Anthony: Are you in leadership and you feel like you’re babysitting, feel like you’re getting questioned all day long, people calling you all day long with questions? Are you getting the, “Got a minute? Hey, do you have a minute? Hey, do you have a minute?” All-day long and it can be frustrating. It can wear you out as a leader. I have news for you all. It’s your fault if that’s happening to you. I had a great discussion with someone yesterday who’s very, very good at their job, very talented in their specific field and they have a team of people under them and they said, “So and so calls me literally all day, every day and so does too and the other one, well, I only hear from them three or four times a week.” I said, “Okay, let me ask you this. Are you doing proactive trainings with them? Are you getting them together once a week for an hour and discussing things out loud? Are you explaining the why behind things so that they understand the purpose of what they’re doing or are you just randomly telling them what to do, and when they have questions, as they’re doing it, they’re asking you?” This person laughed and said, “Yes, that’s what I’m doing.”
See, training is something that is so powerful, so impactful, but so underutilized. This year marks 10 years since I started doing weekly training with folks in our company and putting it on literally every week at the same time. In addition to doing it with our realtors, we also do it with our staff and the various vice presidents and managers of various areas, they put them on as well with their staff.
What we find is the more we put them on the better people perform, the more people feel aware of their job. Feel like they have a good understanding of what the hell they’re doing and feel more confident, which makes them better at their job and makes them ask less questions. I want you to think, if you’re in leadership, I don’t care if you’re a broker-owner if you’re a team leader, if you are a single agent who has one assistant that helps them, part-time you have to get together with the people that you work with every single week. You have to be the one to put the group together. You have to be the ones to show up with an agenda. You have to be the one to talk out loud about what can be improved upon and explaining the why “Hey, just so you know, whenever I have you do that, the reason I have you do that is because of X, Y, and Z.”
When we don’t do it, A, B, and C happen. Let me give you an example. When you tell a story, you show a tangible example. Those are things that are necessary when you are in leadership and if you’re not, I don’t care what business you’re in, you could be a lawyer, you could be in the landscaping business. You could be in the real estate business. You could be here I am at the State House in Texas, right here. You can’t see it, it’s behind the tree. Beautiful, beautiful building built in the late 1800’s, I just read it. I don’t care what business you are in until you bring your group together and you explain what you’re doing the purpose behind it, the reasoning behind it, and the why you are going to always feel like you’re putting fires up.
You’re always going to feel like you’re playing you’re always going to feel like you are flying by the seat of your pants. I want you to ask yourself, think about it, ask yourself, “Do I play all day? Do I just answer random questions all day long and if I don’t answer those questions, the questions build up and other people aren’t really able to get through their day because they’re so dependent on me answering their questions? If you say yes to any of those, which is most of you are going to say yes to that, that is because you’re not putting together weekly meetings and weekly trainings. You have to be proactive, you have to be automatic, you have to be deliberate and you have to do it with consistency. See, what most people do is they don’t get out. I call it getting in front of it, most people just get up every day, they work their ass off every day.
It’s not lack of trying. It’s not lack of work. Look at this, you got to love it when you’re in Texas. Look at all these bulls. It’s not lack of trying. It’s not lack of effort, everyone is doing that but what they’re doing is putting the energy and the effort into the wrong things. They’re putting it into fixing things in the moment. They’re working way too much in the moment and they’re not spending any time on what’s going to happen later. If this person working with me understood the why behind this, they would know the answer without asking me, okay. They would know that, and what you have to do is you have to pull yourself out from working in the business and you have to put time into working on the business, write up a curriculum for a week or two straight.
Here’s some tips for a week or two straight. Every time you get a question from someone, make note of the question. You will be shocked how much consistency there is with questions. You won’t believe it, you’ll start to say, “I’m getting the same question from everyone,” or, “I’m getting the same question in a different fashion multiple times per day.” As you find that, you’ll start to see consistencies and bang, there’s your first training topic, there’s your second training topic, there’s your third. What you’re going to see is in the beginning, rolling out training and getting started and kicking it off. I’m going to walk over here so you can see this building. It’s difficult. You feel like, “What am I going to go over and what’s my agenda going to be? How am I going to explain?” Once you start doing it and you start doing it with consistency– Look at this building.
You start doing it with consistency, you will be overflowing with training topics and I will tell you, you will also have some moments of, “How the hell are we getting anything done? I didn’t realize how many of these people weren’t clear.” Get yourself ready for that and when you hit that point, that’s a good point, that’s a pain that you have to go through, motor through it, stick with the trainings every single week. Again, when you hear training, I don’t want you to think, “He trains realtors,” no. Doesn’t matter the line of work and for anyone in any of my companies, if you’re hearing this and you feel unclear on things and you’re thinking to yourself, “I wish you were doing that for me,” or, “I wish such and such manager that your company was doing that for me,” please tell me and we’ll make sure it happens because that’s how we’ll make you better at your job and get the best out of you which is good for all of us.
That’s all my friends here in Austin for a couple of days, the real estate companies in a world event. Just spent an hour and a half at Spyglass looking with a friend of mine riding a motorbike and put on training there with their realtors were super in the zone listening what an awesome audience, had a great time and I’m here for a couple of days. That’s all my friends. Take care, happy home, and get going.