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Anthony Lamacchia: Having fun. Are you having fun with the people in your organization? Are you having fun with your coworkers? If not, why not? Guys, it can’t be all 24/7, 365 work, work, work, work, work. You’ve got to get people together. You’ve got to get them to have some fun together. Anthony Lamacchia here with Crush It in Real Estate, and I want to talk to you about getting your people together and having fun. Two days ago, on Friday, we took 224 realtors and staff members out on an island in Boston. Thompson Island, beautiful place.
Took a boat out there, had a big lobster bake, clambake, everything you name it. Volleyball, cornhole, frisbee, all kinds of games and it was a blast. I got reminded of the importance of this since then. Facebook is absolutely going off with all the wonderful posts from everyone that was there, talking about how fun it was. Yesterday it occurred to me, I said, “There’s not enough people that do this.” No matter what business. It doesn’t have to be the real estate business. It doesn’t need to be the real estate business at all, but having fun, having a good time, getting your people together is important.
It’s part of the reason that I decided to do this video in front of our flamingo right here, check him out or her out. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a him or her, but it’s a flamingo. I wanted to talk about this because one of the mistakes that business owners make, again, regardless of the business, is they look too much at the expense. Now I talked about this in a video right over there 60 days ago when I said too many business owners only look at the expense, they don’t look at the income.
They don’t look at the upside potential, is really what I should say, to doing nice things or spending money or investing in certain things. They don’t do that. Instead they only focus on, “What’s that going to cost? Okay, let me think. Do we have room in our budget this month for that? Do we?” We budget these events too, but we don’t just focus on the downside. We don’t just focus on the expense. Do the math 224 people, lobster bake, that was no cheap endeavor. I don’t care. It’s money well spent. It’s worth it.
What is the upside potential, let’s talk about that, of bringing people together, getting your people to have fun, getting them to enjoy one another, getting them to learn one another and learn that each other has a fun side? The thing about coworkers, dealing with coworkers and dealing with employees and agents and managers, it’s an interesting dynamic. It’s something that I’ve been at for a long time, really about 25 years when I think about it, which is amazing, because I’m only 40.
I started being in real management positions with people reaching out to me and reporting to me when I was in school. I had a pager and people would page me. They would finish their job, they page me. I look back and I think about all the years, and it’s so important to get people together because it’s very easy for people to get aggravated with each other. Coworkers, they sometimes can even bump up against finding reasons to get mad at one another and it’s like, when you get them together and they can actually have a drink or play volleyball or throw a frisbee, or just sit in two chairs and talk with the ocean view.
The other day I saw a lot of that at a lot of people and I even saw some people that I said to myself, “Glad to see them talking. Glad to see them laughing together.” Because I know maybe there’s been times where they’ve had some bumps along the way. That’s why it’s so important to do this. It’s a tiny investment when you compare it to the upside. The upside is what is so important, not to mention, take out expense, take out upside this and that, how about just having fun?
This has been a wildly stressful aggravating 17 months for pretty much our entire society. Workforces are strapped and there’s been constraints and it’s just so nice to get people together. I’m calling out all leaders out there. I don’t care if you’ve got 2 people in your organization or you’ve got 20 people. I don’t care what business you’re in. Your people need to have fun together.
My family, we have a family landscaping business. I’m involved in it again. I wasn’t for 15 years, but I’m involved in a limited capacity, and last week we took everybody fishing. We rented a boat up in Gloucester, took 15 guys out fishing. I brought some of the Lamacchia property management guys, a couple of guys from Lamacchia Realty. It was a blast. We just went fishing. Heck one of the guys even felt sick out on the boat. Another guy, he felt mildly sick. They had a blast. They even said to me they still had a lot of fun. Think about that and stop focusing on just the downside. Just the expense side. That’s a very short-sighted way to look at things. All right? Thanks, my friends. Enjoy your Sunday. Have some fun.