Transcription of Episode

Intro/Outro 0:04
Welcome to Investing Across Borders with Lauren Cohen. Every week she will share valuable information that you need to know in order to successfully invest in real estate and other business endeavors in North America. We believe in helping clients invest, live, work, and play across borders. And now, your host, Lauren Cohen.

Lauren Cohen 0:22
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Investing Across Borders, where we teach you how to invest live, work and play across borders. I’m Lauren Cohen, and I’m your host. I am really privileged, honored and super excited to have my partner in crime my partner at eXp, my amazing upline who has built this organization of about 15,000 people. Brent Gove. Brent, I don’t even know where you are in the world right now. But welcome to the podcast, please say hello and introduce yourselves to my listeners.

Brent Gove 1:00
Hello, everybody. And Pleasure to meet Lauren and company all of you. And today I’m in Northern California. Wednesday I’ll be in Cabo, San Lucas for a week. And then we get back to Puerto Rico, where I live now full time. I live in the Caribbean. So I can see St. Thomas right out across the ocean from my house. I live there on the water. It’s beautiful, but great to be here with you, Lauren, and nice to meet everybody.

Lauren Cohen 1:25
Thank you, Brent, it’s really an honor. I’m so privileged to have you here and so grateful for your time and it’s very limited. So let’s get right to the point. So Brent has been with eXp for how long?

Brent Gove 1:37
Four and a half years.

Lauren Cohen 1:38
And you have built a company, an organization, truly a momentum movement, in how many countries now?

Brent Gove 1:46
We’re in, I believe 17 countries last count, it’s pretty exciting. And we have just over 14,000 in my sales organization. Overall there are I think 3000 in the overall organization if you understand how it works? So 14,000 in my particular rev share organization,

Lauren Cohen 2:22
And what is the most amazing thing about eXp for you? Besides the obvious about these amazing rev share checks that I am looking to achieve one day soon.

Brent Gove 2:32
Oh man, everybody here feels like an owner. You know, when I worked at REMAX for 12 years, we were agents and broker associates, we did not feel like owners. You know, how many of you own a franchise? 1% right? Same thing at Keller Williams, everybody worked for REMAX, worked for Coldwell Banker, worked for Keller Williams, there’s a few regional owners and franchise owners. But for the most part, nobody feels like an owner. Right? And here, everybody feels like an owner, I got 14,000 are owners right? And then owners act differently than renters. It’s powerful. Yeah, I love that.

Lauren Cohen 3:08
And we’re all partners, we’re all truly partners we are. We are vetted and vested together, I was just at the sprint a few days ago with a bunch of people that are building organizations to support you and the amazing people before us. And it’s just we’re all about helping each other. It’s so collaborative. You know, if I call Brent and I say, Brent, hey, I need this, I need that. Here’s 15,000 people calling him 14,000, whatever. And he still answers my call and pays attention to me because I’m important. And I’m one of Brent’s partners. And I’m so proud of that. Friend, when you started, did you have any idea that you would build something like this?

Brent Gove 3:49
No, not at all. You know, I saw the plan, and if you haven’t seen it, go to: themodelexplained.com it’s right here. So watch that then get back to Lauren and ask her questions. But the first thing I did was watch that, the speaker four and a half years ago was Rob Fleck. And then you know, Rob went off and retired and travels the world and numbers had changed as far as the growth of the company and the value of the company and what the company had to offer. So we had to redo it. So I stepped up and we did it. That’s why I created the model explained, I really copied the format that had been laid out, the process by Rob Flick who’s really the genius of that and then I just did it because it had to be done. We needed an updated version, which by the way just came out a month ago. Just if you haven’t seen it lately, watch it.

Lauren Cohen 4:46
Awesome! And a little shorter too, so it’s easier to watch. It’s quicker. You get the point right away.

Brent Gove 4:53
Yep, we edited it quite a bit to get me to shut up. So I forget what your question was, but hopefully that answered the question. So watch them all at the beginning. So I thought, Okay, I know I could probably attract 10,15, or 20 agents wouldn’t be too hard.

Lauren Cohen 5:07
Add a few zeros to that, and you’re about there.

Brent Gove 5:10
Right? But in the beginning, I didn’t think it would be so big. I’ll tell 10, 15 agents, maybe 20. At the end of the year, I’ll have 80 to 100 agents in my organization. And that makes you like, 80,000 a year for your retirement. I thought that seemed reasonable. But I remember thinking to myself, if I get lucky, I mean, if the stars align, and I’m not into astrology, or anything like that, but you know, as the saying goes, if things really really work out, and you “hit it out of the park”, I’d have two or 300 agents. And by the way, when I shared that with the president of a local big, huge franchise, REMAX gold, he laughed in my face and I was not offended. He thought it was funny. He said “You? You by yourself?” Want to go to me two to 300 agents in this year. He had at the time, I think he had 1800 agents. And he had, I don’t know 26 sales managers or some crazy because we don’t grow by two to 300. net in a year. So for you to net two or 300. Your first year. He is I love your bravado, I love that he laughed at me. And I mean, he couldn’t hold back. He literally burst out laughing in my face. I was not offended because I like I said, I told him Hey, no, I literally wait. Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that, uh, probably at about 80 to 100. What did 13 months later, at 178. That’s a native net. And it’s not made. I mean, meet me, I’m just a normal guy. I like to golf, I got five kids, we adopted to a swimming playing tennis, you know, we moved to Puerto Rico, we traveled the world, you know, just normal guy. He’s got money. Now.

Lauren Cohen 6:51
A few bucks that does help.

Brent Gove 6:54
Now I can afford to do those things. But it worked out. And then the next year 3500 than the next year 8000. And this year, you know, 14,000. So just keeps next year $28 just exploding, because the agents have a stake in the business to the stars or shareholders. But I’ll let you keep going through questions because we have 13 minutes left.

Lauren Cohen 7:17
Listen, I wanted to talk about international stuff. My podcast is called investing across borders. And one of the reasons that I joined the company was because of its international scope at the time, we were only in five countries and now in 17. And you of course have partners in all of those countries, because half of the people in my organization are building your lines in all of these countries. How does that look for you? And how has that changed the scope of real estate?

Brent Gove 7:45
All right. Well, it looks the same for everybody as it did for me. I mean, I did fly to Victoria once in British Columbia twice.

Lauren Cohen 7:53
That is a beautiful, beautiful city, by the way, Victoria.

Brent Gove 7:56
Right. So when I went to Victoria, then I rode the ferries down to British Columbia. So that was one trip and the next time I went back to British Columbia. So I’ve only been to Canada twice, but I’m in 17 countries and I went to Mexico on vacation a bunch we go two or three times a year, mainly to Cabo sometimes Puerto Vallarta and Cancun. But Cabo is our spot. I’ll be in Cabo this Wednesday from my wife’s birthday. Nice, beautiful resort there on ocean, Esperanza, if you ever want to go to Cabo, and stay in a great resort, Esperanza means hope in Spanish, it’s a great resort. But I have not been to South Africa or India, or Portugal or France or Italy or Australia or the UK or Brazil or Colombia or Panama.

Lauren Cohen 8:39
Never been to all those countries.

Brent Gove 8:41
No I have never been, but my business is in 17 countries. So last thing is, if you live in Roseville, which is where I live, it’s a suburb of Sacramento. You can live in po-dunk nowhere, Canada, your business, couldn’t stop it from going global. Right. Whereas if you owned a pizza shop or you owned a Chinese food restaurant, or you had some sort of a gas station in Calgary, that gas station is not going to have a global footprint now. So being cloud based and being the way our business is designed, you literally can go to Hong Kong it’s as easy as you can go to the city next to your city. Like for example, Lauren, where do you live in Canada?

Lauren Cohen 9:24
I don’t live in Canada, remember? I’m from Canada, but I live in Florida.

Lauren Cohen 9:28
Oh okay. Where in Canada did you live when you were there?

Lauren Cohen 9:37
Toronto. The big city, I’m a big city girl.

Brent Gove 9:39
Oh Toronto, I don’t know my geography as well, what’s the city right next to Toronto?

Lauren Cohen 9:44
There’s tons of little cities next to Toronto. Let’s say London, that’s a popular one.

Brent Gove 9:52
Okay, so London. So to be in Toronto and expand into London is not a mind blowing thing right now. So you can be anywhere in the world, you can be at San Pablo, Brazil, you could be Toronto, Canada, and expand into London, England and the UK. As easy as you can go from Toronto to London. In fact, I would say, easier. Because there are broker associates in Brisbane, Australia. And in, Panama, or in Columbia or Puerto Rico right now living in Puerto Rico. We’ll see themodelexplained.com, and go, Oh, wow. I want to be an owner. I want to win stock awards, you could actually, there’s certain sales metrics you can hit and you’re in stock order to stock one, three of my buyers agents that bought over a bowtique team of 18. Three of them have a million dollars worth of stock amazing four and a half years it is they cry when they may have changed our lives. We were just living hand to mouth, you know, commission check and kind of remodeling the kitchen where we couldn’t get a new car where we couldn’t play school where we couldn’t just just kind of do in life. But as they did all the same things we did in our prior brokerage, which was Keller Williams. Now they’re here the differences instead of having trophies and plaques Hold on. Having this by the way, this is an eXp trophy and black rhino. We give these out to but they also have a million dollars worth of stock. Every year. I take my team to Hawaii, the Caribbean. In fact, these are two of my agents who have a million dollars with the stock there we are in Cana poly, Maui. Every year we do a picture that Cindy RC and so they have a million dollars worth of stock for their retirement. Had we stayed at our own brokerage and what I experienced was trophies and plaques. You get mesmerized by these things. But they’re not worth anything.

Lauren Cohen 11:43
Right? They don’t have shelf value absolutely not saleable on the NASDAQ.

Brent Gove 11:49
Right. So they could push a button and put a million dollars in their bank again, 100 different when you’re changing families. And so I think I went off topic, but we’ll do the next.

Lauren Cohen 12:00
I think that’s what it’s all about, is the game changing element. And you know, Megan Kelly was at the sprint with us. And she mentioned that we’ve opened in 13 countries since October without getting on a plane. And that’s a truth. Like for me now I have partners in Israel and Australia and Colombia and Mexico everywhere. And I can service them not only in the real estate world, but also in the legal world, because I’m an international lawyer. So what better place for me than this international company to partner with people that have that international vision, some people that didn’t even think they could ever have a partner next door, like you said, down the street or anywhere and now we have international organizations like I have partners in my hometown of Toronto, and I’m building a team there and it’s super exciting. I mean, it’s game changing for all of us because as they as they say realtor, you never go to a realtors retirement party right now, granted, I’m a realtor in a passive way. I’m not actively selling real estate. I’m a great refer. I have lots and lots of referral referral agreements out there right now. And that’s the other thing about eXp, I can refer to Brent in Sacramento or his partners all over the country, and everybody wants to help and close deals and make transactions happen. Because that makes our stock valuable up and we all collaborate together. Tell me what would you love to share with all of our eXp family members that they don’t know? Or that they don’t think that they know about when you started and what made you take the plunge? And what made the difference for you?

Brent Gove 13:30
You know, I think the opportunity of having this actually work, people always ask, like how did you know it would work? I totally did not know it would work. I was simply willing to fail. I think that’s been the key to success in my life. I wrote a book I was willing to fail, but it turned out great. I got on the radio, willing to fail, I failed, twice succeeded the third time and was on the radio for 15 years, but I failed twice before I succeeded the third time I got on TV, epically failed and never did succeed. I have a face for radio. What can I say? The point is, that people play it too safe in their life and then they have regrets. There’s a saying “don’t die with the music”. Can you be willing to try commercial real estate or residential real estate or investment real estate? You got to find your way in life and be willing to door knock or call the expireds? Or do digital marketing or SEO or Google AdWords or try out Zillow try things and find what is a fit for you. And so I think that is the key to my success is that I was simply willing to fail. And if you don’t like I don’t understand the speed. Watch. It’ll take you 30 something minutes. themodelexplained.com then call Lauren. It’s super simple. And we’re gonna have a million agents in 100 countries. In the next 10 years, it’s going to happen. Because we’re the only brokerage in the world making its agents. That’s you, you watching this if you want to be everybody that owner. Yeah, the stock awards, I watched a company go from 20 billion to over 4.5 20 million to 4.5 billion. Yeah. And that’s why all my friends have. I have friends who have who join me and simply quit selling real estate, their own brokerage, and now they have $3 million worth of stock. Yeah, and a lot of them have sold it and paid off homes paid off investment properties. And they’re debt free. No car payments, their investments, properties paid off their main homes paid off. And so you think well, am I too late? You know what your timing could not be better? Four and a half years ago, everyone’s like, e-x, what? Never heard of it, right? Or 1200 bucks in the world. So now we have street credibility. And there are 2 million agents between the US and Canada alone. We have 60,000. So we have just over 2%, I don’t know what that is 2.2% market penetration. So there’s a long ways to go is what we’re trying to tell you. So two and a half percent, you’re in the innovator stage, once you crossed the two and a half percent you get in the early adopters. We haven’t even hit the early adoption stage. Are you too late. We’re not even in the early adoption stage, then you get the boom where the major adoption takes place that Airbnb saw that Uber saw that Amazon has seen Travelocity, trivago and Netflix and you can name 100 companies that get the major adoption of the public, right. And so your timing couldn’t be better. We just take all the dirt roads that were mired with potholes and gravel roads, we have paved them, we filled in the pot roads, and we just paved the on ramps to the Interstate, enter you. And so we’re gonna go from 60,000 to a million, there’s 940,000 coming. So anyway, it’s gonna be amazing. And your timing is impeccable. And you haven’t seen nothing yet in five years. recognize this company? So go back.

Brent Gove 15:52
Yeah, it’s the crazy thing. I mean, I never would have thought that I would be the chair of the international investment Investment Committee of eXp commercial, and making a difference for people and realtors all over the world and being a resource for them. Where else do you have that opportunity to work with 60,000 now and growing realtor people that are financially aligned with each other, and and have a vision, everybody has a vision. And it’s out of the box thinking and Brent I so appreciate you being here. I know you have to hop on another call. And I want to be very, very respectful of your time. But there’s two things I want you to mention. If you would one, tell me one quick impact story about a huge impact that you’ve had on somebody’s life and to tell me about your kids and and how this has impacted them because that’s important for a lot of us.

Unknown Speaker 18:39
Right. Well, number one Marguerite Chris Bello, she got cancer last year, and she could not work. And she was a woman who normally made you know, 30,40-50,000 a month in real estate, you know, making three, four or five 600,000 a year and she got cancer got very sick, lost her hair, couldn’t work. But a revenue share was rolling in all summer long while she was super sick at chemo at over 20,000 a month. So it was enough to keep paying for her home, which she had owned for 20 years, keep putting groceries on the table for her family. And it was a revenue share that did that. That’s pretty cool story. Very excited about that. As far as for my kids, I mean, you know, my kids, I don’t know, I’m not one of these, go get a job, cut your hair and go to work. So they have not been huge beneficiaries.

Lauren Cohen 19:27
Are any of them in the organization yet?

Brent Gove 19:29
My daughter works for me on onboarding and my other daughters getting licensed. But my kids are 17, 18, 18, 19, and 21 they’re in college doing that. One of them does software stuff and he wants to make his own way in life. He’s 26 we’re very close. And then my daughter who’s 28 does work for me, the smart one, the oldest one, the one I really love.

Lauren Cohen 19:50
Oh boy.

Brent Gove 19:53
This is our relationship with our family, of course. And so it’s been amazing. And the last thing I I’ll give you, if you’re watching a slow cat I want to do a brain dead because within I live in California, California is expensive. I have seven children in nice home nice cars, nice travel is 50,000 a month to keep the lights on for my personal family budget. And then my business, I have an office, I have staff I have overhead I have advertising, you know, that’s another 50,000 a month. So for me to kind of retire from real estate i’d earn 100,000 a month, not a year a month to kind of take a breath and 17 months in the eXp I got to a point where my revenue share was 100,000 a month in fact, that month it was didn’t look like it was gonna get there in the last day when and then it broke 100 I’m like yes. And then it just kept going ended up at 118. So it’s my $18,000 tip day most people love to make 18,000 a month. I made an extra 15,000 that day. That was the last time I ever listed our house. So I should have a real estate retirement party because that was three years ago over three years ago. I don’t have any clients today. I love people but I see instead of serving and loving clients now I serve in love agents and broker associates. I’ve just changed my focus. There’s like well what does he do for the customer? Maybe it’s what he does for you. When I was at REMAX, REMAX did nothing for the customers. As REMAX agents do whatever marketing and level of service we get. That’s what happens the customer REMAX is a new thing when I went to Keller Williams for eight years as a REMAX Keller Williams never did a single thing What does your brokerage know you’re the one who shows up to the listing appointment You’re the one who makes the flyers You’re the one who gets the sign in the yard You’re the one who does open houses You’re the one who whatever marketing you do will not I work for Sotheby’s they make me a cute little postcard they Okay fine, then maybe a little Kobe, but for the most part, baby, it’s you. And that same great level of service that I gave at REMAX. I gave it color, I gave it a speed. But the point is, now there’s plenty of agents that will take care of the customers. Yeah, I take care of the agents. So what I did, and I’ll end with this, I’m a little over but I apologize, but is this I sponsored 25 people in my first 100 days, that was the magic that I met on my show. So what I’m saying to all of you listening, and the next 100 days, sponsor means you shared the idea of the XP with people that 25 of them left their brokerage their independent brokerage or their bigs Sotheby’s or Coldwell Banker or century 21 or REMAX or Keller or Berkshire Hathaway, they left that franchise owners that sold I didn’t coach them how to do it. Like they saw this, like I’m out and they got rid of their franchises. They jettison it. I’m like a bad habit. And then I had agents who left brokerages after 2025 years, 15 years. And the other key was all in with this is I didn’t do 25 agents who are brand new, all 25 were selling at a minimum threshold of selling at least 10 homes a year or more. They weren’t superstars. Some of them are selling 20, some 40, some 30, some 60, some 50, but a minimum of 10. So I’d have to teach them how to do real estate. And it just exploded so well that first 100 days is key. And so if you’re watching this and you want to succeed, that guy did go sponsor helped 25 people join the XP and put you down as their sponsor, and the next 100 days, and that momentum will change your children’s children’s life. Like I said, within 17 months, it was 100,000 a month in rev share. I then went 2345678. And this month is for some ever made over $900,000 in a month, not a year and a month from rev share. And it is awesome. And next year it’ll double near flat will probably double. It’s not about me. It’s about the agents about you. So we Lauren you serve and help I serve and help the agents. There’s plenty of agents who sell the real estate right on eBay just because they’re involved in the tyranny of the urgent. They’re so busy paying bills and putting their kids do college it and they then God bless you. I respect him. I respect you If that’s you, but how long can you grind this on? How long? Suck it up and put a smile on your face? Yeah, he simply gives you an option for a different life with people like Craig pay leg and you and me and other people that will help the people watching this. Check it out. Look I did. And I took a chance. I was willing to go back to my old brokerage in six months with my hat in my hand Captain hanger and you’re right didn’t work. I’ve done my whole life that way. Who cares? That’s how you make it.

Brent Gove 24:29
That’s why I was selling a lot of real estate because I’m a guy who’s willing to fail. Are you willing to fail? Are you willing to try something get a little mud on your face big deal, because that’s what made me a big star in real estate because I’ve tried so many things I found what I was great at and it was selling hundreds of homes every year. And most people play it so safe. They protect their precious little ego. Don’t let that be you. Because it’ll keep you grinding. It’ll keep you broke and you will die with your music. Thank you for having me on today. I hope this was helpful.

Lauren Cohen 25:05
Brent it was super! Thank you so much. This is Lauren Cohen, signing off with my special guest Brent Gove, Investing Across Borders where we teach you how to invest live, work and play across borders. Thank you for joining us today Brent. It’s a pleasure. I can’t wait to see you in Dallas. Thank you.

Intro/Outro 25:31
Thanks for listening to Investing Across Borders with Lauren Cohen. Make sure to check the show notes for any links and for guests contact information. If you have questions for Lauren, please reach out to her at FOUNDER@ecouncilglobal.com. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with a friend.