Spyglass Realty has seen massive growth since it set up shop in Austin, Texas. They’ve doubled their agent count and their sales volume three years in a row. Ryan Rodenbeck, the CEO of Spyglass Realty, joins us today to share how they did it. In addition to hiring and training, Ryan covers his systems for scaling and the tools that helped make it possible. We also discuss what listing agents can do to set their sellers up for success in a shifting real estate market.
Listen to today’s show and learn:
- About Spyglass Realty [1:43]
- Why Ryan doesn’t hire part-time agents or new agents [2:27]
- Real estate teams versus brokerages [3:52]
- Core values and culture [5:33]
- Choosing culture over cash [8:08]
- Evaluating potential hires by what they post on social media [11:00]
- The Austin real estate market [13:34]
- Finding the right price point [17:39]
- How to open sellers up to the idea of price reduction [18:27]
- What Ryan learned in the last market shift [24:27]
- Ryan’s favorite real estate technology [27:12]
- One of the most efficient ways to train your real estate agents at scale [31:18]
- An important lesson on hiring and firing [31:49]
- EOS: The operating system for running a business [32:10]
- A great book for real estate business owners [36:54]
- Advice for agents who want to thrive through any market [38:23]
- How to develop strong work ethic in your agents [42:14]
- Ryan’s advice for new real estate agents [44:02]
Ryan Rodenbeck
Ryan is the owner/broker of Spyglass Realty and started his career in Austin real estate as an investor in 2001, buying investment properties and using them for passive rental income. He received his real estate license in 2004. In 2008 he started Spyglass Realty with his wife, Angél Rodenbeck. His focus was on building a team of highly trained Austin real estate agents whose focus was on real estate consultation rather than just sales. Ryan saw a gap in the market when it comes to average real estate agents as opposed to top producing agents who take up to 20% of the sales in any given area. He set out to study the best real estate agents in Austin and around the nation, traveling to conferences and seeking out relationships with top producers. He hired coaches and consultants and documented the best practices of high performing agents across the country. He looked in different markets and found what top producers were doing to make their listings to sell for more money and in less time and began to adopt techniques for marketing homes that are above and beyond putting a listing on MLS and taking a photo with a camera phone. He is a student and teacher of digital and social media marketing and uses these techniques to ensure that each listing in his firm is marketed to the largest possible audience for his agent’s clients. Keeping up with the latest digital and social media trends is of utmost importance to Ryan. In addition, Ryan studied negotiation techniques to ensure that he and his agents were properly trained in the art of collaborative negotiations, which involves studying the goals for each party and diplomatically using those goals to ensure that the client’s needs are being represented properly. His goal is to hire only agents with the most experience or the most potential and so all of the realtors at Spyglass Realty are vetted, and ongoing training is constantly occurring at this real estate brokerage. Ryan has served on the board of directors at Austin Board of Realtors as well as several committees, he teaches social media classes at ABoR and is a contributing writer for Inman Magazine where he has a monthly column.
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