SPEAKER_01 0:00

I've had the same business coach since January of 2011.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Everybody wants help, but everybody's a little bit busy. I think most humans though are just sort of wired for relationship. How do you start a relationship with somebody you don't know but that you want to? Like, I'll find a way to work myself into their life.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Easiest way to get into a relationship with famous people is just pay them. If you can be curious about people, you can start to figure out what's important to them.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

What's up, everybody? Grant Wise here. Welcome back to the Partner Profit Podcast. Excited for my guest today, Mr. Kevin Kaufman. Is uh become a become a friend, somebody I've admired for a long time. We've had numerous conversations back and forth, collaborating, masterminding. I'm excited we get to do it today for you guys. So, Kevin, man, thanks for uh spending a few minutes with me. Yeah, man, my pleasure. Glad to do this. For people that are listening and don't really know who who you are, give us a little bit of the backstory, man. How do you get to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

That's a loaded question, Grant. Um, I sell real estate. I'm based in the Phoenix area, Tempe, Arizona. I got licensed in 07, but my business partner and I started working together in February of 2008. Uh we started a team. The reason I say based in Tempe is because we still, I guess we still do uh sell real estate in other markets, mostly just Denver and the Phoenix area. Phoenix is our home market, though, and our our focus. There was a time and point in our business where we were really focused on that expansion business and actually sold more real estate outside of Phoenix than we did inside of Phoenix. But for the most part, we I run a real estate team in the Phoenix area, about 15 agents or so right now. Mentioned 2008 is when my business partner and I started working together. So I'd been in the business about six months at that time. And uh we do that, a few other things. I run an organization, if you will, at EXP, kind of a we call it a community, next level agents uh at EXP that I spend a lot of time doing because I absolutely love kind of pouring into our agents and our in our group there, and then kept my hands busy with a few other things, you know, some some real estate investments and uh a few other things, and spending a lot of time being a dad.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

And uh that's that's me. That's awesome, man. When you look at, you know, growing your business through partnerships, relationships, you going back to when you guys really got started, how how has that impacted the growth of what you guys have done?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

I remember a very specific conversation I was having with my coach. I'm unique in the sense I've had the same business coach since January of 2011. Oh wow. So we just crossed over 15 years. And I remember this conversation that we were having with him probably late 14, early 15. And it kind of came down to the fact that we like we had to scale. Like we kind of we thought we had, I'm gonna use this term loosely, we thought we had figured something out, and we knew that the missing ingredient was more people because we felt like we now knew, like we had this process built and this system built and all this stuff. And one of the powers and partnership that that I have, one of the benefits I have is that there's two of us, and uh my business partner is amazing with like details and sort of making things fit. I'm really good at creating messes, you creating relationships, and then kind of bringing them home, the good ones home. We work together well like that. And I remember we had this conversation where I just realized, like, oh, I gotta go be the guy. I've got to bring in the agents, whether you know, just here locally in the Phoenix area or through our expansion business, which we had already started, uh we had already started that kind of middle of 14. And so I set out to go like, okay, how do I add agents? Like, how do I how do I scale my business? Well, it's gonna be through people. I already believed that was through relationships. And so one of the very first things I did to get that going was I went to all of my key relationships, people that I worked with. So my my mortgage partner, my title partner, my home warranty partner, so on and so forth. And I just had a simple conversation with them. I said, Hey, you know, we're partners, I love being in business with you, Grant. And, you know, I think last year I was able to send X amount of X inspections or we did X amount of loans together. I want to do more this year, and the way that I can do more is by having more agents and or employees that I'm in relationship with. The way you could help help that would be to introduce me to people. Not that I have to hire people, but you've got to introduce me to people. And so if I'm gonna go say from like 50 to 51 this year, like I need you to introduce me to people. And that was when I first really realized the power of relationship. I also went to people that had been calling on me. So, like the lender that wanted to be my lender, the title company that wanted to be my title company, and I said to them, if we are ever gonna go from zero deals to one deal, here's how we get there. And I just made them my partner, and that worked incredibly well, to be honest, for both employees as well as agents, and then as you know, like that leads to so many other good things too. Yeah, people start in order for somebody to do that, that like they have to know what you're about, they gotta know who your ideal person is, they gotta understand your business better and kind of like the the specialty that you bring. So it brought a lot of rich and deep relationships as well as it helped me generate a ton more business.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

That's epic. Was the was the result of that felt immediately, or is it something that took a little bit of time? It took some time.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

I I would say a little bit of both because as an I'll give an example, like my my primary lender, who it still is to this day, by the way, he understood right away. And he was like, Yeah, man, you you you want to hire people? He's like, I talk to agents and administrative people all the time. I would love to refer you. And so he started making introductions right away. Some others, it took a little while, but like it got so much that it just kind of became an engine for us.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

I've been in partnerships and and and I know you have too, where it's like, is it something where you have to consistently go back and remind people or you know, push people? Can you know what can you walk people through the walk us through that?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I took it very seriously, by the way. So as an example, uh for the people I told you about that were already my partners, I just went to them. I was like, hey, can I come to your office? Yeah. And I did, and I sat down with them. So they knew it was serious. The other people that like wanted to be my partner, I had them come meet, I had them meet me somewhere, like Starbucks or some whatever it was. Neutral site, but I made them come to me because I wanted them to know, like, I'm investing time and effort into this. And if you want to, there's something here, but like you have to do something. This isn't like Kevin and Group 4610 feeds me. This is we're gonna be partners. And then it was pretty simple. I just kept touching base with you know, some of them I didn't have to because they just sent me people or to check in. And others, like, I just made it part of my part of my lead gen time. I I realized, yeah, I could cold call agents and and don't get me wrong, and and call the agents that applied and the uh you know, people that applied for like salaried positions. I did that. I just also reached back out to my contacts, kind of kind of my my trusted advisors in the industry, if you will, the people that know other agents and other people in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

I think when a lot of people look at it, it's like, oh, partnerships are amazing, people can just feed me business. I'm like, yes, they will, but you have to remind them that that that that uh they committed to doing that. Not because people don't want to, it's just like everybody wants to help, everybody wants to contribute, but everybody's also busy, like they have their own lives, their own jobs, their own things that they are also doing. And I found in a lot of the work that I've done through partnerships growing just what we're doing with comarketing.com as an example is like it's your job, like you have to reach out and you have to build relationships and you have to maintain those relationships and you have to put things on the calendar, and you've got to like sometimes you've got to push, sometimes you've got to do those things because everybody wants help, but everybody's a little bit busy. It sounds like he had a similar experience.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, it's dude, it's kind of like you know, we're also we've always done really well with internet leads, and the reason why is because like it's a war of attrition, in my view, and it's not a call once thing, it's a call a hundred times thing. And it's not that people don't want to buy or sell real estate when they hit your website, it's that they might just be thinking about it, but it's just not the most important thing to them in that moment, and it's our job to to remind them. It this is the same thing, of course. Your title person is gonna think about you when they're thinking about you, but the reality is if they're not thinking about you, that's that's just as much on you as it is on them. Right? You like you've got to stay in touch and make sure they know you're still there, maybe provide some value along the way. You know, it's it's gotta be a give and take. You can't just say something once, you know, you don't just call a new lead once and then wait for them to call you back when they're magically ready because they're not going to. They're gonna call whoever is in front of them that day.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

What are the different ways that you were able to get people to start partnering? Was it just like I guess what I'm asking is like, did you have to curate events where it made sense for them to make introductions, or you know, like all the time we're doing webinars and challenges and launches and live events and this and that and the other thing? And I see a lot of people in the industry doing that. And those are really like manufactured opportunities to invite people to have an experience. Are those things that were top of mind for you guys? I mean, in recruiting, I would imagine that may be a thing, but you kind of walk me through that. Was it just something that everybody was on everybody's mind, or did you constantly curate experiences that people could have so that your partners could could be consistently pushing people your way? It's kind of easy.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

We have a cheat code as as in real estate, if if you're doing a lot of business, right? Because you're you're effectively bringing them business, like right, you know, and so there's this constant interaction, or or there can be anyways. And so that makes that a little bit easier. That said, yes is the answer to all of that. There's also, you know, when we put on events, say like a client appreciation event or something, all of our all of our partners are invited to participate in that as well. Um yeah, that is another reminder. Or we run morning huddles on our team. And you know, so our our our lenders in there, our title companies in there, uh, you know, often enough to where there's there's these experiences. So they're not forgetting what we're about, they're not forgetting what we're like, they're also experiencing us. But also, too, when I'm putting on events, say for the real estate agent community, again, making sure that they're included. It's just like with buyers and sellers, it's just staying in front of people, making sure that they remember, you know, that hey, this is this is what we're about, this is what we're doing. We're selling a lot of real estate. We'd like to hire and partner with more agents and and more great people, and we want to take care of our partners.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

And in return, we want them to take care of us. How do you find those people? How do you find people to partner with? Like, what's your process? I'm really intrigued by this question because I asked everybody the same one. It's like, how do you start a relationship with somebody you don't know but that you want to? Like, yeah, I've gotten some really interesting answers. I'm curious how you how you do it. Is it all relational, or do you do you have a strategy that you use to identify people you want to partner with and then actually create that relationship?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

It's a little bit of a hybrid for me. So I like I have this thing when I want to be friends with some, like if someone is intriguing to me, um, and I think there could be something there, or even if I just want to like learn from them, yeah. Maybe there's not necessary. Like I have a habit of like deciding to make them my friend. I find a reason, I find a way to make them my friend, right? Uh and so I will be more like intentional, like almost like a sniper about it. I'll find a way to work myself into their life uh so I can get to know them and hopefully build a relationship. And then other times, you know, it's more organic. Like maybe we're at the same event and I see your face, you know, two or three times at a simil at the same event over the course of a year or two. And so maybe it just comes up more organic. It's it's a little bit of both. A mutual friend of ours, John Cheploch, said to me one time on our very first phone call I had with him in I think 2016, he said to me, Does everybody you want to be in business with know that you want to be in business with them? And I I took that question very seriously, and I was like, the answer is no. And so I still to this day, I mean it was almost 10 years ago, and I I think about that constantly. And so, you know, there's a little bit of manufacturing for sure. Um sometimes it just happens, you know, very organically because of because of events or uh things that occur throughout the natural course of business.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

I think a lot of people listening to this would be interested to know your sniper strategies for making somebody your friend. It's it's a skill set I think that you acquire because not everybody is really good at it. Like get more tactical on it. What's something here here do the tell me a story before of somebody that you've done that with? How how did you how did you create a new friend intentionally? I mean, I'll just think of my friend Justin Martin in Denver, Colorado.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

I don't know if you know Justin, great dude. I saw Justin on a podcast. I happened to get introduced to him because a friend of mine was recruiting him. So I met him, I liked him, and then I think my next step with Justin was I invited him to be on my podcast, which was great because I got the chance to ask him questions. Yeah. And the whole the short answer I would have given you, kind of like the very short, the short answer that nobody would like was just be curious about people. But in fact, I was given a talk last week uh and it was about recruiting specifically, and I put a picture up of Ted Lasso, like be curious, yeah, just be curious. If you can be curious about people, you can start to figure out what's important to them. Like if you can just listen to the words that they're saying, and sometimes what they're not saying, whether maybe they've been on somebody else's podcast, so you can go listen to that, see if you can tune in to what stands out as important to them. Maybe over the course of your conversations with them, or maybe you're at an event and they're one of the speakers. When you listen to try to learn about them and understand them, it's real easy to go, oh, this is what they're into, or this is what's important to them. And I can use that as a segue for a conversation, which will then give me to the next step so I can go a layer deeper as an example.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

I think that you know, podcasting is certainly one of my favorite relationship development vehicles because you get an opportunity to just like sit down and get to know somebody for 30 minutes to an hour. When I first started podcasting, it was like free coaching. Because I was like, I was always so curious how all of these people that I knew were so successful, so I got an hour of uninterrupted time to like ask them all of my favorite, all of like the questions that I'm like, yeah, but how did you do this? And how did you do that? And how do you do this? And you get such an education doing it because you're like, oh, okay, I didn't know that. I'm gonna take a note about that, and that's probably gonna work. I'm gonna give that a shot. But yeah, getting it, getting that opportunity to like sit down. I think that's what a lot of people, you know, because a lot of the work that I do is in real estate home services as an example. So it's like, how do you start a conversation with somebody that you don't know but you want to? I think a lot of people are intrigued by that because they're doing it, like they're making a habit of like, okay, I'm gonna start a podcast, or I'm gonna throw an event, or I'm gonna host an experience, or I'm gonna my favorite strategy, because everybody's like, how do you get in close with John Chaplack, hired him to coach me for five years? Like that was a pretty easy, it was a pretty I'm like I say it was easy, it was a lot of work on my part, obviously, but some of my favorite strategies are like I was I was in a mastermind once. The guy, uh his name was Gulliver Giles, one of my favorite people, called himself the Australian s uh the Australian sales warlord. That's like what he went by. He had a sword that he carried to all of his events and stuff. He would knight people if they passed his sales certification classes. And um, I'm I'm not gonna try to emulate the accent, but I was like, how do you how do you get around all these super successful people? And he's like, Grant, it's so easy. It's like, all right, get my notebook out. What is it? He's like, you just pay them. I was like, what do you mean just pay them? Can I just call them and give them money? He's like, pretty much. He's like, all of these people have courses or masterminds or products or services or events or nonprofits or whatever. He's like, easiest way to get into a relationship with famous people is just pay them. They'll be your friends. I promise.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

And I know that can sound like, you know, whatever, not everyone's gonna love that answer, but it's true. Write the check to get in the room. Yeah. I mean, I've I've definitely done that plenty of times where I wrote a check specifically just so I could be in the room uh and get to know some of these, you know, get to know some people. I've got a friend who who is in the home services industry, massive business, massive business. I mean, big. And, you know, he he told me that like through his journey, I forget the number of people that he's coached, but he's basically he's like, dude, I've coached with everybody I can. He's like, because he used it as a tool, as a way to get to know them and to learn from them. He's like, everyone's, I mean, this is a guy that is one of the most one of the top three or four six most successful people I've ever met in my life personally. He was like, there's something you can learn from from everybody. He's like, if someone's selling a course where they have a mastermind or they're doing one-on-one coaching, he's like, they've got something to offer whether you like them or not. And it's you know, it's pretty easy to extract that. He's like, you know, you just keep the good stuff and and take what you you know, leave what you don't want.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Yeah. It's so good. It's so true. Like it, it is so true. If you uh somebody last week on the podcast was talking about, like, yeah, I buy all my friends, and he he went on to explain exactly what we just said. And he's like, I don't mean that like intentionally. He was like, but yeah, you can pay people and you can get in the rooms and make people your friends. It's not that not overly complicated. What are some ways that you've seen that really kill a partnership? You know, what are the what are some of the don'ts on the partnership relationship side of growing a business?

SPEAKER_01 18:10

I I think that the fastest way is to just not uphold your end of the bargain, right? Yeah. If if a relationship becomes too partnership becomes too one-sided, uh someone's not gonna feel good about that, right? Yeah, they're they're gonna feel resentful. Or if it if everything just feels transactional, that's I think over time that wears on people. Now there are some people that are out there that are they're a little more machine-like and they can operate like that for longer time than others. I think most humans, though, are just sort of wired for relationship, not just the give and take on the business side, but there's got to be some more substance there relationship-wise, too. And and so I I think that's something you gotta you gotta check in on from time to time.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I'm a big believer that relationships are not 50-50, like they're 100-100. It's two people giving 100% to the relationship that ultimately tended to have the most successful. But I also believe that being in a relationship with no expectations is like a surefire way to have a lot of success. Because if you're in a relationship and you're giving 100% and you have no expectations of the other person, I think maybe you can get burnt out if if the relationship is, you know, obviously, you know, toxic or not good. But generally speaking, I think you're gonna find you have a lot of success when you just focus on giving more than you get and not expecting a lot of other people. It's been a great formula for me. I don't know if if you agree with any of that or not, but I know so many people that are like, oh, I was just doing this and doing that, and they weren't doing their part, they just kind of get burnt out. I don't know if you if you've got any comments on that, but it's uh it's certainly something I've observed.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Like everything else in in life, in my opinion, like there's there's nuance to this, right? I love the approach of like low to no expectations, kind of give a hundred percent. And also they how they also do have to show up and bring something to the to the relationship. You know, what I always think about is when I first got licensed. I spent my first three or four years in real estate not realizing that somebody could actually be a partner. I thought vendors were vendors, and um, and certainly that is how a lot of people behave is like, hey, I'm gonna buy you lunch or I'm gonna bring cookies to the office meeting or whatever, and therefore I want your business. And to me, like I, you know, I don't want that relationship. I want a relationship that helps both of us grow. And so, I mean, it really it was uh my friend Greg, Gail, it was him. He he was the one that made me realize, like, oh, there's partnerships here. We can we could be partners, meaning they could help me grow, I could help them grow, and it would be win-win. So I I agree with you, like that's the mindset I want to put on, which is how can I how can I be all in? How can I give to this relationship and not have this weird set of expectations? And if I've done a good job, here's I think this is the kicker. If I've done a good job with selecting the person, everything takes care of itself. If I if I wasn't good at selecting the person I'm gonna be in business with, it's gonna get resentful pretty quickly. How do you know if you've done a good job? How do you get good at that? I mean, I think you can look at your results for do you have a wake of bodies behind you or not? Like event like you can say all these people wronged me, all these lenders were bad, or all these title people or whoever, fill in the blank, all these inspectors or these movers, whatever. You could say they're all bad, or you could just go, Well, okay, great. Who decided to work with them? Like eventually there's only one person that's at the scene of every crime.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Common denominator, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

What I see happens a lot with with real estate business owners, I see it a lot with like when they hire people as well, is they just ignore red flags. Almost invariably, like if I was like if I was coaching you and let's say you had a relationship that that had gone bad, it didn't feel good, easy question I'd say is Grant, let me ask you this question. During the I'll call it the interview process, what red flag did you ignore? And there's always an answer. If you're being honest, there's always an answer.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

That's so good. Man, I uh could talk to you for a little while longer, but I want to respect your time. I appreciate the the conversation today and the insight and the stories. Um I always like to ask, you know, what what is the way, what's the what's the number one way that we as listeners of the podcast that we could partner and walk alongside you and help you grow? What's important to you right now?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

You know, I mentioned like uh I run a group I run a big community at EXP. And the reason I love that is because I love having a community of like-minded real estate agents that want to grow. So anything, you know, anyone who's ever looking for that or wants to listen to real estate content, we've got a podcast as well called Next Level Agents. Those would be mean way, main ways, and uh always looking for I guess referrals too. So yeah, anybody who wants to buy or sell in Phoenix area, let us know.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

That's awesome. I'll make sure that we link up in the show notes all the ways that people can connect with you. And uh definitely encourage anybody that's listening to this, reach out to Kevin. He's a great guy, uh always wants to help, has a lot of value uh that he adds to the relationships, at least the ones that I'm a part of. And uh yeah, man, I really appreciate you spending some time today, and hopefully we can we can support you and and help you grow too. You got it. Thanks, Grant, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. And thank you all for continuing to listen to the Partner Profit Podcast. We'll see you on the next episode. Peace.