Steve Olson
A good friend, one of my closest friends, Sharan Srivatsa, decided today or made the announcement today that he was stepping up from president of Real Brokerage or Real Broker or whatever we're calling it right now, to board of directors.
And technically, it's not today, it's June 1st. And he created a great video, wrote a great email, a bunch of media outlets have written about this.
And because of our relationship, of course, you can probably assume I got a ton of text messages looking for some other secret reason this happened. And I didn't know this was happening, much like you guys do.
This is not something that people tend to talk about with a lot of people before they make the announcement. But here's what I know, and this does not come from Sharan, this is my personal take on everything.
Here's what I know about growing any company, and I know this from a perspective because Sharan and I worked together at Telus Properties. And then I was partners with Sharan in Kingston Lane and now working at Real as him as the president.
And I have the fortunate experience of working side by side with him on a daily basis for years. And I know a side of Sharan and I know what he's capable of.
Probably more than anybody here whatsoever. I've seen him operate at a million miles an hour, I've seen him have to take breaks, I've seen him speak, I've kind of seen the whole thing, which is great.
It's been a wild ride. And they say this as if this is the end. It's definitely not the end, it's only the beginning. I'm reminded of the saying during this podcast that I'm recording right now, that what got us here won't get us there.
Sharan joined Real, I believe, obviously, before I did. I think we were somewhere between 6,000 agents, give or take. I think we just hit 26,000 or 25,000 agents a little bit.
December of 2022, I think, is when he took over, which is kind of weird that it's only been like two years since he's done this. That's nuts to go from 6,000 to 26,000 agents in two years or whatever it was.
And I could have the dates a little bit off, don't quote me on this. But maybe him being president got us to 26,000, but maybe him being president can't get us to 50 or 75 or 100.
And I think a lot of us look at our own businesses and we get stuck in these little ruts and we do these little things here and there. This gets us to three transactions a month and that will get us to seven transactions a month and 10 and 15 and 20, and depending on how high you want to go, you realize that in your business journey to stay at that level, not to do one month at five transactions or one month at 10 transactions, but to actually take the business from a consistent one to two deals a year or per month to three to five deals per month to five to seven to seven to 10 to 10 to 15.
And to stay at each one of those levels, most of the time it requires an unwiring of something that you're doing right now and a rewiring or a new wiring of something else. And sometimes we can't do it on our own.
Every agent has a different capacity at how many deals they can handle per month or how many clients or leads or ad spend or whatever that they can handle. And so they have to look to leverage sources to be able to get to that next level or leverage could be like buyer's agents, could be ISAs, could be admins, could be a bunch of different ways.
And there's no really right way to do it. There's your way and there's every other way. So I think of that when I think of him, and I don't know the reason, I'm not telling you this knowing some giant secret or anything like that, but what I do know is that every phase of growth, things change rapidly and almost nothing goes to plan.
If everything went to plan, then the hedge funds would have taken every, right? Because they have an unlimited amount of money to throw at solutions and problems. And if everything always operated the way that it was supposed to, or the way that it should have operated, then we'd all make $20 million a year.
And you know, Zillow would not be who they are, or said differently, Zillow would be the only people, the only game in town, and we wouldn't exist, right? So the very fact that nothing goes to plan and at every stage of growth, things wildly change is the very reason why I think people tolerate the commission rates that we get in this industry.
So as you're looking at the news and watching the video and seeing all the posts and the social and you know, all that stuff is great. Remember that what got you here won't get you there.
And maybe in your business, there's some rewiring or unwiring you need to go through to get to that next level, because the habits that you formed to get the transaction count or the GCI or the sales volume that you have right now are probably not the habits you need to form to double the business.
There's something that needs to change, whether it's systems, mindset, market, price point, the people on your team, whatever that is, right? I hope this was valuable.
I couldn't be more proud of Sharon and everything that he's achieved. We're only a month apart in age, and I feel like he's had a hundred year headstart on me.
So I know that anything that he decides to do is always going to be for the good of the order. And I'm excited to see where this goes next. All right. I love you all. Have a great whatever day you're watching this.
