Lessons Learned Building A Team That Sells 500+ Homes A Year

Angie Cole:  I'm open about my numbers. I walked away with $1.4 million last year and I think the exciting thing about that is that also included paying myself $100,000 salary that was rolled in as being expense. That's paying for my car, that's paying for my cell phone, a lot of dinners. A lot of personal expenses went into the profit and loss statement as well. 

Tim Chermak: This is The Platform Marketing Show, where we interview the most creative and ambitious real estate agents in the country, dissect their local marketing strategy, and get the behind the scenes scoop on how they're generating listing leads and warm referrals. We'll dive into the specifics of what marketing campaigns are working for them, how much they're spending on those campaigns, and figure out how they have perfected what we call the Platform Marketing strategy. This is your host, Tim Chermak. I'm the founder and CEO of Platform. I love marketing and I talk too much, so let's dive in. 

Tim Chermak: Hey guys, it's Tim Chermak. Welcome back to another episode of The Platform Marketing Show. I'm joined today by Angie Cole. Angie has built an incredible team of realtors in Raleigh, North Carolina. Angie, welcome to the show. 

Angie Cole: Thanks for having me. 

Tim Chermak: Angie and I first got connected, I think it was back in either 2015 or 2016, and you were a very early Platform Marketing client back in the day when you were more of an individual top producing realtor. Since then, Angie has built a really, really successful team, maybe the most successful team of any agent I've come across, frankly, in the United States. 

Tim Chermak: Angie, you can correct me on these numbers, but I just want to set the stage for where your business is at now. Last year, your team did over 500 transactions. The volume was over $225 million and at the end of the day, your net from all that was north of $1 million for you personally. 

Angie Cole: That is correct, yes. Thanks for the compliments. 

Tim Chermak: I think it's really important to point out the net profit too. Obviously, if anyone's ever been to a real estate conference or seminar, whatever, you always hear, “Build a mega team like this,” and you hear these really inspiring stories of people talking about things like agent count or rev share or the volume, but very rarely, whatever gets discussed is actual net income. “Hey, are you actually making money on this at the end of the day after you buy $30,000 a month of Zillow ads?” or “How much money do you have to spend into office space and lead gen?” and all that. 

Tim Chermak: Often, what you find out when you have these conversations in the hallways outside of a conference is that the people that are on the stage bragging about having built a huge team are barely making any more money than individual top agents who don't have all that overhead. Why I wanted to bring you on the show and discuss the model and the business plan that you're using is that you've actually built a large team. How many total people are in your organization now? 

Angie Cole: I would say around 65. That number, honestly, it changes daily because we're actively recruiting and recruiting agents. As we recruit agents, we then of course need to add to the admin staff, but yeah, I would say around 65.

Tim Chermak: So you've built a legitimate business with 65 people on the team and yet you're actually profitable. It's not as if you're just growing the top line revenue number and it looks impressive to the public but you're barely making any money yourself. You have a very healthy income, you're doing it the right way, and the way that you've built your business should be a model for other agents who want to build a team and, dare I say, if you're not willing to do what Angie has done, you probably just shouldn't build a team. 

Angie Cole: My thing is, why do we work? We work so we can enjoy wonderful things in life and be able to go on trips and support our family. I don't work just to work, I work to net money so then I can enjoy my life outside of work. 

Tim Chermak: And you've done exactly that. Let's rewind, what year did you first get licensed, did you get started in real estate, Angie? 

Angie Cole: I always remember because I was seven months pregnant with my daughter when I was sitting through real estate school, which was quite miserable. She was born in 2007 and a month after she was born, I obtained my actual license. That summer was my first dip into real estate and I went into new home sales, so summer of 2007. 

Tim Chermak: Which was a great time to get into real estate. 

Angie Cole: Oh, yeah. The funny part is, honestly, I was just so naive, clueless, had no idea what direction to take, the understanding of real estate and “Hey, you probably should have some money saved,” and also did not understand the market that I was entering. I think that worked to my advantage because I was put into a new home sales neighborhood and it was, “Hey, these are the people that are walking through the door. Now, how are you going to sell them?” Even though it was very minimal people walking through the door, I thought that was the norm. 

Tim Chermak: So you just got into real estate in this down, depressed market of ‘07, ‘08 thinking, “Hey, this is normal,” and so when the market started to recover and get healthier, you thought, “This is amazing because I thought the default was that it's always going to be this hard.”

Angie Cole: Exactly. That was the norm for me. It was actually nice entering the market when it was definitely a down market. 

Tim Chermak: Which I think that's really timely advice and perspective right now as we're recording this episode. Who knows when you're listening to this, but we're recording this episode live in spring of 2023 and it sure feels like a similar situation. Probably not as extreme as 2007, 2008, but it's definitely not this vibrant, healthy, growing market like we saw several years ago. Market’s just weird right now.

Angie Cole: It's wonky. I was just having that conversation with one of our team members yesterday. We'll have one week where we are rocking and rolling and the contracts are flowing in and then the very next week, it just dies again. I do have to say I feel like the overall market in 2023 is a little bit better than what we were expecting. As 2022 is coming to an end, I think we all started to freak out because everything just took a halt mainly because of the increase in interest rates. 2023 has not been bad in any way, but it's definitely a rollercoaster ride for sure. 

Tim Chermak: So you got going in 2007, how many years were you on your own as an individual producing agent before you started to maybe have the thoughts in your mind of, “I'm going to build a team and scale this?” When did that thought first come into your mind? 

Angie Cole: I started off, like I mentioned, in new home sales. I was in new home sales working directly for builders as an onsite agent for about two and a half years. Then from there, I decided to go to general brokerage. Right out of the gates, I joined a team, wonderful team. For whatever reason, though, their ways of doing business clearly didn't align with the way that I succeed and I wasn't selling any homes. I was on their team for, I think, nine months or so, and honestly, I almost got out of real estate because they were successful, I was not. Clearly, it was a me thing. 

Angie Cole: I got out of real estate for about two to three months, wasn't quite sure what to do with my life moving forward, and I had another team approach me. They were looking to hire their first buying agent. I even told them, “Hey, I'm a little nervous. I wasn't having luck in the past.” They were like, “Come on board. We see the talent. If things don't work out, we will help you to find another job.” Came on board and they just ran their business with the mindset of, “Just go sell homes. We're here to support you. We're not going to micromanage. We're not going to make you go through a specific process from start to finish. Just go sell homes.” That worked for me and that's now how I run our business now. Everyone excels in different ways and there's not one perfect way of running a real estate business or working with your clients.

Angie Cole: I joined their team, was on their team for about three years. Numbers might be a little off there, but it was in October of 2013 that I decided to go off on my own. I was still under the umbrella of Keller Williams, a big national firm, but decided to go off on my own, reason being just I was looking at my numbers, and probably about 90% to 95% of the business I was closing was personal sphere. At that point, it didn't make sense to be on a team where I didn't feel like it was a win-win. I felt pushed to go start my own thing where, honestly, that was never my goal. 

Tim Chermak: What year was this? 

Angie Cole: This was in October of 2013. Opened the doors, A Cole Realty, me as a single agent under the umbrella of Keller Williams. Very quickly, I would say about three months in, it was time to already hire an admin. I needed help. Actually, I hired my mom. She was our first hire. She was with our company for five years following that. Very quickly again, it was, “Hey, we need an agent. I need help.” Things just took off from there. In July of 2016, we then decided to open up our own independent firm. We've been independent as A Cole Realty ever since. 

Tim Chermak: Let me take a step back and ask you, on the very first team you joined where you said it lasted about nine months and you weren't successful there, and clearly now that you've built a business and proven yourself as an entrepreneur that literally your team is selling over 500 homes a year, clearly, Angie Cole knows how to sell real estate. It was never an individual talent issue. What was it about that team structure or how they did business that just didn't vibe with you? Why didn't it work out? 

Tim Chermak: The reason I ask because that story that you just described with, “Hey, it just didn't feel right. I didn't like the way they ran their business,” that is true for so many agents where they join a team or they're the ones building a team and they bring on an awesome agent and it doesn't work out. Why didn't it work out when clearly you had the talent?

Angie Cole: They were very by the books as far as, “Hey, I speak with a potential buyer client on the phone. You must bring that buyer client into the office to have a buyer consultation.” The next goal is then you need to get buyer agency. Your numbers pretty much, you are closing numbers all based upon the buyer consultation. How many consultations? How many buyer agency agreements? From there, that's how many offers you'll then write. That's how many closings you will have. It was a very, “It must be done this way,” where for me, for whatever reason, that didn't work. 

Angie Cole: I live by the mindset of, “Hey, let me get them on the phone. Let's talk all about them. How can I help them? Let me get them out there and show them a home.” Many times, and I tell my team, don't even push for financial verification. Get in front of them because they don't owe you anything. They don't know you. Why are they going to divulge all this information and feel like they have to share with you, “Here's my proof of funds. Here's my prequal letter.” Instead, as long as I feel comfortable, as far as safety concerns, I am getting them out there, I'm showing them at least one home, and then I can get in front of them and I can have that buyer consultation in front of them. 

Angie Cole: Also, most of our team members on our team, they don't even have the buyer client signed by our agency until it's time to draft the offer, and at that point, it's a requirement. Again, it's just having that relationship and that conversation of, “Hey, I'm working for you. You're only going to work with me. At this point, we're married, but I'm not going to get all technical and get the paperwork involved.” People just tend to love that. 

Angie Cole: Now, everyone's a little bit different, but for me, that worked. I know that it works for a majority of our agents. Now, there's some agents who like a little bit more of the structure. They like to bring a client into the office, do that formal buyer consultation, and that's how they find success. I don't think there's a right or a wrong way, it's just whatever works best for you. 

Tim Chermak: I forget now who even told me this, but I once heard someone say, “You'll have a lot more success as a real estate agent if you treat every potential client as if they're your cousin.” I think that's a really interesting mental model because if you think of brother or sister, it's like that’s almost too familiar where you probably would never have them sign paperwork or anything like that. 

Tim Chermak: Most people's cousins, like if your cousin's buying a house, you're probably not going to lead with, “Hey, I need you to sign a buyer agency paperwork right away. I'm going to introduce you to a mortgage lender, get you prequaled.” You probably will be willing to show your cousin a house or two before you start talking details and finances and paperwork. I just think that's a really useful mental model. Just treat people like humans.

Angie Cole: You're also not scared to educate them and share with them, “Hey, don't cheat on me,” in a funny way. There's a way to spin that conversation where you're really almost in a sense presenting that buyer agency agreement without having them sign, but you're also sharing and educating on the advantages of, “Hey, what am I going to do for you, why you shouldn't go to these third party websites like Zillow or Realtor.com. Stick with me, let me help you.” It's all about the conversation. I agree with you, treat it like a cousin relationship.

Tim Chermak: After there's momentum created in the relationship, then you can get into all that stuff. 

Angie Cole: You got to show your worth. 

Tim Chermak: This is happening in 2013 and then you went on your own fully with A Cole Realty in 2016? 

Angie Cole: That's correct. July, yep, 2016. We already had the team name, but we were under the umbrella of Keller Williams, but we decided to go independent.

Tim Chermak: What was the reasoning behind why you decided to go independent? I think every agent listening to this podcast knows that there's not necessarily a right or wrong way to do it. There's fabulously very, very successful teams with KW, with eXp, with Real, with Coldwell, blah, blah, blah, and then there's really successful teams that have gone independent like you have. What was your story about why you decided to go out on your own? 

Angie Cole: I have only amazing things to say about Keller Williams. That was the only really firm I've ever been with. They’re absolutely fabulous when it comes to training, support. I still have a lot of amazing friends from Keller Williams, so nothing negative to say. But just as I am profitable in my business that the reason why I'm profitable in my business is because I know my numbers. 

Angie Cole: When I started to dig into how much are we paying out and what is that getting us, that's when it was like, “Wow, this doesn't make sense.” That year in the business where our numbers were way less, we were spending about $85,000 that year paying it out to the firm. Of course, the more volume you do, the more money that would go to the firm. I just was looking at the big picture of what are we getting for $85,000? If we stepped away, would we lose business? 

Angie Cole: Also, and this didn't happen often, but sometimes I would go on a listing presentation and I would start talking about myself, about my team name, and then I would start bragging about Keller Williams in the firm. It's happened a handful of times where they immediately were stopped and they said, “Oh,” because they had a bad experience with another Keller Williams agent in the past. Then I had to almost over compensate or compensate for, “No. Keller Williams has hundreds of thousands of agents and we all are different.” I realized that, “You know what? I don't know if that big name brand is really helping me in the business.” People want to work with me and work with my team because of us and our brand, so that's why I decided to make a move. Again, absolutely adore and love Keller Williams, but for us, it was a great move and business continued to just elevate from there. 

Tim Chermak: It sounds like at a certain point of scale in your business, for some people, it just makes sense to go out on your own. It's simply about the numbers. 

Angie Cole: It was strictly numbers. I didn't have any type of investments or anything within Keller Williams, like ancillary business connected to them. There was no ties that I had within Keller Williams. Me, I'm one of those people, I come into the office, I wanna get my work done, I wanna focus on my team. 

Angie Cole: Honestly, being in a large brokerage, I am a helper all the time, happy to answer questions, open book, but I found I was spending more of my day helping outside agents outside of our team and so it was taken away from my team. That's a struggle too. Again, open book, people can call me at any point, always happy to help, but I just wasn't able to get my work done that I need to for my team. The separation was best to, “Hey, let's go and start our own office.”

Tim Chermak: You can have an abundance mentality up to a certain point, but at that point, you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you can help others.

Angie Cole: Exactly. We started just shutting our door all the time, but then it looked like we're closed off and we're not being team players and that's not a good feeling either. Again, love Keller Williams, nothing bad to say at all about them, but it was a great move that we made in 2016 to go off and be independent.

Tim Chermak: Obviously, in hindsight, it's worked out for you. Okay, so in 2016, you decided to go fully independent, start A Cole Realty, your own brokerage. Did you ever draft a formal business plan where you have a 20-page document and it's laminated in a binder and you're like, “Here's our growth milestones we're going to hit in years one and three and five?” Did you have a fancy business plan? 

Angie Cole: I still don't have that, I’ll be honest with you. 

Tim Chermak: It just evolved?

Angie Cole: I'm just one of those people that if we don't do better than what we did last year, that's when I feel like we're failing, even though the numbers, I know people were like, “Wait, you're still doing amazing numbers.” To me, as long as we are doing a great job servicing our clients, there is no reason why we shouldn't have enough repeat business and referrals from them to do more business next year as long as we're running a good business model. I don't have even a year, three-year, five-year goal now. I just want to see us always growing. 

Angie Cole: Also, personally, I find it's hard to plan this business model or what I want because, really, what I want is dependent on what the agents in the team want. Prime example, one of our first agents on our team who is still with us, and she joined us a good 7 to 8 years ago, at that time, she was closing 50 homes a year. That's where she was at in her life. Fast forward now and everyone's life's changed. Now, she's happy if she closes 12 a year and that's okay. 

Angie Cole: I'm saying that to say that I have to shift my business model based upon what my agent's goals are as well. I'm always growing, learning. I like to open up new ancillary businesses if I can speak, but I don't have really, “Okay, in five years, this is where I want to be.” I've never been one of those people. I don't know. 

Tim Chermak: You got going in 2016, maybe you don't know this number off the top of your head, but let me ask you, approximately, how many transactions was your team doing in 2016 right before you actually went off independent? Were you doing 50 transactions a year? 100? Where was it at then? 

Angie Cole: No, I think we're 170 or so, right under the 200 mark.

Tim Chermak: You had already built a very large successful business even before. 

Angie Cole: Is that right? Maybe a little bit lower, maybe the 140’s. It was definitely over 100, no doubt about it. Whenever we made the transition, myself and I think three agents, were on the team at that point. I would say probably, easily, maybe 150. 

Tim Chermak: Were you still in production at that time?

Angie Cole: I was.

Tim Chermak: When did you officially get out of actually still buying and selling homes?

Angie Cole: From the first hire of another agent, I 100% got out of the buy side. I was strictly on the list side, and then that agent, who is still with us, was strictly on the buy side. I even have one situation where a referral was sent to us and it was a luxury referral and that agent said, “If you don't work it, unfortunately, I just don't feel comfortable. I’m going to send it to someone else.” I worked it, but I still gave the split to my agent. I'm going to be fair. That was not my lead. It shouldn't have been my lead, it should have been yours, even though I had to service it. As soon as I hired my first buying agent, I was strictly on the listing side. 

Angie Cole: Fast forward, and I officially stepped out of production in June of 2020. I tried stepping out of production before then and it just didn't work. Our business started to just go downhill a little bit because, again, I was the main listing agent at that point and I had two other listing agents that started getting revved up. Things started to taper off. I got back in really quickly. Fast forward to June, 2020, that's when I was pregnant with our twins and I had to go on temporary bed rest. It was like, you know what? Perfect timing. It was almost a forced decision, but I was ready. How are we going to make this happen? 

Tim Chermak: It’s now or never.

Angie Cole: It's been great. My last listing appointment was June of 2020. That year, I still closed 70 listings. I can't give myself all the praises. We have amazing support within our team that handle everything on the back end and all the marketing and whatnot. Yeah, stepped out June of 2020. With that, net wise, I still continue to grow every year, which is neat.

Tim Chermak: Wow. Even after removing your own production where you were doing 67–

Angie Cole: Which is scary because normally, I get 100% of this versus our splits are 35/65, 65% to the team on the listing side. I only get 65%, and it's not Angie getting 65% after paying $20 billion expenses. Still, that's a little scary. I actually expected for my profitability net wise to go down some and I was okay with that if it was giving me time back. With having twins and I already had two other kiddos, I couldn't work evenings and weekends anymore. It just didn't work with my schedule. Knock on wood, we did all the right things and business continued to increase and profitability did as well. 

Tim Chermak: I think that's a really interesting observation that you started to build your team, it was in 2013?

Angie Cole: Right. October, 2013, yep.

Tim Chermak: 2013, and your last official year of being involved in a production yourself was 2020. It was really a seven-year transition to where you're gradually transitioning out of being the person buying and selling homes and you're really becoming the CEO of the business. It's not like that happened in just six months or even a year or two. It took seven years. Now, you've built something where truly a business exists independent of you and it's making money without your personal time going out on listing appointments, showing homes. A Cole Realty makes money without Angie Cole selling homes. That's a huge, huge mindset shift that a lot of agents never quite escape that they're just trading time for dollars. 

Angie Cole: I hear this all the time and I felt like this at one point, is clients only want to work with me. That's BS guys. The client does not care who they're working with as long as they're being taken care of. We had that same discussion with our agents, especially agents that have been in the business but always handled everything 100% from contract to close. Well, they join our team and now they have a closing manager so it's really hands off. Some people have trouble letting go because they're like, “The client will only want to work with me. I can't imagine handing them off to a closing manager.” 

Angie Cole: It's always funny. We close out the home, testimonials come across, and I jokingly always said this when I used to go on listing presentations, I was like, “I was the one who just sold their home $20,000 above listing price, but they didn't give me the five-star review. They gave it to my closing manager.” That speaks volume. Again, the client doesn't care if Angie's helping them, they don't care whomever is helping them, they just want to be taken care of. It's learning to also let go and also understanding that, “I'm not best at everything.” We have many internal roles and leadership, and those people excel in those roles and they do it a lot better than I do. 

Tim Chermak: Often, it's a failure of team leaders to build up the brand and the prestige of the agents on their team because, often, it's all about them. If you're making your marketing all about you, of course, people are going to want to work with you. They're actually responding to the incentives that you're putting out into the world. 

Angie Cole: That's so true. My face is not on our For Sale signs. Our face is not on our car. No marketing includes Angie Cole as far as we really want to focus on the brand, the logo, the name of the company because I don't want our agents to have to overcome that objection that, “We only want to speak with Angie.” Of course that still happens from time to time, but a lot of people just don't even know that I exist and that's okay. I don't need to be the face of the company. 

Tim Chermak: She's a myth. Is Angie Cole even a real person? 

Angie Cole: Exactly. That's okay. 

Tim Chermak: Let's dive back into some of the numbers quick and just dissect how you got to where you're at. You sold how many transactions? Was it 500?

Angie Cole: 517 in 2022. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, 517. The volume was right around $225 million, and your team now has 60+ people overall. What is the breakdown of how many of that 60+ are agents versus ISAs versus admin staff? Can you give me a quick breakdown of what that looks like? 

Angie Cole: Sure. We have three ISAs. As far as admins, we have I'd say three and a half closing managers, half because the other one, she does a million other things. We have a listing manager. We have a, now, director of growth, so she strictly recruits. That's her job, to attract new agents to our company. We have a director of operations. We have a part time administrative lady who does things and just anything and everything we need. We have a virtual assistant who helps us on the back end with data entry or, again, anything that's needed. Those are the main, I would say, administrative side. There's about, I think, 12 to 15. 

Angie Cole: I left some people out, I'm sorry. We have two full time mentors. What they do is, any of the new agents that join, they're teamed up with a mentor and they're babysitting them for the first five transactions. We also have a main agent accountability, kind of an agent manager who runs the agent department. All in all, I'd say we have around 12 or so salaried employees. I think it's 15 if you include the ISAs, but they're mainly bonus structured. As far as agents, I think we're upwards of around 55 agents or so. Actually, I guess we have more than 65, maybe we're up in 70, 75 people or so.

Tim Chermak: Without giving literal exact dollar figures because I understand that you have to protect privacy a little bit, what are you paying your admin staff in terms of hourly rate or salary just so people listening can get an idea of what your monthly payroll looks like with that large of a team? 

Angie Cole: Payroll last year I think rend us around $450,000 for the year. When it comes to admin staff, I would say it's anywhere between the $40,000’s. My lead admin makes six figures. It really depends on the role, how long they've been with the company, what the responsibilities are.

Tim Chermak: Is that the director of operations? 

Angie Cole: Yes, our director of ops. Our director of ops has been with us for over five years, started off as a closing manager, one of my best friends now too, absolutely amazing. Beyond though just her salary, she has done an amazing job with building her referral business too. Last year, I want to say she made $20,000 to $25,000 just on working her sphere. We don't allow admin to double dip or any roles that double dip. Admin can't work in production as well, even if it's their best friend. From working her sphere, she handed off a lot of buyers and sellers that closed and made, I think, $20,000 to $25,000 in bonuses on top of her salary. 

Tim Chermak: I think that's really important to point out that, at a certain point, everyone has this dream of, “I could build a team and pay everyone $30,000 a year and there'll be so much profit." If you want to get quality people, you have to pay quality compensation. You have someone on your team who's your director of ops and they're making over $100,000 a year.

Angie Cole: And they should.

Tim Chermak: Absolutely. Most agents, I think, just don't have the courage to have someone on the payroll who's making over $7,000, $8,000 a month because they think, “Wow, even if that person's not directly selling anything, they still make that much?” If your payroll last year was $450,000, that means that you're basically at the point where almost $40,000 a month is going out to your team. They're not responsible for actually selling any houses, that's just your expenses of salaried employees. Now, what is the marketing budget on top of that? I'm assuming that you do some sort of marketing or lead gen to sell over 500 homes a year.

Angie Cole: Marketing budget, we're averaging typically around $30,000 a month is where we're at in marketing. It's back and forth where, “Okay, is it internet leads?” and then, “Hey, how much do we love on our past clients?” We're always tweaking where that money's going, but I would say straight out of the gates, marketing, as far as lead generating from online leads, I would say we're upwards of $30,000 or so a month. That includes radio, any print materials we do as well, but yeah, $30,000.

Tim Chermak: What's a quick, again, just approximate breakdown of where that $30,000 is going? How much is going to Realtor or Zillow, you mentioned radio, just approximately?

Angie Cole: Where we're at right now, radio is $500 a week. For our segment with Realtor.com, we're at now $6,000 a month. Zillow, we're around $5,000 to $6,000 a month. Google pay-per-click, we're at around $15,000 to $17,000 a month. Other sources, we do the local ad services, we have a threshold up to $2,000. We'd be happy to spend a lot more on that because those are amazing leads. If you're ever thinking about a lead source, local ad services are fabulous, but there's just not enough leads coming in to even meet that threshold. 

Angie Cole: What are some other main things that we do? Here and there, we do postcards, but then we are big also on loving on our past clients, so client appreciations. For March, we sent out scratch offs pretty much like, “Hope you're the lucky one,” “We're so lucky we've been able to work with you in the past.” We're always loving on our past clients as well to try to work that business to stay at top of mind. 

Tim Chermak: If you're listening, you can do the math on if they're spending about $30,000 a month in marketing, that's about $360,000 a year. They got 500 transactions out of that, so that gives you an idea of the cost per transaction of what the marketing budget looks like. Now, how do you structure the ISAs? Are they bonused with a base salary? Are they calling the Google pay-per-click leads or are they just calling expired listings? What does that look like? 

Angie Cole: ISAs have free reign to work any business that they want to. They are compensated the exact same no matter the lead source. The ISAs, they're on a calendar rotation and they receive the phone calls coming into the office, but that might be two to three a day. It's not like the phone's ringing off the hooks. The ISAs, they're paid $30,000 a year and then they get 5% off the top of a closing that they set, and that 5% comes out of the agent side, The agents, they love the ISA. That was business they didn't have. That's how they're compensated. 

Tim Chermak: Okay, awesome. What was your highest paid ISA last year because of obviously the $30,000 base plus the bonus incentives?

Angie Cole: Reggie. Reggie was around in the $70,000’s, I know. 

Tim Chermak: Awesome, so you have ISAs that can make $60,000, $70,000 a year.

Angie Cole: They can make more. They could easily make six figures. Reggie, that was his first, was that his first? Yeah, he's been with us now a year and a half and Reggie's actually now our lead ISA, so he runs the ISA department. We have Alec who has been with us now for two years. Alec also had a wonderful year. I think he was upwards of $60,000. Abigail, first year in the business, last year started I think in April, and she still had an amazing year as well. They’re rock stars.

Tim Chermak: I think that's a really important paradigm shift for people listening to this. Again, they think, “An ISA, they probably make $30,000 or maybe $40,000 a year.” I guess that's one way of doing it, but if you want to keep people and actually build a business and a brand that lasts and endures, you have to make all the positions in your company such that people actually could view it as a career. No one's going to stay in something long term if the most they can ever make is $35,000 a year.

Angie Cole: In an ISA role, it's sales. It's just like an agent. There is no limit or cap to how much money they can make. The more they build that pipeline, it will come back to them. One of our ISAs, Alec, last year, from a phone call he took off of a Google local ad service call, ended up being a buyer, connected with one of our agents, bought a $4.2 million home. When you do the math on that, 5%, he made $8,400 bonus. That's larger than a commission check that most agents make. There's great opportunity for them as well. 

Tim Chermak: Just for setting the appointment. 

Angie Cole: I think it's great too because it's a happy medium. All three of them have no desire to be an agent. They said, “You know what? I love my evenings. I love my weekends. I love just being able to shut off the day, but I do enjoy lead generating, talking with clients, but I don't have to be at the forefront. I don't need to be out there in the field. I get enough out of the relationship building just over the phone.” They're doing what agents should be doing anyways, but they have no desire to work a lot of weekends, work a lot of evenings, so it's a happy middle ground where they can still make a wonderful income but they also have control of their schedule. 

Tim Chermak: By the way, as we're talking about all these marketing initiatives and what the business structure looks like, I want to make it clear to everyone that Angie does not work with Platform Marketing right now, so I don't want to indirectly, in any way, take credit for Angie's business. Most guests on The Platform Marketing Show are actively clients of Platform Marketing, Angie is not. I want to make that really, really clear. We don't really work with large teams. Platform is more specifically for individual agents or people who have really small teams, like usually less than five. I just want to add that disclaimer to this episode, that if you're listening to this, Angie does not work with Platform. I don't want to take credit for you building this incredible business. 

Angie Cole: But Tim is amazing and Platform Marketing is amazing as well.

Tim Chermak: We try. 

Angie Cole: There's my plug.

Tim Chermak: You've built it to this point now where there's 500+ transactions a year. You just mentioned work-life balance, so I want to double click on that. For you, personally, now that you're really 10 years into building, I guess this is your 10th year with the team, what is your work-life balance look like? What does an average day look like for Angie Cole? Are you working nights and weekends? How many hours are you putting in? What does that look like at this stage of the business? 

Angie Cole: Normally, I'm not working nights and weekends, but at any point, as a business owner, things can shift. My typical day is drop off kiddos at daycare, my husband takes the oldest to high school and I make my Starbucks run, and I am in the office by 8:30, 8:45 at latest. I typically work until 5:30 before I go and pick up the kiddos, but I'm done with work. I don't work evenings. I don't work weekends now. If someone calls me and they need something like an agent kind of a fire drill, I always answer the phone. 

Angie Cole: The great thing about our team and our organization is agents always actually have someone else to call. I'm the last person they call. They know whom else to call, and those leadership roles are fabulous with stepping in. I don't work evenings or weekends anymore for the most part. 

Angie Cole: With that being said, though, I also have a couple of other businesses, property management business, I'm partners in a title company, and then we have an insurance company. Unfortunately, with our property management company, in the last month and a half, we had to make some changes and it was a disaster. As a business owner, it's like you have to fix all the problems. In February, I felt like the world was falling apart for a minute. I was working non stop. Every weekend for four weekends straight, I had to get sitters so I could come to the office and focus on the financials. 

Angie Cole: I know some people say it like, “You're living the great life. You don't work evenings and weekends.” First of all, I used to put in 10 to 12-hour days every day for the longest time when I was newer in the business, okay? I did my time. Still, as being a business owner, there are times where you have to step in and you're the only person that can fix things. I went through that in February. Talk about stress, but yeah, you eventually always come up on top, but I'm back to not working evenings and weekends anymore, which is nice.

Tim Chermak: It's never going to be black and white where it's, “I never work evenings. I never work weekends.” As an entrepreneur, I think it's about what's the exception and what's the rule. When I do have to check something out on a weekend, is it truly the exception or is it more of the rule? You've obviously built a work-life balance where if you ever have to check something at 8PM or at 10AM on a Saturday, that's truly the exception. 

Angie Cole: Exactly. I'll be honest with you, I love the business. I am one of those people, my mind's always spinning and I'm always thinking about, “Okay, how can we tweak this? How can we make this better? What can be improved?” Instead of sitting there watching TV, instead I'm on my phone and playing around and resharing social media posts from our team members. “Hey, let me create this graphic and give someone a shout out.” It doesn't bother me to work, if that makes sense. I don't like when I feel forced and I'm in the weeds, I must get things done, but naturally, I love seeing the business excel. I love seeing our team members grow and hit their goals. I love working.

Tim Chermak: I think any entrepreneur is the same way. If you build your business to that point, you have to admit deep down you like it at least a little bit. It's hard to turn your brain off. 

Angie Cole: I don't think anyone should be in any career because it's just strictly for the financial side of things, for the money. You need to enjoy walking in the door every day and get excited. 

Tim Chermak: Speaking of the money, what was the total revenue or GCI of the overall team last year doing $225 million in sales and about, you said it was 517 transactions?

Angie Cole: I'm gonna pull my numbers. We ended up, I think it was $5.6 million total GCI. 

Tim Chermak: What is your goal profit margin that's left over after all that? Obviously, you've said you're spending over $30,000 a month on marketing, your actual payroll is $40,000 a month. 

Angie Cole: As far as what I want my goal as far as take home to be?

Tim Chermak: Yeah.

Angie Cole: I don't know what a breakdown percentage wise, but I'm open about my numbers. I walked away with $1.4 million last year and I think the exciting thing about that is that also included paying myself $100,000 salary that was rolled in as being expense. That's paying for my car, that's paying for my cell phone, a lot of dinners. A lot of personal expenses went into the profit and loss statement as well. 

Tim Chermak: I'm assuming you're probably set up as an S corp then?

Angie Cole: Yes. 

Tim Chermak: Okay. That's really important and I'm glad you were willing to share that, that after all this because you have $30,000 marketing, $40,000 in payroll, I'm sure there's other expenses like office rent and blah, blah, blah, you're spending a lot of money every month, $70,000 $80,000+, before a single dollar comes in in terms of GCI. 

Angie Cole: I know our numbers recently when I looked at them, we must close 30 homes a month to even break even. In order for me to pay all the expenses of the business, we must close 30 homes a month. 

Tim Chermak: That's assuming the average transaction being worth, what? $10,000 or $8,000? 

Angie Cole: I was going to say, yeah, around $10,000 commission check total. 

Tim Chermak: So really, you have to be bringing in $300,000 every month just to break even. 

Angie Cole: Correct.

Tim Chermak: Again, when an agent hears this, I hope your reaction is, if I'm not willing to play in that sandbox and play at that level, maybe I shouldn't build a team. Often, when I interview agents and I'm talking with them about their future growth plans, “I'm going to build a team. I'm gonna start building a team,” nine times out of 10, I try to talk them out of it because they never really think through what will it actually take to succeed with that business model. 

Tim Chermak: Building a team isn't necessarily better than not building a team. It's different. It's a completely different type of business model. If you're happy as an individual producing agent, you love real estate, you love being a successful agent, maybe you're making $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 a year, I just want to say as explicitly as possible, and I'm using my hands right now to make air quotes, the “next step” is not necessarily building a team because it's a different business model entirely. It's not necessarily better. If that scares you, the idea of, “I have to bring in $300,000 every month or else we're losing money–”

Angie Cole: It is scary, especially when the market shift hit us in October of 2022, when I had to make a decision and I said, “You know what? Every single person on our team is more important to me than a paycheck.” Angie Cole, what was it, in October, lost $70,000. In November, I lost $50,000. In December, I made $7,000. It ebb and flows and you have to dial in and be all in. 

Angie Cole: Again, part of having a team is the leadership side of things. Each individual on our team means a lot more to me than me making an extra dollar because you know what? I have the responsibility of putting food on their table and providing for their families as well. I told them all, I said, “You guys are slow, so you better get to work and find something else to do in here if I'm gonna keep paying you, but I am going to figure out a way to continue to pay you. Now, if this goes well into 2023, we unfortunately might need to revisit things,” but that doesn't seem to be the case. We made the right changes. We got tighter on our marketing and weeded out things that were really just throwing dollars out the door. 

Angie Cole: I would say going back to growing or building a team, I see where most fail is you're now putting on your leadership hat. Just because you are amazing working with clients and selling homes doesn't mean that you'll be an amazing leader dealing with emotions and just making strong decisions and really always looking for what's best for the overall organization and not what's just best for me. I tend to find those that try to build a team that fail, it's because the main breadwinner was not a great leader. 

Tim Chermak: That was actually going to be my next question, is when you look at people building teams, that's great, I was going to say, what is the number one mistake that you see people making. You already answered that, so let me actually pivot from that and ask maybe a more personal question. What is the biggest mistake that you have made in the last 10 years of growing A Cole Realty where you think back and you think, “I can't believe I did that?”

Angie Cole: I would say two things, and I feel like I constantly have to remind myself of this. One is always know your numbers. Already, actually, we're into March and I have not looked at my numbers closely for this year, which is not a smart thing. You should be scrubbing and looking at your numbers every single month and know, “Okay, this lead source, this is how profitable it was.” 

Angie Cole: For example, Realtor.com leads for us, in 2021, we killed it. We were super profitable. 2022, we just broke even. Just overnight, certain lead sources can change and for your individual market, so always know your numbers, know what's working. Again, there's no point in working hard and being in the business if you're not profitable, so know your numbers. 

Angie Cole: I would say second thing that I've learned and I'm constantly working on and it's more from the leadership side of things, is when you're running a team or business, you are going to have a lot of different opinions, a lot of different emotions, a lot of different personalities. I can find myself feeling like I'm being attacked when someone else gives their opinion or they don't like a change we're making. I always have an open door policy. I've learned, “Hey, tell me how you feel,” but I don't need to react immediately. Let me stop, let me think on that, and let me get back to you. 

Angie Cole: Just don't be reactionary because that can really get you in trouble. You could handle the overall situation incorrectly, maybe say things you shouldn't have said and hurt someone's feelings. Sometimes, it's okay to just say, “You know what? I don't have an answer for you, but I'll get back in touch with you.” I find myself doing that a lot more versus giving them an immediate response. 

Tim Chermak: Let me ask an open ended question here. If you were to move to a different city where you did not know anyone and you were truly starting from scratch over again, where you didn't have the team, you didn't have all the admins and all of this infrastructure around you, let's say you move to Topeka, Kansas where you do not know a single person and you're like, “My goal is to become a top agent and build another A Cole Realty in Topeka, Kansas,” what would be the things you do in the first six months to get that snowball rolling, if you're going to become a successful agent and then build a team there? If you were starting over from scratch, what would you do differently? 

Angie Cole: 100% I would get right back into production. I feel like me, as an individual, I need to be productive. I need to find the clients and build the basis of the business before I can start adding. That's another mistake I see a lot of people make, is they say, “I just want to have this team,” but they individually don't even know what they're doing. Luckily, I have all of our systems in place so I could carry that over, but going into a very new market, I need to learn the market, I need to get actively out there in production, make sure I have all my systems set up, be super present on social media, social media is huge, and honestly, I'd start popping into every local restaurant, boutique, whatever it is, and introduce myself, just get in front of people. 

Angie Cole: I would start off as an individual agent. My goal wouldn't be to hire until I have the leads in the business coming in that I can then hand off. You need to make sure that you have this structure, the systems, the leads to be able to support those team members. Otherwise, why would they be attracted to you? 

Tim Chermak: Okay. All right, I lied. Here's the last question. How do you structure the comp for your agents in terms of commission splits with the team? Is it different if it's a sphere lead versus a lead gen lead that A Cole Realty generated with the ISAs? What does that look like in terms of how you structure commission splits on your team? 

Angie Cole: Actually, everyone starts the same and all lead sources are the exact same. Buy side is 50/50, list side is 35% to the agent, 65% to the team. If the ISA sets an appointment, it's 5% off the top that comes out of the agent portion. Now, the more units they close with us, their split will jump up. Once they close 50 units, it jumps up by 2% in their pocket. For every additional 50 units, an additional percent. At max, would not exceed a 10% jump. Again, no matter what the lead source is, the splits are the same. 

Tim Chermak: Who are maybe two or three of your top earning agents? What can they actually make at A Cole Realty? 

Angie Cole: Alex Harder is our lead agent. He's been with us for about four and a half years now. Last year, he made $400,000+. The next one in line, Courtney Aiken, she made $350,000. Next one made close to $300,000. 

Tim Chermak: Agents on your team in this model are making $300,000, $400,000 a year?

Angie Cole: Yep. They worry about themselves and their clients. No expenses out of their pocket. They pay their gas, their phone bill, their taxes, computer, that's it. 

Tim Chermak: Because you obviously have a whole team of admin, ISAs, closing managers, marketing people, even mentors on the team. I think my biggest takeaway from this conversation with you this morning Angie is that even inside of this team structure, you have people making $300,000, $400,000 a year as agents, you're paying your top director of operations a six-figure salary, you are not cheaping out on any of these positions, and I think that's why you've achieved scale.

Angie Cole: The company would not be what the company is if it wasn't for them, 100%. 

Tim Chermak: All right. Well, Angie, I know that you have to hop off to another meeting now, so thank you for your time. This was an incredible episode and let's talk soon. 

Angie Cole: Awesome. Thank you.