Guests: Stacie Staub, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: August 28, 2019
Excerpt
Founder and owner of West + Main Homes, Stacie Staub is a Colorado-based Real Estate expert with over 15 years of experience in both residential sales and industry marketing. She is also the conference-loving junkie behind Genuine Hustle, which is fast becoming one of the most popular and in-demand formats for real-life teaching and learning in the Real Estate space.
When Stacie isn’t hitting the streets in the Denver Metro area helping people reach their home and investment goals, you might find her on stage sharing her best tips and tools or appearing as a guest on both local and national webinars radio shows, podcasts, and conferences. She also combines her love of Real Estate with her passion for teaching to help other agents grow their businesses in an organic, genuine way.
Some of the focus areas we’ll be discussing include:
How she got started in the industry – and how she achieved success.
Learn about her “big why” and how she grew in her role/business.
Get the inside details on her secret sauce.
Hear Stacie describe her career growth and what she learned along the way.
Hear her advice & encouragement for other agents & brokers.
Listen to her describe the most valuable parts of the service she provides.
Learn Stacie’s favorite business hacks to save time & increase efficiency.
Learn her thoughts on leverage & delegation.
Learn about common tasks that professionals in business should delegate.
Transcript
00:00:07:20 – 00:00:21:18
Daniel Ramsey
So you love showing houses. You love the people part. What’s made you like amazing at and you’re an influencer, obviously. So why? What’s your special sauce? What have you done that’s, you know, changed?
00:00:22:02 – 00:00:37:05
Stacie Staub
Well, my role has definitely like my role in real estate has definitely evolved. I started off selling to friends and family. I built out a real estate website and started getting leads. This was back like before Zillow. So I when.
00:00:37:05 – 00:00:38:20
Daniel Ramsey
Leads were kind of cool, right?
00:00:38:22 – 00:01:01:14
Stacie Staub
Yeah. It was like, oh my gosh, these are real people that want to buy houses. Like, how cool is that? So that’s really how I started and built atmosphere in my career here in Denver. And then I, you know, became a top producer. I built a team and then I started losing that passion and started thinking like, okay, what’s next?
00:01:02:01 – 00:01:18:24
Stacie Staub
And I have an MBA and a master’s in marketing. And I really felt like I was not using either of those things and had giant student loans to show for them. So I asked my company at the time if I could help them make their stuff look pretty and help their agents grow their businesses.
00:01:19:04 – 00:01:23:13
Daniel Ramsey
Wait a minute. I want to make your stuff look pretty because it’s more than.
00:01:23:22 – 00:01:46:17
Stacie Staub
It already was. But I just love that part of it. I love marketing, I love branding. So that’s really like my like where my real heart lies in this business. And it’s the agents and the people. So I became a marketing director. I did that for about five years at that company. And then about two and a half years ago, I took the leap and started my own brokerage.
00:01:47:02 – 00:01:49:03
Daniel Ramsey
Okay. How has that been? What’s that been like?
00:01:49:23 – 00:01:58:15
Stacie Staub
We’ve grown in the last two and a half years to four offices across different range, and we just hired our 112th agent.
00:01:58:19 – 00:02:01:21
Daniel Ramsey
So 12 agents in four years.
00:02:02:01 – 00:02:07:10
Stacie Staub
Yeah, it’s a that’s amazing. Little it’s the little boutique brand that could and.
00:02:08:00 – 00:02:27:19
Daniel Ramsey
So what did you learn like I’m I’m it’s so cool because you’re one of those success stories not very many brokers ever get to a hundred like that’s kind of a there’s a big mark that’s a huge number. What what have you learned now that you’ve built this like, look back at old Stacy and look back at today, Stacy.
00:02:27:19 – 00:02:30:22
Daniel Ramsey
And like, what’s that gap? What what what is what have you learned?
00:02:32:01 – 00:02:43:12
Stacie Staub
I think just having a real focus on like you have to have a mission statement. Right. And I think that’s true even for individual agents who are out there selling houses. Like what’s their purpose, what’s their why?
00:02:43:17 – 00:02:44:04
Daniel Ramsey
Yes.
00:02:44:11 – 00:03:09:00
Stacie Staub
For me, like, that’s a little too cited for me and my management team. So we have to focus on the agents that we want to attract and keep. And then we also have to focus on their clients and how are they going to use our staff to attract those clients? We know exactly who those people are. We’ve defined them since the beginning, and that’s who has come to us.
00:03:09:02 – 00:03:16:21
Stacie Staub
And we’ve really done no recruiting, which I know is like, you know, people are going to be like, Oh, yeah, sure. But really we haven’t.
00:03:17:13 – 00:03:20:01
Daniel Ramsey
You’ve got to hire a VA to help you recruit.
00:03:21:07 – 00:03:44:18
Stacie Staub
We are hiring like we can barely keep up. So, you know, awesome, great agents keep coming to our door and you know, they’re either attracted to the branding or to the business model, whatever that is. And we just love everyone we work with. So that’s kind of our we don’t do a desk task. We don’t do three interviews before we hire you.
00:03:44:24 – 00:03:55:18
Stacie Staub
You know, someone on our team interviews an agent. And if it clicks, it clicks. And if it doesn’t, we suggest somewhere else for them to to go work. So, you know, it’s we hire very carefully.
00:03:56:13 – 00:04:03:06
Daniel Ramsey
That’s awesome. I really like it. What what has been some of the biggest challenges in building your own brand and your own brokerage?
00:04:04:01 – 00:04:33:13
Stacie Staub
And I think having an ever changing business model. So if are a business plan, I would say so. Our business model is the same. I said so in the beginning. If you’d asked me where we would be at after two and a half years, I would have hoped to be at 25 agents and have an office open. You know, having four storefronts is a lot, especially because they’re everywhere from Boulder County to now Colorado Springs and in between.
00:04:33:21 – 00:05:00:04
Stacie Staub
So hiring, finding the right support staff and finding the people that care about it as much as Madeline and I do, who own the company, has been both a challenge and an opportunity to for us to really figure out what we need, what we can delegate, you know, what we actually have to keep doing every day to keep everybody happy and like don’t have to do.
00:05:00:24 – 00:05:18:11
Stacie Staub
For me, reviewing files is not my jam. I have an awesome full time compliance manager now. She keeps us all straight, so getting stuff like that off my plate so that I can focus on the stuff that I love is has been key, right?
00:05:18:23 – 00:05:33:21
Daniel Ramsey
What? Okay, so it sounds like building a team while having four offices and hiring, right. In terms of the support to your agents, that by far has been the biggest challenge for you guys.
00:05:34:08 – 00:05:58:23
Stacie Staub
For sure yet. And just like you guys do, right with Vas and with the virtual assistants and we’ve done some of that too, which has helped us keep up. And our whole company works remote. No one has a desk. I don’t have a desk anywhere. We now we float like you’re looking at my desk today. It’s the corner, right?
00:05:59:01 – 00:06:21:00
Stacie Staub
I just needed some quiet time. So we float around the offices. Our agents know where to find us, but it’s part of being like a creative range person. I think I we constantly like sometimes Matty and I will be in the office and we’ll be like, Come on, get up. We’re moving all the furniture. And like, people will come in and all the whole office will be rearranged and they’ll walk in and be like, Wow.
00:06:21:06 – 00:06:28:06
Stacie Staub
But it’s part of like keeping fresh energy coming in the door and like, sounds so techy feely, but that’s been really important to us, too.
00:06:28:23 – 00:06:41:22
Daniel Ramsey
That’s interesting. And are you guys recruiting people who are like you in terms of like the agents who are less salesy and more creative and more relational? Is that kind of been your your jam?
00:06:42:14 – 00:07:10:23
Stacie Staub
It was at first. And now with 112 ish agents, we have such a diverse roster, which I love. So we have guys that focus on investors. We’ve got property managers, we have certainly those sales people who love Instagram and who post what they’re doing all day long and that’s their thing. So I think the brand does attract a certain type of person.
00:07:11:06 – 00:07:34:08
Stacie Staub
But now the landscape in Denver, especially is moving so quickly in real estate. There’s a lot of new stuff coming in. Agents are getting hit up all the time with technology and with all these different offerings, and I think everyone can testify in the right seat. And I think our agents, once they settle in with us, you know, they realize, like, this is my happy place.
00:07:34:08 – 00:07:35:22
Stacie Staub
I don’t need to go anywhere.
00:07:36:07 – 00:08:02:02
Daniel Ramsey
That’s cool. What are how are you? Like, I’m I want to pick your brain, Stacy, because you’re building a brokerage in the most disruptive time in our industry. Like, literally, it’s like were the taxi drivers trying to book travel right now and, you know, and there’s no travel agents and we can’t get a taxi. So talk to me about where you think the puck is moving.
00:08:02:02 – 00:08:30:00
Daniel Ramsey
Like, what’s what are you doing to prepare for disruption? Amazon’s here, Zillow’s here. Realtor.com just bought, you know, a prospecting company for a lot of money. I mean, there’s this all this change is happening right here, right now. In fact, one of the hardest changes that I’ve seen happen is most of the power is transforming away from the agent, a really away from the broker and getting put into the consumer’s hands.
00:08:30:03 – 00:08:57:16
Stacie Staub
And so it’s to me, so we do. So first of all, what we’ve done to kind of stay at the forefront of this is brought on Greg Fisher. He’s well known in our industry. He has worked at MOVE Dotcom, he worked at Realtor.com, he has built apps. He’s been a consultant for many different parts of our vertical, and he’s just the guy that knows all of this stuff and he’s so open minded.
00:08:57:22 – 00:09:21:09
Stacie Staub
So things like I buy our programs like we’re not scared, we’re just explaining these things to our agents, you know, giving them tools and strategies to handle both the opportunities and challenges that will come with these things and these changes. But in the end, our agents are still out selling houses and there’s still plenty of them for them to sell.
00:09:21:09 – 00:09:50:10
Stacie Staub
So I think I like to look at every change like this, like an opportunity and like, okay, how do we, you know, take the Zestimate conversation and turn it? That’s been like five years ago, right? Like that an opportunity for you rather than a problem. And I think that I buy your things and all of these technology companies that are becoming real estate companies and all of that still offer those same opportunities to have a conversation, whether that’s with an agent or with a consumer.
00:09:50:18 – 00:10:06:20
Stacie Staub
And explain to them why, you know, the value of a realtor is still there and why we’re not going anywhere and we’re still worth our commission. But yeah, I think having those conversations and being super transparent about it is the best thing that any broker can do.
00:10:07:03 – 00:10:10:20
Daniel Ramsey
So you’re not you’re not nervous in any way?
00:10:10:20 – 00:10:19:15
Stacie Staub
I’m not. And I think I’ve been in the business long enough to have seen like I like I started in the dark times. Right. That’s what I call the recession.
00:10:19:21 – 00:10:20:12
Daniel Ramsey
Yes.
00:10:20:12 – 00:10:42:17
Stacie Staub
Started out you know, my first listing was a short sale. It took me two years to close and it was thousand dollars. So in every turn in the last 15 years. And and I feel really empowered by that. Like I have shifted. I know how to you know, I know how to teach agents to sell HUD homes or foreclosures or short sales.
00:10:42:21 – 00:11:11:16
Stacie Staub
Right. And, you know, certainly properties that have declined in value rather than had that beautiful 10% appreciation rate like we’ve had in Denver for the last five years. So we’re ready. And I think our brand’s built to pivot. So and it’s part of like the advantage of being an independent brokerage as well and not move fast. Yeah. Like we’re so nimble, like ask like I make such quick decisions and we implement like so crazy fast.
00:11:11:16 – 00:11:16:21
Stacie Staub
People can’t keep up and that’s like we love. That’s just how we operate best.
00:11:17:09 – 00:11:34:21
Daniel Ramsey
Let me ask you another question being a woman and a leader in our industry, what’s that been like? Because all the other CEOs of the major companies are men. And I’m just kind of curious what your perspective around that is. It’s heavy sigh I, I heard that.
00:11:35:14 – 00:12:10:23
Stacie Staub
Has so be challenging and my answer to that has been getting more involved in the association in our industry. I know I have been a national speaker for a long time and you know, been on Indian stages and been on our stages and really I think been a voice of reason for our industry. And I want to continue to do that in this leadership role and especially like setting a good example for our agents and coming from a place of gratitude and abundance rather than fear is part of that.
00:12:10:23 – 00:12:29:13
Stacie Staub
And I think women are really good at that. So I think it’s part been part of the secret to our fast growth for sure, and to the recognition that we’ve received in the industry in such a short time. But still, when I walk into a boardroom at our local association, sometimes.
00:12:29:13 – 00:12:30:20
Daniel Ramsey
The only one. Mm.
00:12:31:04 – 00:12:32:19
Stacie Staub
Yeah. And I don’t mind.
00:12:33:15 – 00:12:54:01
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. Even though like 70% of realtors are actually women. Which, which is a crazy, it’s a crazy thing. Okay, cool. So you’re not scared. You love being a CEO, you’re impacting the world. What are some of the kind of cool things that we can expect from you and your brand and your agents coming up?
00:12:54:12 – 00:13:19:02
Stacie Staub
So I like to say we’re a really like community based organization and we’re also a content based marketing firm within a real estate company. And so we’re it’s our job to curate the information and sort of turn that around and provide that to our agents and our consumers. So we work really hard on that and I always get asked like, what’s next?
00:13:19:02 – 00:13:45:14
Stacie Staub
What’s our plan? I don’t know. Like I said, our business so many times and the awesome thing is that we are able to just say yes and then figure it out. And I never thought we would get into property management. I didn’t think that we would expand into other markets. And, you know, we’re looking at expanding outside of our state and using kind of a really different business model that we’re putting together.
00:13:45:14 – 00:13:49:06
Stacie Staub
So who knows? But I can’t wait to find out.
00:13:50:22 – 00:14:14:07
Daniel Ramsey
Here’s a question, because you define yourself as a marketing company that just happens to be in the real estate world. I mean, that’s what I heard. I don’t know if I’m right, but talk to us, for our audience, the people who are listening, like what are some of the pieces that are really landing with consumers right now? Because curating content and data like that’s that is something that’s unusual.
00:14:14:07 – 00:14:31:00
Daniel Ramsey
I honestly, I talked to a lot of CEOs in the real estate world. That’s what I it’s part of what we do. And that is a unique message. Marketing companies, absolutely. They’re talking like that. But not real estate brands. So hit me with some of your best stuff for 2019 and 20.
00:14:31:08 – 00:14:56:12
Stacie Staub
So we put out a new we call it the magazine, but really it’s our answer to a listing and buyer presentation and we put it out well, we say seasonally, but really when we start to run out, then we design a new one and then our agents can come in and grab stacks of those. And those have been like kind of the centerpiece of our printed collateral.
00:14:56:12 – 00:15:21:07
Stacie Staub
And then everything is really tailored to the like tailor able to the experience. So for both the agents and their clients, so if they have a luxury listing presentation or they’re meeting with a first time homebuyer, that looks really different. So we’ve created a huge library of materials for them to put together an appropriate presentation. It’s not like a 50 page book and you give the same thing to everyone.
00:15:21:15 – 00:15:45:24
Stacie Staub
But thing like with our neighborhood guide, we have a very strategic kind of strategy around how we’re doing that you don’t hand someone a book with like 100 Denver neighborhood guides and go like, well, you can’t afford most. It is like only look at pages 338 and instead they can pull those sheets and like really make the client feel taken care of.
00:15:45:24 – 00:16:02:12
Stacie Staub
And then our other the other piece of our program, I think, is what we call surprise and delight. So we order fun stuff all the time that the agents can come in and grab dog bandannas, camping mugs, baby onesies and all. I mean, everything and.
00:16:02:24 – 00:16:05:10
Daniel Ramsey
Swag, basically. Swag.
00:16:05:10 – 00:16:30:00
Stacie Staub
And we don’t charge for any of that because for us, that gets our brand out on the street. When you see a dog walking around with the West Main bandana, you better bet one of our agents is going to take a picture and post it. They’re going to tag us. So that has been really well received. And it was just something we built into our model because we didn’t want the agents to feel like they had to pay for all of that stuff because that’s what they see excited about.
00:16:30:02 – 00:16:52:17
Stacie Staub
And yes, everyone’s excited, you know, when they have a transaction coordinator and there, you know, is covered but it’s not sexy, it’s not fun, it doesn’t differentiate you. So when I have agents that come in and they’re interviewing at five or eight different companies, like I want to have those things that stand out and I want them to remember like, Oh my gosh, it wasn’t me.
00:16:52:17 – 00:17:16:03
Stacie Staub
And you can just go in and grab this stuff and you can reserve any of their offices to host a client party, or you can invite your clients to one of our for annual client appreciation events. And it’s like us throwing a party for you and your clients there. So all of these different things and how we choose to spend our dollars is just very different than most companies.
00:17:16:05 – 00:17:29:09
Daniel Ramsey
Tell me, tell me, tell me. What do you do? That’s I. I like the real deal. You know, when you talk to people and they’re like, Oh, we’re special. And then they’re like, I’m not going to tell you. Tell us what is different about how you guys spend your money.
00:17:29:18 – 00:17:58:00
Stacie Staub
We you will not find a newspaper ad restaurant to step on it, but what we do is and completely offer free design for all of our agents so that so our marketing money is basically spent on our design staff. We have very talented designers who are ready, willing and able to create anything that agents come up with that they also create all of the listing credit, collateral from scratch in-house on demand.
00:17:58:07 – 00:18:21:03
Stacie Staub
It’s not a template. It’s a beautiful flier designed for your listing. And, you know, we just don’t we don’t mess around with a lot of spend on online leads either. We do have a really robust website. It’s a lead machine, but it’s just kind of it’s organic travel machine.
00:18:21:03 – 00:18:22:16
Daniel Ramsey
I like that. Yeah.
00:18:22:16 – 00:18:41:22
Stacie Staub
And we distribute those leads to our agents at no extra split. We just ask that they take good care of those folks. Those are people on the other end of that, you know, lead form. And so we give them the tools to nurture them. And it’s really not that complicated and it has worked really well.
00:18:41:22 – 00:18:58:02
Daniel Ramsey
That’s so cool. Stacy, thanks for your time today. What what should people know about your brand? And maybe we should real quick, like because we didn’t do an introduction in the beginning or any of that. So you’re in Denver West in Maine. How long you guys been in business?
00:18:58:08 – 00:18:59:05
Stacie Staub
Two and a half years.
00:18:59:08 – 00:19:06:15
Daniel Ramsey
Two and a half years. And you’re you’re you’re that’s a lot of growth, by the way. 50 agents a year. That’s a do you think you’ll keep that pace?
00:19:07:02 – 00:19:09:04
Stacie Staub
I hope so. I mean, that’s the goal.
00:19:09:20 – 00:19:10:05
Daniel Ramsey
That’s the.
00:19:10:05 – 00:19:12:06
Stacie Staub
Goal. Yeah.
00:19:12:06 – 00:19:13:15
Daniel Ramsey
You’re like, yeah, I think I will.
00:19:14:22 – 00:19:15:17
Stacie Staub
Keep doing that.
00:19:15:23 – 00:19:22:14
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. Yeah. How would somebody get a hold of you if they’re interested in finding out more about what you do?
00:19:22:22 – 00:19:41:04
Stacie Staub
I’m super easy to find online. I’m at Stacy Staab everywhere. I also run all of our socials. So at Western Maine homes on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and that. Really everything. Yeah, just google. I’m super easy to find.
00:19:41:04 – 00:19:59:15
Daniel Ramsey
That’s cool. What’s when somebody says and just because you’ve had a great growth rate and your positioning is different, like a marketing company that sells real estate, what’s your like value prop that you talk to agents about? Like, what’s your value that you bring? I’m just kind of curious how you position yourself.
00:19:59:21 – 00:20:20:17
Stacie Staub
Sure. I mean, we’re a boutique brand that intends to stay that way no matter how big we get. We always want to have that storefront feel like a local boutique that you’re walking into, whether you’re shopping for jeans or need to sell your house. You know, our goal is to provide our agents with excellent service so they can turn around and do the same for their clients.
00:20:21:01 – 00:20:37:07
Stacie Staub
And and I don’t like to get sued. So we focus a lot on education. They provide a lot of training and coaching and accountability. And we make sure that our agents meet their goals and hopefully exceed them no matter what those look like for them.
00:20:37:19 – 00:20:42:12
Daniel Ramsey
It’s awesome. Stacie, thanks for being here with us today. I really this is a bit of fun conversation.
00:20:42:18 – 00:20:44:00
Stacie Staub
Thank you so much.
00:20:44:18 – 00:20:56:10
Daniel Ramsey
And that’s a wrap. Hey, thanks for your time. This is kind of cool. I I’m crazy. I just call people up and say, hey, let’s chat. We haven’t met before, but it’s an honor to meet you.
00:20:57:20 – 00:21:04:06
Stacie Staub
And yeah, I went back and listened to a couple of your shows and I could kind of like get divides that.
00:21:04:13 – 00:21:04:21
Daniel Ramsey
I.
00:21:06:00 – 00:21:07:00
Stacie Staub
Like it. I like it.
00:21:07:05 – 00:21:24:06
Daniel Ramsey
Because you’re a marketing person and you know, you know, you’re doing is there anything that we can do to serve you? I mean, these are intro calls. We always kind of reach out. It’s cool that your husband is involved in that. I hope you guys got lots of money when when Remax decided to buy you. I think that’s awesome.
00:21:24:17 – 00:21:25:07
Stacie Staub
Zach.
00:21:25:07 – 00:21:31:24
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, it didn’t suck. That’s perfect. But is there anything we can do to serve? That would be great?
00:21:32:04 – 00:21:41:02
Stacie Staub
I mean, this has been great. We love getting the brand out there and being able to tell our stories, so I just really appreciate it. And yeah, let us know how we can help you.
00:21:41:14 – 00:22:04:18
Daniel Ramsey
Okay, cool. So we’ll send this out to everybody. We send a list. So this will go literally to all 1.7 million realtors or however many there is of us out there. And we’ll throw this and all the socials and we’ll tag you and yeah, this is will be fun. I think it’s good to just see different models and different things out there.
00:22:05:01 – 00:22:13:23
Daniel Ramsey
And, you know, we so we have 5000 we’ve had 5000 clients. So as you’re building your brokerage and you’re like, We need help. Yeah, that’s what we do.
00:22:13:23 – 00:22:14:16
Stacie Staub
Oh, I’m there.
00:22:15:09 – 00:22:16:23
Daniel Ramsey
Have you ever heard about us before?
00:22:17:03 – 00:22:24:19
Stacie Staub
Yeah, well, I don’t know if I had or not, but then, since your team reached out for this talk, I have done a little bit of digging.
00:22:24:19 – 00:22:27:11
Daniel Ramsey
So how did you find out?
00:22:27:18 – 00:22:49:09
Stacie Staub
I didn’t know. I think it’s I think it sounds really cool. And your assistant who was helping us get on the call is lovely. Such a sweet girl. So, yeah, I think it’s really cool. And my husband does use a lot of virtual like virtual help overseas that kind of thing.
00:22:49:17 – 00:22:50:02
Daniel Ramsey
Does he.
00:22:50:09 – 00:22:55:02
Stacie Staub
Yeah. So especially like developers and you know guys that code and all of that.
00:22:55:02 – 00:23:03:03
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of we have a couple in Pakistan and then we have a couple in the Philippines. It’s weird. There’s good talent out there in the world, you know.
00:23:03:12 – 00:23:05:19
Stacie Staub
Yeah, of course. What a great opportunity for them.
00:23:05:19 – 00:23:18:16
Daniel Ramsey
So it is crazy. All right, Stacy, thanks for your time. I’m your guy. You ever need anything in our world? You just let us know and we’ll kind of we’ll shoot you a quick message when this goes live, okay?
00:23:18:16 – 00:23:19:14
Stacie Staub
Awesome. Nice meeting you.
00:23:19:15 – 00:23:20:12
Daniel Ramsey
All right. Bye bye.
00:23:20:17 – 00:23:22:23
Stacie Staub
Bye.