Brett:

I’m excited about our next guest. He is one of the most respected serial entrepreneurs and investors are known for his unmatched track record of success, enormous love of people fierce passion for winning, and unbridled desire to change the world for the better and his 30 years as a serial entrepreneur, he has transformed concepts into the most successful companies with his creativity, leadership innovative management techniques. his achievements are considered life-changing for many years resulting from hundreds of people worldwide have become entrepreneurs. He has always been defined by his zealous love of business, a Swiss Army knife, and a commitment to building leaders and great companies. He is an expert when it comes to all things m&a, business brokerage, entrepreneurialism, and leadership and also has a love for real estate and he is with eXp Commercial and he is helping to disrupt an industry and the business brokerage world. Like has never been done before and it's already happened with the eXp residential world and it's happening in the commercial world right now. Please welcome the show with me, Sean Palmer. Sean, how are you doing?

Sean:

Good. Brett, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to get on these podcasts and give people great information about what's going on.

Brett:

Absolutely excited to have you on the show. We're talking about creating an eXp business brokerage with Sean Palmer. We're gonna dive into his story and also the vision for, this disruptive model of doing business together as business professionals. But before we go there Sean, would you give our listeners a little bit more about your background and your current focus?

Sean:

I grew up in the south, I guess you can hear from my Southern accent, I was part of the family business for about 13 years and my family basically cater to all the fortune 500 companies across the foodservice industry and I got to the point where I felt like I was a seasoned enough entrepreneur to possibly go out on my own I respectfully asked my father, if I could exit the company, I sold my stock and moved into my own business. After creating my very first company, I was able to grow that and sell it to a Fortune 500 Company, which made itself all over the world in a particular chain that is very successful today and from there what I determined is I was an entrepreneur and I had a head above that I really didn't realize how much I enjoyed creating something larger than just a local company and so then I began to pursue opportunities for very seasoned companies from the largest out there and some of the largest franchise companies and they began to either I would either start my own and grow this business or I would work for an independent, very large company and grow their business all over the world. I've had the pleasure to probably live in over 25 of the 50 states throughout 30 years and I've also been in life throughout Asia and Asia, Pacific, Australia, and grow businesses internationally. I've been able to not grow just in North America, which is always it's my country, it's where I'm born is where I love. But when you can expand your horizon and meet people and grow businesses all over the world, you become I don't know, it's something about culture and people and things that in business that's just very exciting when you can do things together.

Brett:

Amazing, part of the background, and very neat to be able to have such a diverse amount of experience there. Before we dive into the new chapter of your career and your passion and being an entrepreneur to help build and create the business brokerage side of eXp, I want to take one other step back, I believe we've all been given certain gifts in this life, Sean. I want you to maybe go back to the high school days are the college days and these gifts I believe have been given to us to be a blessing and help to others. Some people call them strengths and superpowers. I'm curious what are those one or two gifts that you believe you were given? And how do you use those to help and bless people today?

Sean:

Well, I think I have a servant's heart in regards to what I do every day. I believe in good business. I don't believe in gray lines. I believe in black and white and the good thing I think that I was taught by my grandfather, my father and And we're doing business myself, relationships are everything and if you maintain in and do what's right when you're building those relationships, you can turn around five years later, 20 years later, and those are the same people that are supporting you over and over again, no matter what you're doing. It also attracts some of the best people in the world to go what you've done is impressive. I want to be a part of that I want to do something with you on your next adventure and so if anything I would tell everyone is by keeping your commitment honoring your word, working hard, being a conduit between good people and, and really not necessarily taking the credit for everything that you're actually capable of doing. But bringing a team together and when those teams actually come together, then great things happen not only just locally but wherever you're at. I definitely believe that is super important.

Brett:

Amazing love that you have a servant's heart, being putting relationships, a top priority. Saying what you do and doing what you say, keeping very, very good business ethics, and being a constant team player. Is that a fair summary?

Sean:

Yes. Very good summary.

Brett:

It's fantastic and let's dive right into the subject at hand creating eXp business brokerage. What's the number one secret to what's happening right now? And the number one thing that you're most excited about is how eXp business brokerage is going to change the industry forever?

Sean:

That's a great question. The biggest business brokerage industry is an enormous industry and, and what's really unique to it is although there's a lot of professionals in this industry, they're fragmented into, they're separated between independent businesses and franchise locations and those locations can be scattered all over different parts of the world. But I would say the majority of the businesses in North America that is that the industry focuses on and because I have for the last four years, I've been working with eXp, their leadership, their board members, their CEO, and president, possibly considering coming into the business brokerage space in the m&a space, it's not something that was they were totally comfortable with because in early on, they were growing their residential side of their business so large and in anytime that you can take a company that's picked up 54,000 agents within the last four years, trying to bring a great idea and a big industry to them, not necessarily was their focus.

But I opened their eyes great enough to win stability, God put it in place and the commercial eXp was developed. Now business brokerage actually had a seat at the table, and so did mergers and acquisitions, to separate different areas, but definitely two big, big industries and so this industry is so large, about 15,000 transactions in the United States actually processed through professional Business Brokers and for every additional 1%, which let me back up a little bit that that 15,000 transactions actually only represents 3% of the total market that actually goes through professional Business Brokers and so the reason that I really wanted to see ESP look at this space, and then eventually jump into it is that for every 1% that we grow this industry, we pick up an additional $250 million in clothes business and they're this brand being global already in 15 countries in growing into 21 by the end of this year, picking up that 1% and continuing to grow it is a very exciting time for anyone that's in business brokerage or mergers and acquisitions. It's awesome to consider where we're going with this.

Brett:

Huge stats there and kind of, especially in it’s definitely fragmented. I think even more so than even residential or even commercial brokerage as Marcus and Millichap and it seems like there's it's can be hard to get really good training mentors, consistency and loyalty and what like to say we're in it 100% one another and the more you don't have that the more challenging it becomes and what I love about eXp with their leadership with their culture with the model with foundationally is solving the challenges for the business professional, the real estate agent, the commercial broker, now the business brokerage broker when you have those foundational pieces in place, now you can build that so would you just speak to because a lot of people who are listening to this may not know just how challenging the old model was, but give it give us some of those pain points, some of those challenges that you found before the eXp.

Sean:

Business Brokers have they have a challenge every day because they live and die by listings and by sales and so in between, let's say listing A and listing B, it could be three months or six months, it could even be longer and so the challenge is its feast or famine. If you're closing deals, you're actually making large commissions, and you're being able to take care of your family. But in between those deals, you're actually struggling a little bit, because what eXp has done is been able to create a system where we're actually going to pay higher commissions, because there is a cap, and once that cap is met, there is what we call rev share and as the company grows globally, as someone comes into eXp, we're actually taking 50% of our cap dollars, and we're sharing it with those Business Brokers, commercial agents, residential agents, and that's putting a substantial amount of money into individuals pockets. There are people that make a couple of $1,000 a month, and there are people that make $100,000 a day in rev share, and that's a big spread, but it really depends on Are you a person that is actively outgrowing your organization. One of the other biggest things that any agent has, whether they're in commercial residential is there's usually no healthcare and eXp has bridged the gap with some of the best health care in the industry.

We have errors and omissions insurance, which covers every transaction up to $85 million at $100, per deal and after 10 deals for the calendar year, there's no additional cost in E and O to you as people come into this industry, I think the number one problem they have is not necessarily some of the things that I've just mentioned. But training, training is the biggest and most important aspect to deliver not only a seller, a good person that will take care of them but a buyer that needs to get the right information handed to them in a professional way. They can actually close transactions. The great thing about eXp is our stage our training stage, every person that comes into the organization that has an ability to train, no matter what it's on, we're gonna we'll have a minimum of about 50 hours of training weekly, that someone can tune into and then if they are trainers, they can actually get on the stage and, and do a training on that subject that they're really good at as we attract the best agents, brokers, m&a firms in the world, those people will come into our system, and they will train our agents all over the globe and as I say if you're a trainer, you're the one that's going to make a large amount of rev share because you're attracting attention to yourself and people want to be connected and in a join to very successful and intelligent and educated people that can help them get their job done better.

Brett:

I just remember my experience of Marcus & Millichap, which is an amazing firm commercial real estate training was, I think, number one is still probably one of the tops in the industry and what it was like the Navy Seals of training and what was amazing about it was they trained and they taught us well. But one of the challenges was on the backside of that where you might bring in somebody and you might train them and you might give your secrets you might give your best practices just for them to become a direct competitor. What is the best-kept secret when it comes to how eXp has encouraged and aligned Business Brokers, M&A, professionals, agents? What do you find is that best-kept secrets are really, really share and build a business together?

Sean:

That's a great question, Brett is due to the fact that eXp success is really based on rev share. No time in history has anyone ever been able to join a company and if they hit a 20% cap, which is about $20,000, or your first $100,000 in commissions, that money is then paid back to you in stock from the eXp so not only are you giving them that $20,000 of your first 100 but you're actually giving it back in stock. That's a beautiful thing giving anybody from residential, commercial, etc. Stock because they actually were part of the company eXp is employee-owned, agent-owned it's 58% of the company are the shareholders that own eXp and so that is a major differentiator and so when someone comes to eXp it's not typical that you tell someone goes and takes all of your enemies and all of your biggest competitors and have them join you. Because as they join you, you guys have become a centralized force. You actually work together you benefit each other. You share They're not in necessarily each other's commissions, but you're bidding from the rev share program that eXp is developed. That's the reason they've been able to attract 60,000 agents in the last 10 years is that that system has ultimately shown the individual that you can work hard or you can work smart. But regardless, you're going to make a lot of money if you do that. Well. It's very powerful.

Brett:

It really is. It's life-changing and it's business changing in so many ways, and I love the way you put it centralized force where I read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, talks about this quadrant, and what quadrant what side are you on? Are you in the employed self-employed, business owner or investor, and ideally, you want to get on the right side of the quadrant, as a business owner, and as an investor and so for the longest time, with traditional brokerage models, residential business brokerage, or even m&a or commercial real estate, we're on the left side, where you're self-employed independent contractors and or employees, and we're not owning the brokerage a because of the overhead be because of the lack of, having to run a technology company, we want to be in sales? I feel like eXp has basically solved that challenge and allows us now to get on the right side of the quadrant, be a business owner, build your business, along with those that, like you said, your competitors, though you're doing business with as well as become an investor and owner, versus just renting your brokerage. Talk about the power of that and where do you think the business brokerage model is going to be with eXp in the next one to three years?

Sean:

Our number one focus right now in the United States and we're growing actively with some of the best Business Brokers and m&a firms that have come on to eXp Commercial, which is actually we're going to be branded as eXp for business because we're not this division is not real estate, it falls under eXp Commercial and then our m&a Division, which is a totally separate division, we understand clearly that there is a bucket for Business Brokers, and there's a separate bucket for m&a. But for us to be successful. I mean, we have to have the tools which we do we have to have the technology. We're a technology company that happens to sell stuff like real estate and businesses and homes and, and that's the great thing about us, we're an $8 billion company, there's not a never has been an $8 billion company enter into space like a business brokerage. I think that there have been real estate companies attempt to get into the business brokerage, but they really weren't designed and set up for it. There were no proper systems, they were not technology that you could rely on. There's not the right CRM, the forms that cater to every state. But the reason that eXp will be successful in just take the United States, its alone, traditionally, if you're a California business, you are landlocked California, and if a deal came up in Texas, because you're not licensed in Texas, it's not possible for you to do a Texas deal.

But now because eXp has dedicated salary, brokers of record per state, whether you're a residential agent or commercial agent, we tied those individual agents to broker, therefore, if there is a deal that's crossing the lines, we can get our state brokers involved, they can work with the Business Brokers of record in any particular state and commissions can be paid through a referral program through a commission program, whatever real estate legal, is how we're going to handle that. But there's no state that we can't do transactions, open lines, and to the business brokerage industry, that's actually never really been done well before and so now it is possible, you no longer have to be in the state of Alabama or state of Texas. You can grow anywhere in the United States and we can take you to Canada and take you to India and take you Australia, wherever you want to go and we weren't 15 countries. That's the beautiful thing about eXp we're a very large, well-oiled machine that's ready and available to anyone that actually knows their perfect question.