SHOW NOTES
Veronica Figueroa, CEO and Team Lead of Figueroa Team at eXp Realty has been in the Real Estate Industry for 15 years and has grown obsessed with the business. Her initial dream was a career in Human Resources and her love for working with people has drawn her into Real Estate and used it as a platform to grow and evolve. She has also become a sought-after speaker and coach where she focuses on inspiring real estate agents to write their own stories of success.
Let’s hear from Veronica on how her passion helped her achieve success in this industry, how she values her team and the importance of being resilient and making your failures as learning opportunities to keep improving yourself.
In this episode, we talk about...
In this episode, we talk about...
- (09:39) How Veronica and her team starts their day?
- (11:38) Why she partnered with SISU
- (13:43) Choosing customer’s experience over fairness within the team
- (16:13) Why competition among squads is highly recommended
- (20:35) How Veronica focuses on growing her leaders so they can grow others
- (26:03) Why Veronica partnered with Zillow
- (34:09) The value of finding a person who truly believes on your vision
- (35:09) Two books that changed Veronica’s life
- (39:48) Veronica’s most important advice
Show Transcript
Brian Charlesworth
All right. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the GRIT Podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth. I'm the founder of Sisu and I'm your host and today I'm here with Veronica Figueroa and she is a team leader, and success coach in the real estate industry. She's got a phenomenal reputation. I hear lots of great things about her all the time. She's one of Zillow, premier agent teams. very influential. She also heads up I believe you had up Europe chapter there in Orlando. And she is also in the process of writing a book. So she's got a lot going on in her life. So super excited to spend some time with you here. Veronica, is there anything you want to add to that intro?
Veronica Figueroa
Oh my gosh, no, I think it pretty much sums it up, I think and honored for you to even ask me to be here and want to pick our brain, my brain. No, nothing much. I can probably add to that other than I just been doing this for about 15 years and I'm obsessed with the industry.
Brian Charlesworth
Okay, so I love that I love when people are obsessed and I think it shows based on the success. So what is it that brought you to real estate? What is it you love about real estate? And I think it's beyond real estate. So many people get into real estate thinking, Oh, I love to look at homes. And if you're growing a real estate business, or even if you're an agent selling real estate, that's not what drives success. So what is it you love about the business?
Veronica Figueroa
You know, I really think that all I have fallen in love with the overall process of using real estate as a platform to grow. So you know, you can start off as an agent, then you can become a team leader or broker or a coach or a mentor. And just every aspect of the industry has allowed me to evolve. So it's not like I was in love with only showing houses. I've become obsessed with the entire industry and how it's given me the ability to grow and work with people. So I have a human resources background. So I think that that's where it really ties in my, my big girl job that I wanted when I went to college and when I was straight out of, you know, you know, when I was entering my professional career was like, I want to work in human resources, like, I want to be the one to help eight people in their careers. And that's not to say it didn't work out, I was able to land that job, I was able to start my career in human resources. But what I realized that there was a glass ceiling where there was a ceiling, right? And or I was going to be controlled by, you know, the budget or the revenue of the company and them giving me a raise or telling me what I can get a promotion. So what I love that I've been able to do is take that same passion that I have for human resources, development, growth, the different areas of human resources that I fell in love with. And I could still apply to real estate, and there's no glass ceiling. There's no ceiling holding us back. Right. We are the truth. We determine our destiny in real estate. And I think that's why I'm so obsessed about with the industry and everything has to offer still allows me a platform to work with people develop people, but yet continues to push me to grow. And this journey has just been so rewarding and fulfilling to me.
Brian Charlesworth
Great. I love your energy. It's fun to fill your energy around it. So is your husband involved in real estate as well?
Veronica Figueroa
Yes, he is. We've been working together almost, I would say 10 years, dumped in the business when he saw that I was drowning in business, and he saw that I would hire people or that I needed help. And, you know, one day he just said, why don't I just help you and I was like, that's the smartest thing you've ever said. Not realizing all the stress and the anxiety that would come along with working with your spouse. But I know he genuinely saw how much I was pouring into the business and how much my business was demanding of me and he wanted to be my partner. He wanted to protect me anymore. To help me grow, and you know, he's done so many things back then we were in the REO business. And he was, you know, he was wreaking properties he was, you know, helping us check on properties, doing Property Inspections, whatever we had to do taking photos bpos you know, fixing properties evicting people. That was Those were the hard days and Oreos and bank on property to era and whatever he had to do, he would roll his sleeves up and do for us and you know, became an agent then became a great agent, you know, would help us sell houses quickly realize Tony strengths are more on support operations and you know, you know, really being the go to person and we call him in my labs, of course, we get we call him to get shit done in person. That's what he does on our team at GSD. Yeah, you know, you want something done you call Tony. He's gonna make it happen. He's zero since he makes it happen. And he's like, what, what? Why are we be so let's go So then now he runs our he's helped launch our new baby, our new project, which has been our mortgage division. So, which has been really, really cool. That's his baby, you know. And through the years, there's always been that, you know, challenge of like, Who's in charge of what you know, and I was the face of the team, I was the visionary. And at the end of the day when being my spouse, there's always going to be some challenges and friction. When it comes to like, well, this is my baby like, this isn't your baby. And over time, we always talked about like, what do you feel most passionate about? And Tony's always been a, you know, a person who supports building another person's dream. And he knew that was something that I wanted to do and that there was an opportunity based on what we had built over the years. So now he's running with that, together with my support and influence and connections. Bless you. He really is building a great division and team and I'm so proud of him. He's a regional Branch Manager for a company we decided to partner with. And he is thriving. And really, we started that to service a bigger OC because our team had grown so much in the volume that we're doing. Our lenders, not to say couldn't keep up. But there was enough to where we saw opportunities and the servicing level that we wanted to ensure our clients and our agents got that we're solely focused on our team was something other teams couldn't other mortgage companies, for some reason couldn't scale, or they weren't willing.
Brian Charlesworth
And I love that you're like, Hey, we wanted to do this to provide better service. And in addition, it's a it's an incredible opportunity to own a mortgage company, if you own a real estate business. So talk a little bit about that. I mean, that side of it, not just Hey, we wanted to provide better support, but there's truly for people listening, that is a true opportunity for you to build your own mortgage business. If you're running a powerful real estate team, right? Yeah.
Veronica Figueroa
Oh, you know, it wasn't overnight. I thought about this for, I want to say probably four years. So I took my time it was slow and steady as far as the decision. I had some really great relationships with lenders that you know, they had helped us build over time. But that's when we were a team of maybe four people. We were selling 100 homes, 150 homes and then we just started you know, again growing together, but as our boasts
Brian Charlesworth
Most about your team today, just a heads up on that. So you work for agents now how many agents are you?
Veronica Figueroa
We have over 40 agents on our team. And we have seven staff members. We are we just sold last year in 2019. We sold a little over 500 homes, finished out with a little over 130 million dollars in volume. Where's those broker partners so we help them buy their homes and resell the properties as well. We launched that last year. This year, we pre COVID we were on track to sell 1000 homes, we should finish the year, if all goes well, and continues at the pace that we're pacing right around 700 to 800 homes. You know, and we're, we're a true team. Everything is done as a team. We have support staff from director, Vice President of operation we have a director of compliance and even services we have a director of hospitality. Today I'm making an offer for a productivity coach. We also have a database director who's starting next week, so that he can help us run our different pillars of our lead generation such as you know, whether it's companies like home life up next that require updating of the leads in order to stay in the program and also measuring our sign calls And where are we? Where are we generating the most business from and really focusing on making sure that agents are successful. We also have transaction coordinators. And we also have CMA analysts that work on our team to help us generate the, the reports that we need to, obviously the market reports that we provide at a very detailed in depth level, not only for our traditional client, but also for our acquisition clients. So yeah, that's just a little of our team. A little bit of our team.
Brian Charlesworth
Yeah, very exciting. So you say you're a true team. What are your agents spend their time focused on? So how do they run their days
Veronica Figueroa
There were agents started off their day with an 830 in the morning huddle with us every day, Monday through Friday, we meet religiously, and on those trainings, it'll range between marketing tips on how to grow their business. Hot Seat. The hot seat is where we play some of the calls and use it as a coaching opportunity and or we identify wins conversion and or again, allowing the team to listen to the call, put the agent on the hot seat and give them constructive criticism. We allow the agent to be the first one to say what they could have done better grade themselves. And then we use that as a training opportunity. So Monday through Thursday, we're training and coaching and, you know, learning about the industry, whether it's lenders title that applies to our business, and then Fridays, we always have a very high level of a meeting where we call fire Fridays, I had one today we had gogo on there today. And she was, you know, again, teaching them how to grow their social media presence. So that's what how we start off building our day every day. And then from nine to 11. They are expected to basically speak to people they had not spoken to yet. In other words, if you have not put Nev in a car, I'm sorry, we don't put them in our cars, but if they haven't gotten the car To go see a house with you or gotten a zoom or Facebook Live or any type of virtual consultation then you should be following up with them to see how you can help them where they're at on their journey. So nine to 11 is prospecting and also following up with people you haven't put in a car yet or you haven't scheduled an appointment with and after we train our agents and we advise them and coach them to schedule their showings after one o'clock so that does not interrupt their daily tasks that they're supposed to be doing. Another thing that we're doing what I really love how we kind of labeled it and this came from Danny one of the agents on our team is opening and closing your business. So they opened their business by showing up at the morning huddle and they closed their business by making sure that their notes are updated. Obviously this is why we partner with Sisu so that we can track and see you know the agents and the activities that they're doing but after one o'clock in the infield in the field grinding we do have our agents on scheduled What we did is we created pods or pod like squads, we call them squads. And in squads we find the agents shift. During that shift it's there on for three days. Those three days they know you're on the phones good, you're going to receive inbound leads. These are people who are raising their hands and saying we want to work with the Figaro, a team, whether it's from one of our lead sources or someone who's reached out to us directly and those agents are on in our Slack channel they know that they're put on they're communicating they're all like high fiving each other say okay, Hey guys, FYI, I'm not gonna be able to be on but good luck. So they back each other up. It's very self managed. Because they're all adults. They know our culture. They know what's expected of them. So squad when squad squad was on there on and squad one is cheering each other on they get all inbound lead flow during their three days on amongst a collective group of usually eight to 10 people And it's really cool then squat Tucson and there's always friendly competition. Right and every squad is a part of our culture of the team, and they're cheering each other on. But when your squads on you want to win. So that's how we do their inbound lead flow. Sometimes if a squad is running low, then we will shuffle people in from one squad to the other because life happens. You have kids you have, you know, vacations plan, you have weekends that your spouse might surprise, you want to take you away. And they all collaborate and help each other. And it's pretty fun. It is a shark tank, a jump ball, whatever you want to call it. In, you know, in the past, we've noticed that we could try to be fair and say, Hey, you know, Brian, you get the next one. But ultimately, that's not what's best for the consumer, the consumers, the North Star, so they have to have the ultimate best experience. So sometimes Brian if you're not available, and everybody's saying hey, you get the next One is reading to five people, to us. Let the person who's available answer, not assuming it should be assigned to someone. Because it's fair. We're not looking for fair on our team, we're looking for the consumer being treated and serviced. And although you may, you mean well, by wanting to say, Hey, your next, the next one that calls for drop calls, and we measure our performance based on call connections appointments. Did you in Sure. If you didn't answer this, we didn't service that client. And that's not fair to the client. So just a little of how we want our team the accountability. I hope I didn't bore you.
Brian Charlesworth
No, no, I think I think it's great. I mean, I've never been a fan of giving trophies to every kid whether they win or lose. And that's essentially what we're trying to do it you know, if you're running your team in a different way. So I love that. Talk about these squads a little bit more. Do you have squad leaders or
Veronica Figueroa
So in the past, we've had pod leaders now we call it squads we brought it back. And right now we are in the phase of, okay, we've reintroduced squads, we are going to select squad leaders, but we're letting them lead amongst themselves right now. So where the team can vote, who do you feel should be a team leader accountable
Brian Charlesworth
So the team gets to elect their squad leader basically.
Veronica Figueroa
Yeah, obviously, request someone or they, you know, elect someone that they think is great that we feel maybe still need some coaching opportunities, you know, we'll give them a shot. And you know, this, you've met Chris, this is something Chris and I have brainstormed on him. Like, do we have a squad leader that, you know, it's kind of like, yeah, I'm a squad leader, or do we give an opportunity for people to rotate being the squad leader every quarter, you know, hitting on their interests where they're leveling up, and they want to grow, they want to lead, and you know, we don't want to hold anyone back. So I like the idea of rotating it. I haven't decided yet. We're going to rotate it, but I think it's the culture will detect determinant on our team that will be determined.
Brian Charlesworth
Have you guys ever done any challenges between squads so squads a monthly challenge where they compete again?
Veronica Figueroa
Yeah, but um, definitely something that we're excited to do, you know, do based on you recommending it and see Sue's challenges.
Brian Charlesworth
Yeah. So we have a lot of teams, obviously, that do that. And the results we see when they do that are amazing. So I'd highly recommend that. And when you decide you want to let us know, we'll help you get that set up.
Veronica Figueroa
Thank you.
Brian Charlesworth
So Veronica, how do you spend your days? You're obviously you're up to 40 agents to incredible your volume, hitting 800 homes this year? That's amazing. Congratulations. How do you spend your days now? I mean, as you've grown the business that's clearly evolved as to how you're spending your time and what you're focused on.
Veronica Figueroa
Yeah, so you know, I know it's cliche to say, you know, I'm working on the business, not in the business, you know, but I always feel like I'm in the weeds still because you know, new levels right require new focus and you don't, I don't sit back, I don't sip my coffee and just relax all day, I'm always I'm always looking at ways to improve the operation, improve our company, improve our quality of our agents, coaching, developing them, and then I'm being coached I get to pick the brains of some of the most brilliant agents across the country. You know, we coach with john Chuck black, he's someone that has helped elevate our game our industry. So I'm either on my coaching calls with my agents, you know, with Chris, who's my VP of ops who my cadence with him talking to him is every day, all the time. And then working with my listing partners has been really, really some you know, something that I've I've had to do a lot more is to help them become better listing agents. listings are the name of the game, right? We know that, although we love buyers, and my buyer's agents are like, equally important, if not more, but there's, there's a certain skill set with listings that are necessary if I was a really good listing agent I have made a commitment to transfer that knowledge and that expertise to them so that they can be better than me in the listing, you know, you know, with the opportunities that we present to them. So now I'm spending a lot more of my time working with them, especially with this new virtual world that we're living in that now we're leaning more into virtual consultations, you know, versus in person, really becoming better at that craft, as we you know, kind of transition into a new era of our industry. So really focusing on the top 20% of our team, helping them grow, really staying connected to them, and then focus kissing on my leaders. And then I also focus a lot of my time with my growth partners across the country. Obviously, I'm with the XP and we, you know, love partnering with agents across the country. So I meet with them at a minimum once a week, virtually and or if when things open back up as many as I can in person, I have no problem flying out and, and dissecting their business to see what's going on in their world, how they can improve. A lot of them come to me and say, hey, I want to, you know, grow to what you guys have done. So we started looking at peel the layers back on their business and say, Okay, what are you doing, what's working, what's not working? And then I share my mistakes, and then I help come up with a strategy for them. So yeah, it's kind of like in a nutshell what I do all the time.
Brian Charlesworth
Perfect. So one of the things you said is I don't sit back and I think your passion shines through. So many people are focused on retirement, right. And what I see is the most successful people never think about retirement, they just think about growth and so constantly growing is really what makes us happy. So, and I see that with you. And I see that in my wife's business, and I see that with my business, and it's like, you can never stop growing, right. And as soon as you do, that's when you stop having fun, that's when your business starts dying. That's when all those things happen. So, anyway, I love that you shared that.
Brian Charlesworth
One of the things you said is you focus on the top 20%. I think that's really smart. Like 80% of your business comes from 20% of your agents, right. So how did you decide to make that shift and not spend time maybe with people who aren't really impacting your business?
Veronica Figueroa
Well, you know, and it's not that I don't spend time with our agents because I spend time with all of our agents. I just think certain agents that need have different needs, you know, My agents who have been with me more than two years, you know, the conversations are different with them than it is with someone who's just now joining our team. And sometimes someone who joins on our team can easily move up to the top 20%. Really, really, um, but I just think it's different conversation, different needs, certain things that I can help them with, and we start having conversations as to what's next. What are your goals, and, you know, they bring ideas to the table that then when I listen to those ideas, because of their experience, or what they're experiencing in the field that I'm like, Yeah, let's do that. Like, I love that. So just really getting their feedback, listening to them, understanding what their pain points are, allows me I think, to be a more present leader, where if it's someone new, they're still in the honeymoon phase. They're like, Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to work with you guys. And, you know, they've seen our branding and they want to piggyback off of our experience and our expertise. The honeymoon phase with them is they're just excited that they're learning from us and coaching and that We are giving them their borrowing or authority to generate business and we're, you know, investing in them. Right? With my, I would say, you know, more seasoned agents or my veteran agents or my agents who are generally a more book of business, then the conversation with them is completely different. And I want, you know, I want to be a leader that can be there for them all. But I can't be all things to every single one of them. So what I do is, you know, Chris spends a lot of time with our newer agents than we have Amanda who is the director of hospitality. She spends the first 60 days really onboarding them, and I do an orientation with them, and they get to know me, but they haven't. I don't want to say they haven't earned that 20% conversation, but it's just a different conversation. And I learned that from one of my mentors, and I called them because I was I was feeling I had anxiety of like, Oh my god, I haven't had a chance to meet with this person or I haven't had a chance to meet with this person. And she, you know, said Why are you even meeting with them? Let your team leverage your leaders. And you focus on, you know, the agents who have been the core of the team for so many years and they truly have been the heartbeat in the culture of our team. So my focus is on them so that I can grow them and then they can grow others.
Brian Charlesworth
Great. Okay, makes total sense. Let's talk about your new book. Ah,
Veronica Figueroa
Oh, yes. So the book, it's in the works. It's exciting. I'm, I'm really, really nervous about it. But I think it's time I've been coined a couple of different things just you know, bad and good. Whether with my relationship with Zillow, or just you know, how much we've grown, what I was a broker, then I came over to a team. I'm sorry, then I moved over and now I'm just a team leader. Not just I am a team leader because I love teams.
Brian Charlesworth
It’s way more powerful than being a broker, right?
Veronica Figueroa
And so the book is going to The first book is going to be around teams. Just like, you know, recently, they were like, Oh, the queen of team. So that's where it came to life. So it's going to be a step by step. You know, the problem, the story, the solution of the journey of building a team and how it's grown over the last decade and what we've learned the mistakes we've made, the tips we've acquired along the way from some of the best of the best, not just textbook, not just theory. True, true, true. You know, scenarios, stories, results, mistakes, team agreements, breakdowns, splits, you name it, and then a little bit of obviously, the backstory of it. So I'm really excited. That's it. I got to finish this book, because I already put it out there.
Brian Charlesworth
See, I put it out there for you. So. So how far along are you do you know when it's going to be done? Do you have a name for it?
Veronica Figueroa
Yeah, um, so we are I would say we're halfway done. The team working on this the copywriters and the ghost writers and the teamwork and behind that they're brilliant. They were the ones who came to me, they were like, you have to do this. This is this is so you. So this the book will have a number of a number of, I would say, past podcasts that we've done. I mean, they literally have compiled all the different things that we've spoken about over the years. And like literally put it into a book. And then obviously my personal touch to it, and my personal stories together with how they pick my brain. So we're about halfway done. The book is going to be called the queen, what's going to be queen of teams, and it's got a little bit of a sub kind of title to it. We're still working on that. And it's you know, again, we're going to show you how to build your team from scratch.
Brian Charlesworth
I love it. It's awesome. Congratulations. When that comes out. Please let me know It's great. So it sounds like you've gotten a little bit of hate by being one of Zillow’s teams. Tell us about that. I mean, why are people hating on that? I know a lot of it a lot of the industry hates on Zillow. So you've chose to you've chosen to partner with them because of that your business is much larger than those hating on them. So let's talk about that for a minute.
Veronica Figueroa
Yeah, so, obviously, you know, we It's no secret that the industry has felt under attack or agents feel like you know, Zillow is the big bad wolf, You know, it's no secret that agents have gone through, you know, the stress and the anxiety of knowing that our industry has changed. And Zillow played a big role in giving consumers a better experience. And whatever the reason is the stress and the anxiety that they and had I've never let other people influence me when it comes to making my decisions or, and I also don't believe in the status quo. I'm like, curious, I'm always curious, I, you know, I'm willing to try things. I'm willing to fall flat on my face and get back up and say, Well, that didn't work. And to me almost eight or nine years ago when I first decided when Zillow first came around in my market that I noticed them, I was like, $300 a month. Wow, that's crazy. I, you know, I didn't believe in internet buyers. I didn't believe in Boomtown. I didn't understand any of them, and any of it but because I did it wrong. I failed the first time at it. But it wasn't until I met someone who took me under their wing and coached me and I was willing to be coached and I was willing to listen and learn that my mindset completely shift shifted. So I just in this person said to me, if you listen to me, I'm going to show you How to be successful with this program, how other people have done it. And you have what it takes to be successful with this organization, as a partner, and I just, I just become a student, I became a student to consumer behavior. I became a student to the online lead gen. I became a student to omnipresence and just being there and being everywhere being in your sleep. And Zillow was a platform that gave me the playbook for that. So when I started really diving deep and having success with them became part of their advisory board then obviously, I helped launch I buyers, you know, the beta test on that I got a lot of heat on that I was called a sellout I was called a welfare agent. I was called the agent who doesn't know how to prospect you know, and the heat just kept on and kept on but guess what the money in the opportunities just kept on growing. So I was like, I can either listen to these haters or I could focus over here with the next you know, the next generation or the next era of real estate. And at the end of the day, I got to feed my family, and the people who matter to me are the people My world in my tribe. So I really just eliminated the noise focused on what was important to me. And our mission. And our mission has always been the consumer. And we want to be with a consumer that. So Zillow gave platform and we love our partnership with them, have they been perfect, nobody's perfect. But they're, they're willing to learn and dissect and learn about the industry. And I was willing to be that boots on the ground partner to share and be a voice. And here we are eight years later, we love our partnership with them. They're amazing partners, they genuinely care about the consumer, which to me is what matters most. And they want to work with great agents who get it. And I said, if not me, then someone else and that's my spot. So it's come with some heat, but it's also given me tremendous opportunities. And I understand that the agents that have given us, you know, heat for it, just they don't understand it, they don't understand it, and that's okay.
Brian Charlesworth
The more you know, the more successful you are, the more haters you're going to have. You know, I don't know if you've read Grant Cardone’s books but I love what he says. He says, Hey, love me or hate me? At least you know me. Yeah. Right. So, so anyway, thanks for sharing that. I think a lot of people maybe who aren't as close in with Zillow probably have questions about that. So I think it's gonna be helpful for you to share that. I appreciate you sharing that. I've heard a little bit about a new coaching program you're developing you focusing more on ops maybe then than just team leaders. What what's your What are your thoughts around that? Give me your ideas. I think it's a great idea. So not something I've seen in the industry. So do you mind sharing that?
Veronica Figueroa
Wow. So Chris, is our VP of ops and man the guy is just so smart. And I'm fortunate enough to work with him and have seen his growth. And our team wouldn't be where it's at. If it wasn't for a strong backbone. And before as a team leader, and as an agent, you know, anyone listening to this that might be in that position, you know, I was everything I was the listing agent, I was the buyer's agent, I was the manager, I was the, you know, the visionary, I was the marketer. And, you know, I was I was holding my, my business back by trying to be all things. And when I decided to really run a business, I knew I needed a strong operations person and it wasn't me, I realized my strengths, my strengths is connecting My strength is developing people. My strength is, you know, growing the business and the vision. And I really needed to make an investment in the right ops team. And Chris came in and we, we struggled a little bit with, you know, the power trip, the ego, you know, his vision and my vision and disalignment and it wasn't until we read rocket fuel that we really changed. are dynamic and understood each other and play to each other's strengths. And we want to share that with other team leaders, we want to help other team leaders, not just hire ops person, but work well together and come up with the winning strategy, so that you guys can both reach your goals and accomplish this together. Um, to me, it's been truly the pivotal point of our growth has been when I found the into my Yang when it came to, you know, an ops partner, I've had operations leaders before, and it didn't work out because I wasn't the best version of a leader. And I think that we weren't aligned, and I didn't have the training and the coaching that I have now. So I want to help other team leaders and other top leaders, you know, work together. And Chris, this is Chris's vision and I want to help them execute on this vision. Because I think it's really going to help shape a lot more. You know, a lot of the teams that are growing up that are coming out that are looking for areas to improve their business. So wejust want to give back and we love collaborating and selfishly we get to learn from other people in a good way. We love sharing and giving back. But then we also love to be a sponge and just learn so I think it's going to be a really good thing. We're excited about it. And you know, I'm having a lot of fun sitting, you know, stepping back and bringing people to the front and shining the light on them. So this is where also Chris gets to shine.
Brian Charlesworth
Yeah, that's very exciting. Congratulations. When you kind of blew over very quickly rocket fuel. But those of you who haven't read that talks about the visionary and the operator and yeah, if you're struggling being all things to all people, definitely check that book out. So sounds like it's made a difference in your business. I love to hear it
Veronica Figueroa
Friends in my business, in my life. In my just Overall mindset. And when you find that person who truly believes in your vision truly believes in your mission it's a life changer. It's a game changer. And I didn't I didn't watch this series on my own it was it was recommended to me but just watching the last dance by Michael Jordan. Nick good just told me about it. And I started watching it and it just kind of reminds me of rocket fuel you know, you've got the visionaries, you've got your number two person like your Dennis Rodman, or, you know your Scottie. pippins and you know, like it just the story just correlate some business and life in any type of journey that you're on. When you find that person believes in your crazy vision that it becomes, it becomes yours, like, on a bed at night, thinking oh my god does Chris believe in my vision. This has become our vision together.
Brian Charlesworth
Awesome. I love it. Thank you so much. Um, a couple quick questions to wrap up. It's been really fun to learn more about you and your business and your family. And tell us about your favorite book. I know you just gave us a great book. Do you have another book that you would recommend or that you prefer? until you have your own written? I guess you can't you can't use your own book here. So,
Veronica Figueroa
yeah, so I'm really corny. And, you know, I make fun of myself. And I'm always looking for personal development. And there's two books that I will say changed my life. One was when I was in a very dark place, the alchemist, that book, I've read it more than I want to say four or five times. I want to read it again. It's a great book. And if you're into just trying to find that personal growth, that's a book that I hands down with me. The second book that I will say is a game changer, especially if anyone looking for leadership. Or just personal growth, the shadow effect. And that was not again that was introduced to me by my coach. And when I read it, I'm like, Oh my God, this sits on my nightstand. And you know, I'm still learning who I am, I'm still growing into the next version of myself. And I have to sometimes face my shadows. We all have to, and that book is especially chapter two with Debbie Ford, it's like it literally allows you to look in the mirror. And that's why as I'm vulnerable and open about when I look back as who I was five years ago, and a leader and what I've done business decisions or life decisions, certain things, I'm Ooh, that showed up that wasn't the best version of me or that shadow was someone that I need to face and own up to that. So this way I can accept that learn from it and grow. So you know, if you're looking for the business book, and I you know, obviously rocket fuel email, the you know, there's so many great books out there one that I'm excited to read that I haven't read yet that was introduced to me is blitzscaling which I'm excited to read that. So for business definitely rocket fuel is hands down game changer for us as well as E myth. And also the shadow effect has really allowed me growth personally and for business so those are my top
Brian Charlesworth
Right thank you. Thank you for sharing. What's your favorite place? You live in Orlando. What's your favorite place to visit?
Veronica Figueroa
I love the Caribbean. I love to go on vacation to the Caribbean. I love going to Dominican Republic. My family because I have five kids back when we were dead broke. The only thing I could ever afford was taking the kids on a cruise. So we used to cruise so I am a cruiser. We love to cruise we still keep it we sit we still keep it back to our roots. We love to cruise and I can't you know with everything happening with COVID. And looking forward to the days where we can go back and we take the team on cruises. It's great for team bonding. But I love to vacation man. It's my happy place.
Brian Charlesworth
Cool I love it as well. So when do you think you'll be on another cruise? That's a? that's a that's a tough question, huh?
Veronica Figueroa
You know, it's a tough question right now because safety's first. I think what the plan might be is instead of being on a cruise, we're looking to buy something on the water just to be close to the water for now. And then, when everything's safe, I'm sure and I'm sure by 2021 we'll be back on it. Yeah.
Brian Charlesworth
Okay. So what's your favorite thing to do in your personal time? Obviously, you're passionate about business. I can tell businesses your favorite thing to do. But what outside of business do you love to do?
Veronica Figueroa
Oh, wow. I honestly love to spending time with my friends and my family. We have a little tribe and we're always together. We call each other the bubble. If my husband's not cooking, you know we're having a barbecue. We have friends over my kids are at an age where I love to hang out with them. Like my kids literally are like, so what are we doing tonight? You know So I just love hanging with my friends and my kids and, you know, my tribe. And we're always together where whether it's bike rides, whether it's going to the beach together, whether it's hanging out at my house, they hang out with my parents, my parents live on with me as well because I have a property that has two properties, two homes on it, and my parents are my neighbors. So my friends and my kids were in there like my mom. So one day I got to do a podcast with my mom. She's original. Oh, gee, everybody loves my mom. So
Brian Charlesworth
Love it. Well you should have invited her on the show today.
Veronica Figueroa
Next time Mama G.
Brian Charlesworth
Alright, so just in wrapping up, what's the most important advice you would give to people out there and it doesn't have to be business personal, whatever, just what's, what's the most important thing you'd like to share?
Veronica Figueroa
Oh, man, I would say you know, ease up on yourself. We're all on this journey together. This isn't a destination. This is a journey, and whatever it is that you're looking to seek You know, stay the course Don't give up, stay, you know, stay positive. And, you know, when you get knocked down, get back up. Look in the mirror, learn what you know, try to figure out what you learned about yourself during that process and just improve become the best the next best version of yourself, no matter what you're doing.
Brian Charlesworth
Great advice. How do people get ahold of you, Veronica?
Veronica Figueroa
Super simple. You can go to Veronicainspires.com. And that's inspires with an S and there you can kind of it's like a link tree. You can see all the different ways to contact me whether it's IG call me text me hop on my calendar. Find me on Facebook, see our websites, send a request. So, one simple spot.
Brian Charlesworth
I haven't been there, but I'm gonna check it out as soon as we wrap up here so Veronicainspires.com everybody. Veronica, thanks for your time today. It's been really fun to see your growth and your passion for the real estate industry in just for making a difference and impacting people's lives. I can tell that's super important to us. So, which is really, I think, why you're so successful is you have that why behind what you're doing. And it's not just about, hey, I want to earn $1 it's there's so much more behind it. So anyway, thank you so much for your time. I've loved spending time with you today and looking forward to just working closer and closer with you and your business moving forward.
Veronica Figueroa
Oh, my gosh, thank you. You guys are awesome. And we appreciate this partnership and how you guys are helping us get better every day. Thank you.
Brian Charlesworth
Thanks, Veronica.
