Nathan Daniel (00:01):

All right. So here comes episode number two, we're talking to Ben Schachter. And in the, in the last episode, we talked about hyper specialization in a hyper local market, which is a, which was incredibly awesome. Now we're going to be talking about growth and attracting talent and holding them accountable at a high level. So let me cue up the music and we'll jump right back into the episode.

Nathan Daniel (00:41):

We've talked about how you've done this and how you started growing and how you're getting all of these, these honestly new brands and everything that you're specializing in. Well, of course, that's going to start attracting talent, right? And that's where you're at 1,350 agents. And last month you said you added what? 25 new associates or 25 and a month in the middle of a pandemic Nova in the middle of a pandemic. So you're, you're experiencing growth now. And you've got this momentum of growth. Let's talk about that.

Ben Schachter (01:11):

Terrific. Well, I appreciate that. Uthere are a few things that are important to know about us, which is where the growth comes from. Of course, we have to have a stellar reputation. We have to be well-received in our industry, particularly in the markets that we work in. Uagents love an opportunity where they can work with a very hands-on broker and people like working with people who specialize. I just talked about that from a consumer standpoint. Well, in our company, we interview a lot of people, but we only extend invitations to join us to less than 50% of the people we interview, which I honestly believe is unheard of in the industry to turn away the one out of every two people you interview. In fact, our true number was around 47 and a half percent. We only offer invitations to 47.5%, 52 and a half percent of the people we meet pleasure to meet you, Nathan, thanks for your time. We just don't think you're a good fit and you should see the look on an agent's face when you tell them I thank you for your time. You're not a good fit. They are so shocked because they're so used to being inundated with solicitations. We don't do that. We do market. We do solicit quality over quantity.

Ben Schachter (02:14):

I think that's very important. But we take the interview process seriously for the first 12 and a half years of our business. We're now almost 15 years old. I was the only person that ever interviewed. I interviewed and I personally hired every single person. We got to the point where I'm being pulled in so many different directions, running the business that I've had to onboard and train a very high level business recruiter that does the interviews for me most of the time now, not always, but probably 85% of the time, but has procrastinators of what I'm looking for in the right talent. We look for three things and when you're picky and choosy, you get better quality as opposed to just hiring everybody that walks in the door. Number one, I'll only work with intelligent people, quite frankly, Nathan, I don't even care if they have a real estate license because I am a licensed instructor in my state.

Ben Schachter (02:58):

We operate a fully accredited, licensed school. So if I have the right candidate, we'll get them a real estate license. That's not impressive, but what's in here. And what's in here is what is impressive to me, intelligence. I only want people who are smart. It is a tough business. It's a little cutthroat at times. There's a lot of contracts and complexities, particularly in our state in Florida. There's so much to know that the market compliance, et cetera, I consider myself to be intelligent and I just don't have the tolerance for stupid people. I want to work with smart people. So I look for that in every person I hire. Number two, professionalism. I'll only work professional people, that's it. You have to be professional. Our industry is riddled with independent contractors and unfortunately a lot of people get into real estate because they've Googled search. What's the easiest career to be self-employed. And of course, real estate comes up in first, second and third position on real estate on Google. Unacceptable. How about what's the best job to be self-employed and make a lot of money. What's the best job. And I'm gonna have to work real hard. They never finished the statement. I have no tolerance for lack of professionalism. People that don't show up on time, people don't dress the part. They don't speak the part. They don't stay in touch. They don't provide feedback. They're not responsive. Their voicemails are always full it's. It's really a shame. And it's one of the reasons my parents were so disappointed with my choice to go into real estate. Back when I was 21, even though I've made them eat their words 10 times over since then. So I don't even want professional people in my company at all times.

Ben Schachter (04:15):

And the last thing I look for and which I find is the hardest, particularly in Florida after intelligence, after professionalism, quality, number three is Nathan. I only want to work with people who wake up every morning, who want to kick some butt. You've got to want it bad. We are in a sales job. People say, well, I want to be a consultant. I want to help people. Hey, you can be a consultant. You can help people all you want. But if you can't accept the fact that you're a salesperson you're selling the most expensive product, almost anybody will ever purchase in their life barring a yacht, barring a private plane, barring a more major company. This is the most expensive property, excuse me, most expensive assets. 99% of people were buying their lifetime. You have to be a hustler of a salesperson. You have to wake up every morning with a business plan and a goal and a set schedule and a plan of action that you're going to see through and execute.

Ben Schachter (05:00):

You have to execute. The lack of hustle kills me. And if you don't want to get up and crush it every day, I mean, come on. I'm 42 years old. I could have retired five times over already, and I'm still crushing every day. Cause I want to set a good example for my agents. Most importantly, I was a great example for my children. I don't want to just sit back and coast. You have to be disciplined. And that is a big problem in real estate. Most people are ill-equipped Nathan to make the leap of being a W2 employee and their past career to now being a 10 99 independent contractor and real estate professionals. Their last job was so much easier. They're misguided to think real estate's easier cause you're your own boss. Most people are not qualified to be their own boss because they have no idea what the heck to do with their schedule and their time and their discipline.

Ben Schachter (05:42):

They wake up every day saying, I hope I have an email. I hope someone knocks on my front door that wants to buy a house. I hope someone texted me today. It's literally lunchtime before they've gotten another pajamas and they have no plan of action of what to do. You're not qualified to be a business owner. If you don't have a plan of action and you're not going to execute, you have to do it every day. And you have to have the financial staying power to last many months, whatever you read in the textbooks about 60, 90 days, that is BS. You have to have a staying power for at least six months minimum before you can hope to have a pipeline to sustain yourself financially, you'll be married to someone or in a relationship with someone who's going to support you.

Nathan Daniel (06:18):

Yeah. So, and, and, and staying power for those that don't understand what staying power is. There's money in the bank. Like you have to have enough money in the bank to carry yourself for at least six months. And I, I agree with that a hundred percent because it's, it's amazing anybody getting a real estate license, I have seen over the years can sell three houses, right. Immediately just with their immediate influence that they have. They could turn around and sell three houses pretty quickly, you know, and that's going to get them through, Hey, I invested in real estate school and all this stuff. Well, to treat it like a business, like you said, wake up hustle. It's important to set that expectation too upfront when obviously when you're interviewing, because do you have the staying power to get into this? Cause I don't want to wake up six months down the road. I've got to go back and get another job because I'm ran out of money. Right?

Ben Schachter (07:07):

It's, it's really upsetting because that's usually a question that comes up in the interview. How soon can I expect to start making money? And some of these people come to me and, and tell me, you know, I'm good through the end of the month. You're good through the end of the month. What are you kidding me?

Nathan Daniel (07:20):

Yeah. Well, I know I was actually reading an article yesterday. So national association of realtors, right? NAR put out, they put out these amazing articles and statistics and everything else. And they were actually showing, I think it's 87% of agents will, will without a proper system in place will fail within the first two years of their business. And on top of that, the median income, the median income for an agent has actually dropped from $9,300 a year, right agents, their first two years in the business, $9,300 has actually dropped to $8,600. I'm going first off $9,300. That's unacceptable in the first place. Like that's, that's not okay.

Ben Schachter (08:01):

I have a nephew, I have a nephew that works. Part-Time at a fast food restaurant in high school. And he makes substantially more than $9,300 a year after high school, everyday working part-time over the deep fryer, frying meat and potatoes.

Nathan Daniel (08:16):

Yep. That's exactly. That's exactly right. So I thought that was an interesting statistic. So I'll, I'll kinda end on this. Like how are you making sure that you're setting your agents up for success? Obviously the three things which are intelligent people, you want to surround yourself with intelligent people. You want to make sure that they're professionals and third, you want to make sure that they're getting up and crushing it every single day and getting after it. So when they join, what are you doing to make sure that they are, are one they're falling into the right area? Like if they're wanting to specialize in commercial or, you know, one of these senior communities or residential real estate, like how you helping them identify that.

Ben Schachter (08:57):

Great. well there's a couple of things we need to set them up for success. First and foremost, I don't treat them like independent contractors. The laissez Faire attitude of a lot of brokers is, Hey, they're independent contractors. Let them be. My independent contractor agreement of obligations is 26 pages long. My policy and procedure manual is 85 pages long. They have to read those hundred and 110-115 pages cover to cover. And they have to sign every single page that they've read it. Not the end. They have to sign every single page sign or initial that they've read it. They have to know that my expectation for accountability is through the roof because to set them up for success, they have to know what I'm expected of them. Now, what do I provide to help ensure their success? That's important in my selection process, picking less than 50% of the people that we interview, I have to be able to offer them the responsible tools of a broker to give them the best odds of succeeding.

Ben Schachter (09:53):

So they don't end up one of those statistics. You just shared a failing. The first thing is very intense. Non-Negotiable training and education. Our company offers 1,840 hours per year of live fresh new content, all taught by our own staff, 1,840 hours a year now because of COVID and because of zoom technology, we record everything. So we have over the past two years because we've been building a library for quite some time, more than 3000 hours of previously recorded training content. So you actually have your hands on 1800 of live new material published every day. And you also have your hands on 3000 hours of past content that we recorded. Our training is not optional. We mandate that every person takes 65 hours of onboarding training with us. I don't care how much money you've made in the past. How much of a veteran you are?

Ben Schachter (10:45):

You're with me in a chair, in a classroom in person or by zoom 65 hours, because you have to learn my systems and my way of doing business people say, well, you'll never get agents to agree to that. I disagree. I have them sign a hundred pages worth of documents when they join me. And I've got thousands of people working in my company. So I disagree and I've proven it time. And again, the education is very high quality. It's not monotonous, it's not boring. And it's really what takes the agents from. I thought I knew the business to, wow, this is eye-opening. And then the other end, I'm just licensed. I don't know what I'm doing and I really need to get started because I don't want them flounder. That's important. Step number two is we have world-class technological solutions within our company. Everybody knows Google.

Ben Schachter (11:23):

We provide the G suite enterprise to everybody, which is important because there's so many tech tools that go into G suites and your guys' platform. But I think agents need as a basic functionality and business, our company also is involved in the technology space. Should we be talking about another day, but we do provide them the total broker software platform, which is their end-to-end transaction management, CRM, marketing, email marketing, text message marketing, and a whole host of other industry specific tools. We provide this to them and we train at a very high level because we know without such tools, they're going to struggle to be competitive in the marketplace because we have an over-saturation and Florida got over 195,000 realtors in my States, 195,000 in my state, in the tri County area where the preponderance of our operations are 85,000 realtors in three counties. How do you compete?

Ben Schachter (12:11):

You've got to have the best tools and technology. And the last area that really separates us, which is kind of lumped in is broker support. First of all, I take an incredibly hands-on approach with the agents and that people say, how hands-on can you be? You got over a thousand people. I don't do it alone. I have a 43 person salaried W2 with benefits management team, which consists of trainers, managers, compliance officers, marketing professionals, social media professionals, a whole marketing department, web design search engine optimization it, human resources, accounting, et cetera, et cetera. Why? Because you can't run a large organization. If you're not willing to make the financial investment to support your people. A lot of brokers struggle because they just want a million licenses, but they don't have the financial wherewithal or the long term vision to support them. I've got 43 people to back me up.

Ben Schachter (13:00):

How do I take time off? Just to enjoy my experience where you Nathan, during this podcast, by knowing my managers are taking care of business for me right now and getting the job done as part of that, I'm very, hands-on, I'm approachable. Everyone's got my cell phone number. I'm addicted to speaking to them on the phone, texting with them. I send it every single morning. I call the entire company on a robocall and I tell them what's on tap for the day. I email the entire company two to four times a day. They are hearing from your broker either by phone or by email, at least four to five times every single day. I don't know where that happens elsewhere. That's very, very important. They know I'm available. Nice. Have a system called Sarah. Sarah's not a person. That's an acronym. And I love what Sarah does.

Ben Schachter (13:39):

The acronym stands for signatures, agent resource and helplines. Sarah. We provide every one of our agents, a telephone number and through our VOIP telephone technology, the agents can call Sarah or they can email to Sarah at signature, florida.com or they can go into the Sarah zoom room, which is a vanity domain. Sarah zoom room.com. If they click on Sarah zoom room.com, Monday to Friday, nine to five, just clicking on that link, saving it as a shortcut on their cell phone. They're looking face to face just like you and I are on the podcast with one of my employee managers so they can get instant face-to-face support with anyone in our company. Wow. Call this Sarah phone number because of our VoIP system. It rings my personal cell phone and 24 other managers, cell phones. It does not work in a round Robin. It works like the old fashioned house phones.

Ben Schachter (14:32):

You're still going to call your house phone and the master bedroom, the kid's bedroom, the family room, the kitchen, the dining room. We're all ringing at the same time. Somebody pick up the phone. Lenny I've managers, cell phones ring simultaneously during a shocking window of time. Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM, 14 hours a day, weekends holidays. I'm talking about Christmas. I'm talking about Easter, July 4th, Columbus day, Russia, Shauna Yom. Kippor from nine o'clock in the morning until 7:00 PM. So weekends and holidays, my agents can call us 10 hours a day. And every day of the week not holiday, they can call us 14 hours a day or email Sarah at signature Florida. And that one email address comes to me, their broker and the same two dozen managers. So 25 people monitoring one inbox or attentive. Can we possibly be? Yeah. And we'll receive anywhere from 50 to 150 inquiries on Sarah per day, which makes sense.

Ben Schachter (15:30):

Cause we've got over a thousand people. So we're getting anywhere from five to 15% of our people asking for help or questions or clarity or direction every day. But when you divide that up amongst 25 people who are responding to it, it's not insurmountable. That means each one of my managers is only responding to two to six calls per day, but you have to invest in your people by having the management and the legal team available to support your staff. Because that's the number one reason agents depart from brokerages because they're not receiving the support or the attention that they need to get their issues dealt with whatever they may be.

Nathan Daniel (16:05):

Yep. And that's when the shiny objects will come up and they'll get a little frustrated. And the person that has reached out to him that is second in the line in the back of their mind. Right. That's whenever it's like, okay, it's time to make a move. So well I'm so quickly recovering that as far as you, when you onboard somebody, setting them up for success, tremendous amounts of training and education pouring back into them technical solutions because that we know in today's world, that's extremely important support. So hands-on 43 person management team. And I love the, the acronym, Sarah. I think that's, that's brilliant. And I love the accessibility of not only yourself as the broker of, you know, over 1,350 associates now, but of 24 other people. Right? So it's, it's, it's got the ability to get in touch with somebody very quickly that is helping them succeed whenever they have a question. So that's

Ben Schachter (16:59):

We picked the name Sarah, because Siri was already taken by some other times.

Nathan Daniel (17:03):

Well, I like Sarah. Sarah's good. Cousin's name Sarah. So

Ben Schachter (17:07):

I will tell you there's one of the things that makes us wildly unique. We talked about accountability, scheduling discipline requirements for classes, Nathan, we hold people accountable to the point that I will tell you on a live podcast that I don't mind going out publicly. I let go. I terminate 20% of my staff every year. Wow. That's my realtor population. Not my employees. Yeah. I will let go of 200 to 250 people a year up to 20 people a month for them not fulfilling or being held accountable sufficiently to my expectations because unlike the more traditional model of real estate, where there's incremental streams of income for a brokerage that's fees, franchise fees, monthly fees, what have you? We do not charge our agents, a single penny. I also coined the phrase fee free. There's absolutely no fees in our company whatsoever. We're a traditional brokerage.

Ben Schachter (18:03):

We do take a healthy portion of the commission in exchange for what we provide. But if you do not produce because you are literally documented, costing me money from the training, from the support, from the technology, from the business cards, to the Eno insurance, to the marketing materials that I pay for, I'm not just giving lip service that you cost me money. I literally can show you documented receipts of what I spent on you. If you're not upholding your end of the bargain by fulfilling your commitment, let's go back to just being friends. Let's meet for happy hour and have a cocktail at the bar when we're not social distancing, you don't belong in my company. And that's why are we different? I proudly and admittedly and publicize that I release, I let go of more agents than most companies will ever hire in a single year because of the curse of the independent contractor. I thought I could handle being self-employed, but when I'm held accountable, sometimes the rubber does not meet the road lucky for my 80% of agents that do succeed. They're the ones Nathan, that really appreciate that. They love the fact that I'm just not egotistical driven by numbers, numbers, numbers, how many agents work for me. How about how many agents produce for me? That's what I want. Who's producing for me. That's what I want to focus on. The ones that deserve it. Not who has license.

Nathan Daniel (19:15):

Well, and I would be curious too, and you may or may not have the answer to this, but like agents in their first year in the business with you that come on board and, and like, what is there? Like we know what the national number is, right? And it's now like $8,300 a year. Like, do you know that number? And if not, it's okay.

Ben Schachter (19:34):

In my market where I work lucky for us, we're a wealthier part of sell Florida than the national average. But the market, my average agent will learn 60 to 70% more in their first year than my competing real estate brokerage companies. That's why, when they look at me and say, Oh my God, Ben, you're not like a hundred percent brokers. Like so many of them out there. That's why we'll take a portion of the commission because you're going to earn 60 to 70% more with me and I can show you the numbers on paper. So I'm entitled to get compensated as much as I love what I do and I'm passionate about it. And I do it because I love this industry. I love the business surprise. I'm here to make a living to beautiful family. My wife, Jody and I have been married happily for 12 years, three amazing kids who are virtually homeschooling right now.

Ben Schachter (20:15):

Hopefully going back to brick and mortar shortly and an eight and a five-year-old. And I do this for them as well as for my agents. This is not just volunteer. This is a business and you've got to treat it like that. That's what I told my independent contractor agents. You're not just showing houses because you love HGTV. You know what you're showing houses cause you're addicted to million dollar listing. This is a career and you've got to treat it as such. We're not doing martinis and range rovers. We are focusing on servicing the customers, asking for the business and executing and closing the deals. Well then

Nathan Daniel (20:48):

I, I love your passion and thank you for sharing. Everything that you have today has been it's been really invigorating. It's good to see how you started and how you get very specialized, how you grown and how you're developing and continuing to grow. It's attracting people and you're holding them to an extremely high standard to improve our industry and prove your professionalism and so that they can continue to thrive and be successful. And what you said about your agents, the 80% that you do keep, I know with them in the back of their minds. Like I, if in order for me to hang around, you know, with, with the people that I want to hang around with and to be earning the income that I want to earn, that that level of accountability I know is making a difference in the world.

Nathan Daniel (21:31):

So thank you for sharing all of this today, Ben, I really appreciate it. And, and telling us all about signature real estate. And we've been talking to Ben been, I'm going to say this again. I'm going to say it right. I'm a Ben Schachter.

Ben Schachter (21:46):

That's it? You got nailed it.

Nathan Daniel (21:47):

Okay. Ben Schachter companies in Boca Raton is where you're at and now you're all over Florida. I know that as well, but thank you again for coming on the show. It's been great. Getting to chat today.

Ben Schachter (21:59):

It's been a pleasure. I've been on a number of different interview sessions and this has been by far the most enjoyable. You have some wonderful questions and it's been a real pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much for having me.

Nathan Daniel (22:07):

Yeah, absolutely. We'll talk to you soon. Okay.