Brant Phillips Show 41: Brant Joins EXP Realty – Interview With Connor Steinbrook

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Brant : Welcome my friends to the Brant Phillips show. The show that is all about helping you to create results. It’s all about the results my friend. So today is going to be a little bit different. Today I’ve invited a friend on named Connor Steinbrook and we’re going to do an interview about something that I’m incredibly, incredibly excited about going on in my business right now and you will never believe what this is about.

Brant : So many years ago and I’m going to tell the whole story during the podcast. You know when I first got started in real estate, right before I left my full-time job. I decided to get my license, my real estate license and there’s always a debate in the investing community whether or not you should have your license or not. I decided, basically out of fear that I was going to get my license just in case I need to generate a little bit of extra cash here and there, do some listing for other people but you know there were some benefits.

Brant : It helped me get access to the MLS and I could list my own properties and things like that but you know many years later I decided that having your realtor license didn’t really support what my business mission was, my business goals and dreams and it didn’t really improve my lifestyle and it didn’t improve my freedom and it didn’t create really what I was trying to cultivate, right? Which was recurring passive income, doing things that I absolutely enjoy and love working on.

Brant : Well, my friends I’m gonna let you know now, I’m going to give you a little peek behind the curtains what you’re gonna hear today. I’ve reactivated my real estate license. I’m back in the industry. But it’s the company that I’m with now and this business model that you’re gonna learn about today is completely revolutionary because now being a licensed realtor is congruent with everything that I became an entrepreneur about. Not only is it allowing me to improve my bottom line financially but it’s also given me ownership of another company in a business model that’s 100% agent owned brokerage.

Brant :    And with a platform and an ability to generate passive income, passive income from what I can input and use my time, energy and resources one time to create recurring revenues. So that’s all I’m going to share about this now. So enjoy the interview with me and Connor. I think there’s gonna be some big takeaways from you out there that are in the investing world and for those of you that maybe licensed agents. And if you want some more information about this just feel to reach out to me, shoot me an email or fill out a form on my website and we’ll talk and connect further if you have questions about this tremendous, tremendous opportunity that’s available in the marketplace.

Connor : Guys, welcome back to the podcast today. We have another, yes, another high level real estate entrepreneur, real estate investor and real estate agent out of Houston, Texas. We’re going to go over his career today. What led him to join EXP because top real estate professionals all across the country continue on joining this company because they understand there’s lots of opportunity here.

Connor : Let me introduce you to Brant Phillips out of Houston, Texas and let’s go in Brant and talk about why you made this bog move and who you are and why it’s important for people to understand why someone like you is important to listen to and why you make this move.

Brant : Yeah, man. Thank you for having me on the show. I’m really excited to be here and yeah, a little quick story about me is I was in the corporate world. Previously I was seven years in law enforcement. Figured that wasn’t where I wanted to spend the rest of my days in the workforce. So decided to go test out the corporate world because the grass is always greener on the other side, right? I learned, it took me one day in the corporate world to realize the corporate world wasn’t for me. I knew it the very first day. I remember coming home. I was no longer in law enforcement, working weekends and holidays and stuff like that.

Brant : My wife was so excited because I had this 9 to 5 kind of thing, which it wasn’t really 9 to 5 but I came home. She was like, “Honey, how was your first day on the job?” And I remember saying, “I absolutely hate it but don’t worry I’m going to make the best of it. I’m going to provide for our family but I’m gonna find something else to do that we can make more money, I can enjoy my life, etc.” Like so many, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and I just began reading books about real estate, going to networking events.

Brant : And late in 2006, I told my wife I wanted to get a real estate investor and it’s kind of funny at the time because we were kind of newlyweds. We’d been married for probably about three years or so and we had our first child. We had our second child on the way. We’re living in an apartment and we had no money at all. We had just finished paying off all of our student loans. Both of us had college debt, college loans like so many. Paying off credit cards, she did this Dave Ramsay thing, we’re debt free, blah, blah, blah.

Brant : We’re living in this apartment and then I told my wife, “I want to become a real estate investor.” So I know she … I still remember this. She’s probably thinking, “We don’t have any money. We’re living in an apartment. You have no business experience. Okay, sure.” And I got real specific with her. I said, “I’m gonna buy ten houses this year.” Just pulled the number out, it sounded like a good number. So low and behold I used my credit card to purchase my first investment property. I bought ten properties the first year. Began putting together partnerships and raising money my second year and 2009, I quit my job and became a full-time real estate investor.

Brant : But one of the reasons we’re on the podcast today is, I know about EXP Realty and what a lot of people see me as a real estate investor because I write books about real estate and do coaching and teaching and all this kind of stuff, a lot of speaking. A lot of people don’t know in 2009, I got my real estate license right before I quit my job and so some people that’s always a debate in the real estate community, hey should I get my license, should I got get my license?

Brant : And about half the investors that I know do and half don’t. So my motive on getting my license at that time was it was kind of fear based to be honest with you. Because I didn’t see myself as being a realtor. It wasn’t something I wanted to do but I was like, “Well, in case this investing thing doesn’t work out. I can do some listings. I can have this income to support my family in case there’s some lean time.” So I got my license. Got my license, used it a lot for listing my own deals. Working with other students, friend, family members kind of stuff like that.

Brant : And it was nice to have access to the MLS and learn some things and get education and make income with my license but over time, especially as my investing business grew. My time became more constrained and I began just really giving all my investments to an agent. We actually have a full-time agent in the office that I employ. But I began realizing several years into it, being a realtor, the income was good but it really wasn’t supporting [inaudible 00 : 07 : 50] which was to create a lifestyle that me and my family truly desired.

Brant : To create true wealth and that wasn’t supporting that. I was trading time for money. So a couple of years ago I decided to deactivate my license. Just for that it wasn’t really supporting what I was trying to achieve in business and deactivated it and just focusing on investing but me and you know each other quite well Connor and I know one of our mantras is multiple streams of income, passive income, reoccurring revenue. So I don’t know how much you want me to share.

Brant : So when I heard about EXP I immediately said, I have to reactivate my license and I have got to get back into this because now being a realtor with the EXP model supports why I became a real estate investor and it really supports what most of the people that I work with. Real estate investing clients, realtors that I’m not working with. It’s like we all want more money, more time and more freedom and this is on alignment with my other investment models. It makes absolutely sense, man. I never would have thought I would say I’m fired up to be an agent as much as I am now because it’s like a rebirth for when I got into real estate 10 years ago.

Brant : I’m like, “Dude his is it man.” There’s another layer to the model.

Connor : That’s what people are saying. People are saying EXPs are making real estate fun again because it’s a breath of fresh air for a lot of us because now people are reinvigorated. We’ll talk about the different between active and passive and residual income models and working for equity as well. But guys, support and understand that Brant is not some brand new individual in the real estate world.

Connor : He has done an amazing job over the past 10 years, runs a huge company down there in Houston. Most people can never get out of being a solopreneur as a investor, where they’re just doing everything on their own. So he’s actually built a real business. He’s traveling around the country speaking. He’s helped a lot of people change their life through real estate and that’s kind of how we met. So we met at an event. I was speaking there a little bit in the beginning of the event and Brant was giving the speech there and that’s kind of how we connected.

Connor : And talk a little bit about how you, before you say EXP, kind of already were talking about EXP without really knowing about EXP. Knowing that the real estate world was moving towards a more leaner, cleaner business model, more tech based model and how technology was going to help influence this industry quite heavily and then when you say EXP it just kind of clicked like it did for me. Like it did for a top real estate professionals across the country.

Brant : Yeah, sure. Yeah, so I go up to Dallas where as soon as I get off this I’m heading up to Dallas to go speak at Quest at a private lender function, where I teach people how to invest passively in real estate and so at our office here in Houston, like I said, I have a full-time agent, I have an acquisitions buyer, a construction manager, all these people and we have a lot of conversations about business all the time and I don’t know if it was early this year or late last year, we were having a conversation. There was other people in the office but I was really having it with my agent, who’s also my sister-in-law.

Brant : And I can’t remember if I read something or just we were talking having a conversation and I told her, I said, I’m like, “If I were you as an agent. I would be concerned about your industry.” And she’s like, “Well, what do you mean?” And I think I was reading something about Uber or Air BnB or something I can’t remember what it was. Things are changing. I was looking at the [Redthin 00 : 11 : 50] model they started doing 1.5% listing model or one percent. Look at Nextdoor. Look at some of these other competitors.

Brant : But I was like, “I don’t think that’s it.” I just said, “Something’s gonna change in this industry.” And I’m like, “I don’t know what it is but I know technology is really going to catch up with really an outdated system, an outdated model.” I’m like, “So, keep your eyes out. Keep your ear to the streets and really find out … being looking for signs because something’s gonna change. I don’t know what it is.” And that was it. We had a conversation about it and a few months ago or it was a few months later from that conversation, which was probably three or four months ago from today, I’m getting ready to speak at this event and I never met you before. I’d seen you on Facebook and your podcast, your YouTube channel actually is what I’ve seen and so I think it was Nathan Long got up and said, “Connor is gonna speak a little bit before Brant comes up.”

Brant : And I was like, “Oh, he’s gonna speak out his investing business. He’s gonna raise money. Something like that.” And you talked about EXP Realty. And so I’m like, “What is he doing talking about being a realtor.” I’m like, “Is this guy a real investor?” Like, “What’s going on here yo?” It just blindsided me and I was thinking to myself, I’m like, “Dude, I think this is it. This maybe it.” And that’s when I went up to you and we started talking. I’m like, “I want to learn more about this man.”

Brant : So I went back started watching videos doing my research and here we are. [inaudible 00 : 13 : 32] this was the next thing.

Connor : Right, I mean it just makes sense for a lot of serious entrepreneurs that see the model. Because we have a three income stream model, which we’ll talk about here in a second but when you look at all the other big companies that have come before EXP, they were all built before the internet. So there’s a lot of great companies out there, Keller Williams, Caldwell Banker, Re/Max. These are amazing companies but they were just built before this technology boom that we’ve seen and the internet boom and we have the ability to run a leaner, cleaner business model, which is what EXP essentially is guys.

Connor : We’re the fast growing real estate brokerage in U.S. history. It’s because we’re a cloud based brokerage and for y’all who don’t understand what that means. You need to sit down with Brant or myself or somebody in EXP and sit down and see what it is. So that’s how we met and there’s a lot of reasons why I personally moved my license to this company. And one of them is because I promised myself, just like Brant did, was I would never have one income stream because my previous career disappeared and I had always worked for something that had a residual income stream.

Connor : Something where I could trade my time, energy and resources one time but get paid multiple times for that effort and energy. And so, one of the biggest reasons we see a lot of agents burn out and quit the business or get frustrated and step away from the business sometimes is because they’re working for active income. And guys if you don’t understand the difference.

Connor : Active income, transactional income, being a wholesaler, flipping houses, being a real estate agent, working for a job, you’re getting paid once for the energy that you’re trading once and the risk that you’re trading once. And what happens is as regular real estate agent, guys, is you go and sell a house and once that house closes, anxiety picks up and frustration picks up because you don’t know when the next check is coming nor do you know how big that check is gonna be.

Connor : Is it going to be $150,000 house or it is going to be a $500,000 house? Without that consistency and financial stability, it can be very, very stressful living that lifestyle. So let’s talk about that what most real estate agents see is because they have no real exit to the business because as long as they can see houses and produce an income. Most of them can do pretty well that are successful in this business.

Connor : But as we know as you get older, energy levels drop, production drops, you can’t maintain that pace that you did early in your career. And it seems to be people have a struggle because they don’t have that business maturity or self discipline through those early years and they live or what is called immediate gratification and they spend that money because as their income goes up, so does consumption.

Connor : So let’s talk about what you’ve seen in your career watching real estate agents struggle with this active income model.

Brant : Yeah, so I love talking about this. This is probably one of the things that inspires me the most to share with people is teaching really other people, not just to create the income. It’s so much more than just income. It’s about creating additional time, freedom and just building a business that you love and enjoy. So I, myself, I was hard charging as an investor and I’ll tell you about year four, year five making tons of money. I went through a massive, massive burnout in my investing business because it was 100% active right.

Brant : So I didn’t have systems in place. I had a few team members but it wasn’t a true … It wasn’t a real business model that I had. I had active income, like I said, I was making a lot of money but I went through like a really difficult time of being burnt out and I didn’t see an end in sight and that was the problem. Like yeah, I’m making a lot of money but I don’t know how to fix this to where I can run this business without being so active in it and so in hindsight it was wonderful because it caused me to rethink things. Slow things down and build it back to where I’ve 10, 11 years later I’ve been in this business and now we buy dozens and dozens, 50, 60, 70 houses a year and I don’t have to see these houses. And I don’t have to manage them. I don’t have to look at them. I don’t have to manage the …

Brant : And I’ll tell you that is a difficult accomplishment. It’s not something that probably everyone needs even desires to do, nor do I recommend anyone to build this more functional real estate investing business. Because it’s truly different and it’s really hard and that’s a reason why I’m so fired up about EXP because this is allowing people like plug and play to instantly have the systems and the model built out for them to where you can recreate and reproduce a fully functional business that can meet, depending on how you work it, can meet your everyday income needs to provide for your bills and expenses and your family.

Brant : But also it’s giving you the ability to build it for the future, right? And so I’ll tell you when I went through my burnout. When I kind of hit that bottom so to speak and it really helped me to get focused on what I wanted to do and I went back to the beginning, like why did I get into this business right? Money was, for me honestly, money was the least motivating factor. I wanted more time. I wanted more freedom. I wanted to build a business that every day that I enjoyed what I was doing, that I enjoyed the people that I was working with.

Brant : That was really important to me but also I wanted multiple streams of income. If one wasn’t producing so well, I would have piece of mind that other things were working and then I wanted passive income. I wanted passive income and I went the rental property route in the beginning, that was what a mentor that I had taught me and leveraging … just starting out with nothing, you’re leveraging rental property, it’s great for creating wealth and I don’t regret it at all but it’s not a truly passive income model and so that’s just been part of my journey and that’s why I’m excited with the agents that we’re working with now.

Brant : With EXP, we’re teaching … I’m teaching agents, realtors to create real wealth through their active everyday income that they’re creating but also layering some reoccurring revenue through the EXP model but also with the investing thing as well because I think it’s all, the cool thing with EXP is when I talk about multiple streams of income, for me it’s really important that they’re all in the real estate sphere.

Connor : Right.

Brant : Like we’re not running over here and just doing some just tangent of some other industry. Like all these things are interrelated and that’s how we, I don’t know there’s some true synergies that occur with this business over and over and that’s why I like it.

Connor : Right, I mean they’re just extra symbiotic cashflow streams and different income streams that go together. And so the reason why a lot of agents are attracted to coming working with you in your EXP team. A lot of people are reaching out to you because of your experience in the business and you have a lot offer them but guys let’s talk about this burnout, this active income burnout that real estate agents feel and this happens to everybody. It happens not just in real estate, it happens in all industries and it’s the pressure to live up to your expectations, live up to previous years’ incomes.

Connor : So what happens is, even if you’re a rockstar and a lot of y’all are and a lot of your agents are going to watch this. What happens is you start out in the business and you start out slow and then you start making a lot of money and you get to a point where you’re going to hit a peak year. At one point you’re going to make the highest income you’re ever gonna make. And that next year you’re gonna have a drop in income and you’re gonna start out that year. Say you made $400,000 last year and you break the year down into quarters.

Connor : So you’re thinking in your mind, the way our minds think is to break your previous year, which is why you’ve been excited about the business running so hard because you keep breaking your previous years’ income, you’re going … And say you’re in that first quarter and you’ve only produced $50,000 income. So your brain starts thinking you’re behind. And it starts creating stress and anxiety and there’s always going to be a peak year but when you work for passive income and you’re stacking passive income models, as well as, working for equity. Your income is always going up and when we talk about the way our brains work, as long as your progressing in life. As long as things are getting better, you stay happy, you stay focused, you stay driven, energy levels are high.

Connor : But when you start to feel that regression or that stagnation, that’s what creates that burnout feeling, that depression, that anxiety that people feel and they start saying they’re burnt out and once you start breaking that emotional barrier and you start thinking that way. Now you’re already thinking that way and it just compounds on that down swing and so that’s why you see so many agents get frustrated and quit the business because they do see no end in sight. But now EXP is giving us an exit to the business.

Connor : So let’s talk about why we have an exit to the business because we have a three income stream model. Guys you can come in and act as a regular real estate agent. We have a commission-based income stream or you can sell houses and go out there and act as a real estate agent. But just doing what we normally do anyways as real estate agents now with EXP, we can actually build equity in a company. Because now, as you saw on May 21st, EXP has now been uploaded to the Nasdaq. We’re publicly traded company. When you come into the company and you sell your first house a number of shares are going to be issued to you. So just doing what you already do anyways, you’re making or you’re building up equity in this company through the stock.

Connor : Also, if you do what we call capping out and within our company, which a lot of y’all work at a company where you have a cap, when you sell $2.66 million in real estate, they’re gonna issue you more shares. And then we have a third income stream which is basically a team building income stream, which is where you can go out there, act as a real estate broker without actually having had a broker’s license but still build a team. And when those agents come on your team and sell houses because you’ve introduced those agents to the company, you’re going to have a financial incentive and they’re going to reward you out of that agent’s production.

Connor : So for example, on our front level, we’re getting 3.5% of gross commission of what that agent’s selling. So now agents can come in an build a team. They can build equity in a company. So they’re building passive income, they’re building equity, as well as, alongside they’re selling houses. And this is what’s super exciting because when you’re building up this revenue share, as we call it. Similar to the KW profit/share model. But we’re doing it before expenses and not after expenses are pulled out because we’re not a franchise model.

Connor : Now agents are able to build up what we call a cash/flow model or an extra income stream coming in every single month and that’s what’s super exciting and this is what’s going to allow you to exit the business. So let’s kind of talk about how these models really influence you to come into the company because you were sitting there working as an active income agent for a long time and it just burns you out so much that you jus quit the business and when you saw this, it’s so exciting for you it basically brought you back in the business, which I’m seeing happen for a lot of agents.

Connor : We’re seeing agents change their lives over and over. So let’s kind of dig into this a little bit here. And let’s just hear you opinions on it.

Brant : Yeah, so one thing I think is really important when we talk about reoccurring revenue and passive income and active income is I see a lot of people, real estate investors included, they focus on like this big number, like this really big ginormous goal that is really overwhelming to them and for some people far fetched in terms of with the systems and the methods that they’re trying to reach their goals. Like you just mentioned it. Say and agent goes out and makes $300,000 or $400,000, well they’re not going to continually be able to increase that revenue especially like what if they get sick. What if there’s a shift in the market, which there will always be.

Brant : So once of the things that I love about this model and really real estate investing and the EXP model in general is this, is yes, we all want to become high net worth individuals so having a high net worth is great but what’s even more, really to me, more powerful than that for your every day life is getting to a point where your reoccurring revenue meets and exceeds all of your bills.

Brant : So this model, while it’s so exciting for me and like why we’re truly helping realtors create real wealth is because if you break this down into just a mini goal. Forget about people … I see so many people think. If I can just make a million dollars, that’s going to be peace, love and happiness. That’s like this finish line. It’s not. I made a million dollars. It’s not. But whatever you if you take a much smaller view.

Brant : Let’s say your mortgage is $3,000 a month, $2,000, $3,000 whatever it is. But think how many lives would be changed if they had $2-$3,000 a month coming in every single month no matter what where they just didn’t have to pay a mortgage again. It’s absolutely life changing to them. What if you had an additional $1,000 to pay for you and your spouse’s car or maybe you want to send your kids to private school, like my wife and I did with our kids. When you have this income coming in, just like $1,000 to $2,000 and you layer that, like you said. You stack maybe another $1,000 or $2,000 whatever it is a year later. That changes your life. That changes people’s lives and I don’t think people understand the impact that has or really how achievable it is with the right model and the right systems and the right support etc.

Brant : And so that’s what’s really exciting to me is that opportunity to get people’s mind off the bigger goal, like we need to have bigger goals and we need to pursue net worth and etc. But where our daily actions are actually having an impact on our daily and weekly lives, like improving it tremendously just by hitting some of these little small goals but that’s exciting to me. People don’t understand. $3,000 to $5,000 in passive income changes people’s lives.

Connor : Absolutely. So what it does is it basically gives you the feeling of living without fear. Because for example, the individual who brought me into this company. He got sick was put in the hospital not too long ago and he’ll tell you himself that his revenue share, that passive income, that cash flow or whatever you want to call it was coming in, while he was sitting there stuck in the hospital. It took a huge burden off of him because if he was a normal agent, what would have been going on.

Connor : He would have been stressing out. He would be like, “When am I going to get out of here? What are my bills going to be? When am I going to get out there and be able to sell houses again?” And those unknowns are very, very stressful. But you’re seeing this happen all across the country, specially you from Houston. Look at all the flood houses, right? So all the EXP agents that I talked to that were in Houston, when I went to the shareholder event, said they all had houses held up in Escrow at least they were in that part of the city on that side and they were basically, look it was my revenue share that let me go to sleep at night feeling comfortable because I didn’t have to worry where the money was coming from.

Connor : Whereas if you’re only working for active income and you get sick, you get hit in a car wreck. For some reason you have to travel and take care of your parents because they get sick. Guys, life will catch up to you eventually, I promise you. If you’re living in the present moment and feeling like you’re invincible and everything is always going to go right. That is not how life works. Some point in the future, if you’re only an active income earner and you don’t have anything to step back to and look to if you get to a position where you can’t produce that income. It’s gonna catch up and it’s going to be a very, very stressful time for you.

Connor : And so, especially for you down there in Houston. You’ve probably see this happen with agents all over getting help up with houses in Escrow. They couldn’t get these houses closed and their business shut down. So there’s so many things that can come up as an active income earner that can be a risk long term for you.

Brant : Yeah, sure. Well, I believe that success breeds success, that’s why I like to encourage people. Hey I did it. Your bills maybe $10 or $15 or $20,000 or whatever all your bills are but let’s focus on mini goals. When people focus on, let me get to $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $5,000 whatever it may be in reoccurring revenue, once they see that they’re on fire. So it just that success breeds success. Oh, if I can do $1,000, I can do $2,000. If I can do $2,000, I can do $4,000. So that’s always been my strategy with investing and now it’s what we’re working on building with the EXP model at the same time.

Connor : Right, so a lot of people are going to be attracted to come work with you. You have a lot to offer. So you actually built a real business. What is it like to see because I think a lot of people understand once they start looking at EXP that these multiple income streams are just the best option for an agent because we see, how often do you see Brant a 75-year-old real estate agent still selling houses and what do they tell us. They’re selling houses because they love the business and we know that’s not true because they can’t live off social security. They didn’t’ put money away because they didn’t plan for their retirement and they’re having to sell houses.

Connor : And so you have the ability to help these agents, we have incredible software they give us. Let’s kind of talk about some of the opportunities that EXP allows us because not just do we get the ability to have extra income streams, we’re also getting incredible opportunities to training through conversion and what we now call KB Core, we get commissions inc. So for someone like you who’s an expert lead generator, what can using these softwares do for you and the team that you’re gonna build.

Connor : You’re gonna help some of these new agents that wouldn’t have this type of help going to 100% shop because a lot of agents are attracted to those flat fee shops where they get 250 per transaction and that’s it but essentially what they’re doing is they’re taking their hat off and just hanging their license there and they’re not getting any support. They’re not getting any help because they’re just focused on, I get to keep more of my money. But what happens is there not getting any support help from someone who knows the business, any softwares or lead generation programs to help them and so they’re making more of their commission but they’re not selling hardly any houses.

Connor : So really they’re not making that much money, right?

Brant : Sure. So it’s really just an inefficient business model. So hearing you talk about how I built this business that’s probably 90% systemized or I deal with very little these days and I look like if I was getting started in the business now and if this model was available now and if I’m just getting started and if I had all this knowledge and all this experience of what I’ve been through, I can tell you I wouldn’t have chose the path I’ve been through. I will tell you that. So everything that I’ve built and the losses and the risks and just the headaches and the trials and tribulations of building a business, like I’ve grown from it and I don’t regret it but if there’s a smarter more efficient, less risk model why wouldn’t you do that?

Brant : Like I said, I want more time, more freedom and just more enjoyment out of life and of course, to create wealth and income but to do that efficiently so that’s what was really so exciting to me about EXP as well. Was just the efficiency of the model. I was an agent previous to coming back for about eight years and I met with a broker. I had two different brokers and I was with the flat fee model both times. So I had two brokers, I met each of them one time and it was both when I signed up with them. I never saw them again and I went to broker’s offices exactly two times ever.

Brant : Should I have been going there more? Yeah, ’cause that’s where training was. That’s where support was and so I didn’t but you get into it what you put into it and so to me it was just like I don’t want to drive across town for this, so I’d spend time on the phone or trying to get help or just trying to figure out things myself a lot of times. So it was an inefficient model and I’m not like a tech person or anything like that but I’ll tell you we’ve been using virtual assistance for over … I had my first [VA10 00 : 35 : 00] years ago when I first got started in this business.

Brant : So we use virtual support. We use technology when it makes sense with a lot of … Even I have employees that don’t come to the office anymore right because there’s no need for them to. So when I saw EXP’s model, it just made sense that it would, not only like we mentioned several times, not only support me improving revenue, income but it provided a more efficient business model. The cloud based brokerage it just blew my mind.

Brant : I knew something was going to happen. I didn’t think think it would be like that but when I saw it was like this is it. Tell me why this doesn’t make complete and total sense?

Connor : Right, like when we were down there at the mastermind. Down there in Cancun. We were at the pool. I was literally on my phone accessing the cloud brokerage. Think about that. I can run my business. Like if we have internet access on the moon, we could run that business and so what’s interesting Brant is that you have in a very extensive career and long track record on both sides of business but a lot of people know you for the investment business you built. The same thing with me. They know me for the investment business I built.

Connor : And so a lot of people didn’t believe me when I said I put a lot of my business activity kind of on the back burner to focus on EXP. And so what you said earlier, how we met was this should prove to people this is a huge opportunity that when we met, I wasn’t out there trying to speak on how to flip houses or how to buy rental properties. I was out there spending my time focusing on building EXP Realty because I love this company. I think it’s the future of real estate just as many of us and everywhere I go. What do I hear? I hear the same broken record, EXP has changed my life, EXP has changed life, EXP has changed my life.

Connor : And I just can’t remember anybody telling me that a different brokerage has every changed their life. Now they enjoy being at the company but they’re not out there saying that this is giving me an excitement again. That this is giving me a path to actually exit the business where I don’t have to sell houses until the say I die. And that’s why a lot of people from these flat fee shops are moving over because they can never retire. They’re always gonna have to sell. Unless they have some discipline and take that initiative early on and start putting money away. There is no 401K. There is no retirement plan set up for agents and this why most of them never live past the present moment.

Connor : But I’ve talked to a number of them lately and some of them specifically said just like this, the biggest fear that I have is that I’m going to have to sell houses forever and I’m trapped in this business because I don’t want to go back to corporate, yet I don’t see an end in sight for this and they feel stuck. And it’s just a horrible very sad thing to see.

Connor : So we’re now able to help them and I think if they just reach out to Brant and us and sit down and see what we have to show them I think this business model is going to massively shift the way they’ve seen real estate and brokerages in the way they’ve been run before. But it’s also important to understand that we’re not a franchise model and because of this we don’t have that slow down of having to build offices out and we can now build teams across the country. So individuals from Florida, California, New York can work with Brant and us and our team, the same way they’d work with us if they were right here in their backyard.

Connor : Because nobody goes to office. We’ve had top agents on here left and right or coming through our office or coming through Investor Army talking about this that people do business in the field. The do business at the title company or title attorney’s office or Starbucks. These are the top three places they tell me they spend their time. They never tell me they’re going into the office and it’s just the elimination of this brick and mortar costs and the elimination of the franchise process, now eliminates massive overhead and when you run a leaner cleaner business model and overhead goes down profits go up.

Connor : And the reason why the company wants to give us so much top training and live training a cloud of video vault that we can access 24 hours a day, conversion or what we call KB Core now, Commissions Inc. All our different [inaudible 00 : 39 : 07] from platforms is that the company wants to spend more and give more to the agent to make us better agents because when we sell more houses, more money goes back to the company and because we’re all agent owners together, the individuals that have come in and sold a house in the company because we’re now all equity shareholders, everybody wins and that’s why this is such a great business model and what they’ve created for us is so powerful.

Connor : Still there?

Brant : Yeah.

Connor : Looks like we lost you for a second.

Brant : Yeah, I’m there. Yeah, I’m here. Yeah man, it sounds so … A big thing for me is I like to truly be excited and inspired by what I’m doing. I don’t care, you can say, “Hey, you can make a million dollars doing whatever flipping mobile homes.” But I’m like, “I don’t know if that’s my thing.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I like to be excited about what I’m doing and just work with people I enjoy working with. People do business with people they like doing business with and that’s another thing that’s so cool about this.

Brant : So I meeting with … I’m getting on a call later today with one of my old students. He’s in Atlanta. He’s heard about what we’re doing. He’s like, “Dude, I want to talk.” He’s in the real estate space. So he’s in Atlanta but he can come onto our team with EXP and we’re down here in Houston. Talking to some of my wife’s family is from the east coast, they’re from Philadelphia. So we’re talking to some of her family. We’re like, “I see what y’all are doing.” They’re watching a couple of videos and want to learn more about it. So we can work with them even though they’re in Philadelphia. And so there’s just so many things that are inspiring me and encouraging me and you’re right about our time.

Brant : You told me you began shutting down certain aspects of your business to focus on EXP. And whenever, when I got into this business, like I said I was pursing time freedom, financial freedom, all these types of things and the old model, the old realtor model just didn’t support any of my goals. I shut it down. EXP supports that. So what am I spending a lot of my time on now? It’s the EXP model. We’re doing weekly lunch and learns at our office.

Brant : And I’m having to look at other ways, time commitments that I have and honestly when I’m putting them on the scales, EXP is outweighing some of the other things I’m doing. So that’s what we’re devoting more time to and I got a busy life. I got a wife and five kids and pretty active with other things but it’s like EXP is beginning to get some other time in my business time each week and we’re devoting more and more time to it because the more and more time that we spend in it, the more and more people that we’re working with. Like we’re starting to see.

Brant : Even much, how bigger the opportunity is. So I’m in Houston and at the time of this recording we’ve got an incredible baseball team. The Houston Astros, World Series Champions.

Connor : Debatable.

Brant : So my wife and I went to a game last Friday. I took my son to the game last night. One of my sons, I have three boys. So I took my 8-year-old we got first row seats, it was pretty awesome but you go to the Astros game now and it’s packed we have 30,000-40,0000 people, which is a lot on a Monday night where 5-6 years ago they were the worst team in major league baseball. But everybody loves to be a part of a winning team, right.

Brant : So EXP, they the fastest growing real estate company ever. So why wouldn’t you want to be a part of that. So me, there’s synergy there. There’s energy. There’s a reason that they are the fastest growing company ever. That doesn’t happen by accident, right? That doesn’t happen by accident. So this analogy about the Astros. They won the World Series, it wasn’t an accident, right? They had a great team, they had great chemistry. They had great leadership. They had efficiencies in training and things other teams didn’t have and that’s what EXP has.

Brant : So I’m proud to be a part of this team. And Conner, you and I are coming in under us we’re business partners now. We’re in this business together. So everything you’re doing, everything I’m doing like we’re collectively growing a company and I haven’t seen anything like this before. It’s so much more efficient that starting an investment business. It’s so much easier and the risk. I was thinking about when I had my license before and you were talking before and I met with brokers two times, went to offices a total of two times and I remember I had other phone calls and conversations for support but I always had this feeling like my broker didn’t like me very much because she just seemed frustrated.

Brant : And I’m like, “Well, maybe she’s frustrated because I never come to the office.” I don’t come to the meetings. But really now that I’ve learned more about this and like I think she was probably just overwhelmed because when you go into EXP World and you see they have specialized support for every aspect of the business. It’s so efficient. So I was saying, “Maybe, she just doesn’t like me but it was, maybe she was just really burned out.” But all the stress and the burdens that she was having and fire she was having to put out and they’re all going to her cell phone or email for the most part.

Connor : That’s what people don’t realize. Most of the brokers are losing money. They got in with a vision of what they thought and a lot of times when we create a vision and we have an internal thought process of where we want to go and then a few years down the road after we put a lot of energy behind it and reality plays out different than the internal movie that we created in our mind, that’s what causes that frustration and that feeling of failure and this isn’t what I thought.

Connor : But a lot of these brokers … Guys, if you’re a broker right now and you come across this, ask yourself, “Are you still selling houses yourself?” And if you are you know why you’re still selling houses because most of the time you’re supplementing the brokerage that you’ve built. Because brokers that are truly successful they don’t sell houses anymore they give those leads off to those agents and they’re taking 50% or 20% or whatever they want to split but a real entrepreneur understands that it’s better to get 50% of 100 deals than say 100% of say 20 deals, right?

Connor : And so just to create a form of leverage and like he talked about guys. We no longer have to fight for the attention of one broker. We have in the cloud specialized salaried employees that handle accounting, the tech outposts, transaction team, agent services, we have individuals that are employees of EXP that work for us. So 200+ employees will work for you, instead of you essentially working for one broker.

Connor : It’s totally shifted the way the industry’s run but I think it’s important also that you brought up the Astros here because it kind of struck a chord with me. Let’s be honest, real estate is a very lonely business for people when they start out as an entrepreneur, if they’re an investor or an agent, they’re the only one looking out for themselves. They’re out there running around on the street trying to make a living for themselves, so they can be very, very lonely.

Connor : And what EXP has done compared to the traditional model, which is one broker a bunch of random agents in the office who are their competition. Now we’re building teams. Brant and I are on a team. Guys if you call Brant and you sit down with us and you join our team, you’re going to be working with Brant and I literally us, not assistants or not some other person. You’re going to be working with us every single week. That’s what’s crazy about this opportunity. You’ll actually get to partner with us but now we’re building a team environment because when we win, we all win together and we’re all working at this together.

Connor : And so it’s literally for those of us who played a lot of sports when we were young, this is take the team back to our lifestyle and a lot of us were in team sports and it has created that environment where we can all win together again, which is exciting for me and a lot of y’all out there.

Brant : Yeah, absolutely.

Connor : So what’s your take on this because you worked at a shop where there was one broker. Now you can log into the cloud, live time, hop on your computer and go out and get any question answered that you want. You can walk right up to the tech outpost, those salaried employees. You can have one working next to the other from different parts of the country. They’re able to now work at home and raise their family and this has been a big reason a lot of single … I’ve talked to a lot of agents, actually hundreds of agents lately. And a number of them are single mothers and they’re saying the ability to work at home and raise their children and be able to spend more time there has just completely changed their life.

Connor : And you’re seeing this come out left and right and it’s just something that when we think about on a human level, it’s just absolutely amazing that this is now available for agents that normally would get stuck having to drive around town, go to the office all the time, now they can work from home.

Brant : Yeah, absolutely and like I said, my wife and I, we have five children. We have help. We have a nanny. We have all these things. But I like to encourage people, for people who are considering this, really look at it from a business perspective and I remember when I first got into real estate investing, we talk about what is the risk? What is the reward? What is your investment? Etc. And what’s the return on that investment? So when I got started in real estate I used a credit card. So I had no money. So I didn’t really care that much about the risk honestly.

Brant : Like I didn’t have much to lose. But now when you create more success in life or agents begin to build up their business. You have to look at like, what is my risk for this opportunity? Whether it be an investment deal, whether it be a business decision. Something like this. Begin looking at it like a business perspective. Like what is my risk to take part in this opportunity and what would the reward be. So you start really looking at and I encourage people to get out a spreadsheet, get out a pen and paper and really start doing the math because that’s the …

Brant : When I heard you first speak about it. I was like, “Man, this sounds incredible.” But the next thing I did was really start looking at numbers and data and it was … And numbers don’t lie. Numbers will tell the story and that’s the thing is that these numbers tell a story and then when you, especially when you … Numbers are great, right? So they’ll tell the story of the financial outcome but them you start looking at other things especially as we get older, many of the people that I work with like on the investing side are people that are nearing retirement age, which I hate the word “retire.”

Brant : But they’re retiring at that age of mid to late 50’s, early 60’s and what do I do now? So look at that as well as you look at all the data on the income, the revenue streams, stock options, etc. But also look at the data on what this can do for your life, for your time and just the efficiency is sort of there with being in the cloud versus driving over to your broker’s office and all these different types of things. And that’s where the numbers, you put everything on a scale with current model and you put everything on the scale with the EXP model and to me it was absolutely [crosstalk 00 : 50 : 48].

Connor : No brainer.

Brant : Exactly, it was a no brainer.

Connor : That’s what I said.

Brant : And so with our Lunch and Learns we hosted one together last week and so we’re sharing with agents, and you know, I suck at sales. I’m like this isn’t a sales presentation. I approach EXP just like I approach when I speak to private lenders when we talk about people investing with our company. I’m like, look at this really is we’re sharing some information about an opportunity that exists in the marketplace. This is an opportunity for agents, and we’re just saying, something for you to consider is there is a newer model. I believe it, Connor believes it to be much more efficient, much more conducive for you to create likely what you wanted in the first place is for you to create a business model that meets and exceeds your monthly expenses and creates a lifestyle for you.

Brant : And at the same time working and helping people that you enjoy working and helping at the same exact time. And then just create some more of that freedom. So you can work at home or work with your kids. You know they’re with you. Just do the research is what I encourage people to do. Just watch some more videos, ask questions, reach out to me or Connor and just look at the numbers-

Connor : Look at the math.

Brant : Look at the data. Just look at it. And like the numbers don’t like. It was I always tell my students. It’s like plug the numbers in the spreadsheet, like the numbers will tell you the story and is that story a story you want to live out and realize or is it not so good and then you don’t do it. But to me it’s overwhelming.

Connor : Math is a universal language. Guys, if you’re a serious real estate entrepreneur and you’re not going to take 30 minutes to an hour to sit down with Brant or I or somebody else in this business at EXP to take a look at this. You cannot consider yourself serious as far as business goes because we’re sitting her talking about the fastest growing real estate brokerage in U.S. history. A three income stream cloud-based model that’s using technology to leverage your business.

Connor : Hundreds of employees that will work for just $85 a month. I mean so a lot of people Brant have come into our team. They’re like, I’ve been where I’ve been. We don’t need to talk about these other companies because they’re all great but they’ve been there for 10, 12, 15 years. They’re risk in their mind is, let me come over and try it for three to six months, if it doesn’t work and it’s not what people say it is then I’ll go back.

Connor : So I can say this without a doubt right now that not one person that’s come into our team since I’ve joined this company has left my revenue share organization, not one. If you’re a broker ask yourself how many people come in and out. It’s like a revolving door for most companies but the saddest thing and the worst thing you’ll ever see in your entire life is to see someone at the end of their life and see regret in their eyes. And the reason why people live a life of regret is because they lived a life of skepticism and they never wanted to slow down to look at an opportunity because they were always skeptical.

Connor : So if you’re a skeptic guys and you don’t want to take the time to at least sit down and see this for what it is and really run your numbers and take what you’re making at your company and take your commission splits and just put it on pen and paper side by side, I mean it’s like you kind of deserve what you’re gonna get right? If there’s a better opportunity and it’s been presented to you and you don’t slow down to look at it. What’s your risk? You come over and if it doesn’t work then you move back. I mean people bounce around brokerages all the time and that’s what’s so sad is that most people aren’t even willing to slow down and look at a new opportunity. Especially one like this when industry leader after industry leader is moving over left and right [crosstalk 00 : 54 : 35]. Yeah go ahead.

Brant : Yeah, sorry man. But that was on my mind and we haven’t really spoke about it too and my past and my real estate investing past I’m always looking for mentoring and for coaching and to learn from others that have created results that I desire and so one of the main things is if I’m going to invest in a coaching program or a mastermind or whatever it be or sometimes it’s not even a financial investment, it’s just an investment of my time. I always ask myself, is this person in the place that I want to be? Have they created the results that I’m seeking?

Brant : And sometimes that’s on a person … like does this person have … If someone’s giving marriage advice to me, I’m like does this person really have the marriage that I’m achieving to have or what is that like or parenting advice, financial advice, investing advice. I always ask myself has this person created the results that I’m seeking. If so, then I want to learn from that person. So that’s what’s really impressive to me as well, when you told me about some of the leadership team. I started doing my own research as well and looking at some of the people that are moving over to EXP.

Brant : There are some serious, serious players that are moving to EXP and to me that just spoke volumes. I’m like this is something real. You and I are both really, really successful in real estate, right? I’ve created an awesome business, an awesome life all this kind of stuff but it’s like this is something that we have to take note of and so that … the industry leaders that are moving into this space, just spoke volumes to me and that really even just added onto my curiosity. I’m like, this is something that I’m going to be a part of.

Connor : I mean that’s what I felt as well. I feel like history is being made right now. I feel like this is that once in a lifetime opportunity for real estate professionals. In my opinion guys, that this is whether you’re an agent or an investor or anybody thinking about real estate, this is in my opinion, the greatest opportunity we’ve ever seen and it’s just a huge opportunity because look at this. I want to challenge y’all to sit down with us but I wasn’t there during the dot com boom. I missed Dell and Yahoo, I missed Facebook. I missed Bitcoin. I missed all these and so when I saw this I said, there’s zero chance that I’m going to miss this opportunity. Especially since it’s already aligned with the business that I’m in which is real estate.

Connor : And I come from a family where I hear story after story from my parents, from my aunts, my uncles, about all the missed opportunities they had throughout their life. Specifically one from my own father. He tells me about he was at a McDonald’s decades ago and some guy came up to him and was like, I got the opportunity of a lifetime for you. And he wanted him to just look at this stock that was coming out and it was Yahoo and if my dad had just put a few thousand dollars into it. It would have made him a multi-millionaire.

Connor : And I hear story after story like this from individuals who are older and the older generation about all the missed opportunities and it’s because they didn’t look at it with an open mind. They didn’t slow down to do their research. They didn’t slow down to put pen to paper and see if this is actual opportunity for them and all I ask y’all is, I challenge you to just sit down with us for an hour and just show us your numbers of what you’re doing.

Connor : If you’re a broker show us the numbers, let’s compare it. If you’re an agent. Show us the numbers and let’s compare it. If you’re gonna make less money or it’s not a big opportunity for you, then it makes no sense for you to move. But if it is, unless you hate money. Unless you hate your future. Unless you hate where you’re going in life. Why wouldn’t you want to make the move and give it a shot, right? And that’s all I’m asking and that’s what people are saying.

Connor : Take a look at it. It’s changing lives for everybody that I know. Personally, all the agents that are coming over are saying, this is the most exciting time in their career. This is what they’re telling me and so I don’t know it’s just one of those things I think this is going to be bigger than anybody even really imagines that it can be and most of us think it’s going to be huge.

Connor : And so guys, sit down with us. Brant you want say anything? Final words?

Brant : That’s it, man. Like I tell my students if the numbers make sense then you do the deal. So same thing. If the numbers make sense. You do the deal. So last thing is Joni Warren always says. Joni Warren, I quote says, “There are those who see an opportunity and there are those who seize an opportunity.” So do the numbers and if the numbers work for you and the story works for you and what you’re trying to create. I would seize it in a heartbeat. That’s what I did and I’m not just saying that. That’s what I did and that’s what I encourage people to do when they spend time and do the research, I think that’s what they’ll find.

Connor : All right. Well Brant, how do they reach you? So obviously. Sorry we got a little glitch there. How are they gonna reach you if they want to sit down with you and I. So guys if you want to reach out to us, we’ll sit down with you. We’ll get on Skype just like this. We’ll look at your business model. We’ll look at where you’re at. Some of y’all are at boutique brokerage. Some of y’all are at franchise companies. Everybody’s got a story behind where they’re at, why they’re there. All y’all have different longeveties at these places. Some of y’all have been there for your whole career. Some of y’all just moved there. Some of y’all are feeling pain right now and just want to see if there’s a new opportunity out there and I promise you this is worth taking 30 to 60 minutes of your time just to sit down with us and see if they can be a better option.

Connor : So how do they reach you Brant if they want to sit down with us?

Brant : So I’m pretty out there on the interwebs. You should google my name, Brant Phillips. The name of my main investment company is Invest Home Pro and the number is on that site and you can also reach me at 713-530-1610 or just email me brant.phillips@gmail.com is the easiest thing.

Connor : Right, so guys all I say is that you know you’re hearing about this out there. If you’re not slowing down to take a look at it don’t call us back in two years and say, “Hey why didn’t you show me this sooner or why didn’t you press us harder to look at this guys?” We only have enough time to sit down with people … We’re looking for those who are looking for us to work with, right? We’re not going to go out there and chase people down. This is your business. This is your future. This is your life. This is your obligation and your duty to prepare the best for your future. So you need to reach out to us. Okay guys, that’s all I want to say. Thanks for coming on the show. Brant appreciate it.

Brant : Thanks man, enjoyed it.

Connor : I’m grateful that you joined the team and am working with us. It’s going to be a great road, a great run at this. Guys, we’ll see you on the next episode. Have a good day.