Agent Spotlight | John McCarthy

Ryan: So I thought we'd have a conversation as kind of a recap for anybody who might be interested. It's been a long road past four years. When did you start? Spyglass Realty. 

John: Your math is always impeccable. I'm glad I'm here. Six years.

Ryan: Let's talk about the journey of Spyglass. Let's be honest, we were kind of not only a shit show but like we didn't have our stuff together in the very beginning, right? We were kind of a ragtag team. When I started this, I didn't really realize how hard it was going to be to grow the team and being a producing agent. So you know, what do you think about that? Don't you agree, it's kind of hard for the leader to be producing?

John: I do agree with that. I was I noticed that tremendous growth in the company right away after you got out of sales production, which was a leap of faith even to get to that point. And I remember from the beginning, it was kind of a scrappy group. Oh, you're doing this training in that old office? And you had I knew you had big dreams that you had shown me I remember vividly you turned around your computer one day and showed me and told me what your goals were. 

You weren't doing that at the time but you had started. You started that movement, thank you for bringing me on board at that time and trusting me to just even come on board as an agent, I was brand new to the area and I think it was even eight or nine months before I even plugged in more or less full time with the company. 

Ryan: So what do you think? What do you think's different now, what do you think makes us special compared to any other kind of independent boutique brokerage?

John: Yeah, well, I think it starts from the top leadership team, with you being able to focus on what you do best, focusing on kind of what can help the agents grow, what can help that allows the company to be nimble and change. We’re innovative in the market, were innovative in the industry. I don't know that other brokerages can be innovative, creative, successful, and grow all at the same time. 

Ryan: Let me just be fair here. You know, when he says leadership, it's not the Ryan Rodenbeck show here. Johnny is our sales manager, Sunny, she's our operations manager, Kelly's a marketing director. These guys are just really here to make sure that I don't take the whole ship with me when I'm chasing that squirrel. So I don't want to give credit where credit's due is that we have compartmentalized this company so that we get all the agent’s needs. I think the other thing is that you know, we have a quality of standard or standard of quality rather, for the agents that we hire. We've got great agents.

John: I think that shines through and through the business practices, too. That's what I even tell our clients, there's a level of excellence that we're going to achieve if, if the clients are not on board with professional photos or things like that like, we're going to do it no matter what there is a bar that set and we're setting that bar.

Ryan: Another thing that I think is been really interesting is the integration of our the incoming into the market of all these quote disruptors. That's been amazing for us. I didn't realize, you know, probably three to four years ago, when you had EXP coming in, you had Compass coming in, you had Better Homes and Gardens, all coming in, and they're scaring the shit out of us and the little guy’s going to be nothing. I made a decision to move forward and say, you know, I'm going to do this, you know, whether I succeed or not, I'm not going to sell out or join another brokerage or absorb all that stuff. 

I mean, I looked at it, but it just wouldn't want to do and what's been so surprising to me is that week most of the agents that we have recruited over the past three years, were people that their companies got absorbed or merged are otherwise went to one of these big conglomerates because their boutique brokerage is no longer in existence. When I realized that they missed that they liked that independent boutique. We've got teams from you know, Home City. You know, Riley Realtors, you know Strube, Waters. We're the anti-corporate and I think that's right, now don't get me wrong, we're professional, we're corporate. But like, you're we're not just, you know, we're more of a family feel and it's less transactional.

John: Also with our company and what the resources and the company that that that we're growing, there's always a spot for the little guy, those agents that have the grit that know how to be professionals this is the place for them. Those disruptors are out there and I think that's what's going to separate the cream of the crop is where we are landing, the cream of the crop is coming to us, even though they might not be agents in the business for 15 years, and maybe two or three years, but they're good and they're going to continue to be good. And those are the people that clients are going to continue to want to work with. They're not going to want to go to those disruptors that are coming into the industry, they're going to need that personal connection as well.

Ryan: Absolutely. And Austin is a local town. We shop locally, we go to dinner locally, I mean, more than any other town. You go to other parts of the country, and your franchisees are doing a lot better, even in terms of restaurants, shopping, and especially with brokerage right here. We really don't have that many franchises that have market share. Keller Williams is like number two, but it's specifically because of agent count, volume. I'm not to put anything bad in Keller Williams, this is a fact. So what about the training, you're stepping into this role very recently. Now, don't get me wrong, you've been involved as a sales manager for years. But now you're full-time in production. Your one goal is to make sure the agents succeed. What do you see this going from here on out?

John: I'm really excited about the opportunity because I get to focus on the company, on the business, on helping agents grow, on helping the business grow. I don't have the distractions of you know, my personal sales and those disruptors for me. So there's a lot I'm excited to implement put into place. Mentorship training, the agents I'm excited for, agents that are with our company, whether they've been in the business for a year, or five years, there's still a lot for them to learn. There's a lot of tools and resources within the company. So helping streamline, a source, source of support for the entire company.

Ryan: Well, one thing I love about what you've done, and the way you operate, and why I think you're gonna be so good at this role is I mean, I don't know of a better converter than you. In the sense of like a, you know, of salesmanship. And I think you do it in a way that is very authentic. It's very genuine. It's not like you're snake oil salesmen or something like that. 

You use the methods that you've learned, that I've learned, we've learned together in conferences, and you know, everything else that we go the other courses that we've taken, and you phrase it in a way that allows the consumer to really get to the bones of what they really want. Not what you're trying to sell them. But making sure that they know that you're the right person for the job. 

So what I see in the past few years even before do this role became full time is that you're such a good source of helping agents understand how to communicate with clients in a way that will let them know that you're the best source for them. Like I've said this many times before, everyone needs a Realtor, they just need to know that you're the right realtor for them. And I don't know anybody does it any better than you? What about what about marketing? Over here? Wow, how's that evolved in the past two years?

John: Wow. It's evolved tremendously. We've had Well, we've gone from 15, 18 agents or so to almost 60, which means that we have a lot more work to do a lot more on our plate with marketing. I think our marketing team has evolved. Probably 500% in just the last two years as far as like personnel and content, content and speediness to get content out, and even content coming. There's still I mean, it's never-ending it's, it's, there's still a lot that's even coming with, with the demand from our from the growth.

Ryan: What we've done in the past is what is we've we personalized marketing. We've got a graphic designer, we've got Kelly, our Director of Marketing, we've got three VAs that assist in marketing. What we're accomplishing now is putting these pieces into automation. Automation is the key to productivity within a scale of a brokerage. What I mean by that is an agent doesn't need to be worried about their marketing. They need to have a listing. They send an email, press a button, and then everything comes after that they don't need to be worried about the newsletter that needs to come after that. 

So what we've done in the past is we personalize and manually done, put all the pieces together, which is a tremendous amount of work to, you know, get marketing done for an agent, whether it be starting a farm, you know, marketing, their listing, marketing, something the buyer. That's been a lot of work too, you know, but all these pieces together, because when one action gets done, there are several other pieces that go behind the scenes to make that actually done when we're focusing on now or meeting we haven't later in the day is how to make that scalable. So I'm really proud of what Kelly's done with our company.

And I think that we're going to see in the future for Spyglass Realty, we already see it here with the agents don't know the difference now. What I mean by that they hit a button. And there are 1000 little pieces that happened in the background, but those are all done manually. Yeah. And that takes a lot of work and it's not really scalable. What we're doing now, is we're going to put that in automated so that we can grow responsibly and we don't want as we grow to have hiccups in the marketing process. Any other final thoughts about I know it's been a long road six years as a real deal company, Best Places to Work, Fast 50, we've got agents that are doing far more than I could ever hope to do as a solo agent. What else is there to say?

John: If you're looking for a good lifestyle good real estate lifestyle. This is the place to be, that's and that's kind of how I felt that's why I'm so comfortable here you know, the agents are gonna be comfortable here. It's a lifestyle. It's the life of success, fun in real estate.