Katie Maxwell said two super powerful words when we talked in this episode of SamSpeaks!
Hunger and Hustle.
What do those words mean to you? I’ll tell you what they mean to me.
Hunger is the feeling when you want more. It’s how you feel when you know you have to push yourself to get what you want and achieve your goals. It’s the need to succeed. And it’s knowing that just doing what everyone else can do isn’t enough.
That’s hunger.
Hustle is what you are willing to do to satiate that hunger. The hunger is the why and the hustle is the how. Are you going to door knock 10 houses or 50? Are you going to call 5 FSBOs or 15? Are you starting your day before everyone else? Are you going above and beyond and pushing yourself?
That’s hustle.
Talking with Katie Maxwell, you know she lives by hunger and hustle. Like me, she’s a no nonsense, straight-to-the-point kind of woman, and she looks fabulous doing it. Style is a big part of Katie’s business, and I’m not talking fashion here, although she was killing it when we talked. I’m talking about her style of work and style of leadership–and the way in which she’s not afraid to speak her mind.
Katie is Vice President of Intero Real Estate Services in Houston, Texas. She has 120 agents in her office and has been a manager, mentor and coach there for ten years. So with that in mind, I asked her how agents learn to be agents. I know that sounds simple, but believe me — it’s not. No one is born an agent, though some learn faster than others. And how they learn matters.
“I don’t like ‘box’ training,” Katie agreed. “Person A and Person B don’t learn the same way.”
So I asked Katie how she felt about coaching. You know me — you know I want to rethink how agents work with coaches and how coaches offer value to salespeople, in and out of real estate. But with that said, not everyone sees and understands the value, and I appreciate and respect that.
“When you pay $1000 a month to someone for accountability, I get it. I’m not disrespecting it. It works for them and they find massive success.”
But for Katie, that accountability is part of her job description as broker at Intero, and if I had someone like her as a mentor when I started out in the business, I too, may think twice about spending $1000 to hire a coach. She wants to be the one motivating her agents and holding them accountable — and thinks all brokers should. She’ll text her agents in the morning to find out what they’re doing so they have money coming in the door at the end of the month. She tracks her agents’ performance in the wide open of her office — she even has a whiteboard with a “termination” list of underperforming agents. Think that’s a bit much? Then sales isn’t the business for you.
“I ask people who much money they’d like to make by the end of the year,” she said. “I’d love for them to give me some big, hairy, stupid audacious number that I know they won’t make. But the fact that they have that hunger and hustle in them…that’s what I want”. And that’s what everyone should strive for.
Stay hungry, stay crazy with your goals and ambitions and most importantly, always, hustle.
Here’s what you’ll find in this episode:
1:30 Where should agents learn how to be agents?
3:05 What’s the plan for training in the Intero offices?
4:50 Why is company culture so important?
6:30 What’s a termination wall and why does everyone actually like it?
8:35 What coaches or sources would you recommend for new agents?
12:30 How has speaking grown Katie’s business? Should all brokers look to add speaking to their skillset?
13:00 How did you build your business?
15:00 How do events play a role in your recruiting?
17:00 How does social media fit into your recruiting and prospecting?
19:00 What are the unique challenges for women in real estate?