North Carolina eXp Broker's All-In-One Real Estate Platform Success Story

John Mikesh, one of CINC's first clients, recently sat down with us to share his real estate journey going from a single agent to a broker of a team to successfully selling his business. 

Along the way he made a big move from New York to North Carolina.  And he also switched from being an independent brokerage to move over to eXp. 

John's a master at tracking what matters, focusing on what can be controlled, and pitching a great USP (unique selling proposition). See the full video and transcript below to understand how he achieved time, financial, and location freedom by starting with CINC. 

Transcript

John Mikesh: Hey guys, I'm John Mikesh. I've been doing this real estate thing now for over 20 years, and it's been an unbelievable journey. Unbelievable in all the positive and negative ways you can imagine over the years. I started out with an independent and you know, did really well out of the gate. I was Rookie of the Year in my MLS, and then ultimately decided to relocate down to Charlotte, North Carolina. And when I got down to Charlotte, North Carolina, I found myself in a completely different type of market than the upstate New York market that I started in which catered primarily to weekenders coming out of New York City. And now I find myself in Charlotte, people are buying houses in subdivisions, track homes, families, you know. How do you deal with kids and strollers and car seats when you're showing homes? And it was just a totally different environment - as night and day as two environments in real estate could be. But you know, in those challenges is where we kind of like find our strengths and figure out what we need to do to scale up, and I was going through that journey. I was getting coached. And ultimately, I went to REMAX and I was building, you know, my brand there and becoming successful, selling more houses, getting busy. All those good things that you would aspire to achieve as a new agent in a new market.

And this was going around the time of the recession, you know, 2007, 2008, 2009 era. And, you know, it was right around 2008. And these platforms started hitting the market. And like, if you had a TigerLead platform back then, it was like you could pretty much write your ticket. And I didn't have one, and I couldn't get one. And you know, it was masterminding with different people in the industry that I first came into contact with Duane LeGate, who was the original founder of CINC. And him and I got to talking and a couple other guys were, like me, were frustrated that we couldn't get these platforms. And Duane just got the crazy idea that we would, we would create our own platform, and it would be a better platform than all the rest because it would be created by agents for agents, instead of by technology people being sold to agents. I was on board. I was one of the original initial people that you know, was on board for that project, and you know, really providing sound advice to see it through and get it off the ground.

So, when I think back to, you know, CINC as a whole, it’s personal to me, right like, because not only was I a part of it, but it really saved my business. Like I would not be in business today had it not been for the CINC platform.

And that's just a true statement, like there was no way I would have made it through that. So, we ended up getting on the platform and building it out. And I ended up building a top performing team with REMAX. And we did that for five years. And then ultimately, I went and started my own boutique brokerage.

What's awesome about a platform is when you invest in the platform and generating your own leads on your own platform, you can take that with you wherever you go.

So when I left REMAX and started my own independent brokerage, for us, for our team, it was business as usual. It was, hey, we're generating leads. We're converting those leads, and we have a high level of discipline and accountability to how we serve those leads. And I was able to grow a business primarily off of that platform and the accountability and the structure that we offered and the client servicing that we did. And you know, to this day, that company still runs on that platform. And we've since you know come over to the eXp fold and we brought that independent company in eXp and again, the platform remained the same. So I went through three different changes. REMAX independent and eXp and the platform has remained consistent through all of that. We have over 50,000 leads on that platform today. It generates unbelievable business.

I think one of the things that agents undervalue is time on a platform. So, you know if your platform that you're currently on can't do for you what CINC can, and most can't, you know just being honest about that. Like the features and the technology and the foundation that CINC is, in my opinion is unlike any other one. A lot of other platforms have come around. And they do a good job of copying platforms that are successful, like CINC but the back-end architecture, like if you were smart enough, and I'm not, but I know enough to know, if you could get in there and see the under workings and the inner workings of that platform, it wouldn't do what CINC can do. And I've seen a lot of people come and go in my market, that buy said copycat platforms, and they wonder why all the leads they get are garbage. Well, you know, number one is time on the platform. And agents under appreciate that aspect of it. But it's also the quality of what's happening behind the scenes underneath the platform. And I think that's where CINC, for me has really excelled, you know, they provide great leads. My company to this day, you know, closes, you know, in our closing multimillion dollar deals that we're getting through this platform. And some of those leads have come in maybe 12 or 18 months ago. But you know, they're coming to fruition because the platform is doing its job of holding their attention long term.

So, the user experience has got to be amazing. And it is. As a team leader, as a broker owner, the ability to build a team on the platform and be able to assign and designate leads has to be on point. It has to give you all the you know, abilities and controls that you'll need as that team leader to be able to run a team effectively. And it does that amazingly well. And it's got to be approachable. So, some of the things that CINC has done for me over the years that’s really helped my team and my company grow on this platform is provide the training component that we need. If it was up to me to train every agent that came into my world on the platform, that would be a huge task. But CINC does an amazing job of that. I mean, you guys got trainers that do live and in person meetings like Lance Simpson, who are just incredible. And every time I send my agents, you know, to go to a CINC U event and they learn. They come back fired up. They come back with a confidence of how they're going to use this tool, this platform, to achieve their goals in real estate. So, you know, for me, it's been it's been an amazing, gosh, now going on 14 - 15 years with CINC with the platform. And I'm grateful to you guys. I'm grateful for what it's done for me. And I'm grateful to be able to provide that tool to my agents that work with me.

Richard Kaiser: That's awesome, John. And I think one of the things you know, you mentioned, right, you started off, right, in much more of an individual contributor role. I know, now you you've been able to grow, even kind of outside of the business. Can you kind of speak for yourself, like just kind of what your journey looked like, and going from an individual contributor to leading a team and beyond that?

John Mikesh: Sure, yeah, I started out as a single agent, you know, trying to do enough deals to pay my bills. And, you know, I solved that problem with the help of the platform. And I got really busy and sold as many homes as I physically could sell. And then the next step for me was, well, I got to build a team, you know. First, I think, for many agents that get in the business, it's like, hey, you know, I want to make money. And we make money, and we achieve a level of financial freedom that we might otherwise never think is possible for us. But it's like new level, new devil, right? So, you get the financial freedom, and you realize, hey, I have no time freedom.

And the next step in this industry is, well, let's build a team. And maybe the team or the brokerage will give us time freedom. So, I was on that journey of time freedom, you know, using the platform to grow my team. And we were able to grow a team. And, you know, the way I grew my team was very intentional. I knew I wanted a real estate business; I didn't want a real estate job.

So, when I made the full commitment to grow a real estate team, I said, these agents are going to be successful because of what I provide, and I'm not going to have my hand in the cookie jar and steal from them. So, I made a very strategic move to grow my team in a way where I gave all the buyer opportunities away to my team - 100% of them. And that was just the decision that was made. And we honored it and stuck to it. And it was the way I did it. And then that allowed me to focus more on listings and growing the business side. And that's what I focused on. And then ultimately, we scaled the listing side to the point where I was at capacity, and I couldn't do any more on my own. And you know, we just said okay, well, what's the next step to this? What's the next iteration? And it was me bringing in a listing partner that I taught, you know, the ropes and, you know, I was able to grow the team to the next stage, which was I gave away all the buyers, and I ultimately gave away all the listings, and I focused 100% on growing and scaling the business, through marketing through strategy through accountability. And we were able to do that. And that's pretty much when I left REMAX and went independent. And we continued to grow and scale the company.

And I got to a point where, you know, I had achieved financial freedom, as I would define it. I had achieved time freedom, as best I could. But I was still kind of a prisoner to that geographic market. That's where my baby was. And I had to make a decision at that point - am I going to grow and scale my real estate company to other markets? Because I was hitting a level of penetration in my market where it wasn't just, it wasn't feasible to double in size anymore. Do I go and do it and take the on the overhead in the risk of growing my independent real estate company to other markets? Or is there another way?

And that's really when I started to consider eXp as an option for me. And ultimately, I chose to go the eXp route. I found it as a way to grow and scale more efficiently, more effectively, and with a lot less overhead and risk than I could do on my own. So, I made that decision to go into eXp in September of 2020. And at that point, you know, I had, you know, exited my business. You know, just to give you a little bit of a timeline on that. We launched our independent firm in 2014. By June of 2015, I was completely out of sales on the buyer and seller side. By 2018, we implemented the traction business model into our business, and I was completely out of the day to day. In 2019, I left North Carolina, and I traveled the country for a year and a half. So again, there's that financial freedom and there's that time freedom. But the location freedom I was still missing because I only had one location, and it was in North Carolina. So, in 2020, when I made the election to go into eXp and fold my independent brokerage into eXp, I did so with the intentionality that I was going to grow this thing and scale my expertise and my secret formula, if you will, to all the agents I worked with. And we were able to build an organization of a couple 1,000 agents within a couple short years. And that allowed me the ability and afforded me the opportunity to pass my real estate company on to somebody else. And now I spend all of my time coaching, mentoring training agents that want to experience these types of freedoms in their life as well.

That's what my hat is right here. It's three mountain peaks for a reason. It's the mountain peaks of time freedom, financial freedom, and location freedom. And, you know, when agents come to me, and they asked me, How do we grow a business? How do we, you know, how do we do this? How do we scale? You know, it's always a conversation about the vehicle that you're in. So is it your brokerage? Is it your own independent? Are you with a company like eXp? And then what is the platform that you're running that on? And what are you what is your desire to scale? You want to be in multiple markets, and you want to have, you know, hundreds or 1000s of agents, I believe eXp is the best vehicle to do that. And I believe that coupled with the CINC platform, is the way that I did it. And I only like to speak and coach and train to things that I've done, or things that I know. And therefore, that's why CINC is always my number one referred platform.

Richard Kaiser: And we talked about how much people want to scale right? The end of the game for you, right in terms of leading a team like how, how large was that team kind of when you were able to step out of the day to day from an agent size and a production standpoint?

John Mikesh: Yeah, it's a great question. So I had an independent brokerage, but I ran it as a team. And that's important to note because most brokerages are broke. You know that their margins are razor thin, they need several 100 agents in order to make any kind of margin at all, and they're usually only making that margin if they have affiliate sources of income, such as mortgage title insurance, such as that. You know, when you look at many of the major brokerages that from the outside looking in, we would say are very successful brokerages, they're losing money right now in this market shift. So, I ran my brokerage as a team, because in a team model, the margins are greater, you can provide more value to the agents, and therefore you can charge more value. So, in the model that I had, I had 15 agents. And that's kind of where I stayed. You know, if you would have said, “Hey, John, can you double in agents from 15 to 30?” The answer would have been No. There's no way I could have provided the amount of value and opportunities that I was providing to my agents and the quality and the way that I was doing it while still holding them accountable and have 30 agents. So that's why a lot of team leaders broker owners if they're listening to this, they know like, hey, I got six people, I got eight people, I got 12 people, I don't want any more. They'll tell you that they're like I'm at capacity. They can't handle anymore, because in that model, they really can't. So, in order to scale beyond that, the vehicle has to change. The model has to change. So that's when I went into eXp it gave me the ability to share with people in a way that you know, my model changed, my scalability changed, and I could scale and add hundreds of agents a month, and still provide the value that I was providing to them in that model.

Richard Kaiser: That's awesome. Um, I think one of the other things you've mentioned in, in some prior conversations that you’ve had with us is talking about this idea of, if you're, if you will agree on the front end to put the inputs in, right? If you're a new agent coming into a business, I can guarantee success from here. And I think that's something right, we hear a lot from the agent, especially newer agents to come in of like, what do I need to do to be successful? And to hear from somebody, Hey, you actually have some control over that. I'm curious if you could speak to a little bit more of kind of your philosophy and experience with that, and how CINC right, for a team or brokerage, right, trying to set up a system like that, how CINC can help with that?

John Mikesh: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, I built my business on marketing, and USPs. So USP being unique selling proposition. So, whenever I approach anything, I'm like, What's the most wild USP I can make. And for years, and years and years, when I ran my real estate company, it was, hey, if you come into my world, and you're a new agent, and I don't care, if you've ever sold the house, or you got your license last week. It doesn't matter to me. If you come into my world, I'll guarantee that you make six figures a year, or I'll pay you the difference. And I ran that guarantee my market forever.

Now, you know, let's be honest, six figures today isn't what six figures was 10 years ago, you know, my average sale price back then in my market was $230,000. Now, it's more than doubled that. So, times change, the guarantees need to change with it. But for years, that was a very compelling guarantee. Because I could, I could put that guarantee out, and I could get the attention of a teacher, who in my market in the Charlotte area might have been making $35,000 a year salary, creating full time for that amount of income. And here it is the summer, and they see that and they're like, man, I could get my real estate license over the summer, this guy is going to guarantee me six figures. How is that possible? The reason it's possible is because a platform like CINC gave me the visibility into the sales conversion cycle. So, when you have years and years and years of sales conversion cycle data, you know that it's like you say it's inputs, and it's, it's what you get out of it. I track seven things religiously. I track specifically:

1. How many new conversations do you have?
2. How many of those conversations did you connect with?
3. How many appointments did you set?
4. How many of those appointments did they show up?
5. How many agency agreements did you get signed?
6. How many of follow up attempts did you have with people that you've already met with or spoken to?
7. How many new contracts did you have?

And by tracking seven things, seven things that all lead to another thing, not seven random things. Like, Hey, open houses are great. And there's a whole model for growing your business on that. But that wasn't something I tracked because it wasn't part of my sales conversion cycle. So, I tracked seven things that if I was talking to you, Richard, and you came to me, instead of having a conversation like our industry has every day, that's a complete waste of time that goes like, “Hey, Richard, how's it going? And tell me what's tell me what's working and what's not.” You're going to tell me anything you feel like telling me that day, but that's a waste of both of our times. Instead, I would sit down with my agents, and I'd say, “Hey, Richard, you know, I appreciate you carving out 15 minutes to have coffee with me here today. What I'd like to do is I'd like to review your numbers over the last month.” And when we pull up the CINC platform, we can see what that sales conversion cycle looks like, and we can see what your inputs were. And I can say, “Okay, it looks like you're having the conversations here, Richard.” Because we would only count the conversations if they went through the platform. So, you got to, you know, make people use a tool that's going to give you the data that you need to help them. And then I would say, “Richard, you're having the conversations. You're having the appointments, but for some reason you're not getting agency with these people, you're not moving them along the cycle. Tell me, what are you saying to them in that appointment?” And what we might find out, Richard, is that you're not asking for agency, or you know, you're you are, but the way you're asking isn't getting the result. And what I was able to do in a very short period of time, is drill down to exactly what the hole in that agent’s boat was, so that I can help them plug it, and then we could set some new goals between that meeting and the next meeting, to course correct our behavior. And low and behold, what I was able to do is I was able to get agents into success very quickly. Because everybody comes into the industry without any prior experience, and they have an opinion, or they have a thought process of what they think success looks like. But far too often, their thought process with no experience is incorrect. I know exactly what it takes to be successful as an agent. I've done it, and I've shown a lot of other people how to do it and I can show you how to do it too. So, when they would succumb to the process, I can help them get the result. And if they didn't do the work, i.e., make the call was the new contact attempts than the guarantee was off the table Because they didn't do their part. But if they did their part, I could get I could guarantee them the other end of that.

Agents come to me for a variety of reasons now, just because of my time in the industry and my experience. So, you know, I might get a new agent, you know, like, we just had a new agent sign up this week. And she's like, Hey, I'm coming into the Charlotte area. And I'm going to be an agent, and I need help. And it's like, great, you're starting at step one. We're going to help you. I'm going to plug you into a team environment, just like the one I used to run. Because I know that that environment is going to be the biggest precursor to your success. Then I get the calls from the broker owners who are like, man, I've been doing this my own way. I've been an independent. I've been trying to provide everything to my agents, and I'm exhausted, you know, how can you help me? And then we plug him into our system in our support group and our network. And when they show them how we can take their brand and our platform and put those two together, and we can do much more together than they can on their own. So, it just really depends on where they're at. I would say that the pain points vary, whether they're a new agent, a single agent, a team leader, or a broker owner. And the good thing is I've been through all of those pain points at all those different levels. And I feel like I'm well equipped with, you know, the CINC platform behind me to solve the challenges that they have.

Yeah, control the controllables. Focus on the KPIs. Too many agents are doing too many different things. They need to focus. So the average agent is doing 10 things when they should only be doing two things. And if they do those 2 things 10 times as deep as the way they're doing it, they'll get 10 times the results. But right now, they're getting fractional results. They don't know what's working and what's not because they're doing too many.