Having A SEAL Team In Real Estate — Interview with Yasmine Bisumber

Kale:?Today we have a special guest, Yasmine Bisumber. Thank you so much for joining me today. I have been very much looking forward to this interview.

Yasmine:?Thank you for having me. This is awesome. I was looking forward to it too.

Kale:?You told me you are a real estate professional. What kind of real estate do you focus on?

Yasmine:?Right now we’re focused on residential sales in the South Florida market.

Kale:?Both buying and selling I’m assuming?

Yasmine:?Yes, both buying and selling. We do want to focus more on the sell side. We do a lot of listings, we love our buyers too.

Kale:?Now tell me a little bit more about this Legacy Liaison sales team from which you are the team leader now.

How many people are you running in that group?

What does that look like to run a real estate professional team?

Yasmine:?It might be surprising to some people, but it’s really similar to running any other company.

We’ve got the same challenges, we have the same things that we need to do as far as foundation, structure and systems. Very similar to running any business. You’ve got to hire the right people and you’ve got to put the right systems in place.

What’s specific to real estate itself is just the sales process around what it is that we’re selling. We have a very long sales process. In real estate, sometimes it could take 90 to 120 days to close out a sales cycle.

I think that would be the main difference. You’ve got to have your team morale, you’ve got to have your systems, your structures, all those things.

Kale:?That’s really interesting. I don’t know if this is a common misconception or conception, but I’ve always thought of them as basically just independent contractors. They are a one-man team that gets a listing or they get a customer.

Is that a common model for most real estate agencies and brokerages that they are a large team?

I would consider 14 people a large team. Is that a large team? Is that a small team?

How does that compare to the national average?

Yasmine:?If you took it back like maybe five or so years ago, solo agents were more common. As the market started to change and the industry started to take a shift. The popularity of teams has grown so much in the last few years.

Now what we’re starting to see is that there are few agents out there who take on this leadership role and they start building little companies within. Real estate brokerages. We call that model a team ridge.

We have a team under the umbrella of a real estate brokerage, and you’re absolutely right, we are all independent contractors. The agents that are on my team, I’m not necessarily able to tell them you have to be in the office nine to five, because everyone’s an independent contractor.

If someone’s on a payroll, that’s different. They’re an employee and they’re not an agent. There are different kinds of categories of teams. You have what you call your small SEAL team, small but mighty, maybe two to five people.

Then some people have very large enterprise-style teams where you see hundreds of agents on the team. My team is a SEAL team for now. I think I’m going to keep it that way. However, maybe in the future we’ll grow to something very large and have tons of agents.

Kale:?I can assume the advantages and disadvantages of having a SEAL team is having that tactical, more focused team versus a larger team.

Why are you keeping it a SEAL team now and why? What would push you to become larger?

Yasmine:I think the SEAL team right now works for us because of that tactical aspect. We go in, we get the job done, very close-knit.

Everyone knows everyone’s roles. We know who to turn to for what. Everything can be funneled through the pipeline quickly and easily. Keep in mind, real estate is a very high-ticket product. We don’t necessarily need a very large team to produce a lot.

We just need people on our team that understand the process, are good at what they do, and can support everyone else on the team. Personally, I do like the idea of having a SEAL team that feels like a family.

It’s the five of us. I’m the fifth one and then I have my four team members. It feels like a family and we support each other in that way.

Kale:?That’s amazing. You had mentioned the difference between the independent contractor people that are on your team versus employees.

Do you have actual employees at this point?

I would assume that the actual paid employees that you would have would be marketing agents or something along that administrative support type of people.

Is that correct or am I totally off?

Yasmine:?No, you’re absolutely correct. Right now on our team, we don’t have any payroll employees. Even my administrative support is not on payroll, they are also 1099.

I’m actually not including that in the four because we only use our admin support per transaction and we pay him per transaction.

He’s not necessarily a part of our real estate team, but he does come in when he’s needed on files to help them close out. For payroll, that person would probably have a very structured nine-to-five, but not yet.

It’s coming though. Sometimes by the end of this year, we’ll have our first administrative staff.

Kale:?That’s awesome. I want to do just a little side note. 1099 for those that may be not familiar with that, that’s the IRS form for somebody that is an independent contractor. They do one-off jobs.

Since you’re still at that point of the tactical and you’re dealing with contractors and people, what makes them want to be on your team?

Then what are some unique challenges of having people that you can’t just fire?

How have you overcome those? What do you do to keep that from happening?

Yasmine:?I’ll start with your first question about what would make someone want to be on my team. I think right now the agents that are attracted to me are just attracted to the success that I’ve had so far. I’ve been selling real estate for seven years.

It has been more of an attraction thing, which I think works for me very well right now as we’re just building this thing up and getting it stable enough so we can scale larger if we choose.

I think they’re also attracted to the support I can offer them to help them get to this point and then beyond in their own careers.

When my team members sign their agreement with me as the team lead, it’s something similar to the independent contractor agreement that we all sign with our brokerage. There are production rules, like a quota.

As a leader, I can very well say: “Hey, I don’t think you’re a good fit for this team. I’m going to ask you to leave the team.” However, I can’t make them leave the brokerage.

Still, that is not really the goal. It is to keep everyone on the team, get them producing at a high level, keep them happy, morale high, etc. I do get team members who are not available or don’t show up for things on a consistent basis.

That’s totally normal. However, there’s like a little bit of a penalty now. It’s not terrible. It’s fun. If you miss a morning huddle, you have to buy everyone a cup of coffee. Something just to give a little bit of a penalty.

If it becomes a serious issue, then obviously I would be talking to them one-on-one and just sit them down and ask what is going on, if they are okay.

Sometimes you do have to have tough conversations, but so far so good. Everyone seems to be happy. We want to keep it that way.

Kale:?I love this accountability thing. That way you’re just responsible for something. It’s something that everyone can benefit from and learn from.

I really like that versus negative punishment right off the bat.

I also love that you do a morning meeting and a huddle. I think that is a fantastic concept to implement on almost every type of team. I would imagine your teams are all remote. It’s not like you’re all coming into an office.

Is that a safe assumption?

Yasmine:?We meet on Zoom every morning, right.

Kale:?I think that’s a phenomenal idea. For those of you that are not doing that, I think Yasmine can attest to how that has changed or impacted her business by just having that morning huddle. I think it is a critical key part of being a leader.

Yasmine:?Absolutely. At the very least, it allows me to connect with my team members every single day. I realized how important it is to just have that constant connection.

Then on top of that, we do a quick 30-minute sales training. We pull stats for the market just to get us up to date so that we’re ready to start our days. It’s actually something that we implemented just recently.

We used to do them in the evenings and they weren’t as consistent; only twice a week. Then we started to talk as a team, and we decided that every day in the morning was going to be more effective.

I think every leader should implement some sort of consistent or regular team huddle or meeting.

Kale:?If you’re not doing this, start doing it. Figure out something that works for your team and will be effective for them.

That’s awesome. Something I ask all of my guests is if you think there is a difference between a manager in business versus a leader in business?

Yasmine:?I think a manager’s job is to make sure people are doing specific things at a specific time. However, a leader is someone who is there to support and bring out the best in other people so that they can go out and be their best selves at their highest level.

Maybe there’s a little bit of a manager in a leader just a tad, but I think a leader is so much more. A leader needs to be able to connect with people on a deeper level and also have the ability to say: “Okay, wait a minute. Something is wrong here, we need to correct it.”

Kale:?That’s a phenomenal definition.

Yasmine, thank you incredibly for taking time out of your day. I very much appreciate it.

Now, what’s the best way for them to get a hold of you if they’re interested in South Florida real estate and they’re ready to either sell, buy, or they just want to ping you about how you run your teams?

Yasmine:?The best way is just to find me on social media. All of my handles are my first and last name. @yasminebisumber.

Super easy to find me. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. I’m most active on Instagram, so you’ll see my deals, my team, my family. Connect with me. I’d love to answer any questions.

If you’re an agent and you’re wondering about the business, reach out to me. I’m here to help.

Kale:?Perfect. Yasmine, again, thank you so much. I very much appreciate your time.

Please share with us in the comments what are the ways in your workplace that allow keeping the members of your team accountable.

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