Good morning, and welcome to another motivational Monday. My name is Matthew Hodge, Executive Vice President here at LPT Realty. And let me bring in Robert Palmer founder and CEO who's joining us from Yellowstone Club in Montana Robert. Good morning. How are you?
Hey. Good morning. I'm doing great.
Good, Dave. Good. Good. Happy to hear it, Dave. Can you turn I can hear him a little better for me on my side.
Cool. Good morning, guys. Okay. So, welcome to another motivational Monday. Today is the twenty second January.
So for all you people who have made your twenty one day commitment, generally, people do three weeks, twenty one commitment for the beginning of the year, you have made it if you successfully did it. So congratulations to you on that. And, excited to be here with you this morning. However, how's the weather there, man?
It's it's cold here. It's like in the thirties. So you know us Floridians are are freezing. Yeah.
I mean, it moved on past us. You know, we had the negative twenties, negative thirties last week. We were like thirty five forty yesterday. The the cold front has has moved on from Montana.
That that's good to know. Well, I think it made its way down to Florida. Real quick. I wanna just do a quick service. And now I see a lot of people sending messages to hosts and panelists.
If you do that, not everyone can see it. So in your chat, if you select the everyone option, that is where you're gonna wanna be so that everyone can read it. But if you can put it real quick in the chat, where where are you from? Where are you tuning in from?
We did this on our real estate first Friday. And it was so cool to see, you know, like, fifteen different states inside of there. So, go ahead and let everybody know where you're from. Yeah.
Good morning. Alright. Texas. We got Michigan. I was going fast.
Yeah. Yeah. Where? LPC is spreading.
Yeah. Good to see that, man. Good to see that. Happy to see that this movement is moving forward. And I know that big mission for you, Robert, was to push the real estate industry forward. And, and it's it's apparent that that is happening across the country from our offering and empowering agents to, you know, find their version of success to our competitors having to compete and offer their agents more. And I know you see both of those as a as a big win.
I wanna kinda dive in today and kinda talk about what's happening. I know that, last year is particularly the second half of last year was rough for a lot of people. We saw probably the the biggest contraction over the market while we saw slowing and a tightening kind of over the course of the year. The last two quarters of the year were really probably the the the tightest that we've seen.
And right now, it looks like inventory is actually starting to go in the direction. It looks like transaction count is starting to happen, and we know that's been, you know, from interest rates coming down from the peak. But what are your thoughts as we go into the new year and and for the people who stay committed to staying out there? What what are you seeing for transaction?
Yeah. It's it's interesting. You know, we've talked about this for twenty twenty three q two quarter two. You know, April May, June was this weird head fake.
Where it looked like the market was gonna come back. And as an industry, we actually had a really good, you know, second quarter. And then with the fed stepping on rates, you know, in quarter three, quarter four really got off the rails. And, you know, a transaction count was was very, very low for the industry.
You know, we we've seen some of the other large brokerages being impacted. There was actually some announcements of big layoffs last week at at one of the other really big cloud brokerages which on that thread, we are hiring. So if you know people that maybe we're impacted by that, we are adding staff here at LPT to keep up our growth, as our agent count continues to skyrocket, and we continue to go into, to more and more states. But I think I think that head fake maybe got people to make a wrong move and, you know, again, maybe people thought we were through it.
And then, you know, q four was just really rough. You know, I've talked to a lot of the the leadership at at big, real estate vendors across the country, and the same thing. Everybody just really saw this massive reduction in lead conversion, and and lead quality in overall transaction count across q four. And, you know, we expect some of that because of the seasonality, but I think it was just that combination of seasonality and interest rates, where now it really feels like January has come roaring back.
I know most people I talk to lead qualities back up. It feels like conversions finally happening. You know, we we're in a great position. And we talked about this a lot, you know, probably one of the most common topics here at motivation Monday through q four was like, hey, just keep doing the work because the results will come in January when the market starts to turn around.
And I I've had so many agents reach out and share success stories. Hey, Robert. You know, I I I I was out door knocking with the prospecting pack and November, December, whatever, you know, time frame that was. And now those people showed up and called me and they still had the door hanger here in January.
Or, you know, I used the luxury collection and the magazines were so impressive that a prospective buyer came through who, and now they want me to list their house. You know, this is This is what it's all about. You know, I I'll tell you this. So if you don't use our tools, they absolutely do not work.
You have to use the tools if they're gonna have a chance to work. And and we see that. And and so I think I think a lot of people, you know, maybe made decisions around q four, and some of the decisions are are hasty because, you know, we're we don't see we don't see the first six months of this year looking like, the last quarter of last year did. But again, if if businesses are making decisions about growth, about layoffs, about all these different things based on what was a historically bad quarter, you know, that you can find yourself in this weird whipsaw where all of a sudden q two, this year again, it is great.
And and if you made wrong choices, if you downsize too much based on that q four data, you know, you're gonna find yourself in a bad spot. And so, you know, again, we talk about this a lot. When we're in the boom, you should be preparing for the next bust When you're in the bus, you should be preparing for the next boom. Q four was by, a lot of measures, a bust when it came to transaction count.
I know a lot of us here at LPT, we were preparing for the turnaround. We were preparing for what's gonna happen in q one and q two. The companies who looked at q two of last year, which was a mini boom, you know, coming off of how abysmal things had been, that little bit of rate drop, like, again, we had three really good months last year in in q two as an industry. And so that was a little mini boom.
And so some people made incorrect decisions and instead of preparing for the next bust, which ended up being q four, you know, they leaned into q q two thinking it was over. And so I this is a tough business. This business will test your entrepreneur acumen because you have to be looking ahead, and a lot of businesses you can make reactionary decisions based on the data that is immediately in front of you. But we find ourselves in an industry in a business where it is very much, you know, looking out three months, six months, nine months, twelve months because again, the activities you are taking today the lead generation you are or are not doing today.
The past clients you are contacting and building relationships with and nurturing today. That is your closings, six months from now, nine months from now. And if you find yourself with not enough closings, it is either because we are in a cycle We're in a little mini bust, and we have to be getting ready for that next boom, or it's because you didn't do the work six months ago. Or nine months ago, and now it's finally catching up with you.
Again, that is a very, very tough piece of this industry. You know, we talked last week about the failure rate and all the things we're doing here at LPC, to try to help with that failure rate, but this complexity adds to it as well. Because again, you have people there winning. You know, they're actually doing the right things.
They're they're a quarter away from the market dynamics being as needed for all of that work to finally start to pay off. And that's when you find a lot of people give up. You know, they they they make it almost to the finish line. It's that whole idea of like, hey, it's darkest before dawn.
Q four was dark, but if you kept doing the work and you kept putting yourself in the right position, I can promise you lots of lots of LPT agents right now are seeing massive results from that work they did in q three and q four. Again, versus other people, maybe other companies, q two was great. Oh, we made it. Take a breath.
Now you gotta keep your foot on the accelerator. You gotta be preparing for the booms and the bust and the bust and the booms. And and that is a common theme. As long as you are here with me at LPT Realty, you will continue to hear me talk about that concept.
That's right, man. And, you know, it's not too late. If you if you made those mistakes, if you weren't as productive as you wanted to be or if the year is not starting off right for you still have the opportunity to go and do the work, you know, and and put in the work now and get that momentum because it is available for you. You just have put in the work, Robert, like you always said.
And one thing I'm trying to get it up on, I try to get it up on screen for you. But, you know, we've heard a couple of people talk about some sex success that they've had from, you know, like, for example, David Curz, who talked about, you know, the listing that he had and his promotion of it got him the listing and you always say your listing is your audition for your next listing. And over the last week, I've heard several people talk about their efforts in in marketing a property and that's a contracted other people in the market who wanted to sell. And that's who sees it.
Right? It's gonna be the buyers or the people who are immediately thinking about putting their house on the market. And so going out there and doing the work and utilizing the tools is what gives you that opportunity to get that next listing and to turn your business into more business. And so I just wanna put it out there because you always talk about those two things auditioning for your for your next listing with your current listing and preparing for the boom and the bust and the bust and the boot.
Now it's funny because it it's counterintuitive. Right? Like, I was I was actually sitting down with a pre executive at a pretty big, you know, real estate vendor, and we were talking about the power pack. And I I took him through the whole thing.
He's like, yeah. What do you do to help him get the next listing? I'm like, I just showed you what we do to get the next listing. Like, he's like, oh, he's like, I thought this was just to get buyer leads.
I'm like, what? It does both. But, like, again, counter intuitive. Those neighbors, they are the ones watching what you're doing and saying, wow.
I want someone to do that when I go to sell my house. I'm gonna send the text to the sign writer because I wanna know how much their house is selling for because that directly impacts how much I can sell my house for. And again, they're watching. You are auditioning whether you know it or not.
Because additionally, I I think a lot of consumers have wised up. You know, you you call somebody. You ask for the sales pitch. You ask for the presentation.
You know, they know you're gonna bring a polished kind of representation, but when when they think you're not watching, right, like, oh, I just let me see what this see what this agent does. Oh, they're having an open house this weekend. Oh, wow. That door hanger with my neighbor's house line of the shut off my door.
That's pretty cool. Oh, I'm down at Starbucks getting a coffee and there's my neighbor's house again. This person is everywhere. This is insane.
I'm I'm I'm surfing on the internet and I see I see that neighbor's house pop up through the the the, you know, the the, digital power. Power ads. It's like, all these little things come together, and they win you that next listing. And, again, it's counterintuitive because a lot of people say, well, You know, I don't need to put out the power pack.
The home's gonna sell through the MLS or the home's gonna sell through another agent. Nah. You are auditioning. I wrote a whole book on it.
They had that audition magazine you can get inside of Connect. Like, the addition is all about the marketing we built serving that dual purpose. It is filling your funnel to get you the next listing while also filling your funnel with potential buyers who again may not buy that house, but they are going to buy something. And that nosy neighbor who needs to sell, they are going to most likely buy something.
Maybe that's in your market. Maybe you referred out to an LPT agent in one of our other twenty four states now, and that will continue to grow. But, yeah, it is interesting. And so we really try to focus on the tools that are multidimensional, you know, because because, look, on the flip side, if you run you'll say pay per click, you know, for homes for sale in a certain market.
Those leads are a little more skewed. Like, yes, you may still find the person who needs to sell a lot of times they're selling out a state. Right? So if you're showing a a pay per click ad to someone who lives in New York and is looking to buy an Florida, there's not a Florida listing gonna happen out of that.
It's just that's not possible. Right? They don't own a property in Florida to sell. They may own a property in New York.
They may rent to New York. But that's more of a a heavier buyer skewed lead. The tools we've focused on here, you know, the again, the digital marketing we do, the direct mail, the power packs, the prospecting packs, everything is very much about getting you both the listing and the buy side in your local community, which, again, all of it's important. All of it is part of a balanced marketing plan, but our tools are very uniquely positioned to help you win on both sides of the ball offense and defense listing and buyer And that's a critical component of building out a well balanced real estate business as you continue to grow and thrive and and build your personal brand, your personal reputation, your personal database.
That's right, man. And, you know, it just kind of reminds me of finding your tribe. And as you say, you know, the people that you wanna attract here are the people who see that as value and wanna go out there and utilize that to grow their business and create a better experience for their consumers or their sellers and, you know, really kind of push the market forward. And that's not a fit for everybody. You know, but we are focused on real estate and helping you do more real estate.
And so we've got an agent spotlight whenever you think RP, we can bring that on. If, if you kinda wanna transition to that now, but I think it's a testament to what people are seeing as they're coming to, you know, LPT and why they're making the transition here from big teams to single agents. Like, there are a lot of people who are fine to success here. And the common theme is because we are focused on providing real estate tools under our umbrella that help you go faster further. So if you're cool this morning. Yeah.
We we we have to take a little break from agent spotlight coming through the holidays. I'm excited to see that coming back. Our video team always does an amazing job. But, yeah, Let's let's roll that agent spotlight. Let's share that with with the team.
Duncan with the Duncan duo team at LPT Realty, and you're watching agent spotlight. Yeah. I'm a car guy. I always have been always will be grew up, just outside Indianapolis, Indiana.
And when I was in like second, third grade, we lived across the street from the indy five hundred. So from that point forward, it was just, I've been a lover of cars. Growing up in a small town in Indiana, when I got to Florida, and I saw like the culture and I met people in excellent climate, you know, great weather, year round, great business climate. It's why our population is growing as much as it is.
And what's happening with like downtown Tampa too, there's so much nightlife, so many restaurants, and you've got winning sports teams. It's like the combination of all these things make Tampa such a vibrant hot spot right now. I had great coaches have helped propel my career, and it's something I look for in sales people that join my team, they're doing really well, and some of them stay with me, and then some of them want to go out and do what I've done. And so that's one of the motivating factors for me with the move to l T was that now there's another trajectory for those people.
There's more agents I can help kinda say, Hey, let me take the blueprint of what I've done and and help you grow in seed, you know, the same way that I have. So a company that's dedicated to the listing side of the business is super powerful right now. I mean, it's in the company's name and initial the to the idea of getting more listings. At a time like now, there really isn't a better opportunity to be somewhere who's focused, not just not just the agents, but like the the the founder, the CEO, Robert's focus is listings and getting more traffic on listings.
So That to me is probably the most dominant tool that LPT has and the thing that I focused on most with my move.
The car that I've owned the longest in my collections in nineteen ninety Toyota Supra. I was a big fast ampuri fan. So an orange Supra is like the Brian O'Connor, Paul Walker thing. In fact, the license plate on my supra says buster, which was his nickname in the fast and furious movies, Paul Walker's nickname.
When you're a business owner and you're kind of a face of a company and and you're you're working with all these agents, you know, the same passion that I have for cars is similar to how I have for helping sales people and helping our clients and and helping grow. I I believe that you know, you gotta visualize things that you want to accomplish. And and so a lot of these cars run vision boards that I had prior to to the point of where I could afford them where I someday I I want to accomplish that. I spent many years as I grew the collection, not even showing a lot of it on social media.
People didn't even know what had. You know, I had a mentor tell me, Andrew, you living small isn't really helping other people because you what you have will inspire other people.
So so I changed my tune about being public with it because I realized if I held just one person, then then it then it was worth And that's what I'll dictate for RP as well.
A hundred percent. He shares a similar passion because what he said was he wanted to create more millionaires.
And so he wanted to provide a system and and an opportunity with LPT for not just people selling real estate, but maybe people that bring other people into the organization, maybe people that find other things within LPT that they can that they can be great at that someone to me. He just has a longer runway and more people he can do it with. And I I like the idea of plugging into the system that he's built to be able to help help more people accomplish financial well.
So that was Andrew Duncan out of Tampa. And, one thing, RP that didn't make the cut there. He did say, he said, Hey, man. I'm bringing that seven twenty s to, to Grand Prix.
I'm gonna give Robert a show for his money for his show. So he plans on doing with you on on the track. So that would be exciting time. And if you're a car enthusiast, you'll definitely appreciate the event, man.
But, it's gonna be interesting who wins it. It'll be like the Zuckerberg.
Yeah. Elon fight. Yeah.
And andrew runs an amazing business, one of the top remax teams in the country before he came over to LPT. And, and again, he, you know, we we've talked a lot obviously since his transition. He's seen his team growth just go nuclear. You know, he he had been recruiting for a long time to his team under the REMax flag.
And then all of a sudden, he, you know, he flips over to LPT. He has the new benefit. The listing power tools, all the different opportunities we provide here for growth and individual agent growth. And, yeah, he said that his recruiting efforts have doubled and tripled when it comes to adding agents to his team.
And we've also seen a lot of LPT agents joining other teams. Now that's that's an important part of the model for me. If you look at these other models because the team members get a a lower cap or a special comp plan.
The brokerage is not necessary. Like, their interests aren't aligned. You know, you'll see market centers or brokerages where, you know, the brokerage doesn't want people to join teams because they don't wanna see the company dollar go down because solo agent pays a higher cap, and a team member pays a lower cap, and, you know, we're one of the first brokers just ever align our interest to say, you know what? We want agents to be successful Again, how they individually define success if that's as a solo agent, if that's as a team member.
And I I don't think, you know, if you're on a team and you leave that team, that you're company cap should go up dramatically. You know, I don't and on the flip side, it's like, I don't think just because you join a team, it doesn't make our job that much easier when it comes to checking your files and getting you paid and providing you with support and tools. So I think just by aligning everyone's interest to say, you know what, we're going to provide the same opportunity for agents, whether they're on the team or not. And then if they wanna join a team so they can pick up those extra team benefits, it's not gonna change their relationship with the brokerage and the alignment of our goals with the team members' goals, which then ultimately aligns with our agents' goals.
You know, this is how this is how you win as a company, and Again, real estate just traditionally has been such a broken industry, you know, where where these types of mismatches of alignment, these types of mismatches of interests, have caused, you know, a toxicity at scale that it's very critical and very important to me that we don't see happen here at LPT Realty. And you know, I studied this industry for a long time looking at where I felt like the holes were, where I felt like those little decisions like that oh, you know what? We're gonna treat people differently. If your team is this big, then you'll get your agents will get one cap.
And if your team is this big, your agents get a different cap. And If you're not on the team, you have a different cap. And it's like, you know, those aren't the agents choice. So the agents not deciding how big the team leader wants to get.
So why are they being impacted? And so at the end of the day, by by moving the choice, the individual choice back to each agent, each agent here at LPT decides which comp plan they wanna be on, which they can have as a solo agent or a team member. Each agent here at LPT decides, do they wanna go join a team? Do they wanna be a solo agent?
Do they wanna form a team They wanna merge teams together. We've seen so much exciting activity that is all driven by this this core belief and core commitment to agent choice which just does not exist anywhere else in this industry. And and it's so counterintuitive because we are an industry of entrepreneurs We are an industry of self starters. We are an industry.
You know, you very much have to go figure it out on your own. Yeah. We can help provide some tools and things. But at the end of the day, to be a successful realtor, you have to be a self starter, you have to have that entrepreneurial spirit.
So then for brokerages to come along over the top of that and say, oh, think you're a great entrepreneur. We don't think you're smart enough to pick your own comp plan, or we think if we give you choices, you're gonna confuse yourself. It's just so counterintuitive. And so a big part of why we are winning, a big part of why we are growing, a big part of why the cultural foundation we are laying is so strong.
Is founded in this idea of agent choice, and that's, you know, that's what Andrew's talking about in his video. He was attracted here by the idea of agent choice. If an agent's choice is they've been on his team for a long time and they've been successful, and now they wanna go start their own team. You know, he wants to be in an ecosystem everybody can still win together.
Again, that all comes back down to agent choice and and not trying to force a definition of success on our agents, but letting them define success individually.
Yeah, Ben. Very, very well said, man. And so, excited to see that I'm excited for new teams as they continue to come to LPT and that unlocking that they receive here is they have, you know, different ways to be successful in different ways to empower their age and grow. So, super excited to see that.
I wanna real quickly talk about a grand prix, our second annual conference. We are about forty five days away. And of course, there are always new people joining motivational Monday. So if you have if you don't know what we're talking about, check out the knowledge rates.
Just type in conference, and you'll see all the information about it. It is gonna be in, Saint Pete this year. On March fifth and sixth. But Robert, I know that last year, again, we were, you know, unveiling a lot of new tools and marketing.
And this year, you're your focus is somewhat shifted. And while there still be some things that are announced for new tools and things, what what's the major focus and how should be people to be thinking about Grand Prix this year?
Yeah. So as I mentioned before, this year, really, it's about this idea of culture and community. You know, this is a chance for us to all come together. When you look at Grand Prix, you know, last year, We had just launched a couple of new states, but, you know, we were still ninety percent Florida agents where now we are much more spread around the country.
We're in a lot new states. And so this is a great opportunity for us all to get together, and build this community and continue to make new connections. And and a lot of the new things we do unveil at Grand Prix are going to be around this idea of strengthening the community, strengthening the digital community, you know, how do we help create those digital connections that between our agents they can then turn into real world connections, real world friendships, or maybe some state purely digital friendships. You know, this is something we're very focused on we we have the scale now as a community.
You know, when you if you look back and and this is one of the things we we can't really rush, you know, if you're a brokerage of five hundred agents or a thousand agents, it's it's very difficult to build, that type of online or national community because you just don't have enough scale. There's not enough different intersections for people to to find each other and to find that common ground and to build those connections. And, you know, now as we race to ten thousand agents, which is, I think, what we're gonna officially name the conference is year. I've been playing around with that.
But, you know, we are on this race to ten thousand agents. The Grand Pre event in March is a big part of that. So, you know, as we are now racing to ten thousand agents, that is a big community. And there's a lot of opportunity for people to to find each other and make those connections.
And so we are now very focused on providing the events and the technology and and the opportunities, and the discovery to find each other. You know, if you look at other models, a lot of that discovery is really limited. So we'll, you know, well, who's your sponsor? Who's your downline?
Who's your upline? Now this is how other companies have tried to define community and and they're proving at scale that it doesn't work, you know, that this this siloed, you know, kind of scarcity mentality, starts to break down as you get too much scale and and we are the solution to that. You know, we're we're not gonna have that same result. We're not gonna have the same type of breakdown other companies do as we scale.
And so it's really important that we help create ways for those connections to live outside of who you maybe knew when you got here, who you were connected to, at your last brokerage, the the key thing here is to create the systems and technology and events and and opportunities for agents to discover each other based on similar interests, based on similar geography, based on similar business goals, whatever those things are. And this is gonna be a big part of the theme as we go into Grand Prix.
You know, we're we're not gonna launch a lot of new technology and things like we did last year. We're we'll just kinda paste those out throughout the year. I really want us to stay highly focused on this next phase of LPT as we as we get to that finish line on the race to ten thousand and agents, how do we now strengthen and build those connections and build the community that we're all proud of? Because again, you know, we have so many folks now that are willing to share willing to share information, willing to share and teach classes and willing to share their their wins and their losses along the way.
That's that's kind of a burden that you and I took Matt in the beginning. You know, because, again, when they were only a couple hundred agents, it really fell on us to come here every Monday and and, you know, me to share my successes and you share yours and share failures and and share ideas. And we host real estate first Friday, every single week, you know, again, providing that type of knowledge and education, But now as we get as we get to this race to ten thousand agents, not that we're gonna stop, you know, we'll continue to do real estate first Friday. We'll continue to do motivation Monday.
But what you're gonna see is a massive amount of additional content and additional learning opportunities and additional social opportunities all being created by our agents because we have the scale now to do that. You know, a hundred agent brokerage doesn't have that as we race to ten thousand agents, we will have that. And and we're really, really focused on embracing that so that you'll have lots of choices every week. You're, hey, I'm gonna make sure I catch Robert on motivation Monday, and I'm gonna catch this this great solo agent that I follow out of, you know, South Florida who's doing luxury, and I'm gonna follow this amazing team leader, you know, out of the Midwest who's built an amazing team.
And every time they're teaching a class, I wanna get an alert or I wanna see that on my personal calendar because I wanna be able to plug into that. You know, that that's really the ecosystem that we are moving toward and and again, it's funny because I know I know for me and and for a lot of us, it feels like we've been here forever. We're we're a less than two year old company. You know, and and the fact that we have have raced to ten thousand agents, and we are gonna cross that finish line here, you know, in the next couple of months.
It's just it is amazing how much we've accomplished in such short period of time. But at the same time too, we we haven't had decades as other brokerages did by the time they got to our size to create some of these things behind the scenes. Now I think there's a massive advantage to us because we're gonna build it right the first time for scale where a lot of companies weren't able to do that because their vision wasn't big enough. We have the big vision.
We are going to build something that can go to massive scale and create those connections. But you know, it's hard sometimes to remember that we have to crawl before we walk. We have to walk before we run. And and these amazing things that we wanted to have happen just they weren't possible.
At five hundred agents, a thousand agents, even four or five thousand agents. And again, this this race to ten thousand agents is a massive milestone There's a lot of things from a scale standpoint that start to unlock there, opening up more states. You know, the fact that we'll be in twenty five states fully open in the next couple of months here as we close out quarter one, all of this creates, you know, massive opportunity. But at the same time too, we have to have some of that happen to learn.
You know, we're we're reworking some of our processes right now around the accounting in what we're gonna what we're calling single check states. Right? So I'm gonna little little quick tangent here. But for those of you in, like, Florida and Texas, you get your check at the table, everything is great.
You know, life is wonderful. In other states, that is not allowed. We have to take the money back here as a brokerage, and then we have to pay you out. Which, you know, we're we're pretty good at the paying you outside where we are are seeing some some problems that we're now solving is how we get the money from the title company.
And and so we opened a number of these states initially. We had Virginia.
You know, we had some of the Carolinas are like that. Like, We had a number of states. We tested the systems. We opened bank accounts at, you know, national banks to let agents have the ability to go deposit in person.
You know, we we've set up an overnight address to receive checks in, like, we did things. And those things were working really well when we were in, like, three or four states that had these requirements. And now that we're in fifteen states, and we have a lot more agents. We're seeing cracks in some of those systems.
And so, look, I'll I'll I'll weakened. You know, I'm I'm on the phone with the team. We're looking at this, we're looking at is there is there a new technology we need to embrace? And it just goes to show where we we didn't just say, oh, let's go jump into twenty states overnight that have a as we've never experienced before, we opened a number of these states a year ago.
We felt like we had the processes nailed down And when we had a few hundred agents in those states, those processes were working really well. But now all of a sudden that we're seeing this massive influx of new agents in states where these processes are different, we're finding cracks. And we are moving very quick to solve them. I think that's a big part of my commitment as an entrepreneur.
I, you know, for those of you that have known me for a while, like, this is a big part of who I am, we're never gonna claim to be perfect. We're never gonna claim to get it right every time out of the gate. Like, there there's entrepreneurs and companies that take that. And at some point, the the truth comes out because we are human.
We are all fallible. What I am super focused on is how do we get the the cart out of the ditch and back on the track as fast as possible? Like, that's what I wanna be known for. I don't wanna be known for being perfect.
I wanna be known for having faults and flaws because that is real and that is true. What I wanna be judged by is how quickly do we respond, how quickly do we try to get things back on the track. And and look, and and for some things that may be a couple of hours and other things that may be a week or two weeks, but whatever it is we are very focused and having conversations. And then, yeah, motivation Monday is my opportunity to come on here and be transparent.
Like, we are where we see issues. Like, we're not ever gonna hide from the ball. You know, I I can think of probably a dozen instances through the the brief two year history of this company, you know, where, yeah, if something pops up and we're having an issue where we're causing problems or we're causing unnecessary stress in our agents' lives. Expect me to come on the following Monday and talk about it because we do wanna hit issues head on.
We don't hide from things I'd say one of the dangers of of this model is that there are agents who won't be as transparent about whether we're doing good or bad. Know, and and again, this is another little tangent I'm gonna hop off on. This is this is part of the overall transparency with the cloud brokerage model, with the model where agents are attracting other agents, there is this this kinda natural instinct to kinda cover for the brokerage. Right?
You're you're trying to attract more agents to the brokerage. You want them to have a good experience. And so there's this natural kinda instinct to say, well, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt or I'm gonna maybe help. I'm not gonna shine a a bright light on the mistakes because I'm trying to build my organization.
I'm trying to bring other people here. And I think other brokerage in the past have taken advantage of that, or they've allowed them they've allowed that to let them get lazy. And I feel like it creates the exact opposite. We almost have this responsibility to, like, drag out of you, when something's going wrong because we do wanna react to it.
We do want to solve it because if you don't if you rely on this idea of, like, hey, we can be mediocre, and our agents are just gonna cover for us because they wanna be able to keep attracting other agents to the brokers, like, that's a big fault on our side, and that is not culturally who I am or what LPT will ever be. But we've seen that at a lot of other brokerages as they grow, they they they get comfortable with that cover that the model provides. And, you know, so when when I look at something, it's like, hey, we've got sixty people on a particular thread or sixty people telling us we are doing this perfectly.
I'm gonna go find the two or three that are saying, here's where you're messing up because That's who we have to react to. That's who we have to be better for. That's what we have to build around because we have to be better than anyone has ever been before. And and this is something that I had to learn from the other side of it.
So in my mortgage days, by going on TV, I created the opposite dynamic. Like, we could be doing everything great, and people were still gonna hate me and leave me negative reviews just because I'm on TV, and they wanna hate me for that. And whatever that is. And so I've seen both sides of the spectrum.
I've seen the world where we over performed everyone else and still got dragged And I've seen the world where even when we're making mistakes, everybody wants to cheer for us. And and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And we are very focused, and I'm very focused just culturally, again, from the top of making sure that we don't ever take advantage of that and that doesn't allow us to ever get lazy or be mediocre because I want this to be the best company ever. I wanna run this company every day Like, I'm still living in the mortgage world where even if we're great, people are still gonna hate us, not get lazy because we have an amazing family of all of you who are cheering for us, and you wanna see us succeed.
And so you're gonna not, again, not cast a a spotlight on our ugly spots, but we have to know about them. We have to react to them. And Again, this is where the executive support bucket is so critical, you know, letting us know, like, we we want the feedback. We wanna know where we're winning.
We wanna know where we're losing. Again, we will never be perfect. That is not something you'll ever hear me commit to, but what we will do is we will react. And and we'll react the best we can, and we will we will fix the things that we are doing that are not running as perfectly as possible, and we will dig deeper.
We will dig a through that top layer to try to get down and say, alright. If seventy percent of agents are having a great experience, but thirty aren't, that's too many. Right? We're never gonna be a hundred percent, but it's gotta be better than that.
It's gotta be ninety, ninety five. Like, And and if there is something going wrong, what is the common thread? Right? Like, all the agents in Florida say we're great, and we always pay on time.
All the agents in this state are having a different experience, we have to be smart enough and use the data to break those out and say, hey, in this state, we're failing forty percent of our agents. In this state, we are winning with ninety seven percent of our agents. We and again, you can't if you throw it all into a single bucket, you look like you're doing great because we have a lot more agents in the states where we've got more experience.
And so again, this is just this is, again, how we think about things from the top. It's never gonna be perfect. I can't snap my fingers and solve big enterprise problems overnight. But I do want you guys to be confident in the fact that we're paying attention philosophically.
This is how I think about it. You don't ever have to worry that, you know, I'm hiding in a corner somewhere as as, like, the building burning down around us or, you know, I'm I'm drinking my own kool Aid and drinking the LPT kool Aid and gonna be completely, you know, just blind to the fact if we are making mistakes, we will always look for, and I will always look for the ugly spots because I feel like as the CEO, those are my job to fix. Like, those are my burden to bear. I need to take the ugliest worst thing that is happening in our company at that time and put it on my shoulders personally and carry it up that hill because that is how we all win together.
And that's That's the responsibility I take each and every day when I wake up for you guys to run this company.
It's awesome. Love to hear that. And, you know, if, If you think that we're motivated every single day to to carry that or if it never feels heavy, that would that would not be true. Right?
But it's a commitment. It's a consistency. It's the discipline. To get those things done that make the difference and that would turn you into a fantastic leader.
So, Robert, we are at time. Any final words for for the week.
Nah, I mean, guys, go out there. We were, we're about to close down January. I think, again, a lot of you were saying that January has turned a corner. We're seeing a lot of pipelines fill up going into February and March.
I re I think I think we're gonna have a lot to celebrate when we all get together at Grand Prix. If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, they are still available in the LPT store would love to see you there. Would love to have you come and be a part of this community building event that we're gonna have, in St. Pete at the beginning of March, I'm coming back from Montana for that event.
I'll be in town that whole week. Again, just really excited to meet a lot of agents. So I haven't had a chance to meet in person yet. Spend time together.
See these these little micro communities and micro connections start to blossom inside of LPT because we we, again, we do have that mass. Now we are we are getting toward the finish line in this race to ten thousand agents. We're gonna have some new desi images coming out soon about the race, the grand prix event, about the race to ten thousand agents. For you guys to to share featuring your photos.
And, again, it's just it's an exciting time. You know, the the the two year anniversary of this company is coming up. The race to ten thousand finish line is coming up. Just so many exciting things, going on here, and and I'm excited for us all to get together.
Spend some time together in March, and and look, twenty twenty four is gonna be a big year. More in twenty four. That's that's that's what LPT is all about.
Awesome, Ed. Have a great week.