At the core of running a good real estate business is having a strong team. Popularis Construction’s Brady Bankston joined Storii Time to talk about how to build a strong team and why it makes all the difference.
Saad: Again. Okay? This time I’m home. I’m not living and driving. Gonna add these guys back.
Saad: I think I think it was you guys, not me.
Brady: Oh, right. Right. Yeah.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
Saad: It had nothing to do with me being on the road and my phone about t… it had nothing to do with that.
Brady: You’re magically not in a car now. Now he’s nervous. I know. Crazy.
Saad: There’s there’s no correlation whatsoever.
Mike: AI background today.
Saad: But what did I what did I miss? Brady, you were you were talking about, you were talking about your teams, and I and I think you were answering Mike’s question about, like, what makes somebody wrong for your team. Well, maybe not wrong is not the right word, but you don’t Yeah.
Brady: Yeah. I think, really, we’re looking for just the right person. It’s not really the wrong person. There’s there’s I I guess there’s right and wrong, black and white, point blank. I changed my interview style and the process of which I go through, and I really just started putting out there: “Here’s the list of criteria that I’m looking for. I’m looking for someone who wants a challenge. I’m looking for someone who gets excited by, doing things that they’ve never done before, not scared. I’m looking for…” and I wrote a narrative for the position we just hired for project manager. And it was just it was a completely different format from all other resumes or applicant calls, whatever you wanna call them, that I put out there. It was just I wrote it differently. It was very it was more of a message of here’s here’s what I want around me, and here’s what I’m looking for. And the responses I got were much different.
Brady: So the right person is someone who no matter what we gotta do is just get it done.
Mike: Excellent.
Saad: And, I mean, I think so Mike and I being in, like, we’re we’re growing our team too. Right? Like, we have conversations with people. In fact, I’ve I’ve had many conversations coincidentally with clients that are looking to get into real estate and get their license and be part of our team. But at at the core of, like, what Mike and I believe in, and I think you’re speaking our language here, is, are they not only, like, are they passionate about real estate, but are they, like, good people? Are they excited about the idea of, like, running a business on their own and being a part of something bigger and, like, being a part of, like, you know, changing people’s lives? Right?
Saad: Like, that’s not for everybody. And, like, and I think, like, there’s a cliche phrase about, like, you know, like, basically, you can’t be everything for everyone. Right? And that goes with this whole idea of being a leader too. You cannot be a leader for everyone. So finding those people and Mike and I are still trying to figure this out on our own, right, is hard. It’s very hard. And and and I and I think, I think, it’s a process and there’s several different exercises and iterations that need to happen, before you kinda perfect that.
Brady: Yeah. What so what do you guys do for when you’re looking to bring a new realtor onto the team? Do you have, like, a list of criteria? Or how are you kinda going through the, I guess, the weeding out process or the interview process for that?
Saad: Mike, I’ll let you answer that if you’ve got initial thoughts on it.
Mike: Yeah. My my thoughts being over because there’s been several iterations of this company as well. So there was an there was a mode where we were expanding. And so when the process is hiring a lot more people quickly, that seems to be a recipe for disaster, at least in my experience. Because you’ll not be thorough enough…allow the the red flags that come up early. You’ll just steamroll over them, and then you end up handling them later on. So I think, like, our belief is that we wanna get to I don’t know if you’re at this point, where our social or notoriety or name or we’re so solidly being ourselves that people eventually come to us, which is Saad has had happened for some clients, or people that that wanna become agents. And then at that point, are you, like, affable, intelligent? And then so the experience starts to not matter because we know we can get intelligent people up to speed
Brady: Bingo. Yes.
Mike: Quickly. So that’s my point.
Saad:And, Brady, one key thing on what Mike just mentioned is that in this business, in our business, like, I mean, the barrier to entry is super low. Yeah. So there’s a lot of these brokerages, especially the big ones. You got your license and you can breathe? Great. Join us. Right? Like It’s not coming out of here. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Brady: Fantastic. You’re hired. Yeah.
Saad: And the reason that’s the case the reason that’s the case is not only, like, you know, the it’s not even the $80.20 rule in our business. It’s like ninety seven three. Right? Like like, 3% of the 3% of the realtors are bringing in 97% of the business. So it is a numbers game, but the reason that works is that not only is your cost minimal per agent, they’re paying you in a lot of these brokerages. Right? Like, the agents are paying to be a part of these bigger brokerages. And so what we’re trying to do, and this is part of our process, is…we don’t wanna be at that mold. We wanna separate ourselves. And the most important thing, I think, like, in terms of that weeding out process, Mike, it’s quite simple. It’s like, if Mike has a conversation and he feels like they’re a good fit, he’s like, Saad, you have a conversation. And then if you feel like they’re a good fit, then okay.
Brady: Do you want to hear a crazy story. Story.
Mike: We welcome those.
Brady: I won’t use any names. So, I was hiring this…was oh, god. It’s gonna be, like, four years ago. So I have a girl that works for me now. Her name’s Amanda. She’s my office manager. She’s an absolute rock star. She’s been with me for at least three years. But before her, I was interviewing for that position, and I had this lady apply. This person, I won’t use any identifying factors, she applied for the position. It was a phone interview. Could I do, like, three levels of interviews? And so it was just a phone call, and I was like, wow. This is, like, very impressive. So then I did a virtual interview, and she absolutely killed it. I was like, oh my god. I think I found the right person because I had no office staff at this time. So I was doing everything. So this was very this is a big hire for me, very important. I was scared to hire this person because I’m gonna be handing over my bank accounts and my QuickBooks and, like, everything. So I set up an in-person interview. The interview goes really well, then it just keeps going. And she’s just saying everything that it’s just like everything I personally would want to hear. So it started to get a little weird how obvious it was. The interview, she kept talking and talking and talking. It went on for about an hour and a half. And finally, I was like, I gotta go. I think I had to get up to Saad’s house. And, I was like, I gotta get going. And, so my wife was interviewing her because she was taking over my wife’s position. And, she left, and then I called her, my wife, and I was like, what do you think? She was like, something is off. I was like, okay. Good. It’s not just me. Because I had a habit of doing exactly what you said, Mike, and that is you look past. You think these things, you have this intuition, this gut feeling. You’re like, I’m overthinking it. And you’re like, I’m just gonna give them a shot because I wanna see the best in people. She’s like, no. Something’s off. I was like, okay. Good. Because I thought it was too it was too good to be true. Like you’re saying, too many of the right things. So she starts digging in, come to find out this person had been to prison for embezzling money out of small businesses three times. She was checked for a drink. She was running books on small businesses. Wow. And to your point, the kind of the going back and forth, if I hadn’t had somebody else also validating that my gut my gut feeling, there’s definitely a possibility I would have overlooked it because of where I was trying to rush, trying to get the position higher. And I dodged a massive, massive disaster in my business that could have destroyed me. Yeah. So Wow. It’s important. I yeah.
Mike: Yeah. Huge. Huge bullet dodge.
Saad: This is Storii Time, people. Yeah. That’s the one that’s the media.
Mike: We’re doing small small white collar crimes. That’s Yep.
Brady: Felonies. Dodge.
Saad: That’s crazy. Well, listen. Mike Tinsley, what’s going on? Knowledge Brokers Realty. Thanks for joining. What’s up, man? Dennis, Yahooster, Nick Caliendo.
Brady: Yahooster’s my man.
Saad: Everybody, thanks for joining. You know, so we’re we’re talking to Brady who’s a general contractor. He runs Popularis Construction. He’s helped my wife and I out considerably. He’s helped a bunch of clients. And, he’s a good friend of the Torii team… talking about building stronger teams and more, and, and better teams and more resilient teams.
Saad: So, Brady, I wanna talk about that last piece, resilience. Mike and I talk about this a lot. Right? And I think a lot, you know, business owners and people who are helping to run businesses talk about this too, because this is not linear. Growth is not linear. Success is not linear. You’re gonna see dips. You’re gonna see valleys. You’re gonna see peaks. And you gotta kinda, like, keep your, you gotta keep kind of, like, your cool throughout it all. Right? And and and stay even keel. When you talk about resiliency within your team, like, what does that look like? Like, how do you help make people more resilient and the unit more resilient?
Brady: So, I have three kids. It’s probably my favorite thing I do, is being a father. And the reason is, just being able to watch growth before my eyes, being able to be the one of the most, besides my wife, the most important factor in my children learning and growing and being able to expand their minds. And what I try to teach my children is the love of learning, and I believe that is, a key factor for my own personal success and getting through failure. So when I’m trying to teach my team, I’m not a micromanager unless things are going really bad. I try to be hands off and let failure happen, because a little bit of pain is the best teacher in life. I’ve learned my best and deepest learned lessons were because I failed at something, and I was able to pick myself back up and say, okay. Don’t do that again. That’s a hard no. And I think just allowing the team to exist and in safe instances, allowing some level of failure or some level of self correction and just being there as more of a support than a manager. Because maybe they do that one time, but then the next time, they’re gonna own that a lot more in their hearts. They’re gonna own that mistake, and they’re gonna own, the fix.
Brady: I had a a guy that, we made a big mistake. It cost us around $8,000 on, I think it was a carpet install. We renovated this big mill, and it was around an $8,000 mistake. And we discussed it, and I said, listen. You’re not gonna do that again. We both know that. Yep. But let’s talk about, let’s discuss, and, like, solve the problem. As long as you hire the right person and their intentions are good, then the mistake is not the problem. If you hire the wrong people and they don’t care, I mean, that’s you got a whole different set of issues. But if you have the right people, like, we’re going to make mistakes. And I’m gonna make mistakes in my estimating. I’m gonna make mistakes in pre-construction, and I have to be able to allow grace to my team to be able to also make mistakes. And it’s on me to help be there to support them when they make a mistake, correct it, fix it quickly, or my PM Tim. We’re there to correct those quickly, but to allow that to happen so that we can move forward.
Mike: Well put. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I’ll definitely not do that again, but..Why would that employee has already made that mistake? It’s part of their learning process. Why would that be a fireable thing? Then somebody else is gonna make a different mistake at some point. The intention is huge.
Mike: I do want to pivot slightly to your, like, social media presence and how you portray yourself on your jobs. It’s a very unique thing because there’s renovations, it’s this over the top showy vibe that puts me off, or it’s like, you know, maybe somebody who is not as articulate, explaining things. And from what I perceive from your social media…a very trustworthy, calm, articulate…this thing’s great, but I’m gonna explain to you, like, why it is great. So, what I’m curious as to is what type of thought you put into that, how that’s evolved, and, like, is that a natural thing for you, or is that something that you kind of intentionally work on?
Brady: No. I’m just awesome.
Mike: Yeah. That’s what we want. Alright, guys. It’s Storii Time. You’re great.
Saad: You know you know I’ve known Brady for too long when I knew that was gonna be his answer. “Just awesome.”
Brady: Okay. So I think it comes down to likability, knowledgeability, and trustworthiness. Those are the keys to any good sale. I am not a salesman in the fashion that I’m trying to convince you to buy from me. My sales method is I wanna show you why you would be foolish not to buy from me. That comes with teaching. I can’t tell you anything. I have to show you. So, I see social media, and I’ve been up and down with it. I’m really starting to the last couple months, really, we’ve been putting a lot of effort, and energy, since the beginning of this year into, the social media piece of it. But my philosophy is just show. Like, this is what we’re doing. I don’t wanna I want it to be consumable and entertaining and educational all at the same time. And so showing people things that they would never be able to ultimately see. So, I’m kind of trying to capture a larger audience, but at the same time, also showing business owners who know what they’re looking at that they can also see what we’re doing and why it’s different.
Brady: And, just proving to the world that we know what we’re doing and kinda just being casual about it. I mean, we try to do a little more it’s a little productive. You know? We have a little bit of producing to it. But at the same time, it’s kind of like I mean, it’s not on Saad’s level. I’m not that cool. I’m not as cool as Saad. My man gets down on IG.I like to have fun in my own way. Right? And it’s Yep. What’s funny is we started doing this, and, when I had a script and all this stuff, like, I had a pile of videos. I was like, I can’t impose this. This is not me. I cannot do this if it’s not me. And I’ve been very clear about that as we started to kinda get more into it. It has to be genuine. It has to be, like, really from the heart and just me being able to be me. Most of that is I mean, I don’t have any scripts. So I’m going into this, just talking about it gets easier as I do it because as you can see, I can talk. But, as I get better at it, it’s we’re getting a nice flow to the videos. But it’s just it’s all consistency. Yeah. Consistency and just doing it.
Saad: I mean, you’re you’re speaking our language. Like, literally, you said a bunch of things that we that Mike and I talk about a lot. You, is it Hauster or You Hooster? He just commented “and confidence.” Like, you were talking about likability, you know, being educational and, entertaining. You gotta have confidence too. Right? Because, like and that confidence gets the trade if you’re passionate, if you actually know what you’re talking about, and it’s a good one. Right? And if you’re being yourself, like, that I think is, like, the core to all of this. Like and then and, and I think that’s super important. And if you do that yourself as a leader, you the people who work with you and for you and and and with you, with you meaning, like, both clients and, like, you know, agents, then they’ll see that and they’ll kind of they’ll gravitate towards it. And that’s what Mike was talking about when it comes to, us growing a team, a a stronger, better, bigger, and more resilient team is kind of doing it yourself. You do those things yourself, your team’s gonna learn and that the entire unit is gonna be better for it. So, and I think, you know, Brady, that’s why that’s why I think, like, your content, really spoke to Mike. You know, like, Mike obviously doesn’t know you as well as I do. But the reason we work with you and keep working with you is because of that. Because of the, like, the level of confidence and the level and the and obviously the likability is there. You obviously know what you’re talking about. And we didn’t really need to be so we were not sold. We were just kinda like, that’s the guy. Right? That’s the guy and then having the right communication, all that kind of stuff. But it starts with you and then it trickles down to everybody else you work with, because, by the way, when we get we’re getting work done at our place, Brady’s not here every time. Right? He’s not here every time. He’s got a lot of other people that he works with, including his dad who’s awesome. Right?
Brady: Shout out!
Saad: Yeah. Exactly. And I think, everybody else learns from that and kinda, like, becomes a sponge when they see their leader doing that. So, so, yeah. I mean, Mike, any last questions or thoughts?
Mike: Is the hat a fixture? Like, is that a style choice that you made a decade ago or what? It’s not. So my brother-in-law went to London. He works in DC, and he travels all over the place. Shout out to Cam. And, he brought this back to me from London, and I was like, that’s weird. And it sat on my shelf for a while…months. And then I wore it one day, and my wife was like, wow, that looks good on you. There’s nothing better. There’s nothing better than when your wife’s like, oh, you look good at that. And I was like, okay. Alright. I started rocking it, and I couldn’t stop.
Mike: Excellent. Excellent. Just keeping it real. Great great answer. Great answer. Great answer.
Saad: Brady, this was an awesome topic. So thank you for, suggesting it. Because obviously, we could’ve gone down…and, you know, eventually, we will. We’ll have you come back and go maybe a little bit more deeper.
Brady: Always available.
Saad: Yeah. Do it every week. So, we’ll make it happen. And, for those listening who are new, who maybe follow Brady and know Brady, we do these IG lives every week. Different topic. You know, oftentimes, we have guests talking about various things that they’re experts in. And, you know, thank you, Brady, for being a part of that. And, we’ll definitely have you back in the coming months. So appreciate your time, man. Yeah.
Brady: Story with Torii. That’s great. Story with Torii.
Mike: Technical difficulties, but we got a man that
Brady: we worked through it.
Mike: Man, it’s, it’s all good.
Saad: It’s memorable. It’s memorable.
Brady: That’s right.
Mike: Right, Saad.
Saad: He’s Mike. That’s Brady. I’m Saad. This is Storii Time. Until next week. Thank you, guys.Brady: Love that. Good job.
This Instagram live is transcribed for your easy reading. If you want to catch Storii Time live, every week, follow @saadmun1r and @photolowski on Instagram.