Good morning, and welcome to another motivational Monday, and happy Memorial Day. Let me bring in Robert Palmer, founder and CEO. So if you're just joining us for the first time in this holiday weekend, my name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president. And each week, I'm joined by Robert Palmer, founder and CEO of LPT Realty, where we discuss kind of what's happening at the macro economic environment, what's important inside of our brokerage, and where we're headed. So, Robert, how are you doing this Memorial Day? Hey. Good morning, everybody. You know, as a lot of you know, my father and grandfather served in the military and, you know, well, I'm very appreciative of all of our veterans. Today's, you know, a day that we remember those who did pay the ultimate sacrifice. And while I personally not lost anyone, to military duty, I can only imagine, you know, the sacrifice they've made, and that's why we could be here today to build an amazing brokerage like LPT and why I can come to you from the top of no closing costs here, you know, at a beautiful location while my family paddleboards around on a a mangrove island right behind me here that I'm gonna go join him, you know, when we come off. But, as I thought about this morning and kinda how I wanted to honor those those folks, who did pay an Ultimate Price, I received a text from Larry Fisher, one of our amazing agents on the LPT family, here in Tampa. Larry himself served, but, I thought that his words, in this message you sent me were were just spot on. So I'm gonna read that to everyone, and then, we're gonna take a moment of silence for those who did pay the ultimate price so that we can have the freedoms we have today. And we can build an amazing company like LPT, and we can push through and take our businesses and achieve our individual definition of success because those things are only possible because of the ultimate sacrifice made by brave men and women who represented our country. So these are Larry Fisher's words. We extend our deepest honor and gratitude to all who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our nation. On this Memorial Day, we bow our heads in solemn remembrance, honoring the brave souls who gave their lives to protect the freedoms we hold dear. Their sacrifice is a testament to the unwavering courage and devotion to duty. As we pay tribute to their memory, let us hold in our hearts the families and loved ones they left behind carrying the weight of their loss. May their legacy inspire us to cherish the precious gift of freedom and to strive for a world of peace and unity. Today, as always, we stand together in honoring their sacrifice and ensuring that their memory lives on. And please join me in a moment of silence, and thank you for those words, Larry. If you are someone who's lost a family member in the military, our our hearts go out to you. And, again, we say thank you, and we honor you today. You know, today is a day where a lot of folks are gonna be out having fun at the beach and enjoying life and spending time with family, but it is very important. And I wanted to lead motivation Monday off that way that we do remember why we're here today and how we're able to achieve the things we achieved. So, again, thank you, and thank you all for taking that moment to help us here at LPT honor the memory of those who did pay that ultimate sacrifice. Absolutely, man. Well, thank you for, for doing that. And, again, gratitude to the freedoms that we have today and and the people who have paved the way to allow that to be possible for us. So, what I wanna talk about real quick, today is, Robert, I know that this is a holiday weekend, and we've got a lot of people out there enjoying their friends and family and and recharging right now, which is so needed. And so, you know, I know you're obvious since taking a moment away as we both are, from our families to to connect today. But I wanna talk about that recharge time because there's so much time that we just spend pouring on the gas. And, of course, we're passionate about what we do, but what is the importance for you about recharge? How do you recharge, and how do you refocus back on on what you were trying to accomplish in in terms of your version of success? Yeah. You know, look. I I think, I think being having been to this a few times, you know, having built big businesses multiple times now, you know, there is no straight line up. And it really is about, you know, understanding and celebrating the wins when they come, but then it's also about taking that time to recharge. We're not gonna win every time. No entrepreneur wins every time. I think those that may get lucky and do feel like they win every time, ultimately, maybe can be a little dangerous because, there is a a realization. You know, we are all fallible. None of us are perfect. Every single member of this brokerage, our leadership team, myself, we all fall into that camp. We're going to make mistakes from time to time. We're going to have losses, and I think it's just so important that we we stay focused on our mission. We stay focused on what we committed to come here and do. And then overall, that we don't let the the wins and losses in the short term define who we are. And so if you are at a point in your business, we have been through a tough couple of years, here in in the real estate industry. You know, a couple of years where transactions have gone to, you know, historic lows, which makes it harder. We still have agents seeing a ton of success. I love receiving messages from LPT agents all the time, you know, attributing, an increase in their business success in their business to something they found here at LPT, whether it's the community, the motivation Mondays, the access to listing power tools, or just simply hearing, hey. You can do this, or, hey. You can win in in this environment, in any environment. And and that's so important to me and that's so special to me because we're all gonna have a lot of wins together when the market does turn around and we get back up, you know, to that five, six million annual home sales mark. But right now, we're all doing really well together, and we're able to find the small wins, and we're able to win and succeed together in a market when a lot of people are failing. A lot of agents are leaving the industry right now. And so for us to be able to come together and focus on real estate first and focus on the LPT mission of making sure that every agent has access to a fair compensation plan, that every agent has access to the ability to get through those first couple of months, that first six months, that first year without being overcharged by their brokerage, which can lead to a lot of people having to to leave the industry at a very time when transaction count is low that LPT is able to put more money back in our agents' pockets on every transaction while also allowing agents who are motivated to go out there and build and recruit to achieve levels of success they've never seen before. You know, I have so many agents reach out to me and say, you know, Robert, I I I was at another brokerage where I thought I was doing well in, you know, rev share or whatever. Now I've come here, and I've exceeded everything I was able to accomplish there in a much shorter period of time. And that's really what LPT was about. Whatever your definition of success is, whether that is success on the the real estate battlefield and winning with buyers and listings or whether that's attracting other agents or some combination of both, I think we were very thoughtful in building an opportunity and a model, again, to give each agent access to that individual definition of success because to me, that is how we win together. That is how we go to a number of agents together on a single platform that has never been achieved by any other brokerage before because we have to be able to let everyone run their game plan, their playbook. We have to have everyone have that opportunity to come here. And whatever their vision of success looks like, it's important to me that LPT becomes the platform to help them achieve that. And and no brokerage has ever done that before. We have brokerages now maybe saying they do it because it's it's how LPT was built. But if you really think about it, the the dual comp plan, the agent choice, you know, that is the one critical component. There are other agent centric brokerages. There are other brokerages that offer multiple streams of income. The missing thing from every other brokerage is simply agent choice. And if that's either because they don't believe that you all are are the right person to make a decision in your own business, which I think is completely foolish, or maybe they feel like by not giving choice, they're able to overcharge some people over here, you know, to give a better deal to people over here. And and to me, it's important that we do build this brokerage for life, that we are a platform where if your definition of success does change, no matter what your definition of success is today, that you retain the choice in how you're gonna build your business at LPT. And, again, on a day here, we remember folks who literally gave their lives so that we can live in a country where those types of choices and those types of freedoms are even possible. I'm proud to lead a brokerage that is paving the way for agent choice and paving the way for agents to have that freedom to choose their individual definition of success each and every day. Even if that may change over time, we're here to stand with you as you build your business. Yeah, man. And that's that's such an important point because to to sum up what you're saying is like, hey. Listen. Your individual version of success is your version of success, so you have to be focused on that to go and achieve it. You gotta do something consistently to go have that be done. And where I think entrepreneurial struggle is that there are so many different ways to achieve your goal. Right? It's a blessing and a curse. It's a positive thing because you can go out there and skin the cat the way that you want to design your life the way that's best for you to fit your version of success. The downside to that is that there is no path to just say, hey, go do this and you're gonna be successful because it's such a such a unique business that you can you can approach it so many different ways. And so with that being said, what do you find as, like, the grounding factor that entrepreneurs should, like, kind of focus on to stay focused on their version of the goal. Because, you know, like, let's say that you're trying to find, like, a lead generation source. Right? How many products out there to say, hey. Magic pill button. Do this, and you're gonna close a thousand lead. You know? We know that there's there's this element to the business. So how do you kinda discern, you know, how to stay focused and accomplish your goal without the distractions of of what the industry would try to, like, sell to you? Yeah. I think one of the one of the the trends I've really noticed in the industry and look. And and, you know, having built a few companies now from listing power tools originally to now LPT Realty and really seeing the landscape. You know, there is this kind of, group think that happens in real estate where someone will find something and and then they'll believe in it, lead generation source, whatever it is, and and and then they'll evangelize it before they actually see the results or not. You know, I I saw a Facebook post in the official group recently where someone I forget who it was. Someone had promoted a lead source, like, a year ago, and then someone commented on the post now, which kinda brought it back to life. And and the only thing that the person recently posted it said is, like, hey. I don't I don't use them anymore, which means it didn't work. Right? But but early on, there was just a lot excitement around, and I think we see that a lot. I think we see a lot of untested, unproven products make their way to the forefront in real estate. And and, look, a lot of people would have said that very thing about LPT eighteen months ago, twenty months ago. And we probably benefited from some of that very movement as we were coming along. I think now two years into this game, we have proven that LPT is not a shiny object, but there are a lot of shiny objects out there. And I think the one the one thing that I would challenge you guys, again, is it's a rather a new lead source, a new technology. I've had a few agents reach out to me recently about new technologies that they're being offered, whether that's around the way offers are processed or there's always new lead sources popping up that, hey. Just pay us a small fee upfront, and then we're gonna give you all these leads or, hey. Give us this monthly fee, and we're gonna help all your dreams come true. I think one of the important things with LPT is we said, look. We don't want a dollar from you until you find success. We don't take the annual fee. We We don't take a monthly fee. Like, that's me as the CEO believing in our product. Because when you have to start charging someone before they've ever closed the deal or before they've had any success, to me that maybe screams shiny object a little bit. But again, not always. I mean, you have to do your due diligence. But the biggest thing I look at is the people who are evangelizing the product, how long have they been there? How long have they been using the product? Hey. If this lead source is only two months old, and we know that most real estate leads can take two, three, four, five, six months to close, how are you having so much success early on? Right? You received a lot of leads, but do you know if those leads are actually gonna close? You know, what's driving this fervent, you know, testimonial as to how great this lead gen company or this technology platform is when in a lot of cases, they're too new for anyone to even see the success. They're too new to have had any time to back up their promises. And, again, I recognize that that that was a little bit of us two years ago. There were people jumping on LPT and maybe because their their faith in me and their trust in me and what I had built, Or, again, we showed the tangible proof or because we didn't take a dollar from anyone until they they found success. And now, again, two little over two years later, we have proven that that we back up what we do. We have proven that we take less money from agents. We give agents choices. We provide an amazing platform for agents to realize it and and achieve their definition of success. But I think that's the big thing to look at is when when the new shiny object comes along, and they come in all kinds of forms and fashions. Again, lead generation products, technology products, you know, coaching platforms, clubs, you know, brokerages. Again, the gamut of real estate. I think there is this tendency for people to get really excited too early on before that company has had a chance to really prove itself. And I think that's maybe where some of the danger comes in because, again, if the person evangelizing to you and preaching to you about the company has only been using that lead source for, you know, thirty days or only been using that technology platform for thirty days, do they really understand if it's working or not? And and I think it's interesting because I feel like LPT really has now kinda jumped over that threshold. The the conversations that I'm seeing over the last six months are just different. I would say, you know, a lot of very thoughtful people who maybe were sitting on the sidelines watching to see is LPT a shiny object. They're now reaching out, and we're having very in-depth conversations. We've seen a lot of those folks move to LPT. There's always the people who will move early who, again, believe maybe they believed in my past successes. They found the proof they needed earlier, but we're seeing a much broader group of people now, again, who have been sitting on the sidelines giving it that extra beat, because maybe they had been burned in the past by shiny object syndrome. Maybe they had jumped to a lead source or a technology product early on and then found it to be smoke and mirrors. And maybe even someone they trusted told them it was the real deal and ended up not being. And so, again, as LPT continues to to mature and transform and and stand up every day, proving that we do what we say we're gonna do. Look. We're not perfect. We don't get it right every time. You know, we we are a conglomerate of human beings. Right? Our employees are human. They are fallible. They will make mistakes. We are growing at a very fast pace. But I can tell you from my chair at the top and all the way down, leadership cares. And we may make mistakes, but we're gonna step up and make those things right. We're gonna step up and do what it takes to get the cart, you know, back on the track when there is that mistake. But we are proving each and every day that LPT is legit. LPT is that brokerage for life. And LPT is unlike anything else that that has been built in the past or that is being built right now. And and part of that is because the competitors still can't see what we're doing. They're still looking at us at this very shallow level and thinking that all ten thousand, almost eleven thousand of you are somehow fools and somehow were tricked. And this this whole thing is a house of cards, and it's just it's very it's very interesting to me that instead of recognizing that we have the most durable model that has ever been built, we have a real process and a real attraction for agents to come here and find success without having to be deceived about the potential to get rich on this or rich on that or deceived about the types of tools we're gonna offer. Like, we can low we can put out a real honest value proposition and grow at a level that no one has ever grown before, and our competitors continue to look at that and think it's the wrong path. And I just wanna I I like that because it means we're getting that much bigger of a head start before anybody figures out that hybrid share is absolutely the future, and hybrid share has fixed so many of the problems that the the revenue share models originally built had and that hybrid share is the only long term sustainable way to build something that can create long term relationships instead of this high churn and burn model where people come and go at a high rate because the things they were promised, the amount of rev share they were promised, whatever that number is, just isn't realistic. And we haven't seen those things in our model, and I don't believe we will see those things in our model because our model was built on transparency. Our model was built on honesty, and our model was built on agent choice. Okay. I love that. And, that's what that's what makes me passionate about, you know, taking all the sacrifices that we do to continue to deliver that message. And as I know you identified when LPT first launched, the the relationship largely between brokerage and and agent was broken. And sometimes it was the brokerage benefited when the agent didn't or vice versa, and so they cut kinda like into this conflict. And that's not all brokerages in industry wide, but for a large part, you could say that there was conflicting versions of success, and sometimes they they they butt ahead against each other. But looking forward, thinking about, you know, the landscape that's changing, we know we talk about this a lot, and we're we're spending a lot of time developing tools for this, but we're moving to this environment that's gonna be new for everyone. And, you know, we believe that our part of the brokerage and our responsibility is to empower our agents to help them through these new environments. So as you're looking at this landscape, I know we've got a pretty obvious one, you know, coming up here in the future, which is the buyer broker agreement when that is enacted here, in just a couple of months. But as you see the playing field going forward, how do you continue to support the the entrepreneurs through LPT? Like, how does that vision look going forward? Yeah. Look, man. It's interesting. You know, we we share a lot of what we're working on behind the scenes. You know, I I've mentioned this on motivation Monday before. Like, once we feel like something has a pretty high likelihood of landing inside the brokerage, we get transparent about it. We tell our agents it's coming. We tell them they're working on it. You know, things like connect two point o, things like listing power tools x, which are, you know, getting near the finish line. You know, things like our our buyer broker package and our our online esignature platform we're building just for the purpose of getting buyer broker agreement signed. Like, these are things that we know are going to make their way into the platform. So we share them, and then we continue to build them and perfect them, and then we release them. There are so many other things that we don't talk about. There are so many other kind of big ideas that that we have behind the scenes that, you know, you know, Matt, we're putting a ton of effort and time into because it is so important to me that LPT is not done. LPT is not done innovating. You know, we came on the scene with an amazing fresh model. We came on the scene with an amazing set of marketing tools, but we're just getting started. And I think a lot of people, because other brokerages in the past, they kinda come out with that first model, and then you look at them a decade later and they haven't really done a whole lot differently. That's not who we are. I am so excited to keep pushing the envelope forward, and we have all of these amazing ideas cooking behind the scenes. And when they get to a point where it's like, hey. This may actually land, then we start to share them with our agents. But there are just so many problems that we are trying to tackle behind the scenes and and figure out, is that a place for us to land or not? You know, I'll give you one of those examples, health care. You know, this is one that we're probably gonna talk about on Motivation Monday pretty quickly. You know, we have we have looked at health care. We've looked at, is there a way for us as a brokerage to really bring, value to that process? And and the interesting thing is if we were a ten thousand person employer, hundred percent, we could bring massive scales, economies of scale, and amazing health insurance to our agents. But because we are a brokerage and our agents are independent contractors, the health insurance industry looks at us more like a trade organization. They don't look at us like an employer. Well, guess what? Through NAR, we're already mostly members of one of the largest, most powerful trade organizations in the country. And I'll tell you, NAR has actually got some things right when it comes to health insurance. I'm amazed how many agents have not explored the benefits made available to them through NAR. You know, telehealth has been a big a big thing lately. I know a lot of agents have been getting excited lately about the idea of, you know, free telehealth and being able to log on to a doctor twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. As an NAR member, you actually have that available to you. I think it's like nine dollars and fifty cents a month for most agents. It may depend on your age or health in there, but I know the couple of people that I've mentioned this to who have signed up for it, it's nine dollars and fifty cents a month. It's an amazing product where you can have access to telehealth through Teladoc for nine dollars and fifty cents. That's not really something LPT could have gone out and gotten any better for you. Prescription drug card is another one. NAR has an amazing prescription drug card. This one's actually free for every agent. You just have to go sign up and now all all of a sudden most of your prescriptions cost less than ten dollars. And so again, as we've looked at this problem, we really wanna figure out can LPT bring, you know, more value. And look, and this is not the guys texting you saying they're trying to sell you health insurance on behalf of NAR. We all get those text messages. And I think maybe they have given the real NAR health benefits a bad name. But but, again, there are some amazing products inside of NAR because as a trade organization, they do have a lot of members. You know, we are looking at ultimately, like, do we need to open LPT health insurance? Do we need to get into the health insurance business to help foster this through? Like, those are the types of big ideas that I'm not afraid of. But, again, we're only gonna bring them to the table and bring them to the forefront when we know that we found a way for it to actually bring value to our agents. And so, again, if you haven't researched some of those NAR benefits, I would encourage you to do that. You'll be shocked at how affordable, some of those options are. We are looking at this. And, again, this is one of so many things we're looking at behind the scenes. Like, you know, when we scratch the surface, you know, I think a lot of people think, oh, LPT has already launched, you know, luxury collections, and now luxury preferred network is coming. Like, oh, they're done in luxury. Let me tell you, we're not even getting started in luxury yet. We have so many big ideas about where we continue to take luxury and how we continue to push that market forward. Obviously, we have big ideas around marketing and advertising. And and once Listing Power Tools x is rewritten inside of Connect, the products that we can bring to market there as far as direct mail and more prints and more sophisticated digital and retargeting and landing pages and all of these amazing things that I just get so excited about. As the market shifts, my commitment to you is that LPT is here to shift with you. There is not gonna be a new company who will help out LPT's LPT. You know, that that is my promise, as the CEO of this company. There will be other models that pop up that, in my opinion, may even drag us backwards because they go too much to this idea of, like, the easy button, the easy pill, the shiny object. That is not what I set out to build. That is not the company I wanna be the CEO of. We are here to bring real tangible value and always be exploring how do we utilize our collective resources, how do we utilize my personal resources to make sure that we are always bringing the absolute best to our agents in a thoughtful way where we actually can bring value to the process? And, again, I I have a list of things that would blow your mind, you know. And some of this stuff, we gotta keep a little top secret because some of it may never happen. Some of it, it may happen, and we wanna make sure we get it right. But we're just so excited to be partnered with all of you, so excited to be in a position to drive the model forward. And I think that's what it is, Matt, because things always change. You know, there are times when we see the very obvious changes, like, like the NAR settlements, but there's a lot of other small changes happening. As as, as as transaction count dropped, we saw changes. As iBuyers appeared, we saw changes. You know, as Zillow moved to Zillow offers, you know, four or five years ago, that was changes. As Zillow moves to Flex, that creates changes. You know? All these different things are happening. As changes happen in in insurance, and changes happen in property taxes, and changes happen in mortgage. All of these things trickle down and create changes for us. And so what we're focused on is being the brokerage who can be nimble through all of those small changes, not just the big obvious ones, but always making sure that we empower LPT agents with that unfair advantage to go win at the real estate game against the agents at any other brokerage and having that opportunity to choose your option to comp plan, to choose your definition of success, and to win and build an amazing community alongside almost eleven thousand other people now? Well, brother, I don't know what we could say outside of that that we conclude today any better, man. I I appreciate you walking us through that as always and giving us the clarity. I mean, we need to incorporate we need to replay this for for for next week, Monday. We always reward our people who show up on holiday. But, man, what powerful words and and what powerful vision. And one thing that I've always appreciated, and I know that people have an opportunity to see and feel when they're next to you, is a very discerning mind, a very clear idea of what you're trying to accomplish. And that's very, very comforting, rewarding for someone who's looking for that, who's still at that early stage of their entrepreneurial kind of path, and and they're looking to to really kinda hone in on their version of success. I know that as I've grown over my career, there have been things that originally I thought I wanted to accomplish and then I realized, it's really not best for me or maybe I abandoned some of the principles that got me to the success that I was at, and I had to go back and recenter one thing I've always appreciated that you've been so steady, with, you know, what you wanna accomplish and and focus on on your on your goals. And And we say this all the time. If you wanna notice what distractions are in your life, focus on something. The moment you start focusing on something, you're gonna see what around you in your life supports that and what is a distraction to you. So I appreciate you being so clear about that. So with that being said, man, any final words of Memorial Day and what should we be thinking about going into this week? Yeah. So, Rook, a couple of things I saw in the chat. I mean, look. Big picture, absolutely. We are thinking about commercial property management, local brick and mortar education and training centers. Again, the the road map we have is is massive. But what I'll tell you it's not is it's not just gonna be a Band Aid. We're not just gonna go jump into one of these businesses with a with a half baked plan and maybe something that isn't sustainable, you know, doesn't really bring value to the process, and we've seen others make that mistake. And so some of these are harder to solve than others. And and while I was gonna say, well, you know, Robert, like, commercial should be so easy. Just go look at what these guys over here did. I don't think they got it right. I don't think they're bringing real value to that space. And, again, when we get it right, we're gonna get it right. And so, again, all these things we're baking and cooking in the background, and we are touching parts of this, you know, parts of this industry that a lot of people don't think about. You know, it's fine. Everybody wants to go the obvious place. Right? Like, mortgage mortgage and title. Like, hey. We're a brokerage. We should go get in the mortgage and title business. And I early on said, hey. LPT is not interested in being in the mortgage and title business. I want our local agents and our local rainmakers and our local team leaders to go out and build the absolute best relationships in mortgage and title because those things are so critical to your business. And the idea that any one mortgage company will have the best loan officers in every market is insanity. And then, you know, you look at a model like ours, we say, you know what? We think the agent deserves the bulk of the economics on a transaction, but we're gonna open a mortgage company and we're gonna give the LOs pennies because we wanna try to make a bunch of money. Like, it's just not congruent. And so I think part of this is because we have stayed away from what is the most obvious things for brokerages to get into. We've had to get really creative on, like, hey. What are the really smart things for us to get into? How do we bring real value to other parts of the process? And that has taken us down some amazing rounds. So, again, like, guys, we're two years old. Like, when we're a decade old, the things we will have created, the things we will have launched will absolutely blow your mind sitting here today because things you probably are imagining we should look at, we're looking at that and in so many so many things beyond. We have a five year road map, a ten year road map. Like, we didn't do this to pop out of the ground. And, oh, we're gonna IPO in three years, and I'm gonna disappear on you guys. Like, that is not the plan here. Like, we came to win. We came to revolutionize an industry. We came to build a brokerage for life. And what we have today is the foundation for that brokerage for life, but there are so many more levels that we have to pile on top and so many more problems that we have to solve and so many other facets of this industry and neighboring industries that we have to bring real creative solutions to to empower you all to have that ability to achieve your definition of success in the broadest sense across our industry. So, again, as I leave you here on Memorial Day, I'm about to hop on a paddle board and go see my family, on the the little mangrove island just behind us here outside of the marina. Again, that that moment of silence is so important. People who did make the ultimate sacrifice first of all, shout out to all of our veterans. Anyone who has served in the military, we honor you and we thank you. But today is about those who paid that ultimate price, that ultimate sacrifice. And, again, if you are if you are connected to someone, if it was one of your loved ones, my heart goes out to you. And I say thank you to you, and I say thank you to those who paid that ultimate price because everything we've talked about for the last thirty minutes, everything that you see me getting so excited about is only possible because those people paid the price in blood for us to have this amazing country and these amazing freedoms so that a kid like me from Polk County can dream big and can dream so big that ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand other people can win with me and dream big with me. And that's only possible because of the price they paid. So, again, as we leave you here on Motivation Monday, let's take one more moment of silence, and let's honor those who made everything that we are here and excited about possible. And have a great week. I love you all. Make it an amazing make it an amazing Memorial Day week. Have a great day.