Brett:

This episode is going to be for the real estate agent for the real estate broker. For anyone who's looking to gain some potential freedom from the day-to-day transaction, the treadmill is talking about exiting the real estate agent treadmill with eXp as the model as the business, and as the exit plan. Please welcome to the show with me, RichTomasini. Rich, how are you, sir?

Rich:

I am. Well, thank you so much for having me.

Brett:

It was a pleasure to have you on the show, and for our listeners, getting to know you for the first time, would you give us a little bit more about your story and your current focus?

Rich:

My current focus is recreation. My past has been all work. Both sides of the spectrum. I was a real estate appraiser for eight years, back from 2019 99 till about 2006, just under eight years, and then I moved to North Carolina from South Florida and became an agent with Remax and over 2000, and I think December 2006, is when I got licensed until 2017, I sold a little over half a billion dollars in real estate here in Lake Norman 30 minutes north of Charlotte 2017, I moved over to eXp realty to leverage and build a team that would be virtual and can scale and compound and not be confined by geography or antiquated systems, and I have now an organization that I've been able to assemble that is about 1600 agents. We add about 130 agents a month, and it's a residual income model. Anything that I do for our group is supplemental, but it's not all relied upon my personal support, and I spent time with my two little boys and my wife, just to sum it up.

Brett:

You live in the dream brother, man, and so appreciate the opportunity to dive in on your story, taking some time to share this story with us. Before we dive into those particular things about, life before eXp and life after and kind of, you know what, what you could do to help build that real estate business. You know, I believe we've all been given certain gifts Rich, and these gifts have been given to us to be a blessing and help to others. Want you to go back maybe to your high school days, maybe your college days, and want to identify maybe one or two gifts or strengths. Some people call them superpowers. I believe their God-given gifts are given to us to be a blessing and help to others. Some are curious. Rich, what are the one or two gifts that you believe you are given, and how does that help, how do you help and bless people today?

Rich:

It's a good question. I don't ever think about myself as someone who has superpowers or these proclivities to being great at anything specifically, maybe I'm a bit more of a relationship person, where relationships are more about quality over quantity, so I spend a bit more time on them, which is served me well in a service business, like selling real estate where I really looked after my clients with a lot of loyalty and consultation platform, and then, as far as I think overall, in high school and in college, my inability to play within the box sort of caused me no other option but to be self-employed, and being an entrepreneur and being able to work fluidly within my own rules, or to my own beat has been very attractive. I've been self-employed my whole life before I'll be 44 in July. Anyway, I guess you know, by misbehaving taught me that I should work for myself and by focusing on the value that people offer each other, has been good for being a listing agent and then has translated very well toward being in the eXp revenue share- portion. Very relationship-oriented system.

Brett:

The gifts of relationship-building quality over quantity, building your business, and your life and relationships with loyalty and consultation, and then I love this bar. This is my favorite inability to play within the box, right? That's, you know, most entrepreneurial journeys right at some point in their life, right? I was the kid in high school, the teacher says, I wasn't the favorite kid, right, I was the kid who's looking for ways to get the A or the B, and the least amount of energy and time possible unless it was something that I love. Like, if it was history, or math like I loved about certain subjects, I'm just like, kind of loathe it right, and looking back, the box was you want, you got to get straight A's and all these things and get, even the LSAT scores and all that stuff, and I'm going man, I just didn't have the passion for certain subjects. But then I found real estate, I had a passion for that. Right, then I found ways to Defer Tax and help people solve problems, have a passion for that.I think we're in the business race or not actually even selling real estate, or even selling a model of eXp, or for us selling what's called the Deferred Sales Trust, we're actually in the business of solving problems, right, and so talk to us about how your consultation approach and your building relationships, and even how you've helped other agents solve problems in their life has helped you grow your business.

Rich:

I think the first part of that is identifying what the problems are, most of us can, can scratch this out on a piece of paper in about 10 seconds, right? You became self-employed to be a real estate agent to have time and flexibility in what you have neither you got into being self-employed to be able to have no limit on your ceiling, but your lack of business education and leadership skills, certainly puts a ceiling on your income, because what you don't know boxes you in pretty tight. There's a lot of pitfalls in selling real estate, and I think one thing that our model at eXp does is it solves problems, from the actual issue, not the symptoms, and what I overlay on top of that is I am very good at worrying about other people, I mean, probably not the best quality for myself, but I want people to succeed, and I don't ask for my agents to do things that they don't want to do, I'm pretty good at finding out their bandwidth or their tolerances in certain avenues, and we work on one or two things.

When it came down to clients, I was pretty good at assessing a game plan, setting expectations, competently guiding them through that process, and having some fun while we're doing it, and as that transitioned into being an entrepreneur, not a technician, I don't think that the algorithm or the recipe is all that different. People want to trust you, you have to be trustworthy, I think that you have to be accessible and come through, and you have to want what's best for them, and push them just a little further than what might be comfortable for either of you, and I think that when you have enough relationship points that you guys are, are solid in the relationship, you can stretch it a little further, and I think that's where all the fun is, you know, for both parties.

Brett:

So much wisdom there, and I think one of your gifts is in the relationship part to get a little bit more on dive on that is the EQ. The emotional intelligence and the ability said to ID the next, biggest challenge or the next biggest thing for someone to overcome, and then really just kind of encourage them sending a game plan and being like. You can do this right, I'll help you get there. Whether that be for your client on the on your selling, or that'd be for your real estate team. Is that a fair summary Rich?

Rich:

100%. I think frankly, the way that you do your life personally and professionally, is either going to be attractive to the majority of people or the minority of people, and if it's the minority, know your audience and go after them, and if it's for the majority of people, if you're well-liked, and you're honest, you can do really well in real estate, and learn the rest as you go. The problem is, is that most people aren't self-aware to know that they don't fall into that category, and nobody else wants to dwell on that. That's a that's a burden. We have a lot of people that are in this business that chase dollars that don't care about people or that are lazy or looking for a boss or playing the victim card, and just basic things that we suffer from as human beings, and in this business. It's not very forgiving to those. Essentially if you're doing life with honor and facing problems, you know, straight ahead, and being honest, where you don't know the answers. I think you do very well, pretty much anywhere. It's not a complicated process, although it is an unusual set of skills that people seem to have these days from time to time.

Brett:

Now let's dive into the eXp part of it, and really kind of dissect this for those who are either listening for the first time or the agents that are on the fence or those agents that you know, are still I call believers versus nonbelievers in full disclosure. I'm a believer, I'm a part of eXp I started at Marcus And Millichap in 2006, commercial real estate broker to the core multifamily, and then I dismissed it five years ago because I didn't underwrite the model, and I didn't actually meet with the leadership. I just kind of heard about it. But now once I underwrote the model, and looked at this, it's, it's transformational in a lot of ways, and I want to really dive into a part of things. But you said something was really interesting. You said eXp creates either an environment or a foundation that helps to fundamentally solve the actual issues that agents are facing. Not just the symptom. Can you dive into that a little bit more, and then we'll dive into your eXp story?

Rich:

100%.it's pretty much the symptom of real estate is that I need a closing coordinator. I need buyer's agents, I need better time management, and the fact of the matter is that this is a treadmill, you can't get off, right, you're making too much money. If you're successful at this to ever get off it, you end up rewarding yourself with a nicer house and fancier cars and further attract yourself into the burden of bills that keep stacking up. We don't save enough money. When we're on our run like we've been since 2013 or 14, we've been on a positive cycle of you know, I don't know 1011 year cycle, we're breaking records right now, people forget the pain that they dealt with in 2000 and 789. It's an easy place to lose perspective, and lose track of the long term, and what eXp does is creates sort of a three-lane highway for us to operate in real estate, you have lane one, which is selling real estate, but we solve a lot of the problems like healthcare, I buyer programs, technology, referral programs do our workplace, instant support that's virtual through our cloud campus and our 600 employees on technology, marketing, flyers, websites, squeeze pages, the whole gamut, you have all of that lane one.

You also have a lane two and a lane three to help aid you when you get burnt out or you go through a downtime, or you need a mental health break or, or anything a crisis and lean-to ease earning shares of stock at a company that's gone from $2.87 on the Pink Sheets, to trading at $40 a share today after the split. My wife and I have been able to build a portfolio that's seven figures by doing what I did for the 23 years before that for trophies. We have lane two, and then lane three is the ability to assemble talent, build your culture and work together. Essentially, I brought over 51 agents to this brokerage, most of them within the first 18 months of being here, and they had some of them, they might already have repeated that same opportunity. they seize those moments, and now I have almost 1600 agents and we're adding more agents per month and my entire former brokerage had over 20 something years of being in the business. When you look at does this solve problems? Yeah, if there are three ways to get paid for what we used to do, all the time for one source of payment, I think that you can get there three times as fast.

Brett:

now let's dive into your actual story. Give us the first time you hear about eXp, what your first response was to it, and maybe it was, you're a believer right away and you moved over you saw it. Maybe there was some skepticism. What were the biggest challenges or hurdles for you a very successful real estate professional, right going to eXp tell us like before, and then we'll go during and after?

Rich:

I was very skeptical because I grew up in South Florida, so comes inherently with the territory. Um, I think I found out about eXp probably in June of 2017. I was doing about $43 million a business that year. I was all gray-haired. I had a one-year-old, I started being rather late, I have two little boys now. One, that's almost 5, and one, that's 2, and I was feeling like I was gonna miss all of his childhood if I continue to operate at the pace frantic, bizarre pace that I was operating at. I decided in about 10 minutes like I had nothing to lose.I joined on August 4, I brought over about 45 listings, we were about 1300 agents who had eXp we were only open in 38 states. It was sort of a startup still, even at that period of time, and I started to address real issues that other agents were having, like, listen, guys, how do we get out of this? We know how to get into trouble.

How do we get out of it, and how do we get out of it without divorcing the income and the stability that we've been able to provide by getting into the circus to start with, and I was I guess articulate enough to explain this to enough agents to gather some momentum and steam. The good news about being a productive agent is I knew all of the big players that I only went after the best agents. that was very helpful for me because every agent that I came over was sort of a legend in their own right. Their influence then superseded mine to where they brought agents over, I was not the most popular guy, I don't hang out with realtors, I don't go to big events. Anytime I get an airplane, it's because I'm going to travel for fun. I was sort of a black sheep have a success story at eXp.if I can do it, then that means any personality type or mindset could be successful. If you just do the micro stuff, every day initially.

Brett:

You're skeptical at first. But you looked at it, you underwrote it, and you really ask the question, how do we get out of this collectively, not just you work in this frantic pace, seeing your baby, first baby boy. You're going I don't want to miss this, and so that went from taking action and saying, What's the worst that can happen? By the way? It's similar. What I thought he was like, well, the worst thing that can happen is I just go back to what I was doing before, like, try this for a year, and it's not this good to be true, I and I always say no, it's this good to be true. Like it is exceeding my expectations every step of the way, with the leadership with the culture, with the technology, with the people I met, I went to my first ESB event in Cabo just a few months ago, and I'm going, I'm going Wait, every step of the way exceeds my expectations.

For those who are listening out there right now and ask Rich this question as well. I want to encourage you, I want to challenge you to what's the worst that can happen. You can work for six to 12 months, and it's actually and it's all bs or it doesn't work out or it's not what you thought to go back to where you're at. Right? But in this scenario, literally, every step of the way, with the people with the culture with the leadership with the technology, because what its agent own right, so we're in this together, even Rich been on the show right now, he doesn't need to be on the show. He doesn't need to work ever again. But Rich talks about that camaraderie, that connection, that culture, which is like nothing I've experienced before in any industry. How have you experienced that as well?

Rich:

The same exact way that you have everything is mind-blowing? If you're a skeptic on eXp, I understand. But this company is revolutionary. I buy shares of stock out of my pocket because I believe I'm so bullish on this stock, I can't even tell you. The fact of the matter is, is we're at 55,000 agents, we'll be at 100,000 agents at the end of the year, and revenue and agent count are parallel hockey sticks for us. If you're, if you're a skeptic on eXp asked yourself the question, am I renting my career? Or do I have equity in my brokerage, because you're spending way too many hours in yours there to not know the answer to that, if it's not your name on the sign, you are the retirement plan for somebody else, you have nothing to lose coming over here. I mean, you're going to earn stock, whether you like it or not, whether you believe in it or not. Right, you're going to have technology that will spin your head 360 because it's light years away from what you have now, and then if you have influence and the ability to be a connector and to if you're a good ambassador for the company and you love it, then you have this third lane, which very few of us take advantage of, and it's the revenue share lane and the way that I looked at it as I've had 13 people screenshot me.

They’ve retired seven-figure stock statements or their revenue share in excess, I can't talk about revenue share numbers, I wish I could because I'm dying to vomit that all over you. When people say that this doesn't work, I make more money than those people do in a year in a month. Right, and it's not because I'm the magical agent. It's because I'm on the escalator and they're on the staircase, and what they could look like on an escalator is for them to daydream about. But the fact of the matter is that every event is collaborative like no other company has ever been. Every event is done to the nines, every move they make is strategic and there's a benefit to every agent. I mean, you know, this company, the Department of Defense is using our technology. I mean, it's a bulletproof system, and if COVID didn't exacerbate the things that we've been preaching for, now at this point, what 12 or 13 years the company's been in information, then I don't know what is, I mean, we doubled an agent count, and in the top three big you know, I think we're number three or four in the country as far as transactions, but everybody in front of us either at best stayed the same agent count or last agents net.

Brett:

Thank you Rich for sharing that. I and I second and I agree with all of that and again challenged every agent out there who's listening to this or every broker, even if you have your own brokerage and maybe there's something we can dive into Rich like some people say, Well, I want to buy this other brokerage or I'm in succession to this other brokerage. I actually have a good friend of mine, we're mastermind together, and I'm recruited to the XP and you know, he's like, hey, if I ever come out, I'll come but I've got you to know, the guy who mentored me and coached me and I go, I know you're loyal to him. I get that, and I might be buying that from him, and I'm going, but wouldn't it be better if you entire thing came over when they actually better for him as well. Because if you think about it, the exit plan for him is a sell it to you you take over. But what if you could have a recurring income stream over a period of time? And you both could have So spoken to the person who's saying, well, I might be buying another brokerage, right? And speak to the broker who's saying, I already have my own thing going, why would I? Why would I join the eXp?