach you and say, Katie, you're doing really well. I want to get into real estate. What are, what are, what are? A couple things you'd tell them.

Katie Jervis  1:20:25  
The first thing, I think, is be prepared to work. I think there's a misconception in the industry, thanks to social media and Netflix and those kind of things, that you can get licensed Exactly. And all of us, yeah, it's a good one, exactly. And all of a sudden you're selling these beautiful houses, and that is just not reality. I think it takes time to build a really good pipeline and to do consistent business. You have to work at it every single day. So I think the first thing we're pretty honest with people, when we're chatting with them about joining our brokerages, that you do have to put in the work day in and day out, and just develop a routine and be consistent. So that's kind of the big one, I think. And then the other one, I always think, too, and I think this is what has helped me, is just focusing on the relationship with people. I know we've touched on that quite a bit today, but leverage those relationships and and build them and get to know people and understand people. The transaction will eventually come. I think is a transactional business. We are focused on the numbers, and we are commission paid, so the numbers are a big deal, but I think we encourage our agents, and what I focus on is just building that relationship. The more relationships you can have with people, the more deals you're going to do. And I think kind of those two things that consistency, the routine and the relationship building would be, would be the big things for me.

Tracy Hayes  1:21:47  
So you've, you've got this person that says, Yes, I'm in. I'm going to work hard, I'm going to do I'll fall, I want to shadow you. Between the two of you. What do you think are some of the traits, though, that that are real estate, if you're having that person who's never done real estate in front of you, yeah, and whether or not you're going to pour in a bunch of energy into them, what are some characteristics,

Tom Jervis  1:22:09  
I think, personability, like being able to sit across table from somebody for an hour of coffee and, like, actually have a good conversation and have fun, like, you're never going to learn a lot about somebody in an interview, Because everyone's putting on their best persona. Right? Everybody is the version of themselves. A friend

Tracy Hayes  1:22:25  
of mine, someone says two people lying to each other exactly, but

Tom Jervis  1:22:29  
generally you can get a good enough understanding of like, okay, can this person go and spend an hour at a client's house and like, will that client feel comfortable that? I think

Katie Jervis  1:22:37  
that's really important one. I think the other one is a willingness to learn and just being open to asking questions. That's a big one for us. We we're both always available, obviously, him more than me, just our roles within the business, but I think that is something that I really appreciate about people, is when they can sit in one of our team meetings and ask questions, or they can call him, or they can call me and ask questions and just be willing to learn more. I think in this business, you're always learning. You're learning something new on every transaction. If you're not prospecting, you're not out and about, are you listening to a podcast? Are you reading a book? Just having that motivation to learn more be the best possible agent. So the asking questions thing is important.

Tom Jervis  1:23:21  
Curiosity, that's a big deal. It's like when you're consulting with clients, like if you don't know the why, you can't really solve the problem. If you don't know truly what they're trying to achieve and what their goals are in selling or buying or whatever, it's gonna be really difficult for you to come up with the optimal solution. Whereas, if you are curious, you ask a lot of questions, you get that understanding what they're trying to do makes your job way easier as well,

Tracy Hayes  1:23:42  
which I think people downplay or just don't give credit enough to what you say. Like, listen reading the books in the in the podcast, it gives you a lot of verbal ammunition, especially just to sit down and have a coffee and just say, Hey, man, I read this great book recently. Boom, now you're off on this conversation, which generally ends up in the other conversation because you're constantly you're filling your mind with, well, hopefully you're reading a positive book. You're not reading a horror drama or something. No, you're listening to a positive podcast or something. Of it, if it's

Katie Jervis  1:24:09  
real estate related, too, I think it helps our agents build confidence, especially when you're new in this business. I think a lot of times they call him and ask questions because, and it's not because they don't know. It's just that needing that affirmation that they are thinking and, you know, telling their clients the right thing. So I think just listening and continually asking questions and wanting to learn just builds that confidence for these newer agents.

Tracy Hayes  1:24:32  
We're coming up right here, almost short. We're short of an hour and a half, so I'm gonna wind down sure is there, is there anything you guys want to add? I said for Is there any anything you guys want to talk about KST or Katie, about you, about yourself, of why you know someone should

Katie Jervis  1:24:47  
work with you? I mean, I think we're pretty cool people to work. I think I think we're fun. I think we're building, as you mentioned before, we're we're building something. It is at the end of the day, just us. And so if you are an agent. That you know in the business, or looking to get into the business and wants to be part, part of something that can grow, and you're excited about opportunities, and you want to build something with an awesome group of people, then definitely reach out. I mean, I think we're pretty easy going. We're easy to work for.

Tom Jervis  1:25:15  
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, we're, I

Tracy Hayes  1:25:17  
like, work with, work with, correct?

Tom Jervis  1:25:21  
Like, obviously, no, not the biggest brand currently in Jacksonville, things that were a younger company. And, you know, I think we've done a really good job over the past few years of building a quality brand and sort of remaining intent on keeping it clean and making sure that the right people involved. And I think one thing that is lost on this business is, is there a place you can go where you genuinely want to be with your co workers? Or is there a reason every single real estate office is involved people just don't

Tracy Hayes  1:25:51  
let's brand because I think would you agree? It's really not the Keller Williams or REMAX or a KSD group. That's not why people are buying. They're buying because you because of the person that they're working. That's who they want. That's their brand.

Tom Jervis  1:26:07  
I think it's absolutely component to it. I I don't think many people are sitting in living rooms and having that objection of, like, well, you work at this company, and I don't, I've never heard them before. Like, who are, you know, they're they're trying to see,

Tracy Hayes  1:26:19  
yeah, they're going, Katie's great to work. She's awesome. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised.

Tom Jervis  1:26:24  
Half clients don't even know which brokerage their agent works. Exactly. No idea, unless they see contracts on 100% but no, yeah. I mean, I think we'd love to bring on a few more agents and people that have a strong commitment to the business and genuinely want to succeed at a high level. I mean, we are fortunate to be in an industry where you can make a lot of money, and I think we have a really good foundation, sort of pieces in place to allow them, and a good platform to allow agents to succeed. We love funding and kind of grow this and become amazing. This is

Tracy Hayes  1:26:57  
the last informal question I ask at the end of every podcast, each of you must form your own answer. Okay, hopefully it's different. Okay, is it more important who you know or what you know and why?

Tom Jervis  1:27:09  
Well, the classic answer

Speaker 1  1:27:11  
is, that's mine, yeah. But that's not always. The answer be both. Yeah, they've answered that as well.

Tom Jervis  1:27:18  
I mean, obviously who you know is important, but I think also what you know is important because that can lead you into other rooms and can get you into different conversations, allow you to meet people. So it is a very challenging question to answer. I think it does go both ways. But yeah, obviously

Tracy Hayes  1:27:33  
you're that's the analytical model.

Tom Jervis  1:27:36  
Your network is is important, but I think your knowledge is also incredibly

Katie Jervis  1:27:39  
I think the lawyer has a different answer? No, actually, I was going to say relatively the same thing. I think you know from the same way who you know is who you know. You can always meet more people, right? And you can always learn more. So I think they're both equally important. I think being able to sit in a room with people that you might not necessarily know, which we do in this business, quite a lot you're having conversations with people that you don't know. That knowledge is extremely important, yeah, and that knowledge can then lead you into relationships with other people. So, yeah, okay, I'm kind of promising.

Tracy Hayes  1:28:11  
Yeah, I am. If I was leaning 5149 I mean, he gives I mean, both those, it's that it's actually a question. I mean, there's no wrong answer, right? It's obviously based on your experiences in life and so forth, but, but you're right a bit. But I mean knowing who, like, hey, I want to do something, and knowing someone over here, you can go, like, hey, I want to get into real estate. Let me go talk to Tom and Katie, right? Sure, you know, and that that may lead, and I may know nothing about real estate other than what we, you know, the average person lives with, right? And learn so, and then you know, who's gonna move, you know, move you to the next level, right? Knowing, knowing some people might be that next agent that too, but obviously it's backed up. That person's recommending that agent to come to you because of your knowledge, right? So there's a lot, it's a very challenging, yeah,

Katie Jervis  1:28:59  
I actually feel like I need to go back now and listen to your other podcasts further back so I can see how other people have answered those questions. Yes, exactly. What do most people say? If, like,

Tracy Hayes  1:29:10  
Well, the reason why I say the Lord the lawyer, actually, I was Christina Tatum with they're we work with them. Yeah, great people. Christina. Christina was who? Okay, I think Maria was what I knew, yeah, and yeah. So you, you know, so you're two, two attorneys, yeah, but two different things. But I put you more in the Christina category.

Tom Jervis  1:29:30  
That's funny. At least one of those can totally go both ways. Yeah?

Tracy Hayes  1:29:33  
Well, that's, and that's, that's the interesting part of the question, to get perspective,

Tom Jervis  1:29:37  
or it's quite situational as well. Yeah, yeah. What you need at that point in time.

Tracy Hayes  1:29:41  
There are some people that do go strong with like, what you know, and I'm, you know, okay, well, you could, you know, be in the MIT grad, but you know, and know how to build a nuclear bomb. But if you don't know people that want to buy that thing, you don't, what are you? And knowledge is

Tom Jervis  1:29:58  
like, you can only have so much. Yeah, you can only fit so much knowledge in there. But like, if you know 100 people, you've got 100 different brains you can tap into. Yeah, I guess

Tracy Hayes  1:30:06  
you could be good at what's a Jeopardy, right? If you knew the encyclopedia and all those, you could be good at jeopardy. But appreciate you guys coming on great show. Well, I'm sure we'll cut some great content from this cool