Matt Hughes, the current president of GBRAR and a licensed Realtor, takes us on a journey through the different ways he has worked in real estate over his 13 year career. Matt talks about how his focus on hard work has led him to where he is today. Great advice and perspective from a past team member and current team leader. Join us as we learn more about how Matt structures his team and the reasons why he has chosen to be a team. Come get inspired to try new things and not be afraid to make a pivot in your business when you feel necessary.

The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.

0:00
We’re so cool. You’re gonna like the other episodes. Okay? You’re good. Yeah, I need your beverage or anything. Oh, I’m good. Okay, you got it. I’m good. I got my drink cow. Okay, do I need to turn the recorder on? Are you talking to YouTube? Hopefully right now. Hey, YouTube.

0:16
I’m still getting settled because this is me. I love you. Yeah, no, no, we’re gonna look if you do something really crazy, we just won’t post it. I need to throw away this pizza. Oh, well, whatever. Usually if I’m gonna chew gum, so you’re gonna have to see it. Okay. Hit record.

0:35
am I opening?

0:37
So we’re not editing that first part now? No, probably.

0:39
Behind the scenes. Yeah. Okay, so YouTube will kind of have this feel like you get to see extra stuff. Alright, deep breaths.

0:47
Jeanette, we are interviewing our first guests. We had some issues finding a good place for the sound. So this one’s probably going to be more echoey. But I think it’s okay. I think it is what it is. And we will just see how it goes. Right. So hi, podcast people. This is episode

1:03
four. We are interviewing our first guest. And we are really super excited about that. But we are in a bustling office space. Yeah, there may be some noise and I’m gonna let Alyssa introduce who we’re talking to.

1:16
So we are interviewing Matt Hughes. He is the president of the greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors. We’ve got the process, we have the president of the association, we started at the top, we’ve got nowhere to go with dead on. Right, we should have gotten some

1:32
press better off.

1:35
And like she said, we’re in Matt’s office. So it’s a busy day here hustle and bustle. So the sound may not be as perfect as we would like, but that’s okay with us. We’re just gonna go with the flow. That’s right. Um, so Matt has had a lot of experience in a lot of different areas in real estate. And so I’m excited to even dive more into it because I don’t even know a lot of this stuff about you. And we’ve been friends for a while. So I’m excited. Um, so why don’t you tell us? How long you been in the business? What did you do before real estate? And what do you do right now?

2:09
Okay, um, I’ve been in the business for 13 years. And when I first when I was 17 years old, I knew this is what I wanted to do. Wow. And my dad’s family has been in the real estate business since the early 80s. And so I grew up in the commercial leasing space, residential leasing space, going into my grandfather’s office. So I knew that I wanted to do this in some way, form or fashion. So fast forward. My dad was like 17 years old, 18 years old. I would say you’re too young. And so graduated from high school, went out into the world, worked a couple of different places, try college, that was not for me. And then I went to work for my dad in the furniture business, and we were there for a couple of years. And then we close the store and I traveled the country with a company that closed furniture stores and they needed salespeople. So 21 Yeah, 21 years old, traveled and lived in Maine, New York, Cape Cod, coupled a handful other places, but I came home with some money. I was like, Man, I’m ready to get in. So I got into real estate from there. My first opportunity was working with Kayla Johnson as her buyer’s agent. Kayla is a strong agent in the Baton Rouge metro area. He does a lot of business here in Livingston Parish. And really learned a lot from her on the how to put deals together. She’s She’s one of a kind agent. And so I truly loved my growth with her and learning the business.

3:51
Like the first person that when you became a licensed Realtor, that’s who you were

3:56
with and that was 2006. Work there from 2006 to 2008 2008 is kind of when the bubble burst here in Baton, the Baton Rouge metro area and sale I didn’t have my name established because I was a buyer’s agent at the time. And so I answered a newspaper I had to go and work for Reynolds, Summerlin Scruggs, which was a main main major property management company. And so they I was able to work the property management business and learn that aspect of property management and I work they we did that for a number of years, and then I became partner in that business. And then we were we that’s when I got back into sales. So I had a management business and sales business, grew that and had a lot of fun doing that learned the management business as crazy as it is truly is one of my passions of the real estate business. Still Do that I do I do. I have

5:02
a quick question. Okay. So when you decided you got your real estate license, what made you join a team first just go in and try it on your own at first.

5:12
I wanted to get in and learn the business and learn in a tactical way of going, Hey, I need to go work. But she had to she’d work she works a lot of new construction. So I lived in new construction world and waited, waited for people to come in to show them all the houses that we had. The reason the reason I wanted that is because I wanted to learn from a top agent, and then I’ll wait. I want to find out how to do it. To me, that was the easiest way to jump into the business and start Googling.

5:45
Was it hard to leave that

5:47
difficult? Yeah, there was it was one of the toughest toughest things to leave that her business and that the thing that made it a little bit easier was the economy was down and the face of the business had changed. Right. So is that why you left? Yeah, yeah. Because at that time, the new construct everyone knows a new construction quit putting a lot of doors on the ground at a time until we were everyone was trying to make it work. So yeah, but that’s that’s why I moved in that direction.

6:24
And the property management came about because of the newspaper ad.

6:28
Yeah, crazy. Well, wife actually sent my resume to the guy first one more. Because I was looking, because we were looking, I had to find something I don’t want to keep my real estate license business was slow. I was in my early, early or late 20s. But it was I needed to do something to keep it keep it moving.

6:48
How long have you and your wife and married at this point?

6:51
We actually had been married. We got married in 2008. So we were we were we we were newlyweds.

7:00
Yeah, like, brand new. So when you started y’all weren’t even married? Correct? Yes, sir. 2006. Do you feel pressure when the market went down? Like newlyweds?

7:12
I just built my first house and moved into it. And she she would gret had graduated from college and we got married and things were crazy. Yeah.

7:23
Was she working at that time? Yeah. Okay. Very interesting. So you did property management? I feel like that’s just a whole that could be a that could be a five series episode on property.

7:37
Yeah. So we managed about 230 doors, and we had 40 homeowner’s associations. Wow, that was manage. It was a full time, full time deal. And we were running.

7:50
Out of curiosity, what do you feel like the work life balances in the property management? To the sales side of things? Was it way harder in the property management side? Or was that easier? Because you had normal, more normal business hours? Yeah,

8:04
property management, GM gives you that. So you You’re, you’re working nine to five, the lease base basically says we don’t, we will, in case of emergency call this number. But when you leave at five, you leave at five or in the real estate world. You can be working until nine o’clock 10 o’clock at night, every night, every night.

8:22
And yet you left the property management world to go back to sales.

8:29
Well, yeah, I did both. I love sales as well putting deals together. I love representing my clients. Yeah, and getting them where they want to go.

8:41
So I know that you have been through like teams, you’ve had different positions in the company. So once you got out of the property management, what was the first thing you went and did?

8:51
Well, I was Keller Williams Realty premier partners brought me in as their team leader and CEO. So the office you’re in now, I was the team leader and ran the office. Wow. For two and a half or so years.

9:06
Okay. And were you selling it all during that time? You were not competing?

9:10
noncompete helping helping the agents grow their business and

9:15
so you kind of played the role of a coach? Correct? Yeah. Okay. Very interesting. And then you decided to do what after two years of that, so two

9:25
and a half years of that I was ready I was ready to jump back into business. I missed miss the business. I’m just putting deals together. I live I miss just missed the day to day. Also Miss of this business. So jump back in. Last 2000 2018 Yeah. April 2008. To jump back into the business. Have been blessed to jump back in and have some of my clients working and putting deals together again.

9:57
Did you start back so love

9:59
you Yeah, so with two admins, I had a transaction coordinator that was virtual. And then I had a part time assistant in the office.

10:09
Do you feel like you wanted to get back into it? income wise? Like, what’s the position? You were in salary? So you knew that that was your income no matter what, or was it income driven at all? Or Yes, miss.

10:21
Of course, it was I mean, salary and consistency was always nice. But the thing that got me into real estate was the, the exponential growth that you can have as much as you harder you work their hustle. You’re there you have the opportunity to make as much money as you want to. Yeah.

10:41
It’s funny, because sometimes I asked realtors, if you weren’t a realtor, who would be your realtor? Oh, really? Yes. And I have said, Matt before? Oh, yeah. Because I think it’s because our jockeying it really stressful. And anytime I talk to Matt, it just we just have a way of like, laughing it off and not taking each other so seriously. We’re not emergency room doctors. No one’s gonna die. Yeah, like, it’s just, he’s a really good person to talk to to get your perspective, like right back under control.

11:19
Do you bring that to your deals? Easygoing?

11:23
It just I tried to? Absolutely. The goal is to make sure that the client feel like this is a process and we build the systems around that to where they feel comfortable. They understand what’s going on. And they’re not surprised. At the turn, right or turn to the left.

11:40
Yes, right.

11:42
Where is your team? Now? Is it still just you and the two admins

11:46
I have? So I have. It’s me, I have two, two admins, Kelsey, and Austin. Austin, who kind of works on the growth side of the team. So I can stay focused in the the listing business and putting deals together business because as I was team leader, I saw agents that wanted to grow a team. They wanted to grow, but it’s really hard to do both. And so Austin came into my life when I was a team leader. And we clicked like that and kind of had the same vision. And he helps me grow the team. Kelsey is our admin. She goes through the wringer every single day. She’s takes care of contracting, close marketing, everything. She’s awesome. And then we have one buyer’s agent, we’re looking to grow from there. Yeah, because we’re not buyer’s agent. Let me rephrase that. it’s looked at as buyers, as my agents on our team can do both sides of the deal I want, I don’t want them to be in this box. I want to help them grow, see leverage on the listing side. And on the buyer side? I

12:48
have a question about that. When I started, it was 2005. So pretty close to when you did and the team structure then was more traditional with the Rainmaker listing agent. And then if they were to their buyer’s agents, but I find now a lot of teams don’t use that system anymore. They put just agents maybe in a team setting, but they could list or or do buyers or whatever. What what do you think is, I guess the reason for that, like the shift in that or is it beneficial?

13:19
I think it’s however, the however, that the lead agent likes it or sees the vision of it. For my case in particular. i The mrea is very is the book that we all follow. So mrea has the model is structured and follow it the same for Millionaire Real Estate and I read it. Yeah, so we all we all follow it everyone. I think if anybody’s getting real estate, it’s a great book, if you’re a business person, it’s a great book. But, and so it’s for me personally, it was I wanted to grow this way. It’s not a it’s not a model, because it has not defined it has not had a defined success yet in that. But for me to grow people in the business and then toward them and motivate them. I don’t want to go hey, I just want you to represent buyers, right? I just want I just want you to represent sellers, because that’s not who this business is.

14:22
Right? So how long do you stay in that vision? You’re mentoring them highly your team? You’re not expecting them to stay forever? No, not necessarily. What is the timeframe? You feel like where you be like

14:32
I’m okay with letting you go? What’s the incentive to stay

14:35
the value that we bring? Every single day? We’re together we’re growing together. We’re building this thing together. This is not the Matt you show this. Our team is who we are. And the more we admire him for that is it from our agents and from our people is is the value and so we want to continue that growth. So we’ve got to stay ahead of that and be building what’s next. What are we Do that, for them for growth.

15:03
And it’s funny because it’s in the first episode, I talked a lot about how once my success started getting published, I started getting all these calls from other agents, mostly new agents, mostly on teams, but there were some solo agents. That’s how I met Katie. She called me to go get coffee. Yeah. Or honors? For sure. Um, but anyways, you were actually the team leader, where your only job was to be available to people that needed to come in your office that needed to brainstorm, it was your job to do that, where I was trying to like, squeeze it in on coffee dates, working and stuff. But what do you feel like was the number one struggle? Do you feel like people were struggling with their own mindset? Do you think that people were trying to force real estate to work for them? But maybe it wasn’t their thing? Were they? What what do you think the main problem that you saw was?

16:03
Well, I think the main problem with most people getting into this business, again, the business for two things, I want to get into business, because I want to make as much money as possible. I want to get into business because I want to own my own schedule, I want to do what I want to do. I want to be with my kids, I want to do this. Really, it’s really hard to do to have both of them. And so the biggest struggle is the work life balance for most agents that want to make money. But then I want to be over here to you, you can’t just like just like any job if you don’t go your job consistently and do the work that you’re not going to be employed, right? It’s the same thing. We’re just employed by our clients.

16:37
Right? Do you feel like that is what because teams are very popular, they’re trending, agents are getting licensed and starting teams, they want almost, we Katie and I are two solo agents. So we struggle with understanding that, but do you think that’s why people are rushing into that to forming a team because they want to have work life balance and stay at home?

17:02
I not on my team? No. Like, we’re structured. We’re in here, hustling every single day, five days a week, there’s there’s a set structure that we have we follow. We follow guidelines and policies. And because we know, if you treat it like a business, it’ll be paid like a business, whether you’re the Rainmaker or you’re an agent on the team.

17:22
Do you feel like you have seen the trend of people becoming the head of a team really early versus year? Six or seven?

17:32
I haven’t seen it. But that that doesn’t mean it’s not out there. I’m not. I’m not in the business of paying attention to that. But I’m so focused on what we’re doing and where we’re going that, really, I don’t pay attention to very much anymore.

17:49
And it’s funny, because Episode Two was on the culture of the real estate industry. And I don’t think Matt would have much to contribute to that. Because he doesn’t know he’s, well, that’s interesting.

18:02
But I’m not in the I’m not in the trenches of it. I’m not I’m not paying attention to office culture. I did that for two and a half years. And I can I can assure you, that that’s right. It was it was an unforgiving, torturous day in day out piece of it. Because you you sit there and you have a coaching session with somebody for two and a half hours and they will roll out and don’t do anything. You talked about it. Next week, and you’re like, and that wears you down? Yeah, you’re like you’re taking you’re taking my energy, but not giving anything. And so that only lasts so long

18:36
that I kind of how the coffee dates ended, sort of because I was just like, I’m exhausted, like, at first, they were motivating. And if I hadn’t had one in a while, and it depends on the person. They weren’t all that way. But you’re right. That’s kind of what happens. People want to come get motivated and fed and talk to someone positive and uplifting. But they’re not always going to change, right?

19:00
In order to refuel you as a mentor, you’d like to see some success or at least feel like you’re being heard.

19:06
true success is the speed of implementation. So if you come get something and I would get energy or give or I would receive the energy if you saw that implementation happen, but in most cases, people get in the business for two things to make money and to have as much time they lose the the gap

19:26
there. Right. Okay. I want to ask, what does hustle look like to you?

19:31
Do you think hustle is a bad word?

19:34
My favorite words, okay. I say day in day out. No one outwork me no one out hustles me. When I was when I was growing up to go into 18 days of college when my own I’ve worked 18 days. 18 days in my team day there was a test with me and I come back. My dad said my dad, my dad said you Will you’re taking the paths of working and working anybody there. The doors to college is only going to open. You’re taking the paths of kicking them through. So everyday hustle and grind, I need to structure I feel out of place of if I’m not here, in my routine on a daily basis and putting the work in.

20:22
Katie, I think that him not going to college on the 19th day because there was a test. A perfect time for you to share your college story real quick. Okay, y’all,

20:33
this is super vulnerable for me, because it’s not something I normally just put out there to anyone. Because we’re close. I went to school for English, quite honestly, I was like, you know, in the top 10 of my class at St. Joseph’s. I’ve worked hard, hard, hard hours and hours of homework in high school. When I was done, I was burnout. I was done. When I was done. I was done. So I was going to LSU full scholarship for academics. But I wanted to do Interior Design, which totally plays into the staging love I have. But it was a five year program, just the thought of that was like, No way I can’t do it. I can’t do five more years of school. So I went into English, which I also love, but I had no intentions of being a teacher. So I had no real plan other than they’re letting me go to college for free. So I’ll just go, but I don’t have anything in place after that. So when my last and I worked full time, my entire college career 40 hours, I would you know, make it to class, I would make it to class just because I was working so I could pay for my bills. Well, my last semester, I got my first F of my entire schooling. But last semester, like I had graduation invitations already printed, and I got an F and I was like, Well, I mean, I wasn’t gonna do anything with my degree anyway. And I signed up for it, I was moving away, I moved to Colorado after college. And I signed up for a correspondence course, because I could retake, I may have to take something, it was an elective. I could take anything, I failed an elective my last semester of college, and I got the correspondence course, but I just never did it. So I never, I never got my degree, three hours short. And then I went into retail management, which we talked about in the previous episode. And I that wasn’t going to be it and that ended up in real estate.

22:24
It’s funny because there was this quote about it was a money quote and about sales and spending money. And it’s not a good sale if you don’t need it. Like don’t you think you got a good deal because it was on sale, but you don’t need this now you just have more crap. Not saying college is crap. But you knew it wasn’t? Even though it was a short three hours? Yeah, if you knew you didn’t need it. The fact that

22:50
I didn’t finish would blow most people’s minds because they don’t understand. We went through all those years. I didn’t need it on day one. And if the environment was the way it is today, when I started college in 1995, I probably wouldn’t have gone at all right, or at least taking a gap year or like got my stuff together before I tried to do maybe I would go into design and maybe I would do the five years but I was just I was over it.

23:14
So interesting. My high school for last couple years invite you invites me to career day to come talk to Pete to the seniors about what’s next for them. And what was going on. My first reaction was are you sure you will need it? I’m gonna tell him the truth. Because I believe that college is for some people and for him for the good of some books. But at the end of the day. It’s not it’s not the next step. It doesn’t have to be the next step. And I think that young young people go into college and they go get into debt to go to a job that will take them the rest of their lives to pay off their debt. And I’m sure it blows my mind.

24:00
Yeah. Do you feel that way about real estate in a sense, like real estate’s not for everybody? That’s why we looked at the NAR statistic that 13% of Realtors make it to your five. So that’s a really, you know, significant number. And I think a lot of it is people rush in, maybe without doing their homework or it’s just not for everybody.

24:31
I think I agree with you. I think that the aspect of a realtor is not for everybody. But my vision for the team is there’s a different seat and a different seat on the bus throughout this process that might fit you better than being a listing agent or a buyer’s agent are there’s so many different roles that we can if you if you have the passion for real estate and you’re wanting it for the right reasons, there’s a seat and that’s one of the things I love about the team Seamus, it might not the seed of agent might not fit for you. But the BMI growth coordinator for Austin, he’s a licensed agent. And he loves the business but wants to empower people to come in into our world. And so be it seeing that and being able to pivot and bring them in there. Rather than go, hey, I want you to I want you to meet as many listing a list gives me listings or buyers you possibly can. That’s not how he works. Right?

25:27
It so this is why I love interviewing people, because our brain is so different. And I have a hard time even understanding like I get scared and nervous about thinking of team and whatnot, you know that we’ve had several conversations about it. Um, it’s funny, because I recently in November, so it’s not quite a year yet had a new agent in our office that has been helping me right. And I should say, she’s been helping me and he’s like, You got an assistant. I’m like, not really, she’s not really an assistant, she Okay, okay, I got an assistant. But don’t tell anybody. I don’t want people to

26:06
work from us to have to look like her. So if you’re putting the sign out, people, people came up to

26:11
me. It’s funny, cuz he said, You got my assistant, ironically, looks like me. I have dark hair, your body double. She’s my body double. And I joked until that I got her so that way, if people see her putting out a sign, they’re like, look at Alyssa. So putting her inside stuff. He was like, I’m going to find her. And I’m going to snap pictures. And I’m going to post it on social media people.

26:39
So that’s the first step I’m really proud of all right. Hi.

26:43
I’m Alyssa, I have an assistant. Yeah, now. Like, that’s why she’s successful. It’s not because of her.

26:53
The first thing I did in April of 18. When I got back in, I went got a bunch of listings. So I was doing my first listing and put it on, hold God, I hadn’t done this in six years. Before I was team leader, I had we had folks helping us. So that was the first thing I did was like, We got to have somebody like if I’m spending two hours putting listings, I gotta go. I gotta go.

27:22
Good typing fingers, either, you know? No. So what do you say either become, I’m gonna get back into real estate as a solo agent for now. And I’m gonna go get a bunch of listings. I mean, how do you just go get a bunch of listings? Would you do would that look like in the beginning, there

27:39
was calling it was calling my sphere of influence, apologizing for not being in their life last two years.

27:46
Okay. So humbling. It will Oh,

27:49
well, but my first lunch well, I dropped the ball on one of my best friends bought a commercial property for business. First call here. We were just, there’s so many other things going in, I’ll do it, I’ll get I’ll go over and take care of it and then and get back with you. And then the world would happen. And then that team would roll and it was just so you couldn’t have been. And so I called him to, hey, I want to take you to lunch, we went to lunch. And told him that I apologize for dropping the ball on the on the property for the business. And I’ll do anything to help him. He’s like funny, funny, you say that. We’re about to have our third baby. And we’re we’re not going to go to private school. And I need to move. So my first one of my first transactions back in the business was selling him almost a million dollar house listing his house, he introduced me to his brother who bought a piece of land in malar lakes. And then I sold his brother’s mother house when she moved here. Like that was until then. And so as I talk to people and go, if you just have conversations with the people that you love that know you and love you, they want to feel your success, too. Right. And sometimes it is taking one on the chin. I’m sorry. I’ll be

29:08
I mean, I feel like that what you just you just gave the perfect visual of hustle humbly. You not only were going to humble yourself, apologize, take ownership of you know, being absent, but also to say I’m here now. And no one’s going to outwork me. And then you earned it. You earned it back. Because you know, if you would have done a crappy job listing and selling his house, he wouldn’t have given you more referrals. It would have ended there.

29:37
Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. Pretty, it will, it will it was and so and that was just the building of how the momentum started and then going from zero listings, now we’re whole were we stay in a hold of 25 to 30. And

29:56
that’s perfect. And you do it just because whoever does Your social media does a good job. Kelsey Kelsey, shut down. I know Matt doesn’t do a good job, because I’ve seen his Facebook friend request box with the Purge. Purge every couple years. Wow. Where were we last time? DC? Yeah, we grabbed a margarita. Yeah. And we opened our laptops. Oh, wow, we purge our friend requests list.

30:23
Yeah. I’ll go to that. If I haven’t responded to

30:27
Kelsey on that. Yeah, yeah.

30:30
Yeah, there’s a bunch of there now.

30:31
So from your social media, I know that you do a good bit of land leveling and transaction, which is I think a great niche. Yeah, I don’t think whenever I have a layup question I call Matt. Especially if it’s in Livingston Parish, why

30:47
do you love land? And are you selling things that are not listed? What is going on there?

30:52
Oh, just because most of time I’m listing them listing. So we’re, we just did a research. We bought a piece, I found a piece of land and I brought it to my buyer. We had a resub on it, we cut one traveling into five lots, listen, utility, spend some money on it. And then I’m doing the same thing on another piece where somebody lives in four acres and make an acre tracts. And then we’re off the list of big track a lion that will hopefully be able to put together some infrastructure and sell to one of the good builders.

31:27
Okay, so this sounds like development are you going in that direction, I like to just have your

31:34
I would love to be a vision for my team is to grow my grow a brokerage within Keller Williams and grow brokerage within our office. And so I would love for my job on the team to be the commercial on land guy. Have a resident my residential division have my property division?

31:53
So one thing that my brain has trouble understanding if that’s the goal, why would you Why wouldn’t you just be your own broker? Like what’s keeping people under a brokerage umbrella if you are, in fact going to be Matt Hughes Realty.

32:11
The cool thing that the thing I love about Keller and Martin, for me, is the systems and the tools that we that are here in our office, right. And the pieces that they’re putting together in Austin for our agents is pretty impactful. The structure in which they let you build up, they’re more entrepreneurial driven then than they are realtor driven, which is the same thing. But being able to build a business within a business and leverage some of those pieces of having to cut checks agents and different things like that. Not that that’s a huge, huge deal. The referral basis being a part of the large and you got to do it well as well and haven’t been able to teach a class and yeah, next day, you have two listing referrals. It’s a big piece. And so being an independent are being an independent doesn’t. You have to find that some

33:11
of accompany it is pretty neat that all three of us are with different companies. Yes.

33:17
Because cultures are different everywhere. And I’m even in a different because REMAX is a franchise just the way Keller Williams is. Even every office is different. My office has less than 20 agents. The REMAX across town has probably over 200 And it’s a totally different culture in every

33:34
office. Yeah, so I’m only

33:37
here at about being President. And what you’ve enjoyed that that what you’ve taken away from that why you even did that. I just want to hear

33:45
more about the can’t say no,

33:47
I am my word for 2020 is going to be no Oh, but

33:52
good thing. We got him on the podcast here. That’s right.

33:56
I’m a high personality and I want I want to make people happy. It’s just part of to a fault. Okay. Um, when I started the board, leadership, I was Team Leader of the office at the time. I wanted to get involved and so it was kind of a win win there. And so coming into my first meeting at the board of directors board of directors, I was voted in as secretary treasurer. So I went directly into leadership, okay, not served on a whole lot of committees just wanted to get involved and, and started there. And then that’s when I realized like, Hey, man, we we have to fix this and we have to get, we need to go grow the next leader, we need to bring the next group of leaders up. And that’s so that’s kind of been my push coming through the leadership. So second year, I went into the meeting and was voted as President Elect, serve in that term, and then this year is my presidential year. If it is an experience, I think anybody that asked me I’m like, it’s a it is a lot. It’s definitely hard to balance it now, being in business day to day tactical. It’s not it’s not one of those things that you can’t do it you anyone, any good anyone can do it. It is you’re giving back to your industry, you’re on a local level, you’re helping build that, that that local origin organization, there’s some there’s a bunch of meetings, there’s things you have to follow. But it’s it’s been a blessing. And I wouldn’t change it. I’m glad I was able to be in that position.

35:43
Yeah. Can you believe you’re almost done with it? Yes,

35:47
yes. You’ve put your time in, and you’re ready for the next thing?

35:51
That’s cool. It is cool.

35:53
You do it all the time that Melissa, you you like to stay on that board?

35:57
I’ve served on the board. Gosh, I don’t know if it’s been four years or five years and several committees. And it’s funny, because I don’t even know if Matt quite realizes this. But I was sort of in line to do secretary treasurer that year, you didn’t say? And I said, No. That word he doesn’t know. And I did it because I was pregnant. Right. And I was and I I know because I’ve served on the board for so long that if you are good at what you do, it naturally progresses from Secretary Treasurer to Vice President to President. And I thought I saw that as not that but I saw it as newborn, one year old two year, years long commitment years long. So then I was like, Well, why do I have to do this in my 20s? Right? Why don’t I do this in my 40s? Right. And then they were like, you know, what about Matt Hughes? So, um, I have loved watching it. Because they’re, you know, sometimes you get asked, and not even in board situations, but you get asked to do things, right, that you don’t have time for? And you say yes, but you check out and you don’t do it. Right. And I just don’t think Matt’s capable of doing that. If he’s gonna do he’s gonna do it like that. Yeah, it’s a really tough life. Um, so like, one thing that I wanted to ask you, going back to what we were discussing, you know, we all kind of know, there’s agents that every year switch companies and are like, oh, I want this company now. Oh, I’m with this company. Like, sometimes people, you know, say, Well, I wasn’t doing so good because of where I was at, or whatnot. I liked that you’ve had, you’ve had some consistency, but your roles have been so different. So did you get any like flack for that for changing roles? Or you didn’t care? I know, because you don’t you don’t care? What doesn’t hear it? You don’t care? People think at all?

38:09
In some aspects, yes. But other others No. And that, and that piece of it, that anytime I’ve changed brokerages, the decision, or the base of the decision had to be bigger than me. Right? And it had to be for the betterment of whoever was around me. And I don’t think switching companies because you’re not producing or doing is not a business decision. You’re you’re trying to find an excuse, for a result you’re not getting Right. Right. And, and, and, and when I teach a class at the office over the last couple years, and we talk about time management, we talk about different things. And at the end of the day, if you’re not getting a check, you need to talk to your employer and your employer is yourself.

39:00
Right, right. I think Connie, my broker says if you haven’t been paid in six months, you’re unemployed. Oh, there, you are unemployed, right? So don’t kid yourself. Yeah. And what we discussed in the culture episode was that people are more about pursuing the perception of success than actually being successful. Sometimes they, they may not have even realized that the income isn’t there, because they’re out there portraying it as as it’s happening, but that maybe at the end of the day, it’s not always that way.

39:36
Success is different for everybody. Yeah. And you have to live with how you want success.

39:45
I love it. It’s

39:46
good. This was awesome. Very good. I feel like that was a really nice way to like, ended it. Everyone’s success is different for them.

39:54
Yes. And that’s what the mission of our podcast is. And I think it’s so cool. YOUR Story. I mean, yes, so humbly. It’s just perfect. Very good. So we like to end every episode by toasting to somebody. I’ll be

40:08
posting alone because I’m the only one with a beverage here just for the record.

40:10
Yeah. We slack today. But we like to toast someone that, you know, it’s out there hustling a humble person, maybe they need to pick me up. Maybe we’re celebrating their success. So as our guests today, we would like to know who you would like to toast to.

40:29
Oh, man, there’s so many because I have so many good relationships with so but I’m going to be selfish a little bit. I’m going to toast to my agent Alisa Bankston. She is in here day in day out, hustling and grinding every single day. And she’s been a part of the team for a number of months now and it’s the momentum is building and you feel it you can see it and you see it in her eyes and that’s what drives me that’s

40:59
what’s our primary goal. Like what’s her job when your team rather not goal

41:03
she’s an agent she’s making her primary goal is to hustle. Your primary goal is to get out there and and generate business whether it’s on the listing side, the buyer side, whatever it is

41:13
she the one that brought stupid houses kills it.

41:15
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, well, cheers. That’s awesome.

41:18
Cheers to her. Yes, ma’am. And if you have any successes that you would like to send in, we would love to toast to you. So you can shoot us an email or message us on social media?

41:30
Absolutely. And I want to say thank you to Matt. He was brave, and he was our guinea pig first guest and it was awesome. Yes,

41:37
thank you. We’re not sure if it’ll sound too echoey but I think it’s gonna be great. We’re just gonna get with it. Love it. Okay, it’s not my friends, Matt. You can wave to the YouTube people.