SPEAKER_00 0:00

We were generally just throwing stuff at the wall and like just business hoping we could figure something out. You can't just buy partnerships, to be honest with you. The biggest thing we're trying to do is get to know the humans that we're looking to work with. The helping people is is the fun part of this.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

So find the people that can help you get in front of them, but at the end of the day, be valuable.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

We tried so many things that didn't work.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Hey, what's up everybody? Grant Weiss here, and welcome back to the Partner and Profit Podcast. I got two guys here with me today. I don't know if they call themselves partners or not, but I'm sure that they probably would. I think they've known each other for a long time, but they are in the process of growing a company and have done some amazing things over the last several years. And I'm excited to unpack that here today for the show. So Spencer and Randy with Rooster. Thanks so much, guys, for stopping by and hanging out with me for a few.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, really flattered to be here.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's uh let's dive in. Um give everybody that's watching this just a little bit of your background. Randy, maybe you go first. Uh, how did you get to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

So my name's Randy Carroll. Uh, been in the prop tech space, you know, going on 11 years now. Uh, and I would say it's been a very unexpected ride. I actually got into the industry because I met a company called Commission Zinc and asked my dad at the time, who is a real estate agent, hey, do uh real estate agents need CRMs in lead generation? Said yes, matter of fact, they do. So that's kind of what uh kicked off my career into the prop tech space. Uh so I started Sync, did a stop at Chime, helped grow their strategic partnership business. They they relied entirely upon uh basically online paid leads as their form of business. And so I came on board there to help build a partnership channel for sales um before helping get Rooster off up off the ground.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

Nice, nice, nice, thanks, Randy. What about you, Spencer?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, so uh funny enough, pretty similar uh background. So Randy and I were actually freshman roommates uh for college football, so we've known each other quite a while, and after college, we were playing like a small school in North Carolina called the Norrine D2 School. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Powerhouse.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

We we wanted to continue to chase concussions as adults, so we were playing uh like adult league rugby, and one evening after rugby practice when we're covered in mud, there's this, you know, 6'8 dude from New Zealand who introduced us, saw, you know, saw us in this rugby attire, introduced us to at the time uh was so back the president or VP. In leadership at sync. That's that's the real backstory of how we fell into uh Prop Tech. And uh it's it's been a fun uh fun handful of years now at Rooster. We're you know, we're the second and third full-time team members at Rooster, so like super early on, pre-revenue, um, and that's been a lot more fun than you know being employee 80 at some of these companies like we haven't in the in the past.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

I would imagine you guys have seen some things going from basically brand new startup to where you're at currently. What are what are some of the things you guys have tried that didn't work? This is probably a fun question.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Oh man, we've tried everything. We've tried everything that didn't work. Oh my goodness. My favorite my favorite example is we hired this company that it was that that would you pay per appointment. So they had folks, they built a marketplace where I, as an individual, could go in there and sign up to become an ISA for a company, and then companies would kind of rent out these ISAs to set appointments, and you would pay per appointment. And the funny thing about real estate is real estate agents pick up their phone at an astronomically higher rate than so many other industries. So these uh ISAs would be called because you never know who's on the other line, right? Like an agent's gonna pick up their phone hoping that they're hearing from a buyer or a seller. So they would get these calls from these ISAs and they would call they would agree to the appointment just to get the person off the phone. And so they would set dozens of appointments, and these these ISAs thought that they had found the golden goose. Yeah, but the problem was they didn't get paid unless the person actually showed up. And I remember the best example of what a nightmare this ended up becoming was we were late to one of my fr uh wife's friend's wedding because the ISAs had set six appointments for me that day. I was like, sweetheart, sorry, I can't skip on these to go to this wedding. So you're just gonna have to wait, we can leave when I'm done. All six no showed. So I sat there with a whole calendar all day, just plopped there in front of my screen in my Zoom, waiting for someone to join all day long by myself because no one no one joined. So that was a huge, huge disaster.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

So, you know, it's partner profit podcast. How how have you guys grown in in the various ways that you have um and the various businesses that you have when it comes to like partnerships and relationships? How has that been valuable to the growth over the years?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

I think once we figured out who we wanted to partner with, like once we really honed in on who our you know ICP, what that what that client profile was, that helped us align with you know the right communities, the communities where uh you know the folks we wanted to partner with live. Speaking in the real estate world, you know, the the brokerages that that you know seem to attract the types of folks that we want to work with, and then the other you know, software and service providers that already have relationships um you know with a lot of the folks that that we want to partner with. That's probably the number one lever, honestly, in the growth we've had. Um the certainly the growth accelerating prior to that. To Randy's point, we were we were generally just throwing stuff at the wall and like just business hoping we could figure something out, you know, whether it was buying leads that I think we had personal trainers filling out our lead forms for for real estate sites and apps. And yeah, I mean that it was we we tried so many things that didn't work, but now that we've really focused on for us, you know, it's it's high high high production independent brokerages and and real estate teams, really figuring out who we want to serve has has helped us create the right relationships, maintain the right relationships, and um stop just being you know, cat chasing a laser pointer with with our business growth strategy.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, yeah now for people we didn't understand who we wanted to partner with until we really understood who our avatar was.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Right. I think that that's what kind of what Spencer was leading to. And I was gonna ask for clarification for people who don't know what is ICP?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Uh ideal client persona, that's probably wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

I don't know. It's your acronym, so I was I was wondering.

unknown 7:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Our ideal client. I say avatar, it's all ideal client.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Okay, so you guys kind of nailed down the ideal client, ideal avatar, the people that you wanted to work with. And then that drove your decision making on, like, okay, we've got to go partner with these people. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Yeah. Okay, got it. Now, I think a question is always on everybody's mind is like, how do you start those relationships? Um, you guys have created partnerships over and over and over again in the real estate space with some of the the biggest players in the game. Is it you just throw money at it? Like, how how do you get those things? How do you get those partners to the table so they actually want to do business with you?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

It is uh it's a number of things. You can't just buy partnerships, to be honest with you, because then you're very much renting them. It feels very inauthentic, and as soon as you stop writing the check, the partnership goes away. Yeah, right. But it is how you open up doors that may otherwise be closed to you. Uh, but you've got to pour into partnerships in more ways than just money.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Give me some examples.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

You know, being present in a community, whether it's online or in person, and contributing value that someone can actually take and implement in their business and see an improvement, even if it doesn't mean buying your product. If everything that you do revolves around just buying your product, you become worse than white noise. People see you walk up at events or show up in forums online and they start rolling their eyes, like, oh, here comes this guy. This guy's about to pitch me, this guy's about to pitch me. It's a really kind of ugly or gross approach, in my opinion. So bringing value uh that doesn't require a credit card.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

How do you identify what that is? Like how what is y'all's process for getting to know the people that you're trying to partner with so that you even understand what's valuable to them?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

I I think up to this point, generally when when we're seeking out new opportunities or just when we're out on the road, for for a context, Randy and I were gone about a hundred days out of you know 365 last year. So we're on the road an awful lot. Um to Randy's point, we're we're doing our best to you know be in these rooms, get in these rooms, because that's that's step number one. But the biggest thing we're trying to do is get to know the humans that we're looking to work with. Well before we ever discuss our business, certainly before we discuss theirs, I I think that's allowed us to like create real human-to-human connection, which lends itself to have uh folks don't don't have their guard up when we're engaging with them. We we wait quite a while before we ask for anything in return to avoid you know being the the sleazy sales guys. So that's uh been very helpful in in just trying to build relationships and and folks will end up connecting us with others even before we are potentially partnered with them or doing any form of business with them just because they they trust us as people um and and they might generally know what we do, but uh they they haven't necessarily ever transacted with us in any meaningful way.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Just uh to further clarify for everybody that's listening to this, do you guys is it like engaging on social media? Is it sponsoring events? Is it like when you say that you're you know get to know the humans, what do you do with that information? Like, how do you create that relationship?

SPEAKER_01 10:43

It's all of the above. It's all of the above. If you want to form an actual partnership, there you you can't just go one of those routes, you have to do it all, you have to be engaged on every level. Um, and eventually you'll get to a point where you're not necessarily paying to sponsor the event, you're being asked to speak at the event because you've poured enough into the community.

SPEAKER_04 11:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Uh so if you're looking for the one thing you need to do, sorry, partnerships are more about or more than just any one lever you have to pull.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Now you said you said that when you you know, if you just go to write a check, you stop writing checks, the relationships end. When it comes to managing and maintaining a relationship, I kind of have an understanding how you guys start them, but you're kind of digging in a little further to what you said, Randy. How do you guys maintain them? What is what is y'all's strategy for you know managing a relationship long term so that it lasts and it gets better?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

The long the long term it's very much like tending a garden, right? You have to continue pouring into it. You have to continue to give it value again that goes beyond just writing a check. Our product solves a very specific problem. Uh helping people educate and understand that problem, giving people solutions to other problems they may have even before they get to ours. Right? Like if you think about it, we go to these events and we hear some of the best in the country speak. I just become a broker of information. Hey, per person A, you have this problem. I saw person B talk about how to solve this. I have nothing to do with it, but this worked for them, maybe it works for you. And that doesn't glorify me at all. Uh but it does build credibility. It does make people think, oh, Randy is pretty knowledgeable outside of just what his product does. Maybe he has some more value to bring to me.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Got it. Spencer, do you have any thoughts there?

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah, I mean, my my favorite call to get, especially from the the the folks we're partnered with and you know our clients, are hey, I'm thinking about doing ABC. It has nothing to do with Rister. Um, what what do you think about this? You know, what are what are some of the other you know, teams, what are my peers doing, how are they handling it? To me, that's that's the fun part of this. Like we're leveraging software to positively impact humans, but like the helping people is is the fun part of this. So I I do think that contributes to the relationships that that we have. And and I I think that that helps us, even if there's ever a hiccup or something doesn't go well, um, that that helps us just be viewed as you know a trusted partner and somebody that folks want to continue to work with and have a relationship with, versus um at one of our prior companies, everything was very transactional. Like there was there there was no human-to-human connection. And so I think going that route has allowed us to have deeper relationships than we have um in in prior experiences. And to your question of you know, which one is the best, I I would say being belly-to-belly with people, you know, breaking bread, like actually being in person with you can't you can't beat that. Yeah. Um attractions exactly. Social is is extremely helpful though, because it does allow you to start to form relationships or at least get yourself out there one-to-many in a way that you just I mean, you can't scale that, can't fly to every single person in America's office, you know. Um you do have to do everything, but the end goal is always getting you know one-to-one and ideally in person with folks.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

When it comes to structuring deals, you guys have sounds like you've got some experience in your past with strategic partnerships and stuff like that. What are what are some do's and don'ts when you go to put partner deals together? That you can you guys are both kind of smiling, so I feel like maybe you've got some good answers to these questions. I don't know, but um what what are what are some do's and don'ts of like putting deals together? What have you guys seen? It's like, hey, yeah, you should do this, and oh hey, don't do this. What are some challenges?

SPEAKER_01 14:44

It's really important to define the objective in like a measurable way, right? So we've had lots of folks come to us uh with these offers of I have this amount of influence and I can get you this much business. Yeah, I can get you a lot of business. But what is a lot of business? Is a lot of business a deal? Is it a new client? Is it 10 new clients? Like, so when folks come to us with this really vague promise, uh it's important to put some actual numbers and boundaries behind it. Uh otherwise, how do you measure it? And then who and then no one's happy at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04 15:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

There's no clear objective. So you need you need to structure, you know, any type of business relationship in that regard with boundaries and with actual numbers and structure uh with objectives that everyone can steer together towards versus constantly battling each other over how you measure what the influence has been.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

I've found, and this is probably atypical, uh, it's probably not what they teach in you know an MBA class, but I've found that the relationships that end up being the most impactful and the most fruitful generally haven't had a ton of money flowing back and forth. Like Randy and I make recommendations for for programs all the time. We aren't signed up as affiliates for anything. And I think folks can sense that we genuinely believe in the product or service that we're we're recommending, or that you know, the person behind the product or service. I I mentioned co-marketing yesterday. Like, you're not paying me anything, we don't have anything in place. But I've you know I've seen it working for you know for Justin and some of the other folks, and I think it's pretty slit. I think more folks should use it. And and I've always found that those relationships where you know I'm not necessarily paying folks to say good things about my business either, those end up having more referrals flowing back and forth and more positive you know conversations happening back and forth. Because again, folks can sense like, is this just a is this guy a paid chill or does he genuinely believe in in what he's trying to tell me I should you know spend thousands of uh thousand thousands of dollars on or not?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah, I think if a company is really, really concerned with the affiliate dollars they're gonna get paid, they're missing the forest or the trees. Right? They're tripping over dollars to pick up pennies. Like, I'm not worried about affiliate dollars. I'm gonna bring value to a community, and in turn, they're gonna come and sign up for my product, and I'll make way more money than I ever would getting paid fractions of whatever they're paying for some other service. So uh plus you can't put a price on your reputation. Like, yeah, once that's once that's been lost, good luck rebuilding that.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Mm-hmm. Well, we've seen that story play out in real estate over and over and over again. There's a lot of companies that unfortunately have uh done it right or done it wrong, and then obviously there's a lot of companies that have done it done it right, but in it real estate is such a big industry, but it's so small at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

It's like very small, very small.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Yeah, it really feels that way for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Well, it's because um real estate is Hotel California. You can never leave, right? Look at Spencer and I we're on a third company in this industry, right? By the time it's all said and done, and I hang up the cleats, I'll probably have worked for you know a dozen different companies. You can't you can't go out burning bridges.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

100%. And that's kind of the point, like you know, you develop a level of mastery in an industry, in a field, in a niche, so that you kind of have that luxury, right? You get to where you're later on in life and you can kind of do whatever you want because you've you've paid your dues. Uh and then it's like the essence of the message that I'm getting from you guys is really you know, know who you want to work with and find the people that can help you get in front of them, but at the end of the day, be valuable. Yeah, it kind of feels like the essence of the message. Is that what you guys would say?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

100%.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Find ways to be valuable. I appreciate you guys finding ways to be valuable on my podcast today. Uh, it's it's much appreciated. I want to respect your time. So I always like to I always like to kind of wrap up with this last question is just how can we as listeners of the podcast, how can we partner with you guys? How can we help you grow your business? What can we do to support you?

SPEAKER_01 18:59

We're a small company, we do zero dollars in paid advertising. Uh, you only know about us if you listen to this podcast or go to one of the events that we attend. So just get the word out. We work with large teams and independent brokerages. If uh you hear someone talking about wishing they could capture more of the business side of their database, share the good word. It's rooster.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Is that why it's called Rooster? Because you guys help people wake up their databases?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Um, it is now. It was a happy accident we stumbled into.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Yeah, didn't necessarily start. I had a really good call with Brett the other day, and we just got to know each other a little bit for about 30 minutes or so. He was he was a really nice guy, but definitely learned that uh you know business is an evolution evolving process. It takes time to figure out where uh where and and how and who and what and all that other stuff. But no, you guys are awesome. I really appreciate you. And again, thanks for just being here today, being valuable. Um definitely appreciate you spreading the word about comarketing.com and we'll we'll work hard to continue to spread the word about rooster. Appreciate you guys a ton.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Thanks, Greg. Thanks, bro.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

Yeah, yeah. And uh to everybody listening, I appreciate you. Thank you for continuing to listen to the Partner Profit podcast. We will see you on the next episode. Peace.