Live! with Codie Sanchez - Build Freedom, Profit, and Leverage

SERHANT. Studios: Hey coin. How you doing, Ryan? Did you did you take a second job? Am I not paying you enough? What's up? We are talking about building business today and my philosophy is safety first. That's that's great. That's we really appreciate that. Are you sure like in the middle of the night when you log off from running the greatest experience in any real estate company in the history of the world, you're not also like, let's go Direct traffic. Let's go and maybe potentially build a building. You know, is that what you're doing? The original inspiration was because you teach people it's important to be highly visible out there. Like if you keep a straight face on. We got such a great show for everybody today. I'm excited. I know you're excited. We got great stuff. Why don't we hop right into it? Okay. You ready? Ready. All right, let's do it. All right. Welcome everybody. as you know, I just got back from Greece. it was fun. I don't know if you could tell, but I'm like I'm pretty tan. For for as not tan as as I normally am, this is relatively pretty, pretty tan. if you haven't had the opportunity to go to Greece, you should all go. and then just come back because I need you. So don't like go and stay, go visit, and then run home to me, please. Get a bunch of things. We got a bunch of things coming up. First and foremost, no joke. Sell it 2026. Okay. Sell it 26. We I told you guys about the tickets a couple weeks ago. we put them up on sale. sell 26 will be sold out by the end of the day. Okay. Hotels, I've gotten all of your texts yesterday. I get it. Everyone's been waiting. And then you're trying to look at hotels. Hotels are fully booked. There are a couple that still have some rooms. It's all great, they're all fine. This is everything's awesome. But like if you are hearing me right now and you think you can wait till August, you cannot. You don't you don't have to come. It's okay. Like it's not mandatory. but you should want to be there because it's the greatest conference in the history of the world. I actually just got off the phone talking to the representatives for some very, very cool, fun people in Colorado who might be joining us as well, outside of having Tony Hawk there. Tony Hawk, one of the greatest skateboarders of all time. So he'll be keynoting alongside me because I know you love hearing me rile everybody up. But general admission for people that are not at Sir Hand, it's like I think it's like a thousand dollars or something. you guys just have your RCP fee, like we talked about. We got other incredible speakers, Course Field at the Rockies, the Seawell Ballroom, Meow Wolf. I don't even know what that means. I don't even know what it is. I've never even been there. I've seen photos. I've seen video because our sell it team has gone out to check on everything. It looks like an acid trip. I guess that's what y'all want. So we're doing it. That's costing me a pretty penny, but whatever. You know what I mean? Like just give give the people what they want. we're also going to be releasing at sell it, just so you know, Simple 2, which we've been building now for a year and a half. we will be showcasing it at Blueprint. Vegas the day before Greg Chan, our CTO and I are gonna be on stage. I think like the Wednesday or Thursday of that week in September, introducing sell it to to the world. We didn't jump on a plane to make it to our market leaders' dinner in Denver that same night. So there's a lot going on at that time. and we're gonna be showing a bunch of first look at company updates, upgrades, some really, really crazy stuff that we've kept totally in the shadows and totally in stealth that is going to help you all win and do more business. And sell more and live more. I'll just leave it vague at that. the Seller 26 websites is also super cool. It lets you transfer tickets to other Surhan agents in case you want to cover other agents you either work with on your team or you're just really, really, really nice, or you you make so much money, you just want to be really nice to other agents here and cover their RCP fee, whatever. Anyway, another two super fun announcements before I get into all of our wins. Fun announcement, number one, our very own Chloe Tucker Kane. I just think this is so cool. You saw me post about it. on Oni Manhattan. her goal in life was to make it to Broadway. She obviously sells a lot of real estate. She just sold something in the West Village for $17 million while also auditioning, apparently, to be on Broadway, and was just cast on her first ever Broadway show. I just think that's cool. I think this company is all about people living the biggest versions of themselves. I think this company is all about being entrepreneurs and not being realtors. I think this company is all about helping everyone here win and succeed in whatever way that is. and I just I don't know. I just think it's super, super fun. and so if you get a chance to come to New York, when she is on Broadway in six, go check her out. The second super, super cool thing. I've already announced this in wins in the past. but it was announced out of stealth as well that when Bernadette Brennan sold 281 Park Avenue South, her team, including Catherine and the the commercial team in New York, that they actually sold it to Airbnb as their first ever New York headquarters for $82 million. They just think that's super cool. And they kept their lips super zipped. and it's just just awesome. Another great. Really, really, really fun win that two, the owner of that building, so major, major owner of a commercial building, and that that type of client chose this company, chose Bernadette and the partners involved in that deal to get it done. I don't know, says something about us being great and winning. Just could put it out there, but huge congrats to her. All right, now on to our wins and our effects, and then we will bring in the incredible Cody, win number one. Friday, I'm gonna keep it local here for one second. In New York City closed an extraordinary $26 million sale at 432 Park Avenue, the 94th floor, one of Manhattan's premier luxury residences that is also embroiled in lots of litigation because people think the building's falling down. And somehow he got this deal done at just under $26 million, completely insane. Plus, he also rented some Broom Street that I thought was worth $30,000 a month, and he rented it for $70,000 a month. Win number two goes to Tiffany Powell and Chris Bose in Georgia. They secured a $19 million Atlanta listing through a referral from Patrick Ryan in South Carolina, earning the clients' trust through two months of consistent follow-up and collaboration. Persistency wins every single time. Win number three goes to Peter Ocean. Who put a $12 and a quarter million dollar penthouse under contract? A deal that he got through a cold call, no less. Win number four is Josephine Traina back in Georgia. What's going on in Georgia? I get my peaches down in Georgia, and we get all our deals down in Georgia. Secured her first listing at Gallery, Buckhead's Premier Luxury High Rise, bringing in a million-dollar residence to market by living the mantra. Follow up, follow through, follow back, the famous. Triple F's from sell it like Sir Hands. And win number five. Jeethu Sajivan in Connecticut kicked off July with an incredible eight million dollars in closed and under contract volume in just the first seven days of July. Who are you? Get it. Who is exactly all right? Now on to our surhand of facts. And remember, if you had a huge win this week and I'm not talking about it, it's because you didn't tell any of us. You email agent wins plural. At surhant.com and I will shout you out if I think it's a good enough win. Surhand effect number one, all over the news, literally the deal that made global international headlines. our very own Paulina Mattensen in Arizona made history by shattering Arizona's single home sale record for just over 40 million dollars. And she had just come from New York at our rising stars event. And instantly earned rising star status. Instantly earned, I mean Surhand Star status after joining with an average price point of owning of under $2 million. Completely, completely insane. awesome quality deal. Huge congrats. Really, really cool, amazing, amazing effect, and been a massive part of Sell It for years and years and years. That's how we initially met. Sirhand effect number two, the Orlando Home Squad, led by Mark and Sarah Rawmaker in Florida, is officially number one in Orlando in both sales volume and transaction sides. While teammate Vanessa Scotland celebrated the highest price listing of her career, securing a three million dollar listing. Hugely incredible. So awesome. Sir Hannah, give me a sound effect, please. Thank you. Sir Hannah Fact number three, Evan Sophia in Florida secured a $15 million listing. What's super cool about this one, and is closing on another one at the same price point and added a four million dollar penthouse in his glowing luxury portfolio. The reason I know about this, not because he did what he's supposed to do and email agentwins at surhand.com, but because I got the text message of him in the car with like Brandon Bogart I all the other Surhan agents who came to time to work to get deals done. I don't know. Super very collaborative, super fun deal. Sirhan effect number four. Sound effect, please. Sir Hannifa number four, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Powers hit the ground running with three listings in her first 30 days at Sir Hant, ranging from one and a half to 2.7 across Silicon Valley. Congratulations, Liz. And Sir and Sir Hannafact number five. Jenny Kim in Las Vegas landed the first million-dollar listing of her entire career shortly after joining Sir Hant and just brought in a $1.3 million five-bedroom to market. In a major milestone for Jenny, which is amazing. Okay. All right. I'm somewhat right on time. So here we go. Ready? this is a super, super fun one for us. We're kicking off Q three here with our first Tur Hand Live and our first special guest of the quarter. everyone wants more deals. Okay. We all want to sell more. We all want to make more money, we want to live more. But eventually, that's not the problem. The problem becomes how do I build an actual business that grows without me doing everything? I hear that from you guys all the time. That's exactly why I wanted today's very special guest here. So Cody Sanchez has built an empire by by by buying what most people will call boring businesses. So like laundromats, car washes, service companies, and then turning them into incredible assets. She's got a new book, which is really, really cool Own or Be Owned. I love the name own. It's almost like we have a TV show with that name. Is really about one idea, which is stop building yourself another job. And start building something that creates freedom. and so whether you're everyone here, if you're listening, if you're a solo agent, if you're building a team, if you're thinking about what comes next, I think you're gonna take away a lot from this conversation. So please buckle up. Hi, Cody. What's going on, guys? So excited to be here. How are you, right? My pleasure. I'm so excited to chat with y'all. my god, the chat. I love Cody. I'm getting text messages on my phone over here right now. Everyone's pumped. You're in everyone's social feeds all day long. I do yell a lot on the internet. Lots of yapping. So you you know how that goes. I think you you yeah, you do talk a lot. but I do, but I don't think you I don't think you yell. And what's great about you is you like everything you say should be said. You know? There's a lot of people online who say a lot who who talk a lot but say nothing. Right? I think you speak and you say a lot. So anyway, slight little compliment to start our little Talk. I know who am I getting compliments from Ryan Surge? This is not what is happening. No, not really that nice of a guy. Okay. question number one. Most of our audience here today, okay, and everyone who's gonna be watching the replay, so hello to all of you as well. run small businesses, right? Whether it's just them or they have a team of 30. what's the biggest mistake you see small business owners make once they start having a little success? Right. Because you you you you you usually just want to do a lot more. And then is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? What's that mistake you see? Well, the number one thing I think is that people confuse the fact that they run a business with that they're trying to make profits. And so, you know, I'm sure you get this every day. They're like, I just started a new business. Now I need to do social media like you, Ryan. And you're probably like, you know, what would be better if you responded to your leads that were outstanding? Like actually skip the immediate Instagram carousel and just faster speed delete. Like 40% of all businesses, I'm sorry, 40% of all leads that close in small business land are just because you were the fastest person to respond. And so that's one really quick, easy one. We run. So if we have I have 700 companies in in Resi brands that are just like you guys. They're well similar, they're franchisees, right? Located all over the country. And the number one thing they don't do. Is get back to the people that want to give you money incredibly fast, just faster than the other guy. That's almost just step one. And so what we've kind of found in the new book that I'm talking about is that most things that make you money in small business are actually not sexy, just like most small businesses are not that sexy. Yeah, which is so so true. I wish I had told myself that before I started this company. The things that make the business run are not the things you think make the business run. No, you you buy businesses, you also work with operators, you also meet a lot of founders, you interview a lot of really, really cool people. have you have you worked in the real estate business before in a way? Have you worked with real estate groups or real estate brokerages ever? That's a good question. Well, we partner with some. I mean, I won't mention any of your competitors, not that you guys have any, of course, but but I we have worked with other groups because we have this company called Resi Brands, which is basically home services. franchise. So painting, window cleaning, roofing, exteriors, garage installation, five different companies underneath the umbrella. And what I found with working with real estate companies, like two things really impressed me about you guys that I wish more companies did. One, there's not enough group sharing of knowledge. Like I just heard in the beginning, it was cool to listen to how you guys share wins. I think the most important part is like, Everybody always asks me, why would you share all the stuff online? If you were really good at building businesses and buying them, wouldn't you just go do it yourself? Why would you tell other people? Well, one, because most people will do nothing and talk a lot about why things don't work for them. And second, because most people don't want to get rich, quote unquote, slowly, you know, the old Warren Buffettism. And so I think, you know, when we've worked with real estate, I love you guys that you guys share share wins. I also love that you guys are education companies simultaneous to being actual execution companies. And not very many companies do that. When I started at Wall Street in Wall Street, I think my first company at Vanguard, they put about 100K into each new person they brought on board. I've seen, and obviously I've talked to Ryan before, like you guys put a lot of money behind your team members. It costs a lot to onboard people, to bring them to your education, the new technology that you guys have. That's not really normal in businesses where you are an owner in it. And so I think the real estate industry actually is a massive opportunity. And then I just like to layer small businesses around it. My my next question to you is gonna be like if you walked into the average real estate, you know, business tomorrow. So any of our teams, what you know, from Orlando to San Francisco and everywhere, you know, in between, what's what's one of the first things that you change? and feel free to a answer that question, but I want to dial in real quick. You just called out. Something so many people forget to focus on, which is which is training and onboarding. The strongest teams, even the strongest solo agents who just have one VA or just use the right set, the more time and money they invest in making sure that that person or those groups of people are doing exactly what they want them to do, and they've done that work, the better. You get paid in. dividends. Like we have here, we have a it's kind of turned into a book now called Success at Surhand that we give to every new employee, not agents, but every new employee of this is how you win here. That way, anytime an employee is dropping accountability or not doing what they said they're gonna do, we can just go right back. The training and the onboarding is so tight and it's so important. And I don't see that in a lot of companies. They're like, yeah, what hired you, you better figure it out. And then they wonder why they have such churn of team members usually. Yeah, I mean it's it's really important. I I mean we do three things with every new employee, and this is what we teach. We have something called the boardroom where we teach people how to build businesses. So if you're doing a million dollars in revenue a year up to a hundred million dollars is the biggest company, we help those companies grow and then we invest in the ones that are doing the best. And inside the boardroom, we have a section all about your first 90 days. And so for every new employee you bring on and for every time you start a new business unit, we make sure every single new employee has a 90 day checklist. It's pretty robust. And then we give it to all of our members. I also like to make sure in that first 90 days you have those already set up on the calendar at 30, 60, 90 days. I don't know if you guys do the same thing. I do it in my company with that employee with a checklist of what you will be going over on that day. Hey, if you haven't done this by this day, that's going to get a little red X mark. So let's make sure we're hitting these metrics. By the end of 90 days, the person should already know if they're winning or losing. And if they're losing, There's no questions. It's just unfortunately this didn't work out for us. I'm excited for you to have your next opportunity. Here is your two weeks severance. we're located in Texas. So you can do that. It really depends on what state you're in. But like, there's no question. And I think a lot of times owners actually hire too slow and they fire too slow. And so it's it's a double whammy. And so with our people, I'm like, you have to just have a metric that tells you if somebody's winning or not. and the last thing that we do that I think is really, really important. Everybody talks about a job description. I also we always do role results. And so that role results results document typically has what we call the perfect fit avatar. So on there, it's like, all right, if I'm looking for a new CEO for Ryan's company, and Ryan's like, I want somebody else to take the spotlight. I want somebody else who wants to do video. I want somebody else who's actually done reality TV before. I want somebody else who really loves to motivate people. Like I'm looking to replace myself. I'm gonna write that all down and then I'm gonna put a little picture of Ryan on there. Cause I'm like, I want to, if I could, if I could afford Ryan, I would find me another Ryan. And the reason this is really useful is because a lot of times you like somebody and they're not the right fit for the role. And so those three things have saved me a lot of money on team hires. Nice. No, that's I hope everyone we're gonna send the replay around so people can just steal all that and just do it them themselves. A lot of our agents are kind of along that lines too. What do you what do you think then about you know, delegation? Like in it what what's the first thing every business owner you think should should delegate, even if they're nervous to let it go? 'Cause I see a lot of agents here, I see a lot of principles. You know, they the only way to expand is to use other people to do other stuff. The other stuff doesn't work, usually because of terrible onboarding. and then they just take it all back underneath and then they're forever overwhelmed. Yeah. It's so interesting. I mean, I had a famous mentor back in the day who told me, if you do not have an assistant, I will never invest in you. And I was like, that sounds kind of elitist. Like everybody's got to have an assistant. And he even went so far, he's kind of a funny guy to say, if you pump your own gas, which again probably isn't a thing in New York, I'm also not going to invest in you. And I thought, okay, why? And I remember saying, Bill, like, what do you mean by that? And he's like, Well, if I pay you X dollars for your hours and you're doing Y hour costs. then basically you don't know how to allocate my capital. So your use of funds, like what you're gonna use my money that I give you for, is actually terrible use of funds. Why would I give you that? And so I kind of took that underwing and I took a risk early on and I got a virtual assistant. And so in my mind, there's four levels to what you should outsource as a CEO. I think every single CEO today, you need an AI assistant to some way, shape or form. There's lots of different ones you can use or you can build your own. I'm not that tech savvy, so I actually use third-party software. I'd prefer to not have to keep building and updating. Second, a virtual assistant. If you come into our boardroom, it's the first thing we're gonna yell at you about. We're gonna say you don't have a virtual assistant, but you're running a million-dollar a year business. You don't value your time very much and you don't want to get to the next level. The third is gonna be an in-person assistant. I I like to have both virtual assistant and personal because the dollar cost is so different. You know, an AI assistant is 50 bucks a month. Virtual assistant is 300 to 1200 bucks a month. An in-person assistant obviously varies by state, but let's call it $75,000 up to $175,000, $200,000 a year if you've got a baller. And then finally a chief of staff. And so that chief of staff, they can make a lot of money: $250, $350, $500K, depending on how good they are. But right now, I have all. We have all of that level because different revenue levels require different outsourcing. So I guess my point to you would be. If you are not good enough to delegate your admin tasks, do you really want to call yourself a CEO? And I think you should look in the mirror on that. And I certainly do. I you know, in my first book, I wrote a lot about how I valued my minutes. You know, and my talked about my yeah, my thousand minute rule and and how I like really sat and I was overwhelmed and I was doing all I was doing all the things. I was doing all the emails, I was doing all my own bookkeeping, I was doing all the showings, all the open house I was all the convos, all the stuff, all the content. I'm like, my god, I'm gonna do all the commuting, right? All the stuff. And so I just said, How much money do I want make? And let's and let's use a let's use like a nuclear year of of of you know fifty weeks. In the year, two weeks, maybe I can go on vacation or see family twice. and then I got 40 hours a week, even though we all work more than that, blah, blah, blah. But we're like really, if this was like a regular life, what's my what's my hourly wage? How much, based on what I want to make, how much does every minute cost? How much does every hour cost? And I did that math and it messed up my head. from that point on. This was in like 2009. because it then showed me, okay, every minute costs X, every hour costs Y. Anything I'm doing that I could pay somebody less than what I am worth to do, I should be, I should be doing that. I should be paying somebody else. And I'd take the dollars that I think I'm worth, I'm gonna invest it into myself to go and do higher quality tasks, which is exactly to your point. And so, like the two things that I got very early on, that early in my career, and I could not afford them, but future rank could was one, an assistant for email, because in our business on sales, someone invents something. It's all in in in email and I'm pointing this way because I have a vertical email screen. and I needed someone at night to sort and just help because it's just you die. and then I got a driver to your point in New York City. Like I was losing business because I couldn't take a phone call if I was in the subway or if I was running looking for a cab at that time. and they were they were bankrupting me those two those those two expenses. and then obviously you make it work. I want to take the I'm I have like 50,000 questions that I want ask you. you know, you spend your your life looking at businesses. What's the fastest way to tell whether someone has a has a good business? Or just created a really demanding job for themselves? Like, and I'm asking this because I also we have lots and lots of of of you know business planning sessions with With agents and teams. And we have a lot of independent brokerage firms who have joined us, who have come aboard, who are still running their shops that way. and sometimes it's hard to tell, and sometimes it's hard for people to tell themselves. Like, am I am I just really busy and figuring it out? Or do actually have a good business? Yeah. Well, first, I mean, we're not in business to do charity, right? Like you need to make money. And so I think. You can do the nice things, you know, on top of it, but it's a lot easier to do that if you're making money. So in my mind, a good business is a profitable business. And what's crazy to me, I mean, we get, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand small businesses that come through our ecosystem each year. Yeah. And I don't know, probably 30% of them have a profit and loss statement that's cleaned up. of that 30%. Probably 10% actually know what their revenue per employee is. They know what their margin is versus their competitor versus industry standard. They know what the cost of goods sold is for what they do for a living, they know what their client acquisition cost is, and they know what the LTB of any individual customer is. Those are the five numbers that are most important, starting with PL sort of as the overarching number for the rest of them. So if I'm you, If you come into the boardroom, we have a process, it's four steps. It's how you run all private equity businesses and it's why they make so much money. Then come in and steal all of our businesses and buy them for more than we know how to run them for because they're smarter on the math. And so, and then we small business owners get all freaked out about the math because we're like, no, I'm a salesperson, I'm too busy, the PL, I don't have time, right? All the excuses. But the four-step process goes like this. You diagnose what's wrong in the business. How do you diagnose? By looking at your profit and loss statement. And making sure you actually see where you're making money and losing it. Then you do a strategy. The strategy has two components: a scorecard, we call this your operator scorecard. It tells you, how do I rank versus my peers? And that strategy doc is going to say, okay, based on your PL and your scorecard, we're going to give you a ranking and a strategy that you're going to then run step three for 90 days. The best businesses I've ever seen all run on 90 day sprints, just like a season. It's a cycle, right? Quarter is the same thing. And then finally they review, you know, what gets measured gets ma managed, old Peter Druckerism. So those four steps together, you diagnose the business, you put together a strategy, you run a sprint on it, and you review it every quarter. And if you run your business like that, then you stop having this like chicken with the head cut off, willy-nilly, what am I gonna do next? Sort of thing. And so everything we do at contrarian thinking in a boardroom is to put people in those processes, wrap advisors around them, and then mandate, we do the boring, stupid things that feel like they're not important. like look at our PL every single week. And so we call those financial Fridays. But I found you can have way more What a great, what a super fun name. Fun Financial Friday. Everyone wants one of those. Do you have your profits up? Then it's really fun. Then Friday's fun. If it's not, if it's down, it's not so fun. But I think you can have way more fun in your business when you make more money. I know you're like, we were not supposed to say that, but like that's the truth. No, I I Who's I I think it was in an interview yesterday that might bite me in the ass, but I think I'm at the age now where I just don't care anymore. Someone was like, Well, how do you, you know, what are all the ways you differentiate cert hands from all of the other, you know, competing firms? And I was like, in my mind, I'm like, I know, I know my standard stuff. And I when the first thing that blurted out of my mouth was, I know what you want me to say, but honestly, I'm in the make money business. And the majority of my competitors are not. The majority of our competitors. lose so much money. and they make money in different ways, in weird ways, in in ways that are just not great, great businesses. And then we do other things so that we can make that money. and that everyone here can make more money. And then people come for the opportunity and they stay, stay for the results. But I I agree and another Peter Drucker quote that I love that I recite a lot is making sure people understand that leadership is doing the right things and then management is doing things right. Yeah. You know, and so you see a lot of team leaders and agents who who try to do both. Like, we're gonna go focus on this. and then I'm gonna make sure that we we do it this way. It's like, well, are you a better leader or a better manager? I remember on Sir Hant Live, I interviewed Dave Portnoy a while ago, just posted about it the other day because his book just came out. and he brought that up, I think not knowing the Peter Trucker quote, but he's like, I had to make a decision when I started Barstool, like, do I wanna lead? Do I want to manage? And I suck as a manager. So I just fucking leave that. I just always remember that conversation. a lot of people here want to grow. Everyone wants to grow. They don't want to ruin their lives. They want to grow. They'd love to have you know, more help. How how do you how do you know it's time to hire before you actually like feel ready? Like I I was a psychopath. I got a driver, I got an email assistant, like I got, I was, I was like, you know what? If it doesn't work out, what's the worst that's gonna happen? I die. I'm not gonna care at that point. So I and I've always operated that way. most people I think have a little voice in their head that says, Don't do it. How do you is there a is there a better way to know when it's time to actually start to scale up? Well, one of the cool things that I'll just, you know, I'll give you guys a compliment too. You're not in a business that hasn't been figured out. You know, like this business makes money, is profitable, real estate has been happening forever. There's a standard process to get there. Like there's a ton of training. So this would be a different story if you guys all had random startups. You know, if these were startups that were completely unrelated, I might say, well, you know, you better have a lot of capital or you better guess well because your product just might not work. But in real estate, like you know what the game plan is and you could follow it. And so I guess my point there is like you probably aren't taking enough risk for the life or the revenue you say you want. And risk is usually a spelled employee. for most business owners, especially in the service business, which you guys are all in. it's not leasing, you know, you're not leasing a bunch of stuff. I know you guys have a light capital light model that way. and so it's really your risk is your employees. And because you can only have so much constrained time. And that's not a real risk because you can you're gonna lose it anyway. and so how we determine that is called revenue per employee. And so yeah in This is just like I always go back to the math because I actually am a wuss. I'm not a Ryan. Like I I really I didn't leave my job until I already made a ton of money and got to replace it with what I was doing. I I just like I didn't, I wasn't comfortable with those risks. I was a little spreadsheet nerd. And and so I went to the what Wall Street said and I was like, all right, well, I know because I've analyzed all these businesses, if my revenue per employee is such that I can now. afford a second employee at that rate and I can still have enough margin to cover three months, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hire. So that was always my my rule, like industry specific revenue per employee. can I hire another one at that rate? And does it leave enough room where I can fuck up for 90 days and still be okay? and so that's typically what we do. Now, as your business scales, it gets way more complex, but I obsess on revenue per employee in my business. And I don't think enough companies look at that because it really tells you, especially in this day and age, how productive Are your people? You know, you know this all too well, Ryan. But people are like, We have 10,000 agents. You're like, sick, they've sold nothing. So, like, why do you want that? I'd rather have X number of agents do a billion dollars a month or a week or whatever, than 10,000 doors that don't produce in real estate. Like use it's just, you know, normal across every industry. And so you don't want to be the biggest, you want to be the best. Yeah, I exactly. And I think the biggest usually is always the one that makes the most cash. And so let's measure the right thing, which is not total number of employees, but how how much revenue you got. But I will say small businesses, I think by and large, you need more people early than you hire. Got it. But two, for everyone listening too, on you know, teams, I know you everyone there's lots of real estate. I mean, I listen, I had I the when I got into the real estate business, real estate teams didn't really exist. By the time I blew up my life and started this company, my team was 65. and I know that a lot of people watch that happen very publicly across the TV shows and I write about it a lot. but you know, you have to take all that with a grain of salt. Like your own business as you're listening to this and watching this right now. you don't need 10 people necessarily. Maybe you just need two really great killers. but as you scale people, you can't do it without great systems. I spent a lot of time personally making sure. I built the right system so that we could measure what matters using your words. and you've said before, say in the book, you said I mean a lot of times like systems create freedom. Systems create freedom, systems create freedom. Is there is there a system that everyone here should have in place before they think about growing? Yeah. I mean, I repeat to my team constantly if you think about systems laid out like this, like S Y S T E S. I think systems stand for save yourself time, energy, money, stress. And so wait, wait, wait. Save yourself. I mean I'm because I'm gonna get this tattoo on my left on my left thigh. Save yourself time, energy, money, stress. Okay, coin. Can you get that tattoo wrapped around your your right calf, please? Thank you. He's doing yeah, he's doing he's he's solo tattooing right now. He's down. Yeah. With the sound effects. so when I think about it like that. It it there's like a natural friction, I think, especially for us entrepreneurs, we're unemployable, right? We're annoying and unruly and don't put me in a box. And I hate systems and get off me and bureaucratic nonsense. And that eventually drives us crazy in business. And so one, I would just say, like, if you don't have a system, then you are a cog in a system, you just don't realize it yet. And not all systems are created equal. Like a lot of people will be like, Well, I run on EOS. Like, well, you're losing money. So, okay, I don't know. That's not a good system. so I I I really am partial. my god. I d sorry to cut you off. but yes, I hear the same thing. Well, I I must be doing great because I'm I'm doing all of X, Y, and Z. And like, well, just because it's working doesn't mean it's worth it. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's also a great mantra, you know. Meaning, and again, sorry, I just jumped right into your statement there. But like the, you know, a lot of a lot of us around the country. Yeah, we're we're opening our 17th state in town. I'll be in Texas on Tuesday. amazing. You gotta come by the airport. We're in we're here, Austin, Texas. Dean Coin, did you get an invite to our Austin launch party next week? I don't think so. But if I did, send it to me. I'm happy to come. And you guys are always welcome to the headquarters. I someone's gonna die. Texas is full of rebels. Okay, Coin, if you can make sure that Dean's gets unbelievable. Anyway, and they're like, Well, I'm doing all the things, I'm doing all the things. I'm like, Yeah. And they're they're working sort of. it doesn't mean that those things are worth it. goes back to your point of Yeah, I mean we we basically I think you're exactly right. Well, one, I mean, you guys, like tell me in the comments, how many of you guys are business owners and you feel like, you know what? I actually I have plenty of my time in time in my day. If I just didn't no, no, please everyone go in the comments. How many of you have just too much time just during their day, please? Your to-do list too short. Email inbox, absolutely not flooded. Like that's just not a thing for owners, right? I just see lots of tears. I see. If working harder, yeah, LOL inundated. It also makes me laugh because you're not alone. We're all like that. Every single and it only gets worse. Sorry, with love as you get bigger. And so you you really have to decide if working harder was gonna make you more money, then my roofers who run a bunch of our companies would make way more than I do. And spoiler alert, they don't. and I've actually roofed with them once and it's pretty fucking miserable and they should earn more money but they don't because like working hard actually isn't a direct correlation at all to results. And so I'm like kind of anti-hustle porn on that. I think you have to work really hard until you know how to work smarter and you have real leverage. So I'm not saying you can four hour work week it. I've never figured that out. But our system that we run is called Own. And basically the idea is that Every single step of what you do needs to run through that four-step process that I told you. And there has to be one thing that you focus on every sprint. So every 90 days, I really only like people to work on one thing. We have something called the 12 Ps. So they're they're nothing crazy, but you know, people do you need to hire? persona, are you selling to the wrong person? Real estate that might be like, yeah, maybe you're selling a shit ton of houses, but they're all hundred thousand dollar houses. They're a real pain in the ass to sell. Don't get enough margin on them. And like, why wouldn't I just go sell one 10 million dollar house, same amount of work? I don't know if this is true, but that's like an example. So we say go focus on your one P in your scorecard. When we give you that one P, if you solve it after 90 days, we typically see a 27% revenue increase. And so that's across business size from a million bucks to 50. everyone else also going to the comments. Is this maybe the most useful surhant live we've ever done? Like yes or no. Also, you can say no too. Let's talk about me and just be we have like plus minus four minutes left. and I want to just talk for a second about content. Obviously, we have a big production company here. We push content all day long. I obvious I know I et cetera. you've built operating businesses, you have it you're your investment company, you're one of the biggest media brands and entrepreneurship. Everyone here is familiar with you, whether they follow you or not, they've seen you, they've heard you. How has content changed the way you think about growing a business? Yeah, God, so many ways. I mean, I always think it's it's just another form of leverage. So I'm in business, I'm I'm lazy is not the right word, but I am ambitiously lazy, which means I want the lowest amount of work for the highest ROI wherever I can get it. because I'm maybe not as smart and innovative as some of my competitors. Like I I can't come up with a Tesla or some sort of crazy new startup. I can do an industry that already exists and I can do it better than somebody else. Like I'm good enough to do that. And so content for me, I was like, wait a second. you have a massage lever here that a lot of people don't want to use. And you and I talked about this before, Ryan, but people think it's cringe. You know, they're like, if Ryan was really good at real estate, he wouldn't be doing selfie videos or whatever. And you're like, no, no, Ryan actually just doesn't have an ego about how people who are never gonna buy his things anyway portray him. And so he goes and does things publicly, tests them. And if they drive down to funnel, he keeps doing them because nobody else will do it because they're too busy trying to look fancy. And so I don't know if that's actually true, but like that's at least a comparison. No, you're either like you either follow along with the Sir fam or you don't. And it's okay. Like no, no big deal. I've always felt even like I remember trying to decide whether I was going do million dollar listing or not in 2010. I had nothing to lose at the time because I'd been in the business for like 18 months and just happened upon this opportunity. but everyone said don't do it. Like everybody. Trusted friends, family, because at that time, reality TV was housewives, survivor, and early Kardashians and real world. It was like, you're in a you're in a suit and tie business. This is gonna be terrible for you. And I was just like, man, you know, if if if If there's people who watch this or who know that I'm on it and they don't like me, they're probably not going to work with me anyway. But for all the new people that I can't get in touch with, who are passively while I sleep going to find out about me and might be interested in reaching out, or that I might be able to go and open a door that I otherwise wouldn't be able to because of it, it won't just be a wash. I feel like I feel like it's like a good thing. And then obviously you here we are all these years later. it's the same thing the way I feel about. Content to your to your point, right? Is it's in it's an accelerator, but it's not the only thing. I think some people say, I do a lot of content, it's not doing anything, but they're not doing all the other things, right? So some people treat content like gasoline and they go and they put it in their garage and like, well, my car won't start because there is no fucking car there. Exactly. Like you're gonna build the car. You have to have the car, right? You have to have the you have to have the people, you have to have the systems. And so then when you add the gas, you add the electricity for all of you. drivers and electric car. Like then it's the accelerant. and the right type of content is the right type of fuel. And the right type of fuel will power that car. The wrong type of fuel will burn your car to the ground if not handled appropriately. And we definitely have a handful of unique apples here sometimes who I think use content the wrong ways. But we'll deal with that separately. Well you're always going to I mean I I think the cool part that I think people don't realize when they don't have big content engines. that that doesn't actually matter. I mean, I was with I I I don't I never really thought about myself as a creator. They they put us on the Forbes list this year, which was cool. And I sort of chuckled because we're small from a creator's perspective, actually. Like 13 million followers is a lot for me because I wasn't ever a social media person. But Danny, if you're watching, get our numbers up, please. Thank you. And you have insecurity issues. But that but there are people with huge followers on there that have way less revenue than we do. You know, and you know, we run a couple nine figure businesses. That's not really just because of content. That's because we have a better mousetrap. So the cool thing about what you guys are doing is you can actually make real money every time you drive users to you as long as you capture them appropriately. And so one of the things that we obsess on is is capturing. In fact, I'll show you afterwards. I'll send you Ryan like Book isn't even out yet, you guys. It gets launched on Monday. So you guys are getting like a super special little Can you hit everybody with the title again and everyone go to Ammet where do you want them to reserve it? No, don't go anywhere yet. You they can't even get it yet. So it's literally launched on Monday, but I'll send you guys the link to it and you can see how we do email capture and drip. Yeah. And I'll send it out to you guys. Just don't post it anywhere. And I think it's really unique because typically Once you grab people's email, especially in real estate, you have a you guys have a long ass sales cycle. You could have years of people in your in your funnel. And so we've got to have a really sexy funnel that keeps dripping on people and adding value so that at what we call trigger point marketing, the minute that they're ready to buy, it's Ryan's smiling face that they see. And they think of you, right? Coin, can you get another tattoo? SDF, sexy dripping funnel. Cody, we're at time. This was forty five. This is the longest live. Usually our lives are 20 minutes. We're in and out. People are in their cars, they're running between deals. But I was so excited to to get you on and do this. This is the first time we do this. I I know I got to do your pod, which is awesome. A lot of your clips of with you and me were did pretty well. I just I know you're gonna come back on. There was millions. That orchid one's my favorite, though. I love harboring a grudge. I just I got I got people. Yes, yes, yes. You're amazing. Everyone go get the book when it comes out and gets launched on Monday. This has been incredible. I literally everyone's through the roof here. I will talk to you soon. Send us that stuff. We'll send it out to everybody. Rock and roll. And I will see you hopefully in Austin on Wednesday. I'll be there opening Texas. Everyone who's in Texas, we'll see you next week. Bye, guys. Thank you. Bye.