SHOW NOTES
Ricky Cain is one of the top agents at the world’s #1 real estate office for units sold. Ricky is also proud to serve on the Agent Leadership Council, at the Austin Keller Williams Southwest Market Center, along with the other top producing agents at his office. Ricky and his team are responsible for remarkable numbers. They've achieved 1.5 million in GCI and just under 60 million this year.
In this episode, Brian and Ricky talk about what Ricky has done to gain success in a crowed Austin, TX market, the effect Sisu has had on his business, and what’s his take on how the pandemic crisis is going to affect the industry and what we need to do to survive it.
In this episode, we talk about...
- 2:39 - Ricky speaks on the environment in Austin, TX, and how he became one of the top teams.
- 4:31 - These are the exact steps Rick takes with his team to keep their skills sharp in a skills-based market.
- 10:42 - Brian dives into a more in-depth look into Ricky’s team’s numbers
- 13:12 - With COVID-19 still in full effect, these are the adjustments the Kane Team has made to continue their success.
- 18:25 - How making the shift to Sisu’s automation software has helped Ricky’s business become efficient and effective
- 32:08 - If you hire the right first coach, and you're coachable, and you're willing to do whatever it takes the need for the other coaches, It's organic. This is how It’s not actually costing you anything.
- 33:45 - The Money Mindset and how using these tips could help you diversify your income.
- 39:26 - Ricks talks about his positive relationship with Gary Keller and what it’s been like to be mentored by him
Show Transcript
Brian Charlesworth 0:35
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the GRIT podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth. I'm the founder of Sisu, The Real Estate Growth Automation Software and your host to the show. And today I'm here with Ricky Cain. Ricky runs a team over at KW called Cain Realty Group. Ricky's been at KW for, how long now Ricky?
Ricky Cain 0:55
Going on 14 years
Brian Charlesworth 0:57
14 years he's been in Gary Keller's Mastermind for about the last four and a half years. Ricky is one of our Sisu customers, and just runs an amazing team that, obviously he wouldn't be in Gary Keller's mastermind. If that wasn't the case, he's got more awards, awards and certifications and recognitions than than I can even take time to list out. But if you want to see those, just go to his website. And so anyways, it's an honor to be here with you today, Ricky. And we're going to do something that we don't normally do in the show and just talk a little bit about Sisu today. It's something I try not to do. But I just know it's had an impact on your business. So I do want to do want to learn more about that.
Ricky Cain 1:41
Well, when you say, I would like to clarify that it's one of the 10 biggest impacts that we've ever had in our business and starting in real estate.
Brian Charlesworth 1:52
I love it. I that's, that's why we exist is really so we can, we can have an impact on businesses like yours. So I do you want to learn a little bit more about that today. Just for those of you who are out there, though, it's not something that's scripted. It's not something Ricky and I have talked about, but I do want to hear more about that impact. So regarding..
Ricky Cain 2:12
Yeah I have no idea, just everyone watching and listening, I have no idea what he's asking me.
Brian Charlesworth 2:19
Everybody listening and watching. So Ricky is based in Austin. It's a huge real estate market down there. KW is based down there. So Ricky, why don't you talk about just the environment down there. How did you become one of the top teams in Austin, which is it is a competitive market down there. There's some big, big players down there.
Ricky Cain 2:39
Yeah, actually, Gary talks often about how it's one of the most competitive markets within the United States landscape. And it's, it's what he calls in what we call a skill based market. The teams and the agents that have the highest skill are the ones that are the highest producing within our market. So it is a skill based market. Very competitive. If it's not a referral and it's a typical listing appointment, it's very, very common to be competing against at least two to three other agents. It's very rare when it's like a seller lead as an example, and not a referral where we're not interviewing against other multiple agents. And even when we're not we pretend as if we are because sometimes we might not ask the right question and it turns out that we are so we need to always be in our a game.
Brian Charlesworth 3:28
So I love that you say a skill based market. That's not something I've heard. But I think everywhere is becoming that today in this environment we're in I mean, listings have dropped, as you know, by sides have dropped right now because listings have dropped although a lot of a lot of teams that are actually that I'm in communication with are increasing on that right now. Just because a few months ago, there were 15 offers on homes were now you might only be competing against a few offers on home. So, but anyway, when you talk about a skills based market, I know that's something that my wife has really focused on with her business over the last couple of months with the Coronavirus coming in is every morning now she does a training for our team at 8:30AM for a half an hour, so they're just sharpening their skills. So what do you guys do with your team to keep their skills sharp in a skills based market?
Ricky Cain 4:31
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So I'm going to I'm going to answer that two ways. One, what we're doing when we're in the office and to what we have been doing. So most the entire team gets to the office around anywhere between 7 and 7:45. And by eight o'clock they from 8-8:30. We are calling new opportunities that have withdrawn on the sell side or have expired. Then from 830 to about 850, depending on the day, every day, something different one day, we might have objection handlers. One day, we might be role playing an entire intake call. It's different every day, but we're always doing some kind of coaching and role playing during that time.
Brian Charlesworth 5:18
So every day you do coaching and role playing?
Ricky Cain 5:21
oh, yeah, every day, actually multiple times per day. But that's, that's the morning part of the schedule. Then 10 minutes till nine, we do a team huddle up. And we all just talk about what we're grateful for. And we talk about what our 20% looks like for that day, and if we need any help to allow us to stay in that 20%. Then from nine to nine to 11, everybody's doing passion, passionate lead generation, we call it an appointment setting session. And our goal there is to set appointments, and then our goal every day is always to have 20 conversations and we like we actually got that from your system. And we really like using conversations instead of contact because it changes the energy around making phone calls, you're not making phone calls just to make a contact, you're making a phone call to have a conversation that leads to building rapport and setting an appointment with a potential buyer or seller. Then in the afternoon, usually from 11 to noon, it's appointment follow up. So those are our lead generation follow up. Those are calling leads and contacts that the agents have had communication with maybe set an appointment during their pipeline, but they haven't gotten a signed agreement, or maybe they haven't found that right property for them. Then in the afternoon, everybody's on appointments and showings and listing consultations and so forth, and if they don't have any business to attend that afternoon, we kind of look at it as man for the day we're unemployed, we got to get back on the phone and build our business. And so most of the agents stay in the office and continue making conversations and setting appointments for future days. That's what it looked like when we were in the office. Okay, is that today, are you? No, we're, we're no. And so that's the Training Calendar that we have that that goes all throughout the day. So we do have other training things going on, based on positions what we have been doing, and we're getting back slowly integrating back to the office, I think next week, the week after at the latest. What we have been doing the biggest thing right when we started working from home is, gosh, what do we need to do because the thing that attracts people to our environment. We have a proven track record of helping people create generational wealth. We have a proven track record of growing leaders. And a commonality that we hear from those people that we've helped is that they love our environment. it's very inspirational, we have things all over the place to inspire you and bring out your best. So our biggest thing is man, when we're, when we're working from home, how do we help everyone recreate that environment from an individual perspective. And so everybody got their vision board took their vision board home, everybody took two to three things from the office that they felt like inspired them, and they brought those things home. Then in addition, after being a week home, we we realized that it's a little bit more than just the environment. It's also the energy that you get from being around people doing the same thing. And so then what we did from there as we bought an additional zoom account, it's a lead generation we called lead generation room account and that that, that call that room as we call it is open all day long. So everybody's lead generating together and hearing each other's conversations. So the first layer was what can we do to make the
Brian Charlesworth 8:59
a live streaming Zoom meeting. We do this live, where if I want to hear people in the background while I'm prospecting, I can do that.
Ricky Cain 9:12
A hundred percent and we actually… Because that's the thing, right? First, it's the environment that inspires, then it's being around other people that are motivated to have a big life. And it helps you stay motivated to when you've had a tough day. And so that was a second layer of recreating what we had at the office. And that helped a lot. The third layer and this was a small thing. After a couple of weeks, we realized man, we don't have the big bell in the hallway that they can go ring. And so we set up a task force to deliver all these bells to the team members on Sunday evening and then on Monday mornings, zoom call when we do the same thing, the coaching the role playing, what you're grateful for, and talking about what your 20% is, during that call, we say everybody go to your front door. And at their front door was a small little bell that we ordered and delivered out to everybody's home. And so they walked out, they got their bell. And so now when they're on their lead generation room, they can actually ring the bell and they set an appointment similar to what they would do when they're in the office. Cool. I love it. So that's a that's a lot of fun. stuff you've got going on there. So just backing up a little bit, Ricky and anytime anyone on this call wants to, to see what that looks like and actually hop in and be inspired and motivated. Man, we'd love for you to join us just email me at Ricky@KaneRealtyGroup.com and you're welcome to do that too Brian, if you want to hop on one.
Brian Charlesworth 10:42
Okay, awesome. So tell us a little bit more about your team. We didn't really get into that. So how big are you guys? How many agents? How many transactions that kind of stuff.
Ricky Cain 10:51
Yeah, so last year, we did 1.5 million in GCI and we're just under 60 million this year. We are shooting still, we're not changing changing our goals. We're shooting for 85 million in transactional volume in 2.4 million in GCI. Our average price is 350,000. And so that equates to about 225 transactions.
Brian Charlesworth 11:17
How are you guys pacing on that this year?
Ricky Cain 11:19
On the buy side, we're up on the sell side, we're down. So what's really interesting for us to hit our goal, we know we need to be around 25 pendings at all times. We got really, really close about three weeks ago. I think we're at 23 or 24. And then we had some Fallout, so we're not far off. We're we're about 48% down on the sell side, but we but we have so much in the pipeline that's about to be able to go back on the market because they're feeling more confident in the market and confident and be able to remain safe. And honestly, what's saving us is the buy side. What's really interesting we've always been 50/50 business, we've never been more than 2% off on one side or the other. So to have this flurry of buyer activity and our seller inventory and activity being so low is very odd for us. But what's really cool about it is once I kind of think of it as like a hose, I keep doing this because I want to show you this analogy. You know, you think of a water hose and you think of the water coming out, you have that crimp in the hose, right? For us, we're very lucky in Austin. It never went all the way over, it went to about right here. But what I really see happening is people will start to be more comfortable with the idea of people coming in their home. I see this instead of it being like something that's a gradual opening, I really see it being a jerk motion with a lot of opportunity to get our seller numbers back up to where they need to be. People just need to feel comfortable and confident in the market they're in and that and that we have a program to keep them safe.
Brian Charlesworth 12:56
Yeah, so what adjustments have you done with the whole COVID-19 I mean, you've spoken about some but for instance what what have you changed at your listings? What have you changed about how your buyers show up? buyers agents are showing houses that kind of stuff?
Ricky Cain 13:12
Great question. So and all this if you guys want further details on it, it's on our website Kane Realty Group comm we have a safe seller plan and we have a virtual homebuyer program. Virtual homebuyer program you guys have seen a lot of these a lot of people are doing this essentially allows you to have that whole experience virtually through zoom calls, digital signatures and so forth. The one thing we added to it was a huge help to get a lot of transactions that I thought were gonna fall out to keep going. Even buyers that I thought were going to push pause on their home search actually kept going to was we pay for a basically a treatment of the house before they move in. And it's a decontamination treatment. From a company that is owned by the company that does our home inspections. Well we're the number one service or number one referral provider for our inspection company. And so when they rolled this out it was $150 a pop I was like well that's totally worth it. But let's talk about this. If we can get more buyers you'll get more inspections. And I know that you're probably not willing to lower your inspection cost but what if we brought that cost down to $100 and we said we'll do it on every single buyer transaction that way you get more inspections and you get some money coming in on the on the treatment and they went for it. So now anytime a buyer transacts with us we pay to have their we call it a safe move in we we pay for their safe move in and hire this company to go in there after the closing and before they move in and we've gotten great feedback from a Brian people love it makes the house smell amazing and people are just feeling comfortable and confident that they can move into a home and not have to be worried about getting sick. The second thing we had to do on the buy side. We kept getting objections about vendors. Well, I really don't want to meet the inspector because you know what, if he's sick or what have you? Well, then we started doing those Home Inspections virtually. Well, then we were getting things like, well, what about the movers? When did the movers wear gloves? What do they do? And we started getting all these questions around, not what we're doing. But what are the people that are going to help us in the process? What are they doing? So then we reached out to all of our service providers or preferred providers and said, Hey, here's our safety protocol. What does yours look like? And here's really what we're looking for for you to do to feel comfortable and confident to keep referring you. The great thing is, is the companies that we partner with, they have the same core values, similar to what we have. So they were already kind of doing these things and the people that weren't agreed to do it to continue getting the referrals and serve our clients. And so now we have this whole document Brian It shows all of the safety protocols that all of our vendors are doing that we can share to our buyers and sellers, to make them feel confident in the entire process from start to finish.
Brian Charlesworth 16:10
They are all wearing hats, they're all wearing gloves.
Ricky Cain 16:18
It just lays it all out. On the seller side, the most impactful thing we did we we basically took the questions that the CDC has provided, and I gave my email before Ricky@KaneRealtyGroup.com. I'm happy to share this too with you guys. But it's basically a Google forum that we require anyone that's going to show one of our listings, it's occupied. We require them to fill this out. And it's from the CDC. The the questions are from the CDC. We're basically asking them questions to ensure that we have the highest probability of someone coming into the house doesn't have COVID-19. It's given us the best shot at making sure we're keeping our sellers safe from those people showing it, we insist that they we also make them sign off within the same form that they're gonna wear facial covering, they're going to wear gloves, and they're not going to touch anything. And until we get that form filled out, we actually don't let the seller put the lockbox out. So that's another thing we do too. We don't put the lock boxes on the doors anymore. We put them inside for occupied listings. That way the seller will get pinged by our listing coordinator, once we know that forms been filled out, and we know it's safe for them to have a showing. So that's probably the biggest thing we did on the selling side. Then if someone is even if it's not our client, they're worried about buying the house because of COVID-19 because they're wondering if the sellers have it. We will actually get the deal done. We're actually even paying for buyers that we're not representing to have that done so they feel confident in buying our listings. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, and of course we remind them of that when we put them on a touch plan because we even put buyers that aren't our clients that buy our listings on touch plans. And then we remind them now that we did that for him.
Brian Charlesworth 18:06
So let's jump back to a few minutes ago, you said Sisu is one of the top 10 software platforms you've ever had in your business. What did you mean by that?
Ricky Cain 18:17
Not just software programs, just one of the top 10 awesome things we did that that just really helped us to be more efficient and effective.
Brian Charlesworth 18:25
Okay, cool. So, Sisu has been one of the top 10 things you guys have ever done in your business and it's made you more efficient and effective. You just said so. What do you mean by that? What what are the efficiencies? How's it made you more effective? What really has it done in that aspect?
Ricky Cain 18:43
How much time do we have on this call? (laughs)
Brian Charlesworth 18:46
You can just pick maybe, you know a few, or three key things.
Ricky Cain 18:50
Okay, so let's let's start with the lead generation side. So the the ability for agents because that was the biggest struggle with public platform we were on before that that wasn't automation platform. It was literally just a glorified spreadsheet, which worked really good for what we needed it for. And then we outgrew it. The lead generation part of it, though, was a challenge for us before because it's very antiquated, and it just didn't have any kind of gamification. It just didn't really inspire the agents to track their lead generation activities on a daily perspective, there is no app either. Now what it's gone to is the agents are actually excited every day to enter their productivity. Some of it's actually even automated from our CRM. So for example, if our if our agents set an appointment or hold an appointment, those kinds of activities, they can literally add a tag in our CRM and that automatically populates indices, you automatically populates all the contact information. So it eliminates the the need for an agent or an account manager or transaction coordinator to enter that information. So this already saves time right away, then it allows a really cool way for the agents to keep track of their pipeline, their pipeline of people, they're having an appointment with a pipeline of people, they have signed the pipeline of people, they have under contract all of these things, they're able to look on their app and see it in a very timely manner. So on the lead generation side, especially with all the contests, they're automated, and all the things you can do there, the agents are excited to track their lead generation. And I know for sure, that's one of the biggest challenges that teams have is getting accurate numbers on daily activities. And that's taken away that challenge. I mean, even today, in our mastermind group, I saw people posting about how you guys were using a spreadsheet and we were doing this and we were doing that and we had a VA doing this, I'm like, Oh my gosh, if you guys just had this product, everything would be automated and you would have to spend no time on it. So that's the first thing
So you're talking about Gary Keller's mastermind people are still doing that.
Brian Charlesworth 21:03
Yeah. Oh, there's a post about two hours ago. Some of the top teams in the entire country still are using are using spreadsheets still.
Ricky Cain 21:11
Yeah, or VA is calling to find out I mean, just all these old school antiquated methods when there's a easier way.
Unknown Speaker 21:20
(BREAK)
Ricky Cain 21:29
Then from there, I would say what's been really awesome is helping by having the accurate data and be able to see really nice clean dashboards of agent productivity. That allows us as coaches to coach our people, effectively and know exactly where the opportunity is. So it's making we used to have to have sometimes hour hour and 15 minute for one ones because it would take us time to prep and time to figure out the data to figure out what conversation probably needs to happen. Now we know exactly what that productivity looks like. And usually the agent is coming to us already knowing where the opportunity is. And so it creates more of that coaching relationship instead of a management relationship. When you're having to manage someone, it's a totally different feeling. You have all the information there. So from a coaching perspective, it's amazing. And even from a big picture coaching perspective, so my coach and I, I mean, so I coach with Joe Bogart, he's an amazing coach. And the the spreadsheets that were using before and having to look in the other product were looking before and never really truly gave us the picture that we needed, even on a bigger level to have the right conversations. So now, when we start our coaching calls, he's able to look in our account, he sees everything that he needs to see is the a coach within the platform. And we're able to get to that conversation quicker because he has all the data in front of them. So lead generation effectiveness, saving time. And then also just saving time by knowing what conversations we need to have with our people because we have the information. And they love the contest too. So we always have a so we have a few different contests. We always have a quarterly contest. They love and you can actually see it behind you right now. It's similar to that. And they love seeing their pictures in the hallway on the screens rotating and they've gotten super competitive. We had scoreboards with our other spreadsheet platform before and no one really got into them, the TV would reset and be off for three or four days and no one cares now with our new Sisu, Sisu boards. If, if one of those screens go down, they're literally within an hour wanting to get it back up because they want to see where they stand. And so it's just created a completely different culture and dynamic within our group for sure. I feel like I just verbal vomited all over the place like…
Brian Charlesworth 24:03
No, no, I love it. And you guys have been using folio as well. And right now you have a transition going on there. Is that something you talk about?
Ricky Cain 24:13
Yeah. And so the one layer I'd say before that is that the cool thing too on on automation so when one of our now when one of our agents set so we haven't set up if they if a listing agent sets a listing appointment, or takes a listing, sorry, everybody on their phone gets a notification of who took that listing and allows him to celebrate that success. Then right when that agent takes the listing as well, then our account manager that's assigned to the listing agent automatically gets a notification that there's been a new listing taken so the account manager knows that it's their opportunity now to hop in, and we didn't have any of that kind of stuff before it was phone calls and emails. All this stuff is automated now.So we have automation working in that way. Also, when a buyer signs a new buyer agreement or Penza, new buyer, we have all those things to where the notifications and emails go out, everyone can celebrate that. So that's really awesome. And then in terms of transaction and listing management, we've, I'm embarrassed to say it, but for 1011 years, we use top producer, and they haven't made one update to that platform since we got in there. I mean, it's it's very antiquated.
Brian Charlesworth 25:28
Is it still around? I'd never hear top producer anymore when I got into real estate industry. Seven years ago, like everyone had top producer, and now I've never heard anyone talk about it.
Ricky Cain 25:39
Yeah, well, all of us pretty much have a master account because there's a lot of historical data in there that we need to keep. But at one time, we had 16 or 17 accounts. And right now we only have one just for historical data. So because the one thing we can't export is email communication. In the event that we ever need to look back because we even used to use top producer for email so then we we got into folio, love the timeline feature of folio for clients to be able to see what's happening on the back end. For a big business folio just didn't work for us, for as many tasks as an account manager will get in one day with new contracts coming in new listings coming in. It's just not working with us we need something bigger and better. And one of the many reasons why I love you and your company and all your support team is that you guys identify need and then you work on it. Here I was you're talking about some kind of platform that you you thought we like better than what we're using. And like oh, that'd be cool, you know, love to have that six or seven months. And then I get a text or a call from you a week or two ago saying it's almost done. I'm like, oh my gosh. And and we've been building it out over the last few days. Just kind of started on it and get going to go heavy on it here over the next few days. And basically replace folio and start using the Sisu task management for everything for recruiting for hiring for onboarding, for listing management, transaction management. And the thing is part of the reason so, you know, you and I've gone over the system many times for the task management and how that works, and already works better now than what we're using. And part of the reason why I'm excited to dive in is I know that you guys will listen to feedback. And if there's things that y'all need to do to make it more effective and make it easier to use, you're open minded to doing it, and you do it fast. So that's another reason why, honestly, anything you guys jump into, we're going to want to be a part of because we know your commitment to your customers.
Brian Charlesworth 27:51
Okay, well, thanks for sharing that. I mean, I just, I love having an impact on your business and all of our other customers, businesses and just seeing that impact is hat You know, just, that's what makes me go every day. So, anyway, thanks for sharing some of those items. One of the things you mentioned there was your coach Joe. I know you introduced me to another one of your coaches. So one of the things I want to talk about just for a minute, I mean, as I as I meet with top team owners across the country, which I do on a daily basis, you all have coaches. Right. So, so let's let's talk about that for a minute. Because I actually, I just counted, we have five. Yeah, so So tell us about your five coaches. Why do you have five coaches? I mean, most people have one coach, Wi Fi, what do you use your coaches for?
Ricky Cain 28:42
Oh, man. So we have a so we have a business coach, and we focus more on the overall business of what's happening, what needs to happen, what what strategic moves, we need to make kind of like a big picture. Kind of deal and that's me and me and Joe. Then we have a systems and operations coach. So they're, she's helping and you've been able to meet with brenly so you've met her so she helps with more of the success team side of things, which honestly, is kind of its own business within the business. And then we have another coach that helps on the sell side and the coaching of other agents side. And that's who Cody Kay coaches with. Her name is Kate, Kate Podolski, she's awesome. We've been coaching with her for years. Then Cody Kay and I have a life coach she's here locally. And you know, it's kind of interesting to most coaches are in the same area. Kate and Joe actually randomly live in Austin but that, you know, that's not why we're coaching with them. They're literally it's kind of interesting. I feel like we have the best coaches in the industry, very blessed in terms of who were who we coach with and and then wanting to coach us, then we have a life coach. It's here locally that Cody Kay and I see, just absolutely awesome, has helped me to understand so many things about why I operate the way I do. And what opportunities I have to make changes will have big impacts in my family and my business. And so I highly recommend having that. And then we have a spiritual coach. We're blessed to go to a church here locally that are I can't even say the name pastor. He's my coach. I mean, the way he delivers information, and the one on ones that we have with him. Dr. Haney is just, he's, he's our spiritual coach. He coaches us on things again, that will help us live a bigger life and have happy happiness and joy. So if you look at someone's life and you think of all those different aspects and you look at the business, we have someone for each little part to help us on that journey because we're we've never been where we want to go. And these people that we're coaching with, they have the information we need to take us where we deserve to go. And once
Brian Charlesworth 31:15
You've identified really the top five categories, the only one I didn't hear you say that is probably one of your top five is health. But you've identified your top categories and said, I'm going to get a coach in this area. Right?
Ricky Cain 31:29
Well, I actually have to take that back. We do have a we There are six.
Brian Charlesworth 31:34
You have a dietitian or a physical?
Ricky Cain 31:37
Yeah, we we do have a we do have a health coach. It's Cody Kay works with her. So I've never personally met her so technically together me and Cody Kay have six coaches through Ideal Protein. It's a company that helps you with your eating and your workouts and, and so forth, and she's been on an amazing health journey over the last nine months. So technically we do have six. I've never met her. So if she wasn't top of mine, awesome. ]
Brian Charlesworth 32:08
So, you know, a lot of people when they think about that are like, six coaches, how can I go get six coaches? I mean, am I gonna pay? How much am I gonna have to pay these guys? You have to pay them $1,000 a month? Or how does this work? Right? So how do you go from zero to your first coach, and then to your second coach, and to your third coach? Because you probably hear this right now. And you're like, you know, I there's no way I could do that.
Ricky Cain 32:36
If you hire the right first coach, and you're coachable, and you're willing to do whatever it takes the need for the other coaches. It's organic Brian. Yeah, it's one of those things where where if you're coachable and you have a great coach, and you're doing what you need to do, these people come in your life, not because it sounds like it'd be a cool thing to have. It's an necessity you identify very quickly, gosh, I kind of I really need this right now. Things are taking off.
Brian Charlesworth 33:07
So that's, that's, that's what I wanted you to share is things are taking off, right? So it's impacting your life. I think a lot of times, being small minded as we humans are, we think we think of the expense, we don't think about the value. So the value is going to outweigh the expense as long as you take action while you do that, so it's not actually costing you anything. You're making money by doing it right.
Ricky Cain 33:34
Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, hundred x multiplier. It's, uh, I haven't thought of the expense of any of those coaches in a very long time. Or ever, actually.
Brian Charlesworth 33:45
Okay, great. So you own some other companies as well, don't you besides real estate companies or you've been involved with some Tell us about that? Because Yeah, I think a lot of times, we get so focused and tied up in one thing. Sometimes it's good to diversify a little bit, right, most people in real estate do a really good job of that.
Ricky Cain 34:03
Well, other businesses, other investments. I were actually I talked with my team about this all the time. And if you know, when they watch this, they're gonna laugh that I'm bringing this up, but I talked to them all the time. Anytime you're spending $1, you need to be compensated. And it's what I call money mindset. There's so many ways there's so many programs for you to be on to where every time you spend $1 you're getting money back somehow. I talked to them all the time about this product called acorns. I love acorns. I think it's awesome started off as this roundup kind of stick where if you spent $5 and 40 cents a would invest 60 cents into mutual funds account. And then help you build your wealth. Well, then they added all these different layers, one of which is if you go to Chevron and buy gas, they put money in your account. If you go to Chevron instead of Texaco, if you use Uber Eats instead of favor, they'll get 4 to 5% of your purchase and put it in this investment account. And just this is an example. And by the way, if you email me, I'll give you my referral link, you'll get $5. And I'll get $5 that goes in this investment account. And I'm not sure current trajectory in 25 years, I'll have $1.5 million in that account, just from making very minimal investments and making sure that when I spend money, I'm getting money. And so I am involved in other businesses, but I also just have this money mindset where I'm always looking for opportunity. And what's really interesting. I think I've heard this before, but I think you usually find what it is that you're looking for. So have that money mindset and be thinking all the time. How can my money be making me more money? And how can I be rewarded by giving a company my business in terms of businesses, we have another real estate technology business called my referral agent. It's the United States is only right now. We're only united in the USA, we're not in Canada, we do have future expansion plans for Canada. And it's organic people want it up there. And it's basically a agent to agent network referral system where you can see reviews of other agents that are verified from agents that have used the platform. You can see other transactions that they've done, you can see their transaction history. And then the system also acts as its own assistant for you too. And so once you put a referral in the system, it literally will reach out and do the heavy lifting for you as if you have your own assistant. We have some teams in the system that have hundreds of referrals in there because it's literally taking the place of an assistant using smart logic and AI like features. And so for example, if I send you a referral, or you let's say you said, well, let's say I send you a referral, right? Well, I have to send you all the contacts information. And then let's just say you're super busy. You don't let me know what's happening, then I feel like you're not a great agent and I don't want to send you a referral again and then you forget to contact the client, then you just lose the whole deal. It's a lose for both of us. Well, this system, if I were to send you a referral, Brian, it actually checks in with you from time to time based on when you got the referral, just asking for an update. And then you allows you to put an update in the system so that it goes to the referring agent, which would have been me so I know exactly what's happening. Then once you go under contract, the system knows the key dates to the contract and then pings the referred agent notifications based on simple little things the agents doing on the other side yourself as a receiving agent, so that I'm kept in the loop. What what we're seeing is that the agents that are receiving the referrals are having a higher success rate and closing those referrals because the system is holding them accountable. Then actually staying in contact with that referral and closing the deal out. It's It's really nice. It's all automated uses a lot of automation and kind of like your system. And it's been a game changer for our business and for other top teams across the country. Then we also have a nonprofit called King cares. And so I modeled this after kW cares. kW cares is a nonprofit, that's awesome. It's there to assist kW agents and their family in a severe time of need. Yeah. And Cody Kay and I wanted to do something similar, but for our past clients and their family members, and so we form cane cares about four or five years ago. And we use that as a vehicle to give back to our clients when they're in a severe time of need. And we've been able to do some really cool stuff through that. So those are the two. Yeah, yeah. So those are the two and I have some other things that I have some partnerships with, but those are the, those are the other two that that take up a lot of my time that I really enjoy.
Brian Charlesworth 38:58
Okay, so I know you tou've gotten really close with Gary Keller over and we're just getting ready to wrap up here, Ricky, but thank you so much. It's been awesome. So you've gotten pretty close with Gary Keller, you've been in his mastermind for four and a half years. So what's that? Like? I mean, he has KW cares. You have Cain Cares. I mean, what was that? Like? It seems like you probably have spent more time around Gary than most of his agents.
Ricky Cain 39:26
Man super blessed. I mean, super blessed to have. You know, I tell my son all the time, whenever I have a call a Gary, I'm just so proud to have that opportunity. And I even tell him, and he's like, Gary Keller is Gary. I'm like, well, you love apple and all that, right? This is like me having time with Steve Jobs. Then he's like, oh, wow, that's so cool. Man. You know, he is such a caring guy. And he he cares about he cares about the real estate industry in general and he cares a ton about his agents and he will go to bat and do anything and everything he needs to do to protect us and to protect our industry. And so to have someone with a proven track record that is going to bat for you, and spending time with you, a lot of time with you to help you grow your business and grow your mindset and grow your opportunities. It's it's been it's been one of the top one or two game changers in our in our career in that top 10 like Sisu too by the way… He's having us think about what's possible. And he's having us think about things that maybe we wouldn't have thought about if it wasn't for his guidance. Another thing that's extremely valuable is just the relationships that you make within the group. I mean, these are all very highly motivated, highly successful people that you have an opportunity to learn from and share with. So, I mean, I, it's, you know, every every mastermind to, we always get this little wristband, and I routinely wear these wristbands all the time, just to remind me of how blessed I am to be in there and how I need to keep busting my ass because if I fall short, I won't be in there. And so it's it's, it's been amazing. He's an amazing guy, and I'm very blessed to call him a business partner.
Brian Charlesworth
Yeah, that's awesome. So, in wrapping up here, Ricky, what's the single most important piece of advice you could give somebody. And it doesn't have to be business. It can be business, whatever you want. But what's the single most important piece of advice you could give to our listeners, most of which are in the real estate space?
Ricky Cain
Mindset. It's all on mindset. It really is. Are you you know, especially during this time, do you have a money mindset? Do you have a success mindset? Or do you are you living right now in a fear mindset? It's, it's making sure that you, you understand that you're the average of the five people that you associate with the most. And so if you look at those five people, and you really think about what their mindset looks like, and you might think they're a lot different than you, but I hate to tell you that you're probably more similar to them than you think. And so I would say for sure, it's it's being aware of the people you spend time with, be aware of what you're listening to what you're reading what You're putting up here, you may think that it's just a one time thing, but it stays up there and it becomes part of your subconscious. And so I think that the one piece of advice that I have for everyone listening would be take working on your mindset is one of your things you need to implement into your daily routine, and make that part of your 20% whether it's reading books, like the book mindset, I mean that that books amazing, highly recommend it or reaching out to people that you look up to their mindset, reach out to them and even if you don't know him that well and ask them Hey, who do I need to be? How do I need to show up so that you will want to have a 30 minute call with me? have the right people in your life listen to the right things and read the right things continually work on your on your mindset. And then the last thing I would say that had a big impact on me in my mindset is a little book that cost me $20 on Amazon. It's called the five Minute Journal. It's a gratitude journal. That gives you a great inspiring quote every day. In the morning, you write in it, you talk about what you're grateful for. And I chose the approach to, by the way, Brian not to say I'm grateful for a big business. I'm grateful for a nice house. I'm grateful that I can walk. I'm grateful that I can see. I'm grateful that I have God in my heart, things like that. Then it talks, then it prompts you to say, what are the what are the three things that you get to do today, that would make it an amazing day? And then what's your positive affirmation for the day? Then at the end of the evening, you talk about what went really well? What made it great. And then it asks you, what could you have done to make the day better not what could have been better? What could you have done to make the day better? It's called the Five Minute Journal. It's one of those things that will help you change the way you look at things. So the things that you look at will change
Brian Charlesworth
Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much. That's great advice. Great way to wrap it up. Thanks for joining me today. It's always a pleasure. I always enjoy my time with you. And I'm sure I'll be spending some more with you here in the in the coming weeks with you just rolling out our new task management platform. Thanks again. loved having you on here.
Ricky Cain
Yes, thank you is it is a privilege. Thank you so much.
