Nathan Daniel 0:00
Hey, what's up everybody, I am excited that you're back at the broker broker real estate podcast because today I have a great friend of mine, we actually met through an organization called the locker room. And I have just so enjoyed watching him, really almost over this last year built his business. And one thing he does really, really well, which is what we're gonna be talking about today is building a great culture and launching his business. So are you ready? I'm gonna cue up the music. Let's get going.

Welcome to the show, Mr. TJ Perkins. What's up, man?

TJ Perkins 0:53
Not much, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Nathan Daniel 0:55
Oh, absolutely.Man. I'm excited. I know. We've been trying to do this for a little while. And I'm glad we finally connected so.

TJ Perkins 1:02
Yeah, so COVID It doesn't help that you were texting my office number on accident.

Nathan Daniel 1:07
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you have the right contact information. I sit here. So everybody knows like, I'm sitting here texting like man, this guy is straight up ghosting me and we're on calls on a regular basis. And I'm like, he's just totally avoiding me. Come on. My fault. Apparently I had the wrong number.

TJ Perkins 1:23
So yeah, somebody actually reached out to me and said, you know, Nathan, trying to contact them like I have not received a text message.

Nathan Daniel 1:29
Yeah. So anyways, Well, I'm glad we finally connected. We're here today. So, TJ, tell us a little bit about yourself who you are your company where you're at all that stuff?

TJ Perkins 1:40
Yep, for sure. So TJ Perkins broker Acropolis Realty Group located in upstate New York, Central New York, specifically Syracuse, I run a brokerage of just shy of 60 agents. We've been in business a little over five years. We are a full service real estate company. We do residential and commercial brokerage, property management and development as well. And we've really kind of seen our business take off, I would say probably within the last about two years. So as we continue to grow, obviously, that's how I met Nate was through the locker room. So that's been a big part of it as well.

Nathan Daniel 2:16
Yeah. Well, I'm excited to jump in and start talking about this today. Because it's uh, it's cool. It's been it's been exciting to watch you grow, because I know I was talking to your coach. Right, your coach Kristen, shout out to Kristen here. About your growth. Like, you know, a big part of your growth has been like you were what, like 26 27th in the board? At the start of this year. Is that right?

TJ Perkins 2:43
as a as a company, I think we were we were definitely either either high teens or low 20s. Last year, then this year, we're definitely up there with the big dogs for sure. Say yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:55
She was sharing with me and I'm, I hope you're okay with me sharing this like, like number six right now.

TJ Perkins 3:01
We're, I would say we're sixth in our market, our MLS goes outside of our market. So there's, there's like five big players in our market. They're all franchise based, then we're technically I would say eighth, but six and seven aren't really in our market. They're not an hour, hour and a half away.

Nathan Daniel 3:19
Okay, but comfortably top 10.

All right, absolutely. Top 10 in your market. And, you know, I think one thing that I could definitely see inside of your organization is the culture. And that's what I want to jump into today. So you cool talking, talking about how you've done that?

TJ Perkins 3:35
Absolutely. Yeah.

Nathan Daniel 3:36
All right. Well, I know y'all have a very unique space. And you were pretty intentional. When y'all decided to open a carpet Acropolis and move into this space. Can you tell us a little bit about your space that you have now?

TJ Perkins 3:48
Yeah, so we just moved into the office. Our office opening party was February 7, and then three weeks later, we needed to shut down with COVID. So we spent about a year building out this beautiful brand new 7500 square foot office space right in the heart of downtown Syracuse, just to have it shut down for eight months, or however long it was. But we were jam packed in this tiny little 2200 square foot office that we had built to so we had manage this building and we built out new offices and outgrew that within about seven, eight months. So we decided we actually purchased the new building. We renamed the building Acropolis center and us Acropolis Realty Group is the anchor tenants we take so many 500 square feet on the top floor, we gutted three suites and built this beautiful, brand new, modern industrial workspace for all of our agents to come in. So that's definitely been part of it. Our idea was, we wanted to have a lot of the companies around here like the bigger the bigger brokerages, they have smaller offices scattered around, and I know you're not familiar and your listeners probably aren't, but they'll have an office in Cicero and another office in madness where if you're in Is our office but you want to show a house Oh man, this is probably like a 40 minute drive. So our idea was a really cool, big, awesome office in the heart of downtown that our agents can come in, and then get to any sub market in a matter of 10 to 15 minutes.

Unknown Speaker 5:15
Awesome. So like, really convenience was a big factor in this.

TJ Perkins 5:19
It was. And I've definitely gotten pushback from some folks that they don't want to have to find parking when they come downtown and whatnot. But I think it goes with the type of people that we're looking to attract. We want to attract the people that are that, that like downtown, they come in, they like the vibrancy, they want to be able to walk, grab a bite to eat for lunch, or go grab a happy hour, cocktail after after work hours. So that's kind of the type of agent that we're looking to attract to somebody that wants to come downtown.

Nathan Daniel 5:50
So and you're you're pretty, you're pretty rigid on this, like, you're pretty strict when it comes to hiring agents like you want to find the right people, right?

TJ Perkins 5:58
Yep. Yeah, I mean, it definitely. How I pitch it to potential recruits is you're coming in, you're being something bigger than just a real estate company, you're coming to be a part of this family. And if it could, because I mean, I interview people all the time, but we don't present offers to everybody unless I feel that there'll be a good fit. And I mean, just just an example. Like when we have a new agent that comes on board, if she wants to he or she wants to come into the office, they have no problem whatsoever going to any person in the office and asking for help or asking a question. Whereas these other companies, you know, if they have some seasoned agents that may have been in the business 20-25 years, they're kind of like and get out of here. I want to do my own thing. We don't we realistically don't have agents that have been in the business much more than like 10 to 12 years. Realistically, it's a it's a younger, it's a fresh group of people. And it's, it's people that we want to grow, that we want them to grow as the company is growing with us, so to speak.

Unknown Speaker 7:02
Okay, so you started. I mean, you started this idea. And you said, what, five years ago, right? And at what point did you decide, you know what, I'm going to take a stance on this, and I love how you said I present offers for people to join our company. Like At what point did you determine that and drew that line in the sand said, here's the expectation of anybody that joins us. Was that that five year mark or like a beginning or it was?

TJ Perkins 7:28
No it wasn't so it We've been in business five years, but Acropolis Realty Group residential brokerage has realistically been going up on like three years now, maybe even two, when was it? august of 18 is when we rebranded or January of 18 has been rebranded. So yeah, I guess we're coming up on three years now. But when we when we had started, we were called Acropolis development. It was myself and one other guy, he had his broker's license, I had my salespersons license, we didn't really know what we were doing. We were a little bit of everything. I did some sales, he did some sales, we manage the building that our office was in. And my salary definitely wasn't sufficient enough for me personally. So I started going out there and I was doing more residential sales. And I realized that I definitely liked it. I was good at it. And I loved it. So fast forward two years to January of 2018. I bought into the company, we rebranded everything to Acropolis Realty Group, which made more sense, people knew we were kind of in sales as opposed to just a development company. And that's when we really started ramping it up. So we brought on two younger woman from franchise here called Berkshire Hathaway. And they were kind of like the first big fish, I would say that came on board that kind of got the name out there and buzzin a little bit people were wondering like, oh, what do they have going on over there? And then it's just been up from there. Awesome. But I mean, it's good. I know, that didn't really answer your question. That was kind of just a little bit of backstory. But where we drew the line in the sand, I would say was probably those two, those first young ladies coming on board with us realistically is because they fit myself and Steve, my partner, they kind of just fit our vibe. And it attracted other people like that. And that's when we decided, you know, what we don't want to just bring on anybody that has numbers we want to bring on the correct person that's gonna, that's gonna fit what we're trying to do.

Nathan Daniel 9:17
Yeah, so like attracts like, right and, and so now you're in this mode of like, developing really this this culture around the right people. Can you share a little bit about what that means? Like who is the right person to join in your case, specifically? Acropolis?

TJ Perkins 9:35
Yeah. And folks in the industry around here, they kind of joke that we're like the new kids on the block or that were the young hip company. Like somebody actually even I heard through the grapevine that they call this a frat house. Come on, Brad. Yeah, it was kind of funny and that agent that had told me that they heard that through the grapevine. She could see that I was kind of just like, thrown away and they're like, TJ They're not talking bad about you, you're not doing something right. And I was like, Alright, well, I guess when you put it that way, I'll take it. But I would say like the, it's not all about age, we're definitely we have, I would say, absolutely, we definitely have an average age this younger than other companies in the area, for sure. But there's definitely some outliers there. And if they have, if I would say if they're the young at heart young in their mind, regardless of what their birth certificate says, but if they're, if they're looking to grow, if they're not just looking to have somebody hold a license somewhere and do the same business that they've done the last 10 years, they're looking to grow with us, that's, that's the agent that we're looking for. And they're and that they're willing to help with other people that come in, they're not going to be stuffy stuck up, you know,

Unknown Speaker 10:48
Alright, so willing to help and kind of being growth minded, right, seeking that opportunity to grow, because you're very growth minded. Right? Well, I mean, you're a driver, like, go get it, and you're constantly improving yourself. And, and who was it that said this recently, was, you know, if you, the moment you stop growing yourself as a leader, is honestly the moment that you should stop leading other people? Right. And I've always noticed that about you like you're very into growth and developing yourself to stay one page ahead of everybody.

TJ Perkins 11:22
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, if you're not growing, you're dying. And I'm way too young to die.

Nathan Daniel 11:28
Right. Right. And congratulations to you. I know you have another one on the way. So thank you. Yeah. So yeah,

Unknown Speaker 11:35
she is due January 30. So that's awesome. We're excited. We're excited. Well, cool.

Nathan Daniel 11:42
Well congrats on that. So what will tell me a little bit more? You know, you're those people that come in, right, you mentioned family earlier. Talk to me about that, like setting expectations when people join you like what is family mean to you?

TJ Perkins 11:59
So and I don't know, if you have the capability to on your podcast, pull up the and I think I shared it with you our culture recruitment video, on YouTube, I don't know if you've seen it or not. But that might be something cool that we could kind of show the people here too. But um, the the family feel is they want to not necessarily just like come into the office and be around everybody, but we do a lot of stuff for our agents. So we do at least quarterly outings like excuse me, in late September, we had our first annual golf tournament, where we actually have a corporate membership to a local golf course where all of our agents can golf for free, they can bring their clients, they can bring their friends. So we actually rented out the course for a day and we had our first annual Acropolis golf tournament. And I can't tell you the amount of responses I got from people that are like, No, I'm not coming on. You know, I'm not I'm not a golfer. I've never golf. It's like it's not about golf. Come hang out with us come be a part of something more than more than golf. Just like in the day to day, it's more than just real estate. And I can the amount of people that came and supported us. It was it was fantastic. A couple weeks later, we had our second annual corporate retreat, where we rented out this awesome venue. We had a group come in did a bunch of team building exercises, and then it was just a relaxation day, get everybody out of the office kind of get off of the whole work mode. And you know, we did cornhole tournaments, we did Maxi ball we did. We even played some beer pong in there. So it was fun. And whenever and everybody got you know what, we got hotel rooms for everybody. We got transportation back to the hotel, if they weren't staying, we paid for everybody have an Uber back to their homes, everybody, you know, was drinking responsibly, so on and so forth. But it's stuff like that, like we do a lot more for our agents than just provide real estate services to them,you know?

Unknown Speaker 13:47
Alright, so you're you're embracing him. Right? And you're having fun is what it's I mean, even going beer pong. Wow.

TJ Perkins 13:54
That was that may have been one of our interns ideas.

Nathan Daniel 13:57
Okay.

Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. Well, no, and that's good. Like you're taking an interest in in people's lives. You're bringing them in into your world, and you're having some fun with them. And you know, there was a story that I heard you talk about Oh, man, this is probably this is probably six months ago maybe and about one of your your new agents that had just joined you. And it correct me if I'm wrong on this, but like it was a new agent that joined you. And I think single mom working and like it stopped me kind of in my tracks. When I heard this. I was like, You stopped what you were doing? Because she brought her daughter and then she was meeting a client. Can you tell us about that? Do you remember that?

TJ Perkins 14:44
Really nice. It was I took I took the daughter over to the to the cafe area some juice while she could meet with their client.

Unknown Speaker 14:53
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was just that was so cool. Like just stopping what you were doing, but what got me was this next thing like you wanted her daughter to know who you were? Of course? Absolutely. So not just taking an interest in the agent and helping them with that. But like going one step further, like I want all of their family to know who I am and comfortable enough to come in and just stop and play and have fun.

TJ Perkins 15:18
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that specific situation, it was, just like I said, she is a single mom. So she needed, she didn't have daycare. So she needed to bring the daughter in. And the client knew that the daughter was going to be there. And the client didn't mind either. But I thought it was just something that I should, I should do give, give my agent give her give her client some, some alone time. And I've got her I've got kids of my own. So it's like, trust me and her she's in good hands. Except for she did spilled juice all over her shirt. So

Nathan Daniel 15:48
maybe the last time she gets to

TJ Perkins 15:51
maybe but you know, we like we're planning a, you know, a little Christmas party here. And like, we're gonna have a Santa come in so that all of our agents can bring their whole family and their kids can come in and sit on Santa's lap and stuff. So it's definitely we want people's family to feel part of the family as well. And even like some of the events that we hold, we open it up to all their family, significant others, everybody's more than welcome to

Nathan Daniel 16:16
come. That's cool. Let's go well, you know, it's been awesome, like watching your growth and and seeing everything that's happened because you're very intentional about who you hire, you're very intentional about the environment that you're developing and building and putting out and through that what has come growth?

TJ Perkins 16:36
Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 16:41
Like, in doing so you make people what one, when you set the expectation upfront, almost, it's you don't really have an issue with retainment. But also you make people they want to work for you. They want to they want to help you in turn help them, but they're also out there like, Oh, hey, you should you should talk to TJ, you know, so they're my biggest recruiters realistically, you know, I, I don't cold call agents to recruit, you know, they're pretty typically their warm leads provided from my agents, you know, yeah, people just, you know, reaching out to me, they see, like, for example, our corporate retreat, we had a Snapchat filter, it was like Acropolis is second annual retreat. So I told people, I was like, snap photos, save them to your camera, I'll post them on Instagram, post them on Facebook, so on and so forth. People were reaching out to me like, Oh, that looks like so much fun. Bah, bah, bah, it's like, Okay, well, now you're a potential warm lead.

Nathan Daniel 17:33
So that's cool. All right. So creating environment, a culture of fun, productivity, you know, engagement with with family, and really just embracing, embracing your people to become a part of your family. Absolutely. That's cool. All right. Well, what else and that you can share with somebody whether they're just getting started as a brokerage, and you know, your biggest mistake that you learned along the way. bed,

TJ Perkins 18:02
I would say my biggest mistake was not diving full into residential brokerage immediately waiting the three years to do it. But I guess I wouldn't say that necessarily. That was a mistake. But a piece of advice that I could give to somebody that is maybe just looking to start their own brokerage is don't go. And and I and I could be shunned from all of all of the all of the viewers here, but don't immediately think that you need to do a franchise. Because that is a good that is a that is a big part of how we've grown is we provide everything that franchises provide. We provide personalized websites, we provide CRM, we provide training, we provide accountability, software, like we provide all of that without that franchise fee on top. And that is a big plus to a lot of people. So I would say obviously, look into it and do your research, of course, but at least personally, that's something that I've felt is has helped us succeed is not really having that, that franchise because one is more money in the agent's pocket. But two, they can go out to their clients and explain that every penny that they're paying them is staying within the local community. It's not going to some corporate headquarters in New York City or California or wherever these franchises headquarters may be. Everything is staying local, and we use that in our recruiting presentations. Absolutely.

Nathan Daniel 19:22
That's good. So that's really good. Because then your branches, yes. Yeah.

TJ Perkins 19:31
I mean, obviously, franchises have their advantages. They do. Yeah, they asked for us, you know, and we're orange and blue in Syracuse, which is orange and blue, go orange. So it's just like we definitely wanted that Syracuse feel, and people to know that every penny they're paying that agent is staying staying local, you know, it's just it's just it's just an added added thing that our agents can add to their listing presentations, you know, especially now with you know, syndication You don't it doesn't matter that it goes on one specific company because there are national franchise, we put it on the MLS, it's going to Zillow. realtor.com it's going to remax.com scored Howard hanna.com. It's going to century 21. It's going everywhere anyways. Right? So

Nathan Daniel 20:16
Well, that's cool. It's just another level, right? It's another level of your strategy going into it. So and I like that too. And I mean, you providing everything, right that like everything an agent would need is at their hands. Right? It's, it's all there for him. So

TJ Perkins 20:31
yeah, and it's been a slow and steady growth for us. Like, since we rebranded everything it was okay, well, now we need an admin. Now we need a marketing person. Now we need a bigger office. Great. Okay, well, now we need a CRM. Now we need personalized websites. So it hasn't just been like a one week we did everything. It was slow and steady growth. And then as we did something else, we were able to attract more agents, and then we did something else, more agents. So it's been a, you know, it's been a ladder for sure.

Nathan Daniel 21:00
Okay, so you ll and this goes back to something that recently changed my thought process on like, recruiting and everything else. But you know, we have a program inside the locker room called track, right? It takes people through the process, and, you know, you start with the foundation, then you go to skills, and then you start working on systems, and then you get to that achievement phase. But what we're, what we're seeing a lot of right now is this achievement phase, where people are feeling that stress, right? They're getting the stress, and they're like, Well, okay, like when I started in my foundation, I was like, Okay, now I'm stressed because I've got growth. And guess where I have to go back to and rebuild. I've got to go back to the foundation. So what you just said was, Hey, I'm, I'll get to a point I hire an assistant. We've got growth happening now. What do I gotta go back? And Okay, now we're gonna add this next layer to it. All right. So that's cool.

TJ Perkins 21:52
on track, I mean, track has helped us recruit newly licensed agents, because that was realistically the most recent thing that we did was, and we just had our year mark with locker room, shout out Jake Dixon. But, you know, the track has helped us recruit newly licensed agent, because that was something that we didn't have was a, you know, a training program, so to speak. So track, you know, that 10 week thing that almost models, some of the bigger franchises, training is huge for us is huge. Yeah. Yeah. Because I do I do a lot of one on one training with our agents. But obviously, there's only so many hours in the day. So the track being able to do that, as they have time is beneficial.

Nathan Daniel 22:34
Yeah, self paced, and they can help they can learn, like and learn as they go. So

TJ Perkins 22:38
yep. And it's an accountability thing, you know, so it's like, if, if I sign them up for track, I always provide everybody the workbooks, and, and whatnot, if after the 10 weeks, you know, they're kind of feeling down. And it's like, well, did you dive headfirst into track? No, you didn't? Because I've been on the Wednesday meetup calls and you're not in there. So

Nathan Daniel 22:57
yeah.

TJ Perkins 22:59
Absolutely. 100%

Unknown Speaker 23:00
Well, that's a part. You know, we talk onboarding and that kind of stuff, and finding out that first 30 6090 days, right, that's why it's designed the way it is, but really setting people up for success to take the best advantage of what you have at disposal and to incorporate them into your environment of productivity, and everything else. So that's cool. Well, um, All right, any any last words of wisdom for real estate brokers out there?

TJ Perkins 23:27
Oh, geez.

I got I got a stew on it. I got it. All right. Off the top of my head. I just interviewed an intern he asked me, it was one of those questions where it was like, if you What did you wish you when you were my age? What did you wish, you know, or something, something along those lines? And I was like, You know what? That's a really good question. And I think that I should stay on it a little bit more. And I'll email you a very detailed responses that are just bullshitting off top my head right now.

Nathan Daniel 23:57
Let's try this. We keep it real now. We're gonna keep it in there. Here's the thing how about this How about you stew on it? And if you're open to it, how about we have you back on the show?

TJ Perkins 24:08
Love it. Absolutely. Be Cool. All right. And then I can I can interview you know, we can we can interview the interviewee.

Nathan Daniel 24:16
Okay, we haven't done that yet. I would be I would absolutely be open to doing that. There will flip the script will will change the will change the videos on here. All right. Well, everybody we've been talking to TJ Perkins, broker owner of Acropolis Realty Group in Syracuse, New York. TJ, thank you so much, man for coming on the show today.

TJ Perkins 24:36
Thank you, brother.

I appreciate it.