A Bigger Better eXp Brokerage Model With Tom Daves Former #1 KW Realtor In The World 7 Times
"Hungry, humble and very coachable and smart. So those are the four keys, I believe for success." Tom Daves is a 35 year old veteran in the residential real estate brokerage business. He's sold over 7000 homes and he was named the number one agent Northern California and also the number one realtor in kw, seven years total in the entire world. He has been a top producer at 1.3 million agents by the wall street journal name number eight. And he's really focused on helping others grow their business as well with what's called the eXp model.
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A Bigger Better eXp Brokerage Model With Tom Daves Former #1 KW Realtor In The World 7 Times
Brett:
I'm excited about our next guest. He is a 35 year old veteran in the residential real estate brokerage business. He's sold over 7000 homes and he was named the number one agent Northern California and also the number one realtor in kw, seven years total in the entire world. He has been a top producer at 1.3 million agents by the wall street journal name number eight. And he's really focused on helping others grow their business as well with what's called the eXp model, which we're going to get here in a minute, and serving his clients and in serving the community. So please welcome to show me Tom Davis. Hey, Tom, how you doing?
Tom:
Hey, doing great, Brett. Glad to be here today. How are you?
Brett:
Hey, I'm doing great. I'm excited to have you on the show. Thanks so much. And by the way, you can find Tom at Tom Dave's calm as TomDaves.com. So Tom, for our listeners should just get to know you. Would you tell us a little bit about your story and your current focus?
Tom :
Okay, yeah, absolutely. So pretty much born and raised here in the local Sacramento area. And my favorite saying is from Wayne Gretzky, you have to skate to where the puck is going to be. And I've been able to catch each economic cycle ahead of the cycle, whether it's traditional real estate, flipping homes, working arios have a sound for 500 homes a year working with private equity funds, blah. It's 100 homes in a year and a half. have a big team. So you know, and I recently moved over to eXp realty a couple of years ago, and it's definitely where the puck is going to be. It's where it is already. And so little. Yeah, that's a little bit about myself, kind of a family man, my big why and serve God, my family, my team, my health, my community, give back to others. And live large, you know, I love to helicopter, snow ski, I love to barefoot water, ski, golf, you name it. So mountain bikes. So just love to have a lot of fun. I'm a family man, and just having a great time.
Brett:
I love the passion and the enthusiasm for life and how you give back so much, which we'll talk about here more in a minute. But before we go there, Tom, I want to take a step back and get and help us to get to know you a little bit more. I want you to go back maybe to the high school days, it could be the junior high days. You know, I believe you've been given certain gifts in this life. And I believe that your God given gifts, some people call them superpowers. But you know, maybe one of these one or two gifts that you believe you were given? And how did those gifts help? How do you help bless others today?
Tom:
Well, great question. So I've always had an exceptional work ethic, even since I was just a little kid. I had a paper route. And then I actually wasn't enough. So I got two paper routes I was delivering, you know, the Sacramento union back in the day. And then also the San Francisco Chronicle. So and then, you know, going through high school. I worked at a car lot and I also worked at a restaurant so I always had at least you know one or two jobs. Huge work ethic, always loved, working, making money. And then when I got into real estate, I actually struggled to be honest with you the first three months I did not do well. But I was lucky enough to have a mentor, John Berg, who was the broker owner of a two time the largest real estate company in the Greater Sacramento area, caring realtors. And he took me under his wing. And he said, Hey, there is a positive mental attitude conference, a PMA conference down in Los Angeles. So I mean, at the time, it was, you know, late 70s. So, I hopped on a plane, and I was just Young Buck, 20 21 year old kid, and we flew down to LAX. And then we went to the LA Coliseum. And when we got there, we saw the star studded speakers. I mean, there was William Clement stone, there was Earl Nightingale, there was Tommy Hopkins, there was art Linklater and man, there were more. So it was just amazing that I was able to learn at a young age that a huge part of success is mindset, growth minded mindset, positive mindset, think big, go big. So I was just blessed that I was able to learn from that. And I've constantly I'm always reading books, listening to tapes, listening to podcasts. I do have a Miracle Morning process that I follow every morning. And it's basically you know, I get up, read the Bible, pray, journal, drink, 20 ounces of water, I work out. And while I'm doing the workout, I listen to podcasts, spend a little time with my family, and, you know, schedule and calendar my day. And then it always gets my day started off on the right foot. So those are a couple of snippets of my life. Hope that it does.
Brett:
It's fantastic. I thank you so much for sharing this and that work ethic, and then being introduced to mentors who helped you to get personal development, leadership, and develop yourself at a younger age. So that you were able to, to grow and succeed and make because it wasn't always easy. Your first three months in the business were tough. And so you had to change your mindset and you had to grow. So I absolutely love that. What's the most rewarding part of what you do, Tom?
Tom:
Well, the most rewarding is to share my knowledge and the information that I've learned with other people. I mean, it hasn't always been perfect. I mean, I've gone through a lot of cycles in the real estate business. earned, you know, I've learned from those hard knocks that I've experienced. So I think the most rewarding thing is to just share that with others, share that with other agents that are in my organization, share that with agents that are on my team. And then just really helped them have a great young guy on my team that you know, he went to college, but then for whatever reason, wasn't able to jump into the jump into the workforce right away. And I actually saw him in a car lot, you know, his washing cars at a carwash. And so every Saturday, I'd come and wash my car, and I'd say, Hey, you know, how's it going, Man, you seem like a great young, energetic guy that really met all of the, I mean, he seemed hungry, humble and very coachable and smart. So those are the four keys, I believe for success. And I said, you know, you should think about getting into real estate. And so finally, he took my advice, he got his real estate license, and now he's one of the top producers on my team. And that so that, you know, there's no amount of money that can surpass that, that really feels good to help someone to achieve and to leave a legacy.
Brett:
That's absolutely amazing. So let's dive right into that and in the the eXp model, and so for someone who was at kw, and the top kW agent, you know, when the world seven times, you know, I was, by the way, I was very skeptical about ESP three years ago, I was approached and it wasn't by it Wasn't by anyone like Tom Davis somewhere I probably would have been more open to it. But at the time it was someone else who just told me about myself. Yeah, and I kind of dismissed it. Right But Tom wouldn't I heard like Tom Dave's join and I heard you know, Brent Gove and Matt, Matt Stewart and Don Yocum. And these people who are very, I call him Hall of Famers in the real estate world, right, as in the brokerage world. So what's the biggest secret Tom to eXp? And why did you join?
Tom:
Great question. Well, one thing that I was frustrated with, because as I mentioned, I love to grow. And I love to scale. And I love to scale and expand. One of my frustrations is, I just felt restricted with geographic growth. And I also felt restricted with scaling my organization. So what really intrigued me with eXp was, it gave and it continues to give me the ability to scale and expand without any, without any capital risk. I mean, I don't have to write out huge checks to open market centers to scale and to expand into other areas. And I'm not limited geographically. So I'm able to scale and expand without any capital risk, which is awesome. And then also able to scale and expand without any, any broker liability on my part, you know, I have about 250 agents in my eXp organization right now, anywhere from Hawaii, New York, Mexico, UK, Canada, all over. And there is literally no capital risk, and no broker liability on my part. So it's pretty exciting.
Brett:
Yeah. And so for those who are listening, and maybe have learned for ESPN for the first time, what he has done is taken the model of the traditional brokerage brick and mortar, and they made it onto the cloud. And as a part of doing it onto the cloud, meaning you can still have the Regis office and different things, but they've taken a lot of expense. And then they've done what's called profit sharing, and also stock, you know, the ability to earn stock. And so you become an owner of the company, a small minority owner, as you're earning stock. And as you're growing the business, right, versus growing your organization somewhere else. And I always like to say, Tom, you know, and no, no disrespect, I actually started out at Keller Williams, when I first started before I went to Marcus and Millichap. And I respect those firms. And I learned a lot. But I always thought he thought it's like you're growing, they're growing their business, right. So I would train or coach somebody and I might train with, I might get three of their deals, right. And they might have with me for a couple deals, and I might get 5050 or whatever. But then all of a sudden, they're my competition in the next cubicle over right or the next office over. Or worse yet, now they leave us and they go to the other, you know, say a REMAX or, or southern beach or somewhere else. And or CB Richard Ellis, and now they're competing against us. And you're going Wait, I just gave them all my secrets. And now they're competing. It wasn't financially aligned. So would you talk about some of those frustrations? And how can eXp overcome that?
Tom:
Yeah, well, that's great. Well, one of the big differences is, the kW model is a profit share model, where if there's no profit in the market center, then they will share a portion of that profit to anyone that you recruited or introduced over to kW. So that's kind of the bottom line sharing. But with eXp, it's the top line sharing the top line revenue, which is shared. So there's never a question about any of the expenses or the overhead to reach that bottom line profit share. This is a revenue share, which is revolutionary. That's the biggest difference.
Brett:
Yeah, and just put that into context. So, you know, there's, I think there's now over 1000 millionaires that the eXp is made from they're just realtors, you know, that were just selling real estate. And now they kept doing what they're doing. Maybe they built a small team or a little bit of a larger team. They're getting passive wealth, they're building this stock. And I think you mentioned there's about five pillars to making the model make a whole lot of sense. Would you kind of touch on those?
Tom:
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I like the first, the four pillars. Number one is the economic model, because again, we're a 100% cloud based company, so there's no expenses fixed over. Had brick and mortar that, again, doesn't really add any value to the consumer or much to the agent. And I'm sure everyone knows about Blockbuster now that Netflix Circuit City is now Amazon. And in the real estate space, it's eXp Realty. So the first pillar is the economic model, the second pillar, and we have very, very reasonable caps and splits and fees, which are very, very, you know, we're not the cheapest out there, but we're not the most expensive. So the economic model is the first pillar. The second is the stock, we all get stock in the company so we can grow our well. The third is the revenue share, which grows, our wealth grows our retirement, residual income. And then the fourth is the high like minded collaboration that we have from all of the all of the top agents in our company. So with those four pillars, is just kind of a no brainer.
Brett:
Absolutely. And I remember being at Marcus and Millichap, and no stock, no revenue share, part of what we wanted to do our passive income plan was to get on the other side of the phone or our retirement plan was to own real estate. Right? And and so how do we get on the other side of the phone was always the strategy? And how do we earn enough commissions and go buy real estate as we're learning the business along the way, what I love about eXp is they say, hey, go still do all that. That's great. You want to own real estate. But in the meantime, as you're selling real estate, and as you are training others to do the same, why not make it financially align with everybody. And that last part, the high like minded collaboration, part of what's so amazing about it, is you're getting so many people room and full disclosure, I'm on Tom Daves’ team. So I'm with Tom days, Brent Gove, Don Yoco, Matt Stewart, and I'm also a commercial agent. And so here multifamily Northern California, and we all align to serve the customer and whoever the client might be to give referrals. But then as I grow, Tom has a vested interest in me to grow because as I train and coach more more agents, and they grow, we all earn on the revenue share. So it's, it's truly remarkable what they've been able to do, I think, what's the fastest growing real estate brokerage, maybe in the history of real estate? I'm not sure the exact numbers, but I know I think about close to 40,000 agents worldwide now. And they're opening up many countries. And the cool thing is eXp commercial is just getting started, which is a which is which I'm really excited about any thoughts on the eXp commercial, Tom?
Tom:
Well, I'm not surprised. There's just so many opportunities in city eXp, and we are growing with so many new additional opportunities, and celery businesses. So because in most companies, you really are able to receive one revenue state's one revenue stream, you know, and that's basically commission income, right. But with the eXp, not only commission income, also stock revenue share, we also have our ibuyer platform with the eXp, there's also lending revenue opportunities. We also have healthcare, which is kind of icing on the cake, cake. And there's new opportunities commercial, there's new opportunities coming on the horizon, almost on a weekly basis. So it's pretty cool.
Brett:
Pretty amazing. But that being said, What's the biggest objection you receive from agents? Tom, when it comes to joining exp? What's, what's the number one? And what would be your response to that?
Tom:
Well, I think a lot of agents, they say, Well, you know what, I don't want to be a recruiter. So my response to that is that well, that's great. We don't want you to recruit anybody. All we'd like you to do is just invite, you know, invite others to learn more information about why we're the fastest growing real estate company in the history of real estate. And also, you know, quite frankly, only about 10% of the agents in ESP realty have ever recruited anyone in their organization. So that's kind of one of the main objections that I Here, and it just kind of reminds me I mean, I've worked for, you know, Keller Williams, REMAX, Lyon and Associates, foxing car, Skadden, Kiernan realtors, and many more in my career, and I would always refer agents to my company, I'm like, Hey, this is a great place to work, man, you should come on over, talk to the VP talk to my manager. So they would come over, and they would like it, they would join the company, but I never got compensated for it and never got revenue share. So it's really no different. So that's, you know, one of the things that I do here often?
Brett:
Absolutely, I think it's that false belief that we have to overcome that. Why not? Why not be owners? Why not? Why can't there be a better model? I think that on the NASDAQ and on the stock, it went from $8 to about $60, in just a couple years, seeing the model work. And I think I think you just kind of take your pride away, that's what I said, just take your pride away for a second, put your business hat on, and underwrite the model and just say, hey, if I'm gonna sell 100 deals in the next 10 years, with my current brokerage, and training coach 20 agents, let's just say, the next 10 years, or let's do that same model eXp, and let's just see what kind of wealth and what kind of passive revenue share how it's gonna compare, right? And there's something about, about just getting out of our own way, sometimes right, and underwriting it. And Tom, did I be curious, because I know all of us, it usually takes a little bit of time, how long did it take you to make that shift?
Tom:
Well, it took a couple of months, just because I think that there's times when we work in our business, and then there's times when we work on our business, so I think I was busy working in my business. And then when I took time, after a couple of months to really focus and work on my business, then I was able to get that mind shift.
Brett:
So beautiful, beautiful, and for those who want to learn more, and maybe be a part of Tom and I's business line, we're business partners here at ESP, and you can reach out to me or Tom, you can go to TomDaves.com, or just go to expert care secrets.com that's expert care secrets calm or just call me direct 916-303-3262. That being said, Tom, are you ready for the lightning round?
Tom:
I am ready. Boom.
Brett:
All right. So knowing what you know now, Tom, if you can go back to your 25 year old self? What's the one Golden Nugget you would make sure you would do?
Tom:
Well, I think that I would have realized that it's all about the who and not the what. I think in the past I've focused a little bit too much on the what but it's all about the who.
Brett:
Excellent, best real estate decision you've ever made in brokerage
Tom:
Joining exp realty
Brett:
Beautiful, worst real estate decision you ever made in brokerage.
Tom
Staying involved with flipping homes for too long, I lost about a million bucks. tried to write it out a little too long and got bitten on the butt when the market tanked in oh seven and oh eight But hey, live and learn right?
Brett:
You do live and learn by then we have a solution for that's called a deferred sales trust. You can now sell parking in the deferred sales trust all tax deferred and never have to use a 1031 ever again. also works for short term deals right? So it doesn't have to be long term. You can go to you can go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com. To learn more about that. Let's see the best-negotiating strategy.
Tom:
Well, I think the best-negotiating strategy is to really, really listen and really find out what the emotions are behind the facts. Because facts will make you think but emotions will make you act.
Brett:
Excellent love that. Find out what the emotions are behind the facts. Facts will make you think emotions will make you act. That's powerful. Number one book you've recommended or get it the most in the past year.
Tom:
Atomic habits. Atomic habits are about disciplines of being consistent. Consistency trumps everything, and you're not great until you're consistent.
Brett:
Well said, What are you curious about right now?
Tom:
What am I curious about? So I'm curious about what's going to happen this next year. I'm curious about 2021 2022 and the next two, three years, just raising a lot of curiosity. So that's it. Definitely, something that's kind of has me scratching my head, but just need to focus on what you can control. Right?
Brett:
Well said absolutely. And likewise, I am also curious too, I think most of the world is maybe there's never been a more curious time for what could be what's happening what's changing? So last question, Tom, and then we'll let you go. After all your success, you know, being the number one Keller Williams agent in the world seven times we've already eXp grown your business, helping countless individuals selling, you know, 7000 plus homes. How do you stay centered around Tom and your values? And how do you stay encouraged to reach forward to reach new massive goals?
Tom:
Well, my foundation is the Lord. And so God is my big why. And so I'm called to serve God and to serve others. So that definitely keeps me grounded. And it eliminates the fear because your previous question, you know, what, am I curious about what's going to happen in the future? We really don't know what's going to happen in the future. But what we do know is who's in control.
Brett:
Very well said, Tom. Well, I want to thank you for being on the show. And I want to thank you for sharing some of your ideas and stories inspiration, I want to thank you for joining eXp because you're a big decision of why join right. And all the leadership and all the masterminding and all that you pour back for the team. And with that being said, for Tom, for those who want to connect with you, what's the best place for them to find you?
Tom:
Yeah, the best place is online, go to my website, TomDaves.com. And I just want to take a moment to thank you, Brett, for giving back for sharing, and for serving others. This is an amazing podcast. And thank you. It's an honor to be here. And Excellent. Well, thanks, Tom.
Brett:
It means a lot to come from you. And I appreciate those kind words and I also want to wrap up the show and I want to thank our listeners for listening to another episode of the expert commercial real estate secrets podcast. As always, we believe most commercial real estate brokers and residential realtors and luxury realtors, they struggle with clarifying their passive income options. Not having a clear plan is the enemy and using a proven brokerage strategy such as the eXp commercial model, and purchasing investment real estate is the best way for you to grow your wealth. Hey, if you want to hear more and see how the eXp model may be a good fit for you. You can go to expert care secrets calmly or just give me a ring and we can connect and chat more to see again if it would be a good fit to join our business team here at eXp.
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