9 - Interview With an Agent: Removing Limiting Beliefs
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Joe Rodriguez
Hello. My name is Joe Rodriguez and you're listening to Get the Money Right with Todd Bitzer. Todd, his decades of experience and giving real estate agents the training and resources they need to get their finances on track. In this episode, Ty will be interviewing, reinstall and operating principle for several Keller Williams market centers and overall fantastic agent. Maureen will be discussing her journey and how removing limiting beliefs can make your growth exponential. And now here's Todd.
Todd Butzer
Thanks, Joe, and welcome to Episode nine. Everybody, I'm really excited about this podcast today. You're going to meet this terrifically gifted woman here in just a few seconds. So Maureen is a is a gifted family woman, a highly accomplished businesswoman and just all around a very, very cool individual. And I am proud to call her a good friend of mine and a great colleague. So we're so excited that you could join us. So, Maureen, thanks for joining the podcast today.
Maureen Stalle
Thanks for having me!
Todd Butzer
We're excited about this. So let's start with this Maureen letter. Let our listeners know kind of what you've got going on in business right now. Tell us about that.
Maureen Stalle
Sure. We have a couple of market centers, specifically, I hope three market centers, the operating principle of three market centers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, investor in a fourth market center and oversee and consultant the fifth. We also have I run a team of 13 people on my sales team. We do about 110 million last year we did about 1 million last year and project to do we're we're on pace to exceed that just by a little bit even though the year's a little bit rough.
Todd Butzer
Wow. So I'm smiling to myself, Maureen, because last time you and I talked kind of numbers on your team, I think you were doing like 30 million, which was a big number at the time. And now you're triple that, which is really, really cool to see for our listeners that don't know what a market center is. Market Center is a Keller Williams phrase term for a real estate franchise. And when Maureen says she's the opium, I mean, she's the owner of them. So you've got a lot going on. And I know from working with you over the years that you do take great care of your money, the business side of the finances for your for your life and for your businesses. Was it always that way?
Maureen Stalle
No, it wasn't. No, I was I was, as you know, and I was about a $35 million producer eight years ago with one assistant unlicensed. And I was keeping my head above water, raising a family, three boys husband who commuted to and from Chicago, from Milwaukee, and boys with a lot of sports and a lot of activity. And I was just keeping my head above water, doing my business at a pretty fast pace. And the money was flowing. But was I paying attention to it? Absolutely not. I just made sure we could pay our taxes and we had a nice income and that was about as good as it got.
Todd Butzer
And so. So you're kind of on this wheel, which I think a lot of us are on. A lot of agents listening to this are get on that wheel where they're busy making the money. And running our lives like you were. And then kind of just the management of the money kind of goes to the side. What? Was the result of that. At that time, what was it? Was it was it stressful for you? Were you aware of it?
Maureen Stalle
I was aware that I was not managing it well. I was enjoying some great success and very little expenses. So it looked to all intents and purposes, the cash flow was great until 2008 when I realized the market crashed and when it crashed for me, it crashed for everybody around us, not just me and my husband's business and everybody else's. We had kids in college and kids going to college and middle of a renovation on a house. And that big money flow started to slow down and I was like, woohoo! I wasn't paying attention, right? So I kind of got my act together a little bit in 2010, 2011, 2012, when things started to rebound. I got a little bit better with the finances, but then again we were back into that will because the business was fast paced and I was still running the treadmill, so I hadn't actually solved it yet. I hadn't figured it out yet.
Todd Butzer
Okay, so you were still working, as we like to say, you were working in your business, but you weren't necessarily working on the business in terms of the financial side. And you mentioned a shift, which we just talked about in our last episode, that for those of us listening to this, you know, right now that there is a shift occurring. When you when you were going through that shift, was there anything. Was there a moment, Maureen, where you said, I got to get a handle on this? Was there. Was there an event that happened or did it just kind of come into your brain where, look, I got to I got to start fixing this. How did it how did that come about?
Maureen Stalle
Boy, was there an event that happened that made me realize that, you know, when we lost a lot of money in 2008, stock market money and investment money that we had set aside for colleges was my wake up call. And my husband's paid his attention to his business. He wasn't paying attention to my business, and he's the money guy. And I was just bringing it in and bringing it in and sending it back out and not paying much attention to it. In 2009 is when he said halt 2829 followed 2008 into 2009 was when he said Halt. I got to get a handle on your finances. You've got expenses. You've got an employee. I have a full time employee as an unlicensed assistant. And that's when he said, Oh, this is actually we still need to pay her. Even though you're not bringing in an income, you still need to pay her salary. She's got a family. She's relying on this. We got to get a handle on your business. Your business is turning into something much bigger than we anticipated. That was that was the turning point for us. So we rebuilt in in re reconnoiter, I would say, in 2009 and ten and then in 11. I would say I wasn't soaring with that financial responsibility. I was getting by because his business was super busy and he didn't have a lot of time to pay attention to mine. And I was just getting by, doing what I know how to do. Bass was going out and selling houses and shuttling kids to hockey games, and so I was kind of back on that hamster wheel in 2010, 11, 12, when the market came back.
Todd Butzer
You know, I think that's I'm so glad you brought that up, because I think it's real common in the industry where we rely on maybe a significant other or a spouse that is good at this kind of thing and where we're assuming maybe they're kind of looking at it or watching it or maybe we're just not paying attention to it. And we think we've got that kind of in our in our midst, but it's really not in our midst. They're not they're not watching for us. We have to watch it ourselves. So when Rick and you, you know, came together on this and said, okay, we've we're going to fix this. What steps did you start taking?
Maureen Stalle
You. The first thing we did was I wasn't using QuickBooks at the time. First thing we did was get help me get familiar with QuickBooks and help me get familiar with what is income, what our expenses, what our cost of business are and identifying the categories. And that was the first step that he had to help me. His background is finance, so he had to sort of help me figure that out because my background of sales, I'm like, I can bring it in all day long.
Todd Butzer
And so pardon me for the interruption. Maureen, what were you. Because, again, I think this is right on what happens out there. What were you using before QuickBooks?
Maureen Stalle
Excel spreadsheets. Mm hmm. Literally. That's it.
Todd Butzer
Okay. So your husband gets involved and he says, we're going to I'm used to these QuickBooks. We're going to get you up to speed on those. So your first step was you started really accounting for the money. Would that be accurate?
Maureen Stalle
Exactly.
Todd Butzer
Okay. Then what? By the way, that's a huge step. Everybody that's listening, that's a big, big step. We've talked about it a little bit before. So then what?
Maureen Stalle
So from there being, as you say, that is like the major step. Is it sort of like anything acknowledging there's a problem finding the solution is in a relatively easy program in QuickBooks and then identifying what are those expenses. Because I would just wash things. I would just be like, yep, we're going to do that ad, we're going to do a $4,000 ad here. We're going to do that $2,000. We're going to sponsor that nonprofit for another 2000, and now we're going to just like roll on rolling. And I wasn't categorizing anything. I literally was putting in an Excel spreadsheets and categories of philanthropy, this magazine, that magazine, this printed material. And it was going into an Excel spreadsheet, and I've always kept it like that, but that actually wasn't accurate. Right? So then what's taxable? What's not taxable? What's, you know, what is an authentic business expense? I found I was not actually charging the business for a lot of my expenses. Right? So I wasn't taking advantage of the tax advantages of business expenses. That was probably the biggest mistake I made from the very beginning, was not actually categorizing my expenses and taking advantage of it at the end of the year. Not at all.
Todd Butzer
I'm so glad you brought that up because folks listening, we are going to be talking about that in great length and in upcoming episodes about the power of a deduction and how expensive, as Maureen just stated, how expensive it is when we don't account for them and we don't take them because the government's literally helping us here and we're kind of refusing the money, so to speak. So we get QuickBooks, we start accounting for the money that leads you then to taking a close look at your expenses or at least understanding where they're going and capitalizing on the appropriate deductions. Were there any other steps that you or you and Rick took together to really kind of get this business really, really rocking, really humming?
Maureen Stalle
I think that the moment when I decided I needed to own my business as opposed to work for a brokerage. There's two different ways of thinking in that, right? You can always be working for a brokerage and people think that they they're running their own business. They think they work for brokerage and they take their commission is like a paycheck. Right. The minute I realized I'm running a small business within a brokerage was the turning point of my career. Right. So I started to pay attention to how I'm running this business, as I said, and in the different financial realms. But then I also realized I need to own this on a bigger level, meaning pay attention to my percentages. Right? What are my percentage goals? What? Where do I want to land at the end of the year? What is this business really costing me? At the end of the day, and am I being efficient with how I'm spending my money? Right. So once you identify what your expenses are, you put them into the proper categories. You realize what your deductibles are. You figure out what this is really costing you to do this business. Only then can you go to the next level and create a plan for your business that allows for proper expenditures that are not out of line, that are within reason. Then they fit your goals, right? But the minute you define what it is you're spending your money on and you categorize that and you realize you're overspending in some areas you're not properly documenting in other areas is the minute you're starting to run a business. And then the minute you starting to run a business, you've got to set a goal, run that business. And once you set a goal around that business, you've got to set your financial goals, run that business, right? So I have a goal for home life to do my business. And I take that back and you and I have talked about goal setting for, you know, having a vision for your family and then taking that vision down to what are your goals, taking that goal down to what does that mean financially to achieve that goal? What do I need to spend? Because at the end of the day, you need to understand what you do need to spend to run a business. So once I figured out I am running a business, I need to identify how I'm going to spend my money. Am I spending it in the appropriate areas that are going to help my business grow? Right. And. That was the turning point for me. You know, getting the financials organized is a huge step. But I would say the biggest was I'm running a business now. I need to reverse it and start thinking about my goals and backing out what it's going to really cost me to run this business and then appropriately funding the business, whether it's additional staff or different kinds of expenditures, identifying what those are and organizing those financials in a way that can help boost my business. And that is how we quadrupled our business was the proper planning for my team has helped us quadruple my team's business right in my team's profitability, which is different from running market centers, yet it is not that different. So when we started these market centers, I quickly learned that they're run basically the same, right? You pay attention to the financials and you know what your goals are, you know what your budget is, you stay within budget. I run a tight ship financially in that regard as it is. I was not a crazy spender and I it helped me understanding what the budget needed to be. And once I once I understood that budget, I have no problem working within that budget right now. Todd knows I'm a little bit of a rule breaker in some parts of my business, but not when it comes to the money. I do not break the rules when it comes to the money.
Todd Butzer
Yeah, I absolutely love that and I hope people caught your comment about funding parts of your business appropriately. We you I used to used a phrase marine in talking with agents that are you stealing from your own company. And what I meant by that is you're underfunding necessary growth components, you're underfunding lead gen. You're under you're underfunding marketing, you're underfunding, you know, networking, whatever it might be in your business. If you're taking every dime out, you cannot possibly fuel it like you just talked about submarine. Let me ask it this way. You finally got a handle on it. You now are setting goals for this business that you run, you operate, you pay great attention to the finances. What has that done for you and for your family?
Maureen Stalle
It seems silly to say, but it's immeasurable because our life has changed dramatically on so many levels. I mean, I could I could talk about the tactical levels of we now own a lake home. We have a beautiful home in Milwaukee. We vacation where we want to when we want to. We fund the nonprofits that we're super, super passionate about on a high level, which is what gives me my energy. And we've been able to change other people's lives by being fiscally responsible, honest to goodness, by being fiscally responsible with our business has allowed us to grow. Not only these market centers, we own a title company, we're about to start an insurance business and a mortgage business by being fiscally responsible, we were able to quadruple our income and help others find the same path, which for me is absolutely everything, helping others understand what multiple streams of income are. No one ever had that conversation with me until I met you, Todd. But, sir, no one ever had that conversation with me in the business for at the time, about 15, 14 years, no one ever talked about multiple streams of income. That is everything. But unless you have your financials organized right, and you're running a tight business, those multiple streams, the concept seems foreign. Seems not me. I can't do that. I was a solo agent running a very messy business for a really long time at a pretty high level. And for the company, I mean it was really high level where I was at, yet it was so messy. But I didn't have a vision for where we are today by any stretch until I met you and you helped grind into me. What does this exactly mean? And with that came explosive growth personally, professionally, influencing others, guiding coaching others. It's been an absolute blast. Last year, almost eight years.
Todd Butzer
Well, first of all, you're very, very kind. You're the one you and your family are the ones that did the work before. So you had a statement there where you said, people will say to you, well, that's not me. What would you say to those listening that say, well, that's all well and good. This is a successful woman. I you know, that's beyond what I'm going to be able to do. What advice would you have for us seriously?
Maureen Stalle
Eight years ago, that was me who didn't have any anything other than my real estate sales business with one assistant, a family that was busy and moving all the time and going all the time. And I thought this was success. I thought this was where I was. It was amazing. Now I look back and go, Oh, my goodness. So I tell agents all the time, you think that this is unattainable for you. You have to listen to other people that are ahead of you. You have to be willing to listen and follow their guidance, find good mentors, and just follow them. I have people say to me all the time, I'm just watching you, I'm just watching you, and I'm trying to do what you did six, seven years ago so that in eight years, ten years, I can be where you are. And I'm like, That's all you have to do is just watch how other people do things. People you respect people who are crushing it out there. Watch how they do things. Ask them questions about. About. I run a once a month group coaching for one hour and I invite about 100 agents out of the call. And they listen to these agents and they are just amazed at how calm these agents are. Right. It's calm. Intentionality. Period. So it is all of this is just about being intentional about every single thing you do. Everyone you talk to, everyone you spend time with. All of it is intentionally.
Todd Butzer
And it's all doable. Joe, any questions from you as you listen to us?
Joe Rodriguez
I think I just have one follow up question, and that is the you know, you were describing how your husband would manage the financials for his own business and didn't really look at yours. And he had that conversation with you about the financials for your business. I always find that. That's a very hard conversation to have. And as someone at what point was a messy with their financials. How would you. How would you want that conversation initiated with your spouse or with your partner? How do you have that very difficult conversation?
Maureen Stalle
Well, first of all, I'd say that that you have to you have to know your strengths, understand your strengths, and understand your weaknesses. Because if I felt I was super strong financially managing my business back then, I wouldn't have taken that conversation very well. But I knew I wasn't. If you don't acknowledge it, you're never going to get there. You have to acknowledge it, accept it, and be willing to learn and listen. Otherwise, it's not going to happen.
Todd Butzer
Maureen, you did exactly what I anticipated you would do today. You were you were so thoughtful in in what you shared and so insightful and so prescriptive for us. And I just can't thank you enough for joining us today. It's been just fantastic.
Joe Rodriguez
That concludes this episode of Get The Money Right. To stay up to date on the latest in Get The Money Right, follow us on social media and be sure to subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. If you want to support the show, please leave a five star review and if you think what we’re sharing is valuable, we encourage you to share with your colleagues. If you are a real estate agent who is getting their money right and want to be a guest on the show, please submit all inquiries to getthemoneyright.podcast@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, and have a wonderful day.
In this episode, Todd will be interviewing Maureen Stalle, an Operating Principal for several Keller Williams Market Centers and all around fantastic agent. Maureen will be discussing her journey and how removing limiting beliefs can make your growth exponential.
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Credits:
Hosted by: Todd Butzer
Special Guest: Maureen Stalle
Produced by: Joe Rodriguez