Top 5 Tips to Build an Expansion Real Estate Team with Brooke Sines.

Brooke, welcome to Top 5. We're excited to have you here today. Appreciate you taking the time to share some of your best practices with us. Thanks so much. I'm excited to be here, Chance. Awesome. So let's talk a little bit about you before we kind of get into this idea of building an expansion team. What got you into real estate? How did you end up in this crazy world of real estate? Well, the crazy story is I used to book motivational speakers and entertainers across the country. So I was an entertainment agent, and I would book them to colleges and universities all over the country. And that caused me to be on the road quite a bit. So I was traveling almost every Thursday through Sunday, which is absolutely fun when you're traveling on someone else's dime and you're in your 20s.

And then I got married and started having kids. And for my kids to say, Mommy, please don't go on this trip. I'm going to miss you. I mean, you might as well just rip my heart out. And so I was like, nope, can't do it. I need to do something different and change my career path. And so I researched a lot and I just real estate kept coming up because I love people. I love relationships. I always had a lot of different relationships and kept my friendships from high school. As a matter of fact, I actually asked my parents my sophomore year of high school. I said, I know everyone in this high school. I want to go to a different one so I can meet more people. And for some reason, they let me and so I went to another high school.

Yeah, it was really great. I didn't know I was going to be in real estate and it ended up really great for my sphere of influence. But I said, so I went there a couple of years and I said, OK, now I know everyone. So I want to go back to my childhood school and graduate with everyone that I grew up with. Again, they crazily said, OK. And so I went back and graduated there. But it has just been an amazing ride. And my husband and I met a little later in life and were kind of accidental landlords at that time. And so I had dabbled a little bit in the real estate rental part of things. And so I dove in into real estate. So you're in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You're building your real estate business.

You're building a team. You're killing it. And then all of a sudden you decide we're going to move to North Carolina. Yeah. So long story short, I have lived in North Carolina in the Charlotte area prior to meeting my husband and just loved every minute of it. And when I met my husband, he was in Michigan. And so I eventually moved back kind of kicking and screaming, but with the agreement that someday we would move back to the Carolinas. And so finally, I think after, what, 10 years of twisting his arm, you know, he finally agreed. But I did have a real estate friend of mine that always said, Brooke, I'm going to be retiring. I need you to come take over my business.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I put it in my five-year business plan. And lo and behold, you put that information out to the universe and it just smacks you up on the head. So yeah, within a year, I was moving to Charlotte and creating an expansion team. So before we get into that, can we walk through, we're moving to Charlotte. The decision is made. What goes through your head from a business standpoint? Is it a, I'm going to shut down the team in Grand Rapids? Is it I'm going to sell the team in Grand Rapids? Is it I'm going to try? Like, how does the decision get made on what you're going to do with your business when that kind of thing pops up? Because we have a lot of Realtors who a spouse gets a new job in a new area and the family's got to up in and move.

And that's not an unusual decision when you talk about a kind of mobile profession like we are. Yeah, it was a very tough decision. And I, of course, was very excited to make the move. I love the Carolinas. I was excited to move back and I overestimated how this was going or maybe underestimated how this was going to affect my team. And so while I have so much excitement, I come to my team and I'm trying to somewhat, you know, control the messaging that, hey, this is an exciting time. This is an exciting thing. We're going to have this expansion team and we're going to do this. And I'm going to be physically there and not here any longer and open the floodgates.

I get tears immediately about, well, you're supposed to be here and motivating us and we need you. And so that really hit me like a ton of bricks. And I took a step back and I'm like, okay, I need to, you know, look at my team and look at how I'm going to set this up properly. And I never thought about selling it. I mean, it's my baby. And as I said, that's my, you know, I have such a large sphere of influence there in the West Michigan area. That's where I was born and raised. And so it's my friends, my entire family. I mean, my past clients, everything there. And so I just decided to create and work on building a better foundation for making the move to Charlotte.

And then COVID hit a few months after. Of course. And so that changed things a little bit. But I did, I mean, some different things that I did is I initially was going to keep the teams very separate, for example. So doing our daily huddles, our team meetings, all of that. I'm like, well, the West Michigan team is not going to want anything to do with the Charlotte team and vice versa, because we're talking about different things. It's a very different way of doing business, surprisingly, different contracts, different laws. And lo and behold, when COVID came up, they asked to be joined together. We want to, you know, they came to me and said, we want to have our meetings together.

We want to learn from one another. We want to collaborate. And so that was pretty cool. So we do a lot on Zoom. And we all meet as a team. I mean, the ladies have met now. We've done team retreats together. And yeah, so it's been good. And it wasn't, I mean, that took a couple years of just really hard work to get to that point. So it was not just butterflies and rainbows. You know, I lost almost my entire team when I first made the move and had to build that back up in West Michigan. So it definitely has been, there have been some challenges too. Don't let me pretend that it's just all easy going there. Sure. So you mentioned it a couple of times. Let's get into our Top 5 talking points, right? So the first one is, you've mentioned a couple of times now, creating a plan, having a foundation, knowing what the heck you're doing.

And when you sent me the notes that you sent me, in parentheses here, you put including a budget. Because I'm assuming you're not always in the Carolinas. You're back and forth quite a bit. And there's a lot going on. Yes. So that planning, just where I want to be. So I created a business plan for each team and just really a roadmap on where I wanted to focus and spend my time. So in having my team members kind of boots on the ground, I can leverage my time and resources and different things a little bit in a little different way. So me having the plan of, okay, these team members are going to handle this, or these admin are going to handle that.

And then I focus on maybe recruiting in each area. And obviously, as I'm growing a new team, that was very important to have the recruiting aspect. And so I could really plan what and how I wanted to do and how I was going to get there and that roadmap. But then also the expenses are such a hard part of that. Because here I was, in essence, starting over in a whole new market that, yes, I had lived in the Carolinas before. But it had been, I mean, almost a decade. And so I had maybe five people, five friends that I still had stayed in touch with over the years. And so it's not like I was moving somewhere where I had a huge sphere of influence or anything.

And so for a while, it was stressful trying to plan what funds I'm going to allocate to one team versus the other. And the West Michigan team was very much, you know, the business was built, the foundation was there. And that team needed to support the other one a little bit in terms of getting ramped up and started. The other thing, too, is that in recruiting, I found it very important to be very transparent to the team members on what it costs to run a team. Because I made the mistake early on that my team members that first were with me were looking at, oh, Brooke's taking X percentage of my compensation. And they didn't really have an idea to what the expense side of it was.

So when I could actually lay out, when I finally created a spreadsheet and laid out, here's what marketing costs are. Here's what photography and staging and admin costs and us sending birthday cards and anniversary cards and doing client events. Here's what it costs. And it ended up at the time, it was almost $7,000 per agent per month. And so, number one, I went through and made sure that I could tighten up a little bit on those expenses. But then also, number two, I was very much able to use that as a recruiting tool. Like, hey, Chance, I'm, you know, I'm supporting you in this way. And here's an additional value prop. But it let the team members say. I'm going to invest $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 a month in your success.

Right. That means something. That's real money. Yeah. And that's eyes wide open then, right? Their eyes were wide open to, oh. And then my team members, you know, their mindset shifted to, I want to make sure. Like, I have to at least make sure that Brooke gets paid back or, in essence, paid back her $7,000 a month or whatever that ends up being. And so, just that transparency was a huge part to that expense side of things. That's interesting. You know, we've talked about on previous episodes of the show when we talk about team building and we talk about, you know, when to do what and what's right. One of the things that we've kind of hammered on is, do you know what your cost of goods sold is? Like, when one of my agents comes to me and asks, hey, I'm thinking about starting a team, my very first question to them is, do you know what your cost of goods sold is?

Because if you don't, it's going to be really hard for you to come up with how you're going to compensate somebody, what your margin is going to look like, all of those things. But I had never really thought about taking that and then sharing it with the team members so they could see it. But that's brilliant. I love it. Yeah. Because they calculate it out and they're like, well, Brooke's just sitting at home rolling in money laughing like, ha, ha, ha. You know, and I'm like, that's not the case, right? Just like a broker. No, no, we put the broke in the word broker. That's right. Exactly. That's why the word broke is there. Awesome. All right. So then the second one, and you kind of alluded to this, is when you talked about the different roles, but who's going to run the marketplaces? That's number two on your list.

Yeah, and that's a, so when we talk, right, and when we talk expansion teams, there are two ways. I mean, there's probably a million ways to do it because everything is not black and white in real estate, but there are a couple major paths that people take. Either path one is make the move like I did, and the team leader or manager is actually making the move, or you have an empowered champion in that new location. And I know a lot of agents across, or not a lot, but a handful of agents across the country that have done it in this manner. So they find someone that, like, I would be a perfect example in West Michigan, born and raised, has a huge sphere of influence for someone to come in and say, hey, we're going to back you.

We want you to run our expansion team. Right. So I could have, if I was going to maybe open an expansion team without myself being here in Charlotte, maybe I would have found someone similar to that here in Charlotte. That someone was born and raised, huge sphere of influence, real estate experience, or, you know, at least some education and experience under their belt and that sort of thing. So it's very important. I mean, that's an important step to say, okay, we're either going to have to learn the market and the process and everything here, or we're going to have that empowered champion to be our go-to person. And if you do that, it does help. I mean, the systems and processes and just having things set up that can easily be duplicatable in different areas, I mean, is amazing and is such a help in getting up quickly, up and running quickly.

But you didn't have that, and you got a pandemic dropped on you in the middle of it, right? Yes, sir. You left to the sphere, you went to Charlotte, and you had five people that you knew, plus this person who is leaving the business and wants you to take over theirs. So I guess the question is, who in Grand Rapids is the person who takes the reins for you who really drove all that SOI stuff in that marketplace? Like, how does that get determined? Well, so I initially, and again, I learned the hard way, and I don't mind sharing with everybody because I want people to learn. But I had my admin person, who was my first hire when I started my team, knew me the best or the most.

And she looked out for me in many different ways, watching every penny spent and all of that. And for me, she was that person, that go-to person that just, I was like, it's a no-brainer. She's going to be the one that's going to head up the team. That was a mistake in the way that she was in the right seat on the bus in her admin role. But when I look at her as a leader and in that leadership role or an operations manager kind of role that I needed with me physically moving, that was not her area of expertise. That was not a strength of hers. And a lot of the team, they knew her with her admin hat on.

So it was very hard to kind of have them now look at her as their motivation and their, you know, or their motivator and their encourager and almost like leader. So it, as I alluded to, or talked about a little bit earlier, you know, I quickly lost several members of the team because of that. And where I thought that I had a solid foundation, it was actually crumbling right in front of me and, and during COVID. And so we made the decision and, and I talked to the team members that I still had. I talked to, you know, I have a couple admins on staff and at that point I had three admins. So then she ended up leaving. And so I had two and we all had a meeting on how do we want to do this?

And I ended up stepping back into that team leader role. And with us being more virtual and being on zoom each day, I am the team leader, the manager for both, both teams and am able to do it. So I would absolutely recommend if there's an expansion team that is not doing the daily meetings together or the weekly or monthly meetings, you do need someone kind of to head up that, you know, that empowered champion to head up that leadership role, but just make sure they have a leadership hat on. All right, so I have two questions, one that I know, I'm going to get from people who watch this and so I'm just going to go ahead and ask it now.

How often do you go back and forth between locations? How often are you in Michigan and it kind of leads into the second question, which is, how much did the pandemic in our very, very rapid adaptation to doing things on zoom change that. Yeah, and I will tell you, so initially, and I was the president of the women's council of Realtors in West Michigan at that time. So I had some commitments that I'm not one to back out of my commitments and I, I needed to uphold those through the end of the year. So we had moved to the end of September, I had a couple months left in, in that presidency term. And so I very much, I mean, I was back and forth every two weeks and I made that commitment to my team, to the women's council of Realtors.

I mean, different things that I had committed to, I quickly learned that that was very difficult for me and for my family to have just lack of focus. Because I'm here and I'm wearing my West Michigan hat and I'm here and I'm wearing my Charlotte hat and I'm trying to recruit and I'm trying to sell and I'm trying to do all these different things. So when COVID hit, it almost gave me a good excuse and I hate to use that word, but it was a great excuse to not be jumping on an airplane every two weeks. And I had to look at things and say, okay, what can I do virtually? How can I create this virtually?

And that's where our team started getting on all the calls together. And we started saying, okay, well, if you're going to focus on this area of business and we're going to do that in West Michigan, if it's successful, let's duplicate it in Charlotte. And let's do that and take it and run with it too. So we had so much co-creation within the team at that time and just trust. I had to, I mean, I doubled down on my training with everyone during COVID and getting on Zoom and just setting expectations that, okay, I can't physically be here or I'm not going to be, you know, it's just not in my safest or best interest right now. So let's do things this way.

And, and it wasn't always, I mean, like I said, it was co-creation. So we were all putting our minds together and saying, how can we do this best? And now I'll tell you, I mean, I'm in Michigan. All my family is there. My husband's family is there. So it's a good excuse to go back and we're able to see family. And usually I'm back for every client event that we do. I'm there to see the clients. I usually do a team lunch of some sort when I'm there. So we can all just get together, but I'm not really, I'm not working with buyers there. I'm not attending listing appointments.

So, I mean, if I'm there once every three months, that's pretty typical. Okay, cool. Very good. All right. Next up was control the messaging. You kind of talked about this a little bit when you made the announcements, but how has that expanded as time's gone by too? Yeah, and this was a big one for me and I've seen it done a couple different ways, which is actually interesting. So for me, I didn't think it was in my best interest to put all over Facebook, we're moving to Charlotte. I mean, because what does that do immediately? It kills your sphere or your business. That was my mindset, right? That if my sphere, if everyone thinks I'm moving or knows I'm moving to Charlotte, they're not going to be apt to call me to sell their house in West Michigan.

So I also, at the same time, I'm big and, you know, I don't want to be deceitful. I don't want to be, I don't want to lie by any means. And so what I did as far as controlling the message, and this is something that my coach, Sarah, walked me through, controlling the messaging and just creating more of that excitement piece of like Grandelure Home Group is expanding. And we're now going to have two locations to serve you and it's going to be in the Carolinas and in West Michigan. And so that was all over, we splashed that all over our business Facebook pages. And I shared them. So my sphere was kind of getting bits and pieces of they're expanding.

I never came out and said, I'm moving. And when people directly ask, you know, hey, what does this mean? And a lot of times I'm like, I have to be boots on the ground there, just like I was in West Michigan, starting the team. I need to do the same thing and duplicate that in Charlotte. And so it's been, you know, as time has progressed, it's been almost three years. And I would say that, you know, I haven't had, I haven't had anyone, some people still think I live in West Michigan and they call and ask me to go to coffee and go for a walk or go work out or something. And so to me, I mean, I love that because I haven't like killed my business. What did you say? That's the way to do it. If they still think you're there, that's perfect. Exactly.

Yeah. And like I said, I don't want to be deceitful. But at the same time, I had a Realtor in my marketplace that did a whole splash on Facebook and a Facebook live. Our family's moving to the beach. We're moving to South Carolina and blah, blah, blah. And I just, I mean, I instantly was just like, oh, you shouldn't have done that, you know? And it was like, we don't like Michigan because of the winter and the snow and all these things. And I'm like, ah, people don't want to hear their city or their town or their state put down either. So it was just, you know, that's two major sides or ends of the spectrum to look at. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. All right. Next up on our list is duplicate everything.

So you and I come from the same coaching school, which is anytime that you do something in your business, more than three times, it has a written process behind it, right? And so the idea is that if you have a person leave the team, if you have to bring somebody in new, you've got a playbook that they can sit down. And so you're not having to stop your business to teach somebody something and go through, you know, getting them up to speed because the playbook is there, the policy and procedures manual. So whatever you want to call it, it's there. So it's just Xerox that and hand it to people and say, here, go. It just did a different market, right? Sort of. To a certain extent.

Yeah. And it, I mean, that absolutely helped me catapult forward in planning. I mean, at the time that I decided to do this expansion team, I had only been in real estate for years. So I still felt new in West Michigan where, I mean, I still feel new every day. I learned new things that I'm like, okay, who knew that? Parts of this business. Exactly. That's the excitement. So, but at that time, so I was able to take what I had, you know, I, we took our letterhead, we took our website, we took so many things and were able to duplicate, put, you know, a new, a new address and office address and phone number and that sort of thing on it.

But yes, I mean, having those systems and processes in place and already ingrained in my DNA and the teams and the admins, I mean, it was hugely beneficial to being able to do this. I can imagine also when you talk about doing your team huddles, team meetings and stuff as a group, you've already built that culture in over here. I would imagine that it just seeps into the new culture so easy and just probably speeds that up if nothing else. Yeah, because you already have the buy-in from team A and when I'm setting the expectations, I mean, I'm very clear when I meet with anyone that we're looking to recruit, you know, we are not the typical just come in, join our team.

I mean, we are very systematic, we meet every day, we do this, we do that. And is that going to be a problem for you or is that doable or not doable? And if it's not doable, you know, we can still part ways as friends. You're just not a great fit for my team because I have these set expectations. So, it's very much, I mean, they come in, they know the expectations, they plug and play because everyone else is doing it and on the same playing field. And it absolutely just, I mean, lends itself to our team culture so easily. Once again, processes and systems work. Amen. All the time, processes and systems work. And that's, I mean, that's truly living proof because when you have to pick it up and completely replicate it, that's, you know, from the brokerage standpoint, we try to do the same thing when we open a new office.

They look the same, they feel the same. When you walk in, the stuff is in the same place. The meetings run the same. The rhythm of communication runs the same. All of that is the same as much as you can make it so that it just is so easy to pick culture up and do it. And it's kind of, you know, ironic right now because we're just opening our first office in a second market. And so, we're trying to pick up that magic from Houston and take it to Austin and how does that work? And so, it's fun. And this is kind of perfect timing. Yeah, absolutely. And it is, like you said, it definitely speeds things up in the process. I mean, it's not going to be easy, but it makes things easier to be able to get there.

Right. When you have a playbook, yeah. All right. Last but not least on our list, and then I have a bonus question that I'm going to ask you. You put that it's your turn to do it, in air quotes, right this time. And I love that. Like, I think, you know, we learn every time we do something new. And so, we can make it better each time. But what's the story behind you get to do it right this time? My kids love when I do the air quotes, too. I get mocked for that all the time. But my doing it right this time, it was interesting to me. I mean, at the start, I was, you know, forming a new team and kind of a new satellite office or business. And previously, when I first started my team in West Michigan, I was very clear and defiant that you need to be at the office Monday through Friday, 8 to 5.

If you're not showing houses, I want your butt there at the computer. I want to see you working. I want to see you on the phone. I changed greatly in when I moved to the Carolinas in that I don't want to babysit anyone. Like, I want hungry, humble, and smart people that want to do the business, that want to dive in and get my leadership, my encouragement, my expertise. And what I found is that in the West Michigan team, I had initially started that and I had said, come with me. You know, I'm going to pay for everything. Like, do the normal team leader thing, right? So I'm going to pay all your fees.

You come and, you know, just any business that I give you, you get from the team or any business at all. You give the team this split and, you know, here's how we go. And we have a great day at the end of the day. What I found is that that was just costing me more time and energy in I'm sitting there writing the checks and they're going on vacation or they're doing things, you know, they're not bringing in any business or closing any houses, but I'm bleeding money on a monthly basis. And so what I, what I decided to do differently in the Carolinas was, you know, Hey, you need to have some skin in the game. You need to come to me as a Realtor within the brokerage.

And yes, you'll get some, some great benefits based on being on my team in the brokerage. You'll get kind of some discounts along that, but you're paying your own way. And that way, you know, you have some skin in the game. If you're not selling houses, you're feeling that pain, not me. And so that was a huge, just transformation. And, um, my anxiety level went down so much. My husband's like, oh my gosh, this is awesome. Like you're not so stressed and you're not pissed off at anyone, you know, everyone on your team for not closing business. And that's exactly like, I couldn't have thought it better. Cause that's what I was so resentful towards my team members that weren't closing business because they were just costing me money and not wanting to put in the work.

Yeah. Nope. We have a similar story from the brokerage where we did the same, relatively same thing. We made that mistake and we were just bringing people on in a way that it wasn't tied to our culture. It wasn't tied to our core values. Um, and same, I mean, almost the same conversation at home. Like I went home one day, six months after opening the brokerage and I was like, I made, I made a terrible choice. This is the worst. I want, I don't want to do this anymore. Um, and it really came down to making sure that you're bringing the right people in and you're bringing it, you're setting the expectation early and often that this is how the business runs and we want you to be part of it. But like you said, if it's not the right fit, it's just not the right fit. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. Doesn't mean you can, you're not going to have a great real estate career. It's just, you're not going to do it here. Awesome. All right.

So to recap, we're creating a business plan. We're definitely including a budget in that. We're determining who the players are and what role they're going to be and that they're the right person for that role. We're controlling our messaging. So it's positive. It's expansion. It's not peace out. We hate the winners. We're duplicating everything so that the adoption to systems and processes, culture, everything runs more smoothly. And we're learning from our mistakes and just making it better the next time. Right? All right. Bonus question. So you and your family, y'all travel a lot. We do. You've got this. We're going to do all 50 states, right? Yes. How many states are we into so far?

We currently have seven left to visit and we are visiting, pardon me? 43 down. Yes. And we have two of those that we're knocking off this August. So we are going to only have five left, which is awesome. So you do this in a car. Like you took a month and drove around the country and hit like 15 states, right? Yes. So you're running a team in two markets and you're on a 30-day road trip. How does that work in your business? Oh, let me tell you how that works. How many times did you yell at your kids, stop talking, I got to be on the phone? Oh, that's, I mean, I'm pretty sure that's a given for any parents listening.

Like we probably yelled and threatened them within an inch of their life many times. But let me tell you, it was like Zoom calls on luggage carts in hotel rooms. I mean, it is, you just make it happen and go with the flow. And I'll tell you, if you haven't learned how OCD or how much of a planner and checklist person I am on this call so far. Or I actually, during our trips, I do, I'm like completely opposite. So we just go with the flow. And it's like, however, I tentatively kind of say, okay, for checking a state off the list, we have to visit two big cities off that state. Because Austin is very different than Houston, is very different from Dallas, from Waco.

I mean, all of those, right? So we need to see, we really want to get an idea. I mean, the goal is not just to check these states off the list. It's the educational component of actually experiencing that state in that area. So I go through and I say, okay, if we drive from this big city to this big city, you know, here's the approximate number of hours it would be. And so I just kind of map that out. But I don't say, I mean, if we see, it's like, we see one of the signs on the road that says, you need to go visit this gem mine. It's the next exit. We're like, we're going to the gem mine, you know? So it's very much like, just go with the flow. But I don't, so I don't book hotel rooms or anything in advance.

Because it's, however far we're going to drive that day, we would drive. And then I, when I knew we were going to stay in Houston for the night, I would start looking for hotels in Houston. And so, you know, that's, that was part of it is just not having to be in control of necessarily what's going on. I set the expectations with the team. I said, you know, this is what we're doing. They were all very excited about that and kind of living vicariously through us. You know, I'm like, hey, Mount Rushmore is right there. You know, that's pretty cool. And doing things like that, but it's those systems and processes in place that allowed me to be able, you know, the whole team knew what they had to be doing.

We do the daily huddles daily. So if for some reason I'm driving in the car in Timbuktu and I don't have internet and I don't show up for a daily huddle, they know what to do. They're not, you know, lost chickens wondering what they need to do on this meeting. They just get it done without me. And so that was part, you know, that's part of it. I do, I want them to have a leadership role just because I'm the team leader doesn't mean that I know everything or call all the shots. You know, at the end of the day, I have ultimate say yes, but I have them run the meetings. I mean, everyone has a leadership role within the team as well. We all have fantastic strengths to share with one another.

And so that helped during that timeframe that I didn't, I wasn't preparing meetings every day. You know, they were doing their different things and we had a router in the minivan we had rented. You know, we added a special line to our phone. The kids were actually on virtual school at the time because it was during COVID. So they were kind of quiet as well because they were on their laptops with their headsets and listening to their class. So it was a very different experience, but I mean, extremely memorable. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, that's awesome. Brooke, thank you. I know that you're busy. Appreciate you taking the time to share some best practices with us on Top 5. This was really great.

I mean, truly, like there's a lot of good stuff to come out of this episode, so I appreciate it. And thank you for watching. We'll be back next week with another episode of Top 5.