946: How to Build and Sell a Real Estate Business in 5 Years with Jay Bourgana

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Real Estate Rockstars is Aaron Amuchastegui. Today I get an interview Jay, we’re gonna I think you guys are gonna really like hearing about this. You know, one of our questions, we say, you know, if you were on stage, what would you talk about, and his big thing would be how to build a profitable real estate business and sell it. In five years or less. We’re going to talk about how Jay did that bought and sold the business and some of the things he’s working on now and maybe how he can help you. If you guys are interested in that. Jay was born and raised in Morocco. He lives in Orange County, California with his wife and his two children, the and he is recovering management consultant turn business owner, I can’t wait to talk about that and how he got there, and how he grew his real estate brand. So Jay, thanks for joining me.

Jay Bourgana 

Thank you for having me here. And by the way, before, before we get started, I want to give you a shout out on a great book, you know, I’m halfway through it. Right in it, and I’m enjoying it. Maybe we can you know, get together and maybe have a tribe around buying foreclosures when they become available.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yes, I’d love to be able to take you out Jay was holding up our book bit bidding to buy. So it was a new one released by bigger pockets just a month ago. And yeah, right now foreclosures are on such a crazy moratorium that they’ve been almost totally on hold. And the but you know, come January, we think it’s going to be turned back on. But there’s also talking the stimulus, they’re going to postpone foreclosures a whole additional year. So we’ll see what happens with that. But thanks for the shout out the book I love seeing you’ve got so many books behind you. So the if our book made it on that list with me and David Osborne wrote that book, I’m happy to see it. So

Jay Bourgana 

I enjoy. I’m enjoying a lot of notes. So I’m looking forward to putting it in practice. And sure.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

That’s awesome. So, you so one of the things you talked about is you were in a recovery management consultant business. Yeah, what what is recovery management? So the What were you doing before you were in real estate.

Jay Bourgana 

So So I said, I’m originally from Morocco, I started my career in banking, early, early age, I enjoyed working with consumer, but I also enjoyed more working with entrepreneurs and helping entrepreneurs get loans and get facilities and doing stuff I work in Morocco, I worked in Europe, and I get to see kind of like, you know, the early 90s there’s not there’s not a ton of opportunities, there’s the the world economy was in a recession and high unemployment rates. So I kind of saw like the the impact of the environment economic environment on on small businesses. So when I came to the US, I wanted to, you know, get away from banking. And I went into manufacturing and I spent about five years with a company three years of those five in China, were essentially reorganized a million square foot facility that produced home decor products, food products, health and beauty products, 3000 employees, 24, seven operation, and, and then we, you know, we kind of like got hit by 2007. And that business kind of like, got shut down. And I went into essentially helping businesses in a, in a consultant way into reorganizing their operation to become more profitable. So I was, you know, traveling across the country and across the world into different industries, whether it is manufacturing or distribution or service industries, in turning their operation from, you know, losing money operation to making money operation from a bad culture to a good culture. And, and I enjoyed that part, you know, until I got kind of like, tired of traveling and spending a year a hotel, next to a warehouse. And so I went into essentially, I took a year off and start buying some properties around 2012. And I enjoyed that process of, you know, creating value in real estate, and seeing home property values go up, I was intrigued by the real estate process. And I said, Okay, I’m gonna get into sales to kind of learn a little bit more. And during that time, I met my wife and we got married and had my first child on the way and real estate became serious for me and all sudden he turns from something that I was interested in into, you know, a career. And so that’s the kind of like the recovery from being a consultant, a business management consultant to become an entrepreneur and we started you know, started in sales like any other you know, a new agent, hit the phone, call cold call around the neighborhoods and setting the point. Take listings. And but I was thinking about it from a different perspective, a different angle where I didn’t want to just create a job for myself, I wanted to build a business. So I was, as I was looking around in a real estate space, I figured that most companies more real estate companies were more like a multi level marketing operations, where they would just recruit as many bodies as they can, and whoever succeeds, succeeds, and whoever fails, fails, and I didn’t, I wanted to change that, you know, as you know, as I’m seeing the, the demographics of the big consumer of the home buyer and the seller is changing. And the demographics of the population of agents still averaging about 55 years old. There’s a big gap between what’s going on, you know, from a consumer standpoint, and what the industry is delivering as a as an agent. And so I kind of like I wrote the whole internet lead generation, you know, wave and, you know, kind of the the millennial buyer wave. And essentially, we built a brand, we built a company that is systemized and standardized to deliver a certain experience to that niche, essentially, like they say, you know, riches are niches.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah. So the, so let’s dig into that first year. So you said so you did all this stuff as an agent. You started What, what? And how long ago? Was that?

Jay Bourgana 

Around 2013

Aaron Amuchastegui 

as a 2013, you decided to become an agent. Yeah. And then where’d you go to work first?

Jay Bourgana 

century 21. Office. Alright, century 21. And

Aaron Amuchastegui 

where was that?

Jay Bourgana 

That was an Irvine. Excellent. Alright, so

Aaron Amuchastegui 

in Irvine, you enjoy the century 21. Office, you said I want to get into real estate. I’ve been traveling and I’m ready to not how do I get started? And so you said you went in and you start doing the normal sales stuff. But you had a long term plan and vision. But what was that normal sales stuff? How did you get your first listing? Or your first buyer agent? Did you do more listings or more buyer agent stuff?

Jay Bourgana 

That’s a great, that’s a great question. So I joined a we call a mike ferry office, essentially, they had to literally list us a stack of phone numbers, they’re sitting on the side, they have a stack of scripts on the other side. And it showed me where the phone was. And essentially, I was literally, you know, dialing into the phone. And I had the script in front of me. And I had the mike ferry script in front of me and had the list of home phone numbers in front of me, and I just did it for you know, probably 1218 months, 10 hours a day, six days a week.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So they said, here’s the numbers, you’re gonna call and here’s what you’re gonna say. And, and so then it was just up to you. And so you said 10 hours a day, you are making those calls and just going for it. So the which is a pretty incredible way to start. What did they tell you where they got those leads, or where those phone numbers came from?

Jay Bourgana 

Oh, they’re essentially just a list just a home phone numbers. You know, they’re all home phone numbers. Most of people picked up or old people that still had home phone numbers. And that’s all I did for about, you know, 18 months. So they didn’t even

Aaron Amuchastegui 

know who the people were. It was. It was totally cold. This person has a phone in their house. Yeah. So what what was the call? What was that? What was

Jay Bourgana 

this? You know, Hi, this is Jay with century 21. We just list a home down the street on 123 Main Street at a three bedroom, two bath and it’s $700,000. And I was calling to see if you know anyone who’s thinking about buying? No, fantastic. And this is the mike ferry script. And I mean, I’m glad you know, thank you for thinking about it. How about yourself when you plan on moving, and you go through the whole script?

Aaron Amuchastegui 

And the and so how long before you got a deal? So you were calling like crazy? Yeah. And you and so you jumped right in? They said, Here’s your script. Here’s your numbers, how long before you actually start getting deals?

Jay Bourgana 

And it took me about six months to close my first deal.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

That is, that’s a very common story. Like, I mean, I just finished interviewing somebody had like 30 deals their first year, which That’s fantastic. And some of you guys out there listening you are going to have that year and there’s so much possible. It’s also very important for people to realize and remember Jay like sold his company for a ton of money too. So when we think about if you’re in this business and you’re working 1012 hours a day calling, it might take six months to get that first deal. So what was that first deal? Do you remember it?

Jay Bourgana 

Yeah, it was actually a short sale. Okay, it was a family. Yeah, I called this family on a Friday and I remember the lady was super sweet. And she asked she I told her she was thinking about selling she says I don’t even know if we can sell we really want to sell but our own think our values there. And I asked her more questions and I said a five I asked her to set an appointment with her and her husband. I called her three or four times the next day on the Saturday morning she said the appointment and I’m like, I think we set it up the next day on the Sunday morning I went to their house and I explained what the short sale process was didn’t understand. They actually it was funny. They felt so bad that they that they didn’t they they were not making their payments on their mortgage and there really took that as like a personal thing in terms of like not being able to make their payments on their debt. And it was stressing them out so much that they felt so much relief after I left their house. Within a gig, I gave them what the process was to relieve them from that burden of that stress, and show them a path to kind of like getting from under that house and moving on with their life.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

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Aaron Amuchastegui 

Jay, this is super inspirational to tell people like how to how to work hard and keep going no matter what and not to get discouraged. Because your first deal that you got. That was also a hard deal. Right? Your first deal that you came was like doing a short sale and you hadn’t you obviously hadn’t done a short sale. Like you haven’t done any deals. So that was a very specialized like crazy niche. So to be able to not give up, they said, Hey, I would like to sell but I don’t know if I have the value. I could see a bunch of agents moving on to the next one and going okay, you’re right, you don’t have the value. I don’t know what I’m doing. And instead you’re like, I’m gonna give it a try. So the so took you six months for the first deal. How many other deals? Did you do that first year? About

Jay Bourgana 

10? About 10 transactions that first year.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Okay, so then it started to you know, started to roll you started to get more of those people calling back and saying, okay, Jay, I’m ready to buy, I’m ready to sell most of the people that first year, were they selling their houses? Or were they buying houses?

Jay Bourgana 

Selling? Actually my first year all were transactions were listings, I didn’t even know how to work with buyers.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

That’s incredible. You know, there are a lot of buyers that are there a lot of new agents that are kind of whether they like it or not, they become buyer’s agents, because that tends to be the lead for new agents. But you’ve actually said no, by just taking a list of home phone numbers, you’re able to become a listing agent your first year just from cold calling. Really cool. You know it Yeah, listeners, if there’s any of you guys out there that really want to be a listing agent, like you should listen to some of the stuff that Jay is talking about here. And also not to get discouraged. It is hard to work hard doing the same thing for six months before you see any payoff for it, it is hard to see what might be there. If you were going to give yourself any advice for that first year. If you could go back and talk to yourself five or six months in what advice would you tell yourself about your business? And that’s

Jay Bourgana 

a good question. I would I would probably just be more patient, be more patient, seek out more mentors. And but I you know, Matt, and I wouldn’t change anything from my experience because, you know, just going back to what you said is just been doing all listings. My first year. The reason why I was doing all listings my first year is because my brokers wouldn’t allow me to do to work buyers. And I just took him for his word. He says like you are not allowed to work with buyers in that office. And all you were allowed to work was listings. I didn’t even know how to use the MLS to create a safe search. Like I didn’t have, you know, an IDS website. I had no idea what I was, you know, all I all I did was follow what they told me to do. And I just went you know, full force maximum, you know, focus, and I just did not question anything. So it’s it’s, it’s a fascinating start for me for sure. Yeah.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So the so now let’s dig into So you said when you started, you know a lot of the real estate companies out there are like MLM schemes where they just you feel like they just tried to hire a bunch of agents without caring you were gonna do it different. So the was that the did you stay with century 21? When you because you’re because you so then when did you make a transition to go start to build your own team that then you went off and sold

Jay Bourgana 

probably about 18 months into my first year. So what happened was that I, essentially that first 18 months, I just I was grinding through it again, 10 hours a day, seven days a week, I was grinding through the whole thing. And I know my wife is, you know, we had our first child, and probably about 18 months in 18 months into I burned out. And so I changed offices, but during that time, I needed to get away, I needed to kind of like go travel, do something. And I found I found a local independent, and I found like an assistant manager within the Office those knowledgeable, nice, and I could trust with my transactions, and then literally hand them about six, seven transactions. And I told them, Hey, can you please take these helped me with these, I’ll split with you 5050, I’m going to go on, on I went, I went to Paris for for a month. And I just gave him my phone, my phone and I gave my transaction I left. And I figured Okay, half of the transaction is going to close the other half are not going to close. I’ll deal with it. When I come back. And I you know, I just you know, I just knew that the guy was gonna do right by my clients is a good guy. And he’s gonna take care of my clients. When I came back he does, he did such an amazing job that, you know, my clients were happy, all the transactions close, even the ones that I didn’t think will close. And and I thought to myself, maybe I’m ready to go to the next stage where I can leverage some of that activity and volume that I did. And I can start hiring you know, buyer’s agents.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Alright, so then you started to grow, and the and so tell us, but the story is pretty incredible. So you started that within four years it was it within four years of starting the new thing that then you got it and sold it and what was that process? Like and how much did you sell was? Just tell

us? Yeah, I

Aaron Amuchastegui 

guess that process?

Jay Bourgana 

So yeah, so we went in. So once we decided to start growing, so we went like I went from 10 transactions my first year to 30, my second year to about 90 the third year to about 120. The following year. And you’re doing that with a team when you were doing 120 I’m sorry, 180 180 that that that for you? Yeah, so I had a team so buyer’s agents, and I started, you know, turning some of the buyer’s agents to listing agents. And I had a marketing manager and an operations manager. So we were systemized, we had our own office were their own brand. We, we like everybody had the same email address. Everybody had the same email signature, everybody had, you know, our T shirts, our logo, everything was like, you know, branded standarized. You know, we had the way of do we did the first conversation with the client, we had the way we did the first presentation to the client, we had our booklets that we give a buyer or a seller with our own PowerPoint presentation. Everything was systemized and it was consistent. You know, it was like the Starbucks experience, you would have the same drink and any store anywhere you go. And so that last year, that fourth year, we were actually removed to Keller Williams because we were in a transaction, transaction fee model. And the transaction fee with the number of transactions became too high. So Keller Williams became attractive because of the cap. So we moved to Keller Williams, but we our own, we had our own office. So we were kind of like a mega agent office within Keller Williams that year. And it and I started thinking about, like, around the end of the year I, we were growing fast. And when you’re in the growing business, there’s a lot of capital that is needed to keep up with keep up with that grow. You know, you’re you’re, you know, you’re doing more marketing in your office space is bigger, you have more people, you gotta hire assistants, you have more bigger systems. So we’re starting, we’re still growing 40 50% year over year, but our you know, capital needs have grown. So start thinking about finding investors, maybe raising money, and I started just literally just talking to people and nothing came out of that really about it essentially put the energy out in the universe that you know, I was kind of ready for that next step. And it’s just so it happened that we randomly I randomly got a cold email from a big independent a $6 billion, you know, independent that’s local in Orange County was a cold email to do a deal. We’re trying to grow through acquisition. And they thought we were associated independent brokerage because we were kind of branded separate. So they thought we were independent. They see this our volume is our branch volume. And they reached out to us and I and I literally spam I sent that email Bam, so I didn’t think of it. And then I got curious about 15 minutes later, I went back to the spam inbox and then brought it back. And I clicked on it, and I sent an email, you know, tell me more. And I got a call the next day, and I spoke to the guy, the guy came to our office, we talked for two hours, we just liked each other, we really enjoyed our conversation about the industry and the business. And then he figured that we were not a brokers, we were a team, but he were interested in the model, because we were the way we were structured, we were structured better than broker independent brokers, most of the production, you know, was not coming from me, you know, 10% of the production was coming for me 90% of production coming from the team. So it was a very attractive, you know, kind of model for them. And we started the conversation from there, it was like around March, and then literally, we closed in July.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So the so he said, Hey, we want to buy into your company. Yeah, but it wasn’t, but he was like actually buying into ownership in the team. And then so then you sold a major stake in your team, the N word. And so how did you value that? So the when it comes up with with valuations, and they go, you come up with $1 volume? What is the team worth? How does someone decide what a team is worth?

Jay Bourgana 

That’s great question. So that was also something unique for us. But in general, teams are valued at between two and a half and three and three times. EBITDA, earnings before taxes, depreciation and amortization. And, essentially, so whatever that net profit at the end of time, you know, remove all your expenses, your personal expenses are your shoving into that, you know, that those filings, that times two and a half, between two and a half and three, and that the difference between two and a half and three is based on the risk in the business, you know, if the team has, you know, 50% of the business coming from the team leader, then it’s a little bit more risk, because if you bind the business and the team leader leaves, you lose half the business, if the team is structured in a way that is sticky, where the agents have to stay with the team or have a, you know, stickiness to the team or to the business, there’s less risk than if they’re essentially just hanging their license with an office. So there are a lot of different variations. So what that multiple ends up being, but that’s usually the formula.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Alright, so the, so the risk is based on Yeah, so if you’d no one wants to buy a company, and then Jay retires, and they find out that Jay was half the value. Right? And you go, No, you just gave me You just paid me I don’t have to do anything. I can quit now if I want to. And so I know I’m sure there’s some agreements and stuff in there. So two and a half times three, and when you’re talking about eba, right, so if you have, you know, 5 million in gross commissions that comes in, yeah, and then you have 3 million that goes out to you know, your agents, and then a million into your lease, right? Yeah, that’s, that’s your million dollars. Like, those are the expenses, right? The expenses are what are you paying the agents for doing the volume? And costs, they have office costs? If it ends up that you’re a million bucks left after everything, then you could you could potentially sell your team for two and a half to 3 million bucks, you know? Correct. Right? So then they’re gonna make that million a year instead of you making it but you get to sell for that. Very cool. And it makes Yeah, it makes sense. You’re talking about a bunch of different valuations for businesses that are out there, like software companies are like six to 10, and things like that, which is kind of crazy. I’ve heard of real estate books on only being worth like, one times revenue, right? Because if somebody is like getting ready to retire, and they’re not a good and you know, and it’s just them, right? If it’s just a person with a brand says, Hey, I want to retire, I’ll pass off all my clients to you. People essentially say, well, we’ll buy it for one times gross commissions, because we don’t really know if people are going to keep us but when it’s so much about a person, when it’s about a team and a system and the way that you guys are generating new leads, that’s how it gets to be there. So you talked to Curtis before, when we needed your pre interview? Yeah, like, kind of steps on how to build a business to sell the, you know, talking about some of those. So if somebody’s listening right now, and they’re getting ready to start their team, or they have their team, but now they’re thinking about, well, I never thought I could sell off my team or a portion of it, right? Like you didn’t sell 100% of your team did

Jay Bourgana 

yeah, I sold 70%

Aaron Amuchastegui 

right. So you sold 70% like, talk about getting off the table, you took a big paycheck, you still get 30% of that, you know, EBIT. Uh, but now 70% go into somebody else, and that probably helps you grow or do whatever else you want here. So what are the steps of how to build a business to sell?

Jay Bourgana 

Yeah, so whether you want it so let me take a step back. So whether you want to sell or not, I think it’s a good process to go through. Because, you know, they’re there. Their books have been written, Built to Sell built, alas, I think if you design your business to sell, you will last. So the same practice the same foundation that you’re going to build, to sell that business is going to make that business sustainable, and it’s going to make that business You know, growing healthy business. So it has to start with essentially the intention, you have to be intentional about, you know, essentially building a business to sell or to last. So, in, you know, the way you want to think about it is how do you build essentially a business in a box with that you can hand someone, whether you’re there or not, if you get hit by a bus, that business is still growing, and it’s still, you know, thriving. And not only you’re building that business for someone else, making build it for your, you know, family, you build it for your team, build it for the people that trusted, you know, to join you. So essentially, my intention is to show you how to design a business from the beginning. That way, so it starts with, you know, systems, it starts with, you know, having a vision of what you want your consumer or your buyers and sellers to experience. And then, and then mapping that, that experience based on your style based on your brand. And then mapping that experience for your agents or your employees. And then having a process without having the process for client acquisition, having a process for client retention, and having process for agent acquisition, and agent retention. And, you know, Peter Drucker says that the only reason to, for business to exist is to acquire customers and to keep them. And I would say, I would say yes, but also to acquire talent and to keep it because one of the ways to cooperate to to keep the customers to have great people, amazing people, well trained people motivated people. So and then essentially, once you have those systems and processes for your acquisition and retention of clients acquisition and retention of agents, now you have to build a culture within your organization that’s going to seal those processes, and then, you know, safeguard that, that tribal wisdom, and keep it within, you know, the organization, so you’re not leaking, you know, you see, these teams are just like, you know, a turnover machines, people coming in people leaving people come in, so you’re trying to create, you know, essentially a culture that’s going to be sticky for agents. And and essentially, you align your culture, your team culture with your brand. Now, when the consumer is senior brand, and they meet your agents, the agent to represent that brand, the agent speaks, the brand breeds the brand. And I think that’s when you have that magic, where you have something that’s, you know, that’s in the box that can not only can be sold, but also can last, you know, for a long time.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

That’s awesome. So you start with, that’s kind of like that the mindset of the brand. Who are we? And how are we doing that? Then you really dive that into building the processes and the standardization to go in this? Well, you learn that at your very first job. They said, here’s a phone number. And here’s what you’re going to say, right? Yes. And so that was the process that was the standardized process, like Jason sit down here to call these numbers every day. And here’s your script. So you took what you did your first day, and you kind of said, Well, maybe, but now you’ve learned stuff, right? You’ve been doing it, let’s say you started to add extra things to your standardization. So now you’ve got that structure to build to keep that thing. Now, Curtis said that you talked to him earlier, you said that hiring is so important than what you do. And you there’s a certain type of agent that you like to hire and that you were focusing on hiring talk about that a little bit.

Jay Bourgana 

Yeah, so there are three criteria that we’re looking for. We look for intelligence, we look for high ethics, and we look for hot, you know, work, you know, work habits, you know, so we want people that are smart people that are gonna, you know, they’re gonna grind, and they’re gonna, they’re gonna take care of the clients, they’re not gonna screw our clients. So essentially, that those are three elements that were recruited for, you know, obviously, you can interview person, you could tell their intelligence from the conversations you’re having with them, you could tell a little bit about their work out a little bit. I know from their history, you, you know, but you really can’t tell if they’re ethical people, and they’re going to make the right decision, the right thing by the client, you know, right there. And then unless you experience them, but that’s essentially another stage that we see when they come into our environment. So especially whenever we are interviewing, we’re essentially screening for that first half. And then that first month or so we’re seeing the work ethic in front of us. And then maybe that first, you know, the second two months, we’re seeing their, you know, behavior, they’re doing the right things with our team members are doing the right thing with RNs. Essentially, those are essentially kind of like checkpoints for us when, when people come into our world is that we interview a couple times up front, you know, and then we observe that first 30 days, and then we lose probably some people that first 30 days and then that 90 day, and then if they pass the 90 day, they usually stay with us for three, four or five years.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So do you prefer new agents or seasoned agents when you’re doing that?

Jay Bourgana 

We prefer new agents, agents that have been in the business maybe like less than two years. A year and a half, that’s usually too They tend to not have bad habits. And oh, they haven’t established a bad work routines, because that’s one of the things that, you know, when people come to our world, they bring everything with us with them. So they don’t just, you know, they don’t just come as a body from A to, you know, to five, they actually bring their, their work their, their, their sleeping habits, their diet habits, their relationship habits, their financial, you know, habits, and essentially, they bring all that stuff with them. And we essentially have to help them and guide them in that transformation, when they go into when they come into our world to start with their work habits first, and then kind of, you know, make them understand that, hey, in order for you to sustain this high level of activity, you got to take care of your health, you got to take care of your sleep, your, you know, water, your, your relationships, you gotta take care of your financials, you can’t be you know, always, you know, in debt and stressed out about it. And so all these things kind of like start, we start building, it’s almost like, we’re in that kind of like a human transformation business, you know, we’re just not I mean, that’s like

Aaron Amuchastegui 

that whole life millionaire talk, right, you’re like, we’re not just going to help you succeed at this. But you’ve got to, you got to succeed at life, and giving the tools to succeed in life, there’s got to be some advantage to to agents go and you first say new agents, but that’s it agents within their first year or two, they also know by then that it’s not necessarily easy money, right? That they’re not going to get you to the liking. So you didn’t get your first deal. For six months, I’ve met a lot of people a few months into real estate, that haven’t gotten a deal yet. And they go, this sucks, I quit, right? Like, I’m just not gonna do it anymore. But if you got some it’s been around for a year or two, they’ve at least experienced a little bit of expectation, right? The expectation that says, hey, I’m, they’re coming to you, because they haven’t quite performed at their level yet. But they also know that it’s not going to be easy, and they’re ready to, to grow. So Alright, so you get this, you come up with your brand and your culture, you come up with your systems, your how to you make it really, really specific, this is how we do it, you start hiring new talent, you teach them your system, you helped grow them as people, and now your business starts to grow, and your team starts to grow. And you’re helping them you know, get deals through the systems. How do you know when you’re ready to sell? Like, how did you like you started saying, Hey, I think we can sell if somebody else has grown a team, and they’re thinking about selling, or they’re listening right now. And they’re like, Hey, I’m gonna go do that, I’m gonna go do that right now, at what moment is a good time for somebody to sell? Because part of me would say, Well, if it’s going to keep growing, just keep getting your team revenue. Why? So I guess why sell? Why would someone sell? And how do they know if it’s a good time to sell?

Jay Bourgana 

That’s, that’s a such a great question. For me, selling was not was not to exit. For me selling was to find essentially a partner to grow it, you know, it’s almost like, you know, you’ve been growing, growing, growing, growing, and you want to get to a point where you just take a break, just take a breather, because you know, you’re, you’re in this roller coaster, and you’re managing, you know, all this growth, and you managing the challenges of cash flow, that you just sometimes just want to break and you want to find, you know, a partner that’s going to help you get to the next level. And for me, like I was selling it, the question at first was like, how can we help to finance the growth? How can we get a, you know, some level of partnership to buy, so my goal was not to exit. But there are people that, you know, that may or may need, may need to exit because of, you know, held or because of, you know, family situation or because of financial situation. But in general, most of the teams are like fast growing teams, what they need, they need that partner that’s going to get them to the next level. And you know, they get to the, maybe they hit a million, or they hit $2 million in GCI, and now they want to hit that 5 million. And that’s a big leap to be able, you know, you probably don’t have the systems you don’t have the processes. A lot of teams that I see, they’ve grown, maybe two, 3 million GCI, but 50% is 60% of the production is coming from them. And they’ve never been able to transition to a place where 90 to 90% of productions come from their team. And that comes from, you know, like the structure of the team, the training, the coaching, the, the the way that physicians, you know, their, their, their team structure. So, so having a partner to come in and help them reset, essentially, and essentially, it’s almost like a, you know, consultant to come and look at their business and restructure it in a way that’s going to allow it to grow from that 2 million, 1 million GCI. 2 million 3 million GCI to that 510 million GCI.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So the maybe and that’s probably part of why you sell part of it, right? So correctly, saying like, hey, it’s not just like, you grew it, you sell it, and you’re done. You’re gonna Sell it based on, you’re gonna get some money for what you’ve done so far correct. And now you’re going to get a partner that says, so let’s say you sell for, you know, 70% for a million dollars today, yeah, the The hope is that within a year or two, and now you still own 20 or 30% of your business, that they’re gonna help you grow it so big that in another couple years, you could sell it for another couple million dollars. Exactly. So you’re not just selling it to people, you’re selling it to people that are going to help you grow your business, the I hadn’t thought about it like that it’s like a selling in to a partnership. Well, that is any other like big advice you would give somebody when they’re talking about real estate in 2020 are things to focus on or just how to succeed as an agent?

Jay Bourgana 

Well, I think there’s a big shift right now and in the demographics of the clients that we work with. And there’s definitely multiple shifts in terms of like the systems that technologies and the way we do our business. So you definitely want to pay attention to those elements, you definitely want to position your offering your service offering, however it is whether you’re a single agent, or small team or big team, you want to, you know, you want to frame your offering to that target consumer in and communicate with them in the way they want to be communicated to and service them in a way they want to be a service and COVID has exposed all that, you know, I mean, in the real estate right now 50% of the agents are doing really well. 50%, you know, are just, you know, struggling. And, and that, you know that gap is is essentially the between old world and new world. And it’s just like the retailer, the the brick and mortar retailer is struggling right now the online retailers are doing really well, the agents who have taken technology as a base for them to do business and dug deep into understanding how the new clients or the consumers behavior, new consumer behavior has changed, have been successful. And we’re able to take advantage of this, you know, of this situation we grew this year. And I mean, this last 12 months where she grew about 40% our business has grown, even though our market has shrunk about 10%, you know, the number of transactions close has been down 10% in our market by our business and our team has grown about 40%. And just just because we’re positioned more like, you know, Amazon, and less like, you know, you know, a Bed Bath and Beyond or, or a big lots. Yeah, Jay, this

Aaron Amuchastegui 

is a really inspirational interview out there for people to show him how to work hard to grow something and then also some really actionable tips for what to think about when they’re growing, if that’s what they want to do. If someone if someone wants to reach out to you the as we as we close out the show, there’s always messages and people saying, hey, how do I get ahold of that guy? So if somebody wants advice on how to sell their business, or they want advice on how to buy a business, or what they should do on their team, or they want your help, what’s the best way for them to get a hold of you? And do you want them to get a hold of you?

Jay Bourgana 

Yeah, absolutely. You know, if they if they’re thinking about growing their business or selling or maybe you know, just restructure and happy to help my phone number is 562384894 I think it’s showing on the screen maybe. And my email is Jay at home early.com home early with Winnie. So j at home early.com

Aaron Amuchastegui 

j at home early.com H o m e ARLY. We will have that in the show notes as well, the and he just gave you his phone number. Jay, thanks for coming on. And any all you listeners out there, I hope that you really took what Jay said and you listen and you took some notes. Hopefully you get excited about making some of those phone calls if you need to, or growing that team or hiring or creating that culture. So much important stuff in there. And he means that when he says you know, reach out, and he will help you with that. So Real Estate Rockstars Thank you for listening. Jay Morgana, thank you for joining me.

Jay Bourgana 

Thank you for having me, Aaron.