The Business of Homes Podcast

019 Transcript

00:00:18:14 - 00:00:56:08
Michael Conrad
Michael Conrad here with the Business of Holmes podcast. Welcome back and thank you for joining us again. We are so, so thankful to be bringing you amazing stories of the world of real estate and the business behind it all that fuels it. Today we have a wonderful realtor and a friend of mine, Katie Morrow, who is a passionate and committed realtor in this community, Middle Tennessee, as well as an amazing businesswoman.

00:00:56:08 - 00:01:23:09
Michael Conrad
And I'm hoping to dig in to some of her secrets and some of her experiences over a career that has taken place in a couple different areas, but has found some really deep roots here in middle Tennessee. Welcome, Katie. This market temperature always makes us think about where we've come, where we've come from, because when you feel like the road ahead of you is particularly unknown, right?

00:01:23:09 - 00:01:47:18
Michael Conrad
I mean, like in contrast to this, of course, you know, when you're going up into the right and everything is just like bang, and then you're just doing great. You're not thinking about where you're going, you're just holding on to the dragon or whatever it is. Right? But particularly in moments where there is uncertainty ahead of us, at least for me, I look backwards and I think to myself, Where did I come from?

00:01:47:23 - 00:02:10:09
Michael Conrad
How did I get here? And in doing so, does that help me get a better compass bearing for where I'm going to be going? Because maybe I'm feeling a little lost right now. So where did you come from? How did you get here and how has your compass bearing changed over time?

00:02:10:11 - 00:02:38:10
Katie Morrell
So I'm from a small town called Melville, Tennessee. Born and raised there, went to the university of Tennessee, and I met my husband there. We moved actually to Nashville in 2000, 2001, and he was doing some singer songwriter things and we both decided I was 22 at the time. He was 27. That we were going to get sober.

00:02:38:12 - 00:03:02:13
Katie Morrell
22 had just, you know, you should just start really shouldn't start drinking until you're 21. That's right. So anyway, with his music background and singer songwriter, we felt like that probably wasn't conducive to sobriety. So we decided to move to his hometown in Bristol, Tennessee, which is a teeny tiny town, part of the trust cities in the Northeast.

00:03:02:13 - 00:03:31:07
Katie Morrell
Tip. And we moved back there because he had bought a convenience store at the age of 18 with his father in that funny Cedar Creek market. Shout out to the best world's best hot dog. And so we thought, we'll move back, you know, start working at the convenience store, kind of building that business. And some of his commercial real estate that he had surrounding the convenience store.

00:03:31:09 - 00:04:02:05
Katie Morrell
And we bought our first home and I fell in love with every single bit of that process. I loved the whole process of purchasing the home. The home was built in 1919 and we renovated it from top to bottom, and I loved that entire process. And from there we decided to jump into doing a development. That was one of the greatest lessons of my career.

00:04:02:05 - 00:04:03:07
Michael Conrad
Yeah, that's quite the leap.

00:04:03:10 - 00:04:05:21
Katie Morrell
Yeah, big leap, Big leap.

00:04:05:22 - 00:04:07:20
Michael Conrad
Nitwit. New into real estate.

00:04:07:20 - 00:04:11:21
Katie Morrell
New into real estate. And decided to develop 54 townhomes.

00:04:11:23 - 00:04:13:21
Michael Conrad
As one does.

00:04:13:23 - 00:04:44:08
Katie Morrell
No, a crazy person with no experience and no fear. You know, I was too young to have any fear in doing it. But huge lesson. We started that process. I think, in 2006 in developing is, you know, a very long, arduous process. You have so many things that need to be met with code city excavating, site plans, all of these things that I had never I mean, I had renovated a home.

00:04:44:09 - 00:04:47:01
Michael Conrad
All right. But the things you don't think about, the hidden things, the.

00:04:47:01 - 00:05:22:09
Katie Morrell
Hidden things, the rock, you know, and the amount of money you have to spend on excavating that rock. So we did this in three phases and, you know, did okay. 2008 happened. And so we shifted from actually selling the townhomes to renting the townhomes, which, you know, would have been beautiful had it all worked out. But the last phase, the last eight townhomes, the excavators did not compact the dirt well enough.

00:05:22:11 - 00:05:26:07
Katie Morrell
And so the garages fell in eight inches.

00:05:26:09 - 00:05:27:03
Michael Conrad
my gosh.

00:05:27:06 - 00:05:42:21
Katie Morrell
And when that happens, you can't get a I or a CEO and so therefore you can't sell them, nor can you rent them. And you're still paying a note on all the other 50 units that you have built.

00:05:42:23 - 00:05:43:16
Michael Conrad
Yeah.

00:05:43:18 - 00:05:46:08
Katie Morrell
It's a it's a it's a bad position to be in little.

00:05:46:08 - 00:05:47:22
Michael Conrad
More expenses than revenue. Little bit.

00:05:47:22 - 00:05:50:14
Katie Morrell
Little bit more expenses. So you.

00:05:50:18 - 00:05:52:06
Michael Conrad
Jackhammer everything out.

00:05:52:06 - 00:05:53:04
Katie Morrell
And no, you can.

00:05:53:04 - 00:05:53:14
Michael Conrad
Try again.

00:05:53:14 - 00:05:56:22
Katie Morrell
You you get into a lawsuit with the excavator.

00:05:57:00 - 00:05:57:10
Michael Conrad
goodness.

00:05:57:10 - 00:06:16:10
Katie Morrell
Who won't take responsibility even though you can see it there. You know, the garages have fallen in this. Yeah, but lawsuits take time and money and we did not have time, so we had to file a Chapter 11 on that particular project.

00:06:16:15 - 00:06:18:19
Michael Conrad
Right off the game.

00:06:18:21 - 00:06:25:18
Katie Morrell
Well, not exactly right out the gate, because it had taken a long time to get it, you know, to that point.

00:06:25:18 - 00:06:26:07
Michael Conrad
Right.

00:06:26:08 - 00:06:46:10
Katie Morrell
But I think it was one of the best lessons in my career to learn. And it taught me so much and I learned so much. And I will never do a project of that size ever again.

00:06:46:12 - 00:06:48:19
Michael Conrad
Why was it so helpful?

00:06:48:21 - 00:07:21:03
Katie Morrell
I think because my ego led me to do something that I wasn't qualified to do and just learning that things take time and instead of, you know, jumping into something without having the knowledge and the time spent and knowing how to do something of that magnitude just led me to the place I am now, where I'm a lot more patient.

00:07:21:05 - 00:07:28:05
Katie Morrell
And, you know, selling one house at a time is okay with me now.

00:07:28:07 - 00:07:32:18
Michael Conrad
Yeah, the the failure is such a great teacher.

00:07:32:18 - 00:07:33:05
Katie Morrell
It is.

00:07:33:09 - 00:07:51:13
Michael Conrad
And, you know, generally speaking, our society, you know, particularly real estate within the last 15 years has seen immeasurably much less failure. And so that teacher has not been that class has not been in session for a lot of folks.

00:07:51:15 - 00:08:09:12
Katie Morrell
Teaching other people, being able to create this team and give people the playbook where they don't have to make so many mistakes, you know, they can kind of skip over the mistakes that I made and I can teach them how to do something well and then watch them succeed is very rewarding.

00:08:09:14 - 00:08:47:14
Michael Conrad
This concept of living through a certain amount of life experiences and trying to gather these pearls of wisdom and then looking towards others that you can help. I mean, this formula feels very familiar to me. It's probably marked my most recent years as an entrepreneur, but there's this complicated part of the puzzle that I don't think I fully realized, and that is not everyone has ears to hear those cautionary tales and lessons true sometimes, probably even for people like me.

00:08:47:17 - 00:09:26:13
Michael Conrad
Sometimes people need to go through their own lessons to really learn and now I'm at a place where I'm asking myself, How do I better package those life lessons? And those experiences in such a way where others may benefit to a greater extent, And I've figured it out yet still working on it. But I do start to think that this is the core of what leadership development looks like when you've been an entrepreneur for, you know, an amount of a certain amount of time and found some success.

00:09:26:15 - 00:09:54:00
Michael Conrad
This is what leadership development looks like, is asking more questions borne out of that experience, borne out of those pearls of wisdom so that they, whoever they is, may gain the benefit of finding the answers themselves rather than solely being fed the answers. And anyone else out there listening has children. I'm sure you will know that this also comes to bear at home.

00:09:54:00 - 00:09:59:08
Michael Conrad
You know, where you're trying to impart to your kids. Don't make the same mistakes I did.

00:09:59:08 - 00:10:00:05
Katie Morrell
Exactly.

00:10:00:07 - 00:10:12:14
Michael Conrad
And that, you know, only goes well after time or less. So going back to your story. So you go through this whole development and this, you know, perhaps not failure.

00:10:12:16 - 00:10:21:13
Katie Morrell
If you it was failure. Well, it was a failure, but lessons were learned. And, you know, we rose above it and became what we are today.

00:10:21:13 - 00:10:49:08
Michael Conrad
So Josh Ellis joined us on the podcast awhile ago and talked about this concept that failure is not a destination, but that it is an active element of resistance that sometimes not only is a great teacher, but allows you to create perseverance and character to push through. And so I think sometimes when I start to say the word failure, I want to make sure I'm qualifying the know it's not a place I stopped or a place you stop now.

00:10:49:10 - 00:10:59:23
Michael Conrad
That failure was just a waypoint, you know, all along the way. But yes, perhaps a failure by some measures. But you didn't stop because you're here today.

00:10:59:23 - 00:11:00:10
Katie Morrell
That's right.

00:11:00:11 - 00:11:04:08
Michael Conrad
So what took place after that? How did you transform?

00:11:04:10 - 00:11:16:19
Katie Morrell
We were doing so many things, like coinciding with that development. I had a couple restaurants, Mellow Mushrooms and the Tri-Cities at the time I started opening a yoga studio at the time.

00:11:16:21 - 00:11:19:13
Michael Conrad
Those things go together so well.

00:11:19:15 - 00:11:26:02
Katie Morrell
Right? And then I had my real estate firm, so there was just I was spinning a lot of plates.

00:11:26:04 - 00:11:26:17
Michael Conrad
Totally.

00:11:26:18 - 00:12:00:02
Katie Morrell
You know. And so another thing that I learned through that process was I need to spin less plates and spin one very well. And so I sold we sold the mellow mushrooms, we sold the yoga studio. And then when we came here, we focused solely on real estate. And I think that has been one of the secret ingredients to my success here is focusing on one thing that I that I do well and not trying to do so many things.

00:12:00:07 - 00:12:35:04
Michael Conrad
Someone said to me recently that growth creates complication and complication is the main hurdle for sustainable growth. And so this sort of cycle that one enters into, you know, many entrepreneurs listening here will know, my gosh, I've, I've gotten some success. We are bigger, we offer more services, I have a wider reach. I serve a greater audience, whatever it is, the customization, the complication, it creeps in so easily.

00:12:35:06 - 00:13:04:09
Michael Conrad
And then when you begin to try to focus on all that, it just pulls your focus from everything it specifically. And so you're sort of blurry out of focus. So it's good and so important and a great encouragement to listeners here that that focus on the one thing Gary Keller is the one thing, the one thing that is really fueling you and offering you a chance to sort of raise the bar of quality.

00:13:05:13 - 00:13:13:23
Michael Conrad
So what did that look like? Because did you keep the firm in East Tennessee as well? Now how did you divest of that.

00:13:13:23 - 00:13:36:14
Katie Morrell
I sold it to my partner. I had a partner who was the broker who actually it was a very difficult partnership. I'm being totally honest, she was very hard on me and it was the best thing for me. She made me into a great agent. I mean, she was like white on rice with me, you know, down to my voicemail.

00:13:36:14 - 00:13:40:04
Katie Morrell
She would listen to my voicemail and, like, critique my voicemail.

00:13:40:05 - 00:13:40:21
Michael Conrad
Very detailed.

00:13:40:21 - 00:13:57:11
Katie Morrell
And yeah, I mean, and at the time I hated it and I felt like she was picking on me. And really in reality, she was. But she didn't know that she was fine tuning me and making me a really good agent. In fact, when I moved here, I sent her a thank you note.

00:13:57:13 - 00:14:18:00
Michael Conrad
But divesting of that, that's an incredible lesson learned to acquire and to divest. I mean, these are things that are incredibly complicated and fraught with all sorts of difficulty and emotions and humanity and that kind of thing. And you managed to do both of those things. And I, you know, less than ten year period.

00:14:20:01 - 00:14:32:10
Michael Conrad
And then you were moderately free to sort of set sail for for whatever when you showed up in Nashville, started selling real estate, getting to know this market better.

00:14:33:02 - 00:14:38:21
Michael Conrad
Did you already have the seed of the idea to build the team, or did that come later?

00:14:38:21 - 00:15:00:04
Katie Morrell
I never wanted to do a team. No, I showed up just thinking I'm going to sell real estate. And, you know, I'd been doing it long enough. I didn't have to recreate the wheel. I knew what to do. And so I just put my head down and, you know, just grinded it out. My husband and I, I mean, it was open houses and cold calling.

00:15:00:04 - 00:15:11:08
Katie Morrell
It was totally different for my business in the Tri-Cities. The Tri-Cities. I'd been there long enough. I was a entrenched enough into the community. My phone rang. I moved to Nashville. No phone was ringing.

00:15:11:10 - 00:15:12:03
Michael Conrad
Nobody knew you.

00:15:12:04 - 00:15:21:03
Katie Morrell
Nobody knew me. So it was, you know, jumping in, being at the office every day. Who's open house? Can I see that? Put me anywhere.

00:15:21:04 - 00:15:21:21
Michael Conrad
Yeah.

00:15:21:23 - 00:15:44:12
Katie Morrell
I will show up. I will be there. And we bought some leads from this company called Boomtown. I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's a lead generation company. They give you a website and then you pay advertise in dollars for pay per click, and then it drives leads to that website. And then you're calling strangers trying to sell them homes.

00:15:44:14 - 00:15:46:01
Michael Conrad
Yeah, that's hard.

00:15:46:02 - 00:16:04:03
Katie Morrell
It was so hard. But our first year we ended up selling 13 million and it was fun. It was like learning the business in a whole different way. I didn't realize how lazy I was as an agent before I moved to Nashville.

00:16:04:05 - 00:16:07:08
Michael Conrad
Well, you don't realize how deep the relationships go until they're not there right?

00:16:07:08 - 00:16:27:10
Katie Morrell
That's right. Yeah, exactly. So it's been really fun, like building all of these new relationships and honing my craft in a different way. And I feel like I'm so much better here. I was there.

00:16:27:12 - 00:17:01:16
Michael Conrad
you have the benefit of kind of having to work for it to some extent, Yeah. You know, which I think is, is another important lesson that's been, I don't know if this is entirely true, but has been less present in the recent history than you know in the past. Because when there's just a wide swath of people ready to buy because the interest rates are so low and blah, blah, blah, like, I don't know, more gold nuggets lying on the ground, you know, if you have to go dig it out of the ground by blood, sweat and tears, it's a little more complicated.

00:17:01:17 - 00:17:29:18
Katie Morrell
It's a little more fun, though. I like the challenge of it. So 2017, move here in August, and then I get a call from one of my friends in October who was the CEO of a company called Freeport, and it's a German based company that oversees all the concessions in retail development in airports. And he called me. We met in October, and he said, you know, Katie, I'm trying to win the RFP, I'm the underdog.

00:17:29:23 - 00:17:51:08
Katie Morrell
I'm up against host Delaware North, and I really would like to hire you to help me win this RFP, get some aloe eyes from the local businesses, and hopefully win the bid for the Nashville airport. And I looked at him like he had three eyes and I said, You know, Ben, I just moved here. I don't know anybody.

00:17:51:08 - 00:18:23:02
Katie Morrell
You know, I'm not going to be able to help you do that. And he's like, Yeah, well, and I said, okay. So we ended up just eating our way through the city, going to all the different retailers and got 50 guys and six weeks and we won the bid. It was the best experience meeting all of the people that have created the city, you know, the Max Goldberg's the Tom Morales's, the Judith Brights, all the people that have created all these things that we get to enjoy.

00:18:23:04 - 00:18:26:14
Katie Morrell
And it helped my business tremendously.

00:18:26:16 - 00:18:28:07
Michael Conrad
How you were connecting.

00:18:28:09 - 00:18:51:23
Katie Morrell
So they hired me as director of operations. Overall, the concession and retail at BNA and I did that for about a year and I hated it and thought, I've got to go back to real estate just solely. My husband was handling most of our real estate for that time. So I told Ben when I took the job, I said, If I do this and I love it, I'll stay.

00:18:51:23 - 00:19:14:15
Katie Morrell
But if I don't, then I'll go back to real estate. And it was so stressful that the left side of my face and my arm went numb and I had to go get an MRI. And, you know, I thought I had a brain tumor. And he was like, No, you have acute anxiety. And so I thought, well, it's not worth dying over the airport.

00:19:14:15 - 00:19:17:22
Katie Morrell
So I went back to real estate and I'm so glad I did.

00:19:18:00 - 00:19:31:07
Michael Conrad
I was dying over the airport. No, it was that that was the inflection point. Going back to real estate. That's when you started to build the team.

00:19:31:09 - 00:19:58:17
Jake Hall
Hey, everyone, it's Jake, director for the Business of Homes podcast. I hope you've been enjoying today's episode, starting with Katie's quick dive into a townhome development, creating a playbook so Katie's team doesn't experience the same mistakes and the path Katie went on before creating her team. When we return, Michael and Katie dive into the structure of her team, the successful order in which to hire roles and the dire importance of the contract.

00:19:58:22 - 00:20:18:17
Jake Hall
You don't want to miss it. Don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram @thebusinessofhomespod, where you can interact with us and see some great bite sized pieces from all of our episodes. For you listeners out there, did you know our entire podcast are filmed and are on our YouTube channel? Check it out next time you want to see our amazing guests tell their stories.

00:20:18:19 - 00:20:37:07
Jake Hall
And are you currently watching this episode in video format? Don't forget to follow us on your preferred audio streaming service to take us with you on the go. Lastly, do you have any feedback or one to suggest someone for the show? Email us at thebusinessofhomespodcast@gmail.com. Please enjoy the rest of today's episode with Katie Morrell.

00:20:37:08 - 00:20:40:09
Jake Hall
Let's get back to it.

00:20:40:11 - 00:20:57:02
Katie Morrell
My first cousin said, I've got a friend who wants to get into real estate, and do you think she can come in and talk to you? And I was like, Yeah, sure. Send her in. And then she called me about two days later and she goes, You know, more now that I think about it. What if I came and talked to you about real estate?

00:20:57:04 - 00:21:02:23
Katie Morrell
And I said, Sure, you know, come in, we'll talk. And she was my first hire.

00:21:04:00 - 00:21:26:23
Katie Morrell
She's still with me. She just became a senior agent. That's exciting. And then my best friend decided to get her license, and then my husband's best friend. You should never hire family or friends, let me just tell you. But this, luckily, has worked out for me. But when I was talking to Aaron Krueger and Jesse Salata and Sara Evers, they like, do not hire family, do not hire friends.

00:21:27:01 - 00:21:28:03
Katie Morrell
And of course, that's what.

00:21:28:06 - 00:21:28:22
Michael Conrad
That's what you did.

00:21:28:22 - 00:21:30:03
Katie Morrell
What I did. But it worked out.

00:21:30:03 - 00:21:30:21
Michael Conrad
But it works for some.

00:21:30:23 - 00:21:31:17
Katie Morrell
It works for some.

00:21:31:19 - 00:21:32:06
Michael Conrad
It's good.

00:21:32:10 - 00:21:43:04
Katie Morrell
And so, yeah, now we're a team of 13 and it's I've never interviewed anyone. I've never put out we're hiring. You know, it just is all kind of organically Yeah.

00:21:43:09 - 00:21:43:21
Michael Conrad
Come together.

00:21:43:21 - 00:21:44:11
Katie Morrell
Happened.

00:21:44:15 - 00:22:03:05
Michael Conrad
So do you guys structure in such a way where you're delegating different duties so that it's sort of all parts lead to the whole or is it sort of a safe harbor for people to be sort of totally operating their own sphere under you?

00:22:03:07 - 00:22:28:06
Katie Morrell
We we have three different positions, so you can be a referral agent, which means you just send your business to us, you harness the baton and we close the deal. I have two referral agents on the team and then we have a buyer's agent, which everyone starts out as a buyer's agent. They come, they have to follow a 30, 60, 90 day game plan.

00:22:28:06 - 00:22:56:07
Katie Morrell
They have to jump through these hoops basically to become the buyer's agent. And then they're doing a minimum of 50 phone calls a week, five face to faces, sending out three social media posts, you know, doing the handwritten letters and the email to their sphere. And then we have a senior agent role, which once you've been on the team for three years, you can become a senior agent and then your commission structure changes and then you're helping coach the other buyer's agents.

00:22:56:09 - 00:23:02:16
Katie Morrell
And then we have a senior lead role where you can build your own team under need to me, but you're coaching your own team.

00:23:02:18 - 00:23:08:18
Michael Conrad
And is that intended to create like a referral base under these sort of a little micro teams concept?

00:23:08:22 - 00:23:41:08
Katie Morrell
It's for retention. Like my team feels like my family and my, you know, it's giving someone more responsibility. Plus they get a better commission structure. Plus they're creating their own team. And I only have so much bandwidth. It's just what we've created and it seems to work, and it gives people a goal. You know, they start as a buyer agent, then they become a senior agent, and then they become a senior lead.

00:23:41:13 - 00:23:45:10
Katie Morrell
And that senior lead is kind of the pinnacle role on the team.

00:23:45:12 - 00:23:54:02
Michael Conrad
Is this something where you're pushing yourself more into a non production role, where you're coaching and managing? Is that the sort of eventual place that you're going towards?

00:23:54:05 - 00:24:08:01
Katie Morrell
I think so. I mean, I will always handle certain clients, you know, people who have been with me from the beginning of time, but I'm hoping to train these people where they will be even better than I am.

00:24:08:02 - 00:24:45:16
Michael Conrad
That is the dream, right? And that's a that's a scary component to to for it to be different in words. And indeed, you know, you bring people in to your world and you invite them in to your team and you say, I want you to be better than me, but then if they start to, you know, express independent thoughts or, you know, start to go in maybe slightly different directions than maybe you would choose, that's where the rubber meets the road, where you really have to decide, am I going to be able to release, control or even vision potentially so that they can make decisions?

00:24:45:16 - 00:24:52:20
Michael Conrad
Because it's through those decisions and through that experience that they even might have the opportunity to continue to progress and progress. Progress?

00:24:53:14 - 00:24:57:18
Michael Conrad
Yeah, that's a that's a very difficult thing. I find that difficult at the very least.

00:24:58:15 - 00:25:22:06
Katie Morrell
It is difficult, but I'm always open to learning. And I know I'm never the smartest person in the room, And I try to surround myself with smarter people who can teach me. You know, I always love learning. I think that's why I've liked doing so many different things and juggling so many different plates. So I'm always open to, you know, even my team members teaching me things.

00:25:22:12 - 00:26:00:09
Michael Conrad
That is something I'm sure we've talked about here and you've heard it, and that is we are the measurement of the five people we surround ourselves with. And there are more sort of, I think, two dimensional ways to think about that old adage. I think the the way we treat others, the way we interact with the people around us and the way we push ourselves to develop, you know, better and better habits or better and better understanding of the world, We're going to be the average of those people are these people continue to educate themselves, treating others with kindness.

00:26:00:09 - 00:26:15:02
Michael Conrad
That's how we measure. And so that's a good it's a good encouragement to make sure that the people on your team, the you're spending the most time with, are high aptitude, high executing you know, folks with with great skills to to blend in.

00:26:17:14 - 00:26:25:06
Michael Conrad
What has been one of the most difficult parts of the team atmosphere for you over the last handful of years?

00:26:25:08 - 00:26:51:23
Katie Morrell
It's managing expectations. So I feel like if you have the expectations in black and white, you know, on your agreements before you even bring somebody on, that's probably the most important thing. And just your bandwidth, managing your bandwidth and sticking to your boundaries with people. We meet twice a week. We meet on Mondays and Thursdays from 930 to 1130.

00:26:51:23 - 00:26:57:08
Katie Morrell
We have a one on one every month. I just have my one on ones today. Before I got here.

00:26:57:10 - 00:26:57:22
Michael Conrad
With each team.

00:26:57:22 - 00:27:20:07
Katie Morrell
Member, with each team member, and then eating lunch with a different team member every Wednesday. So they have that one on one time with me, but also letting them know when I go on vacation, you need to be talking to one of the senior agents or Addison, my director of operations, which by the way, was the best her ever made.

00:27:20:09 - 00:27:31:15
Michael Conrad
Yeah, that that continues to crop up when talking about team building. Is that when you are finding the right operations person, it has the largest ripple effect over time.

00:27:31:18 - 00:27:32:13
Katie Morrell
It's incredible.

00:27:32:13 - 00:27:59:22
Michael Conrad
And it it can be difficult for newer or smaller, younger entrepreneurs to think that the first person I need to be bringing in is operations, not someone who's going to be taking field related tasks off me. You know, a lot of agents are thinking, I need a showing specialist because I need to start doing the showings because as like a field to get my physical time or I need to close, you know, because I need someone handling my paperwork so I can be doing less paperwork.

00:28:00:00 - 00:28:16:11
Michael Conrad
But it was advice to me. I'm not sure I exactly followed suit, but the same thing on operations person can be an invaluable and have the largest effect on your business because and it's very obvious to see in retrospect, they take things off you.

00:28:17:18 - 00:28:36:12
Michael Conrad
And when you are building something, a structure underneath yourself, building a business, really the least number of, like, action items that are your responsibility gives you the maximum opportunity and effect to grow or strengthen the business.

00:28:37:07 - 00:28:47:05
Michael Conrad
And so the business is inversely strong or inversely growing based on how much you yourself are in the trenches.

00:28:47:07 - 00:29:11:23
Katie Morrell
And I made that mistake. I did not hire director of operations first, and then Aaron and Sara and Jesse. Ladies, that I look up to in this business who have teams, very solid teams, all told me to do it again. Don't hire family friends, hire the director of operations first. Of course, Hardheaded didn't listen, but I did get the memo and then I did hire Addison, and it was the best thing I ever did.

00:29:12:01 - 00:29:34:01
Katie Morrell
I'm nerdy in a way where I love contracts, and I never had a tsay until, like, three years ago, which is crazy. Now that I look back through my career. But I hired the TSE first and then Addison and life changing, and I can't believe how much we've grown because of those two things.

00:29:34:03 - 00:29:52:23
Michael Conrad
So this is something that I feel like comes up a lot among agents in the current conversation. I think you go to a little seminar conference or even just do a podcast, and one of the things you'll hear, heck, I think we've said it here, ire, ATC, IRGC hard to see. It's it it's an easy way to offload or trade time.

00:29:53:01 - 00:30:37:06
Michael Conrad
However, you are wise to point out that hiring a TC is really almost sort of like two different things. There is a detail orientation that is required as part of contracts, but there's also a time component. It literally takes you time to read through and or annotate or amend or send or communicate or whatever. And so if you are someone who is and I'm speaking broadly about detail orientation, I'm here, but you're someone who enjoys the nerdy side of contract language, which I love the law and sort of a an outsider, not actual attorney sort of way.

00:30:37:08 - 00:30:57:00
Michael Conrad
Yeah, I love the law. I love contracts. And so, yeah, legal language and the nuance of language and how it can beautiful and can communicate complicated things. It's fascinating. But that's not everybody how everybody's brain thinks. And so the advice to get a TC is both very good advice and dangerous advice.

00:30:57:00 - 00:31:00:07
Katie Morrell
Yeah, don't get a TC until you understand the contract yourself.

00:31:00:07 - 00:31:01:18
Michael Conrad
But yes, so.

00:31:01:19 - 00:31:11:02
Katie Morrell
And I am so grateful that it took me that long to get a TC, because any time anyone has a contractual question.

00:31:11:04 - 00:31:12:03
Michael Conrad
you know, page and line.

00:31:12:04 - 00:31:16:23
Katie Morrell
And page in line and they laugh at me, you know, they act like I'm a big concern.

00:31:16:23 - 00:31:19:00
Michael Conrad
167 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:31:19:03 - 00:31:35:06
Katie Morrell
Except to, you know, But yeah, don't get a TC until you actually under the understand the contract yourself because I have had agents that I've worked with that have gotten ticks prematurely and they don't know the contract.

00:31:35:06 - 00:32:09:18
Michael Conrad
Yeah. Yeah. I think a sort of a dangerous or harsh reality of real estate is that the real estate professional is kind of like a para professional of many different categories. You're sort of a para legal person, sort of a parapsychologist person, sometimes peer counselors, para contractors, you know, you're sort of a a ghost version of all of these professionals because you have to have a little bit of knowledge about all these skills.

00:32:10:00 - 00:32:36:13
Michael Conrad
But I would argue that it is probably contracts and the legal side of the negotiation of two parties to sell a home that is that looms in importance and certainly complication for today's real estate agent, especially in Tennessee, where we're not an escrow state, we're a title state where there's not necessarily an attorney looking over your shoulder. There may only be a compliance officer at your brokerage.

00:32:36:13 - 00:32:53:01
Michael Conrad
And so who is watching the Watchmen, you know, situation here? And so, yeah, I would argue that more time, I'm sure nobody actually wants to do this. I'm probably going to get booed from listeners here, but nobody wants you to more contracts class because those are snooze fests. Right.

00:32:53:01 - 00:32:57:20
Katie Morrell
But you should that is. Sure. That is the whole point of our job.

00:32:57:22 - 00:33:51:06
Michael Conrad
But yes this this para legal and I know that like the NA people listening in the cloud are probably like that's not what we do. But like the paralegal component of contract negotiation and contract writing and contract amending is is so important sometimes in my world, we remind the real estate professionals that we interact with the language. You write specifically into amendments is so important and you have to be very conscious that any words that are not pre typed on that tar contract and that you write becomes legally binding language, and that the nuance of a sentence structure, verbs or nouns missing or past or present tense or even punctuation can honestly, I know we're

00:33:51:06 - 00:34:16:20
Michael Conrad
not like adjudicating this in court or anything like this, but it can be very important and the wrong sticky or problematic seller or buyer and get very hung up on these details. And so it is beholden on all of us in the real estate world to be probably a little more intense than is normal about that part. When you write and put pen to paper on your own words and the contract.

00:34:17:02 - 00:34:39:12
Michael Conrad
Yep. Whether it's business days on that tiny little field that only allows numbers or it's the special steps you need to have, you know your language. And that's why having a team is it? my gosh, a team with layers of connection. You've got this team leader who has another team leader who has a senior lead, like who has a broker, because even your team hangs its license under a broker.

00:34:39:14 - 00:34:52:09
Michael Conrad
And so those layers of connection is so, so important. And a good exhortation and encouragement to all of our young listeners here who wanted to get in real estate, Do not ignore the importance of the contract.

00:34:52:11 - 00:35:14:23
Katie Morrell
No, do not. And you know, be talking to people, learning, going over the contract, you know, with people who actually know the contract constantly. I mean, our team, you know, we're constantly going over contracts or where this issue came up. How could of it have been done better. Yeah, you know.

00:35:15:01 - 00:35:36:08
Michael Conrad
Some of the agents that I've worked with in the past who I think are most successful at this, they convert the contract in people's minds. That is from being a stack of paper with sticky arrows, which is I think what a lot of people generally think of as it. I can't understand the language. It's too complicated. It's too vast.

00:35:36:10 - 00:36:07:08
Michael Conrad
All I need to do is put pen to paper where the stickies are the best agents convert the whole concept of the contract into situational decisions or stories or moments of discussion where each section is sort of like a little episode where you're fleshing out past experience or you're highlighting through an educational moment the importance of X, Y, or C decisions.

00:36:07:13 - 00:36:33:06
Michael Conrad
If you do this, this is what happens if you don't do this, this other thing happens. And so when you start to convert the contract for your buyers, for your sellers into more of a narrative and you pull it away from the legal language, even though we just discussed its importance for the client, at least that's where I think you really find like magic moments.

00:36:33:09 - 00:36:34:19
Katie Morrell
Great role plays important.

00:36:34:21 - 00:36:59:02
Michael Conrad
Yes. Yes. And that can be very difficult because we're all subject to not reading the terms and conditions. We're all subject to having to look over some insurance document and saying, nope, just could do that. I can read it. We're all subject to that. And so it be no surprise that our buyers and sellers struggle with this. It's not their daily job and we must beholden upon us.

00:36:59:04 - 00:37:03:11
Michael Conrad
We must do it for them. To some extent. The interpretation piece at the very least.

00:37:03:15 - 00:37:22:09
Katie Morrell
Another important thing is making sure that you're putting calendar invites on your clients calendars of the important days within the contract, you know, so they can't say, I didn't know about this or it's important that you're informing everyone of the dates at all times.

00:37:22:10 - 00:37:53:14
Michael Conrad
Yeah, a years ago I saw an agent had this lovely infographic that was like almost like a Chutes and Ladders board. It was some sort of little timeline with flags indicating important, you know, pieces of the larger timeline. And they were walking their clients through at the very earliest part of the process before contract were even written, saying, Let me make sure I'm mapping out the forest that we're about to get into to the we don't miss the forest due to the trees or whatever the saying is.

00:37:53:19 - 00:38:24:20
Michael Conrad
And so that visualization in a world where we're probably more accustomed to consuming 32nd videos than actual blocks of information, any social media posts, any videos, any takeaway PDFs, infographics, I don't know what it is any of that is going to pay for itself in spades with your customers because we live in such a short attention span, hyper visual world now.

00:38:24:22 - 00:38:36:09
Michael Conrad
And so this again, yet another reason why a team can be so, so beneficial is let those that have walked before you and know this and may have already created these things.

00:38:36:14 - 00:38:37:03
Katie Morrell
Help you.

00:38:37:06 - 00:38:38:14
Michael Conrad
Help you on your journey.

00:38:38:19 - 00:38:58:21
Katie Morrell
We've created a seller and buyer guide in a marketing collateral that we take any time we meet with a buyer or seller. Yeah, and it gives them the playbook of what's going to happen. The play, the playbook. Yeah. And it prepares people for what they're getting into, you know, because people just don't understand all the steps.

00:38:59:01 - 00:39:35:10
Michael Conrad
If someone at work and every hasn't already come up with literally like a Titans ask feel Playbook thing I think that's a missed marketing opportunity. Yeah for but this team that you're building, it doesn't assume that anyone stays in the same spot, correct? I love that about you because I think as we try to push this conversation on this podcast more towards the business and the entrepreneurial side of real estate, we may also fall into the trappings of business sometimes that, well, let me get my organizational structure.

00:39:35:10 - 00:40:02:02
Michael Conrad
Let me write it on a piece of paper onto PowerPoint or whatever. And let me think about these boxes as like Legos that I'm building an empire, but these people aren't Legos, that the Legos don't stay in the spots. And one of the journeys that I've been on and it sounds like you've been on, is creating pathways, not spots, pathways, places for people to occupy for short periods of time.

00:40:02:02 - 00:40:25:02
Michael Conrad
We live in a world now where people are very comfortable bouncing from one job to the next. And so if I know that that is a place of comfort for them, I have to give them opportunities internally where they can move from one skill to the next or one job to the next, never having left the safety of the umbrella, Correct.

00:40:25:02 - 00:40:39:17
Michael Conrad
And the organization. And so that is way more complicated than I just made it sound, because people have different ideas of what that looks like. But the way that you've started to sculpt a way for people to progress tends to be more about that.

00:40:39:20 - 00:40:53:15
Katie Morrell
I, I, you know, did my little stint at the airport and I quickly realized it was the only time I'd been in corporate America. I hated a salary. You have a ceiling with that Like this.

00:40:53:15 - 00:40:54:12
Michael Conrad
Is all the money going to get me?

00:40:54:15 - 00:41:20:17
Katie Morrell
Yes, exactly. See, that's why I love real estate so much. There's no ceiling in it, you know? And so it was important to me to create that same thing on the team. There's no ceiling for my agents. You know, they can be as successful as they want. All they have to do or you know, not that successful, you know, if they don't want to be, they.

00:41:20:17 - 00:41:21:16
Michael Conrad
Have a holding upon them.

00:41:21:16 - 00:41:40:09
Katie Morrell
That's the whole. Yeah, it's beholden upon them. They have a minimum to meet whatever you do after that minimum, you know, I'm going to cheerlead you the whole way and I'm going to be there to help you the whole way. But I didn't want there to be a ceiling. And I love having different people that specialize in different things.

00:41:40:09 - 00:41:47:01
Katie Morrell
So, you know, one agent on my team who specializes in short term rental, she actually gives does permitting for short term rentals.

00:41:47:01 - 00:41:47:17
Michael Conrad
I love that.

00:41:47:17 - 00:42:21:06
Katie Morrell
You know, and keeping up with all of those different rules and regulations is almost impossible. So having that on my team, having access to that is very valuable to me. You know, having someone who lives in East Nashville knows it, that lives, it breathes it eats it. All the restaurants, you know, super important. Somebody who just specializes in Green Hills, someone who specializes in Brentwood, Franklin Knowing all the different pockets and being able to put, you know, the right client with the right agent is important.

00:42:21:08 - 00:43:01:20
Michael Conrad
Yeah. I mean, you hear me say this from time to time. I it's no secret. I think what you are trying to build and there are others to doing it is the future, this multifaceted machine of where people are thriving and having opportunity like we just talked about, but really bringing a level of specialization that not only serves the client, but serves your little micro community internally as you're bringing in new members, They are benefiting from the multitude of skills that are on Bellevue and they themselves can begin to fit into different categories or collect all, collect them all, collect all the skills.

00:43:01:22 - 00:43:35:19
Michael Conrad
And so the future of real estate is very unknown currently with all of the goings on, both market and legal. And so I don't know what the future holds, but I, I do start to know that the conversation amongst some of you I consider some of the best agents is more about creating extremely strong teams, extremely high level of knowledge and skill sets at a relatively early experience level.

00:43:35:21 - 00:44:09:15
Michael Conrad
I think the the general private sector social bar of like if you're fresh in real estate, you no longer have an excuse to sort of just be a a la la frou frou whatever, you know. I mean, now there's information around you, this coach, it's very competitive and I'm glad for that. And so I think the brokerage of the future, which Charlie Peterson I on a past episode talked extensively about how the brokerage model is massively in upheaval right now at the biggest level of brokerage.

00:44:09:17 - 00:44:36:21
Michael Conrad
And so it's going to be probably looking a lot more like teams like you, creating tiered structures where people can thrive on smaller teams within larger teams, within a larger format. They can gain knowledge, they can increase skills, they can specialize, they can fall back on the resources of the greater whole. And shocker, this is what society is supposed to look like, and it's in its most beautiful, purest form.

00:44:36:23 - 00:45:02:01
Katie Morrell
I think also for the client it's a big benefit because, you know, from a listing perspective, it's not just one agent pushing your product out. You know, I've got 13 people on my team that are pushing out their beautiful home on Facebook, on Instagram, right, sitting out 13 different spheres of influence emails, you know. So I don't know.

00:45:02:01 - 00:45:10:14
Katie Morrell
I just think for your client, you're servicing them in even a better way than I could before because I have 13 people who are.

00:45:10:16 - 00:45:38:10
Michael Conrad
It starts to get back to the old rainmaking that kind of isn't around anymore. Rainmaking kind of before the advent of social media where, you know, brokerages would put listing agents and buyers agents together in a room and say, discuss. Yeah. And rainmaking was the idea that those leads were falling into the laps of the proper people. And, you know, we now have sort of commoditized that in some way and such that, well, I'm on my own.

00:45:38:10 - 00:45:57:08
Michael Conrad
I can just posted all over social media and everyone and their mother will know about it. Well yeah sort but to small it's a real three bear situation to small maybe not enough reach too big to convoluted, but there's a middle ground that seems to be a real place of opportunity.

00:45:57:10 - 00:46:06:19
Katie Morrell
yeah. I mean, we're putting puzzles together every Monday and Thursday. You know, actual puzzles. No, but like, I've got I've got a buyer that, you know, is between 500.

00:46:06:19 - 00:46:10:13
Michael Conrad
I really hope. And you're putting in their actual puzzles. I've wanted to get it on that actually.

00:46:10:15 - 00:46:17:14
Katie Morrell
Real puzzles, you know, putting together the pieces every Monday and Thursday when we meet somebody.

00:46:17:16 - 00:46:35:17
Michael Conrad
I got to tell you that is that tickles a problem solving sort of part of me that I love because at its core, real estate is about use case and about fitting the right people with the right land, the right house on the right land, or the right buying the right seller at the right time.

00:46:35:19 - 00:46:37:06
Katie Morrell
And driven busy.

00:46:37:07 - 00:46:42:18
Michael Conrad
It is it's very Tetris or Sudoku or something. And I really, really like it has loved that.

00:46:42:18 - 00:46:44:15
Katie Morrell
Yeah.

00:46:44:17 - 00:47:24:19
Michael Conrad
And I hope that we get more towards that and away from the over commoditization, you know, where the markets are so saturated with individuals. And so yeah, I mean we talked recently with someone about elevating minimum standards and how important that is at the association level and at the brokerage level. And so yeah, there's a lot of change in the wind and I'm always a proponent that no, it's not government, it's not rules, not associations, it's private champions sort of going forth and saying, I'm building something beautiful, let's attract people into it and then have others just straight up copy us, and then we'll all benefit from the fact that we're all going the right

00:47:24:19 - 00:47:25:06
Michael Conrad
direction.

00:47:25:06 - 00:47:42:12
Katie Morrell
Exactly. I'm really excited about this market. I'm excited about, you know, the market share grab that's going to happen. I think people are going to be jumping out of the business. You're not going to have the people who are doing it, you know, part time and can just throw their sister's house on the market. It sells in 24 hours.

00:47:42:14 - 00:48:04:15
Michael Conrad
I don't know when people are going to be listening to this. And so I don't know what the market is going to be when you're listening here. But I do know that there are little ups and little downs every day, regardless of the rates, regardless of the temperature and the only thing that I've seen that's constant is change and innovation.

00:48:04:17 - 00:48:34:01
Michael Conrad
And change is what you think is a affecting you or like assaulting you. And innovation is somewhere between sword and shield. It is both a defense against change. It's an offense to create change. And so I tend to, when I'm in my sort of hardest moments of trying to figure out what's going on, I fall back on innovation and sometimes I get sparks of innovation from conversations like this.

00:48:34:03 - 00:48:34:23
Katie Morrell
Thank you for having me.

00:48:35:00 - 00:48:59:12
Michael Conrad
Thank you for being here. This has been really lovely. All right, everyone, We have laid down the gold nuggets, so I hope you are collecting along the way. I'm Michael Conrad and this is the business of homes podcast. I hope that you will smash the subscribe button and keep listening because we're going to keep bringing you stories about the best entrepreneur and business side of real estate here in middle Tennessee.

00:48:59:13 - 00:49:04:13
Michael Conrad
We'll see you next. Ten.

00:49:04:15 - 00:49:27:10
Jake Hall
Hey, everyone. Jake, again, director for the Business of Homes podcast. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. A huge thank you to Katie Morrell for being a part of the podcast. Go follow her on Instagram @katiejanemorrell and let her know how much you enjoyed their story. Don't forget to subscribe on your preferred listening platform and make sure to follow us on Instagram as well @thebusinessofhomespod.

00:49:27:12 - 00:49:37:04
Jake Hall
Do you have any feedback or want to suggest someone for the show? Email us at thebusinessofhomespodcast@gmail.com. Thank you again for listening and we'll see you soon.