Episode 15

full
Published on:

18th Apr 2023

Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Team Culture with Justin Konikow, Owner of Prime Real Estate Brokerage

“Purpose is the leading indicator of what the culture will be. Start with purpose and then look at how that trickles down into your daily activities, which becomes your culture.”

Justin Konikow, Owner of Prime Brokerage, is on a mission to revolutionize his industry. He’s well on his way, too, because he is crystal clear on his purpose, to be the most trusted name in real estate, and allows that core value to guide his decisions and company culture.

In this episode, Justin discusses how he’s established strong team connections through improved communication and shared principles. Along the way, you’ll hear how he leverages personal and professional goal-setting and simple routines to achieve greater success. Listen in to hear his insights on cultivating a supportive, goal-oriented team environment through clarity and curiosity.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  1. Start with a clear purpose and allow that to drive culture and decisions
  2. Practice what you preach, execute on your promises, and stick to your core values to build an unshakeable culture
  3. Insert yourself into unknown mentor’s ecosystems and slowly find means of connecting with them to build a relationship

Things to Listen for: 

[01:20] Start with purpose

[04:58] Building internal and external culture

[08:10] Systemising processes to hire the right people

[16:43] Focusing on the bigger picture

[24:21] Having courageous conversations

[29:28] How to build relationships with mentors

Resources:

Connect with the Guest:

Connect with the Host & Floyd Coaching:

Transcript
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actually execution.

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He founded the companies with his wife, with the intent of turning the industry upside down and coming at things from a completely fresh perspective He's partnered both from a business and personal level with leaders like Ryan Sirhan from the Bravo Show, million Dollar Listing, so he is privy to some interesting insights and industry tips.

I always enjoy our conversations and I hope you get a lot out of his insights on this episode. Enjoy.

culture to me is synonymous with purpose, right? I find that, especially my industry, I mean, we're in the real estate industry. We do a lot of media and creative. Both of those industries are very profit driven, especially real estate people look at real estate agents here, like you're just trying to sell me a house so you can make a commission.

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But when I boil down, how do we actually reverse engineer that, it was, well, what's our daily purpose, right? And the purpose is the leading indicator of what the culture's gonna be. So I think you have to start with purpose and then look at how that trickles down into your daily activities, which essentially becomes the culture of your organization.

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You can call any agent that will work with you, because that's a big. Big commission check, right? You call me and you call three other agents. you call those three other agents and the first one's just trying to push you into something, get you a deal, and he's got his own listing, but he's telling you that the listing that he has, that's $5 million.

You can get it for three and a half. This guy needs to sell. He's super desperate, right? So your interaction with that gentleman may be like, okay, great. I can create a great deal on the property, but you're. And you're like, but I'll probably never use you to sell because you just threw your seller under the bus, right?

So when I'm in that situation and you call me and I have a 5 million listing and you're like, Hey Justin, I've got a big budget. I want an amazing lakefront property. So you got that beautiful 5 million listing for sale. I'm gonna go direct to you. I don't need a buyer agent cause you're gonna make double the commission, but I want the best price.

What's that price? The answer you're gonna get from me is I don't own the. , right? The list price is the list price. That's what the seller and I agreed upon. Here's why I think the value is there. I'm happy to show it to you. If it works, great. If it doesn't, let's find something else. That interaction is a perfect example of how we differentiate ourselves in the real estate industry is A, our ethics are not for sale.

If I have a contract with that seller to a fiduciary level, which is like your doctor, your lawyer, to represent their interests above my own, when somebody dangles the carrot of double commiss, I don't even blink because I know that my purpose is do nothing outta selfish ambition. Treat others better than yourself.

And in that instance, I know I have to treat my seller better than I would treat myself. Now I flip it to you as a buyer, I want you to work with me, right? Because if that does, property doesn't work for you, I wanna sell you something else and build a relationship and have all your friends work with me as.

How I show that to you is A, through the ethics and how I treated my seller. Cause you may be like, well, I want Justin to treat me like that, but more than that I'm gonna also show you what it's like to work with me by giving you more value than you can find online. So that's a a real life example of how I've taken the purpose of.

treating others better than I'll treat myself, trying to become the most trusted name in real estate through the actual actions of being a real estate agent and working with a buyer or a seller, right? But I think you have to look at your systems and when those decisions pop up and see if they're aligning with your purpose and culture.

Because the flip side of that argument is there's organizations and cultures out there for that other avatar of the person that wants to work with the shady agent that doesn't care about ethics. More power to them. I just don't want them in my organization.

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You're very open. how are you building that culture so that the team members that you're bringing on board have that same philosophy? Have that same dynamic with working with each other.

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But I also think it's when you have the opportunity to guide those people. So like I get a lot of calls from my team, they're like, Hey, this has never happened to me before. How do I handle that situation? And then I walk them through an example of how I handle. . The other way that I do it is by letting them fall on their face or letting them climb up a ladder on their own, right?

So I remember I had one agent, Jamie Dodds, phenomenal commercial real estate agent. came to me from IV, actually, who's A H B A, did consulting in the aeronautics field. Very interesting guy. And we were working on a land deal. I got a call from a lawyer and that lawyer said, Hey, I think this lady's gonna get hosed.

All these people are giving her off market, offers for her property. She has land near the new Amazon. Like, what do you think about this? And I saw the offers. I'm like, yeah, she's getting robbed blind. Like I think. We could probably bring three more people to the table. At least get her offer up a million or $2 million, right?

Like it off market deals for sellers. Usually if you're getting a price, you're getting a better price if you expose it to a bigger market. Jamie and I came in, explained to her what we thought the value was. We did a little bit of like a tender auction to a select group of people. Sure enough, offers came in significantly higher than she had the original offer.

People were there, but three more groups came to the table. One of those groups came directly to us. That gentleman I remember called Jamie and basically said, Hey, I'll give you X $90,000 was the actual check. Actually. He's like, I'll give you 90 grand if you just tell me what the number is I need to put on paper and bring my offer to the top.

Fun fact, in Canada, if I disclose any information pertaining to another offer, I'm in the breach of code of ethics, right? We wanna be the most trusted name in real estate. I watched Jamie to see how he react. He told that guy. , put that dollar amount back into your offer. We can't disclose the price of the competing offers and you know, I hope you win it.

Right? So he did something that would define the rest of his career by turning down a $90,000 check and putting it in the best interest of his seller. I love that because that's how you really build culture. Because I've had other people that are maybe no longer with the organization that I've seen things ethically that didn't line up with our morals and I.

You can lead, you can give examples, but ultimately you have to let people find themselves and find themselves in your organization or drawn to it or requalifying themselves from your organization just because you're not in an alignment. But I think it does start again with purpose, culture, and then

actually execution.

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bringing people on that are the right fit, that you feel like are actually gonna live your values?

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So he was managing multiple real retail locations. Great network. He was a competitive cyclist. He was actually last year with Team Canada and Italy, for the national amazing, like really, really very disciplined, driven guy. But, you know, came to me, we were talking about his ambitions and he's telling me what we wanna do in real estate.

It was literally 35 seconds along via Come on in and we'll, we'll see if it works or not. Where that kind of bit me was, I found I did that over a number of years and I had people approach me in, in different capacities that wanted to be within the organization and I didn't really. Have this discussion in terms of what are your core values?

What is your purpose? And I've had people within the organization that maybe didn't understand what we were doing or, or don't think that, say personal brand matters. if you don't think personal brand matters in the real estate field, you probably shouldn't be here.

Cuz we put a lot of money into amplifying our agent's personal brand and one agent. And. We just parted ways because he literally thought that, and I was like, no, that's totally fine and we can be copacetic and we can be friends and we can do business together down the road. But I didn't have that conversation with him during the onboarding process about, we wanna be somewhere for high producing agents that are very well known for being trusted and being the best at what they do.

We really had to put that in the front and center. So now, Systemized it. So I have an intake form that's got a whole pile of questions that ask them about what matters to them, what they do outside of work, what their purpose, what they're lacking now, what they think about the real estate field, brokerages.

And then what I do is I typically do a one-on-one with them where we sit down for 15 minutes and we just talk and it feels good. Then I actually kick 'em off to my team and I have my team members have some conversations with them, and then my team members will come back to me and I'll ask my team members, do you think they're a good.

And if my team members say no, then a lot of times I say, sorry, it doesn't work. And this all runs through my wife as well too, who owns the company with me? So we have three or four different people looking into these folks to see if we think that they're in alignment. And then I guess the last piece is, if they're in alignment with our culture and our core values, can we actually provide a platform for them that we aren't oversaturated in?

Right. Right. I've got four candidates that I'm looking at right now. We have a waiting list of 35, but out of the 35, 4 of them are on my radar that they could potentially be a good fit. Two of them probably won't be because in that asset class that they want to specialize in, in what they've told me they want to do in their business.

We have agents that can handle all the business that we have right now in those asset classes. So right now, I don't want to overpromise to them and say, yeah, come work with us in this capacity. We've got all this business when I want to make sure these guys are fed. But as we grow, I'll reach back out to them and say, Hey, we have an opening, and if they found somewhere else, then so be it.

But I think there's a few. Fail safe. So I've put in place now that it's not a, a victor meeting or 35 seconds. Yeah, sure. You start on Monday. I've kind of built a little bit more of a system

around that.

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does everyone work remotely?

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office. I'm in it right now. we are prime headquarters, so this is based in London, Ontario. We have a myriad of different people, so like actually independent.

agents, right? The guys that are just sales representatives that you would look at and be like, oh, that's a real estate agent. There's about 24 of those. Then we have our salaried employees. Then we have people that are in the production space. We have our creative director, and then we have other. Partners that we work with that are in the media, in the agency space,

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We're built for that world. So the hub is great. This is the clubhouse. It's great to collaborate, do events, do stuff in person. But you know, if you were working with me, Kate, and you're like, Hey, I'm gonna be traveling for a month, I can't be there. We do a lot of stuff in the cloud, right? So we're as much a virtual brokerage as anybody else, and we use Google Workspace as our backend.

we do our red zone meetings in Google meets on a daily basis. We do our town halls. I'm here, but we also do it virtually. So if you're virtual, you can come into the town hall and still feel like you're part

of the culture.

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What should I be doing? And there's kind of an argument of both sides, right? Some people say you, you can only build a culture if you get together and you're face-to-face and you can shake hands.

But obviously more and more people are saying, no, that's not necessary. But if you are building a remote workforce, you do have to be very intentional about the culture and making sure that people are on board with it. So how have you

navigated that space as you're building and.

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Do you have a clear picture of how to process transactions at Prime? And do you have the support that you need to get you out of the weeds and doing less of what you don't want to? Or what you wanna do, marketing, communication support. Do you feel like it's streamlined enough and you have clarity around how that works?

What else do you want? The last question that I ask is like, okay, for both of those, how much does it matter to you to have people in office? Because we've done both, like we've had tons of people actually working in and outta the office and we've had everybody virtual, and we're actually looking at the two of those and saying like, how much does that matter to you?

Versus using this space as like inspiration and collaboration. We close a ton of business here cuz it's a beautiful office and it's top end for real estate. Like usually real estate offices are in like some retail plaza next to subways, right? When people come here, this is a place of business. So I think the bricks and mortar are extremely valuable.

I think more people will return to in office over the next five years. I get virtual, I understand the trends, but in the commercial real estate world, I bet you return to office within the next three to five. Becomes much more prevalent cuz we have kids at home. We know what that's like. And when you're in the office you work.

But from an employee perspective, people have challenges. Right? Especially in the last year. And I think people are going from being task managed employees that work for a. To being a little bit more independent, where people that are incredible transaction coordinators kill it for you on a work perspective, but can have some of that freedom and flexibility to, as long as they're doing your job work within your ecosystem, how it inspires them to, so if they have a side hustle, and I don't know if they, they want to do basket weaving and sell baskets on eBay or start YouTube, like they can be more than just a employee.

I. , even creatives, like having the ability to work with independent contractors. No different than real estate agents that we choose to partner. We don't need each other, but we're better together than we are apart. That is very much how we're thinking about the future. Where I don't wanna handcuff or hold hostage employees.

I want to partner with people that are really good at what they do. They want to contribute to the ecosystem. They want to work with us. But I don't want employees, I want partners. Right? So I thi I do think there's gonna be this flux. Tasting and testing what that looks like and working with people that as long as they're killing it and providing world-class service, they can do whatever they want.

But I am auditing my staff in terms of like, how much does having somebody sitting here for nine hours a day mean to you? Because if we need to solve for that, we can as well. But I think it starts Kate with asking the questions, taking in the data, and then making a decision based on their needs.

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faced over the past year?

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But I think coupled with that is we're in a global adjustment, right? If you look at all industries, all creators monetization is down 30%. Venture capital down 30%, real estate down 30% auto sales down 30%. I think the biggest challenge is like, how do you readjust during a global adjustment and then support the people around.

while maintaining course correction on the ship. we did an exceptional job. I think as a collective. We surpassed our numbers from the year before where everybody else was down, but I think my biggest challenge was being in the weeds, micromanaging too much while doing all of that. So we've really put a lot of work into the SOPs and automations and project management tools like Asana.

We've worked with consultants like we've spent about six. Automating and minimizing all of my checklists that were far too detailed and I was worrying about every little thing so that I could focus on the big picture items. But we're coming out of it now and we have a very clear picture of where we're going.

And now we're like I said to you earlier, as much as I'd love to write a book and do all kinds of other stuff, I am like blinders on. A hundred percent focused on not being a speaker or a coach or any of that stuff, cuz that's just not what I. But being the c e O of prime real estate and making sure our systems and our foundation is better than ever, and I'm actually working for 20 24, 20 25 right now.

So getting kind of outta the weeds and into the C E O world has been super

important.

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So when you think about, and you. we'll link in the show notes. Justin's YouTube channel, cuz he has a phenomenal YouTube channel and he shares so many incredible things, not just on real estate, but entrepreneurship. And you're always going live on YouTube, just sharing screen shares about how to use your c r m and how to be more productive, incredible stuff that you're always sharing.

And I always love, I always tell you, I'm like, you're like so strategic in your day, in your week, and I would love for you to just share. How do you stay focused in this world where a lot of CEOs, a lot of leaders, we get that shiny object. We get that, ooh, we could create courses and we could write this book and we could get on more stages, but we have to pick the thing and focus on it for a year and think about the next three to five years.

how would you recommend

people

do that? Especially when they're just getting caught up in, in really in

the.

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Right? And like everything you just said sounds fantastic in execution, but like I'm the worst out of everybody, which is why I put so much effort into it. I know that left to my own devices, I'm doing a whole lot of everything, but a whole lot of nothing. Right? So for myself, I think it starts with my big five F's, which are my faith, my family, my fitness, my fund, my finances.

And what I do is once a year I actually write down the five. and I write down what do I want to accomplish in those five categories, and then I break it down by year, by quarter, by month, by week by day. And I look at like, if I want to move my faith forward, what do I do in a year? Maybe it's just one big event that I go to.

Then what do I do monthly? Then what do I do daily? Daily I, I wanna read my Bible and I wanna pray before I go to bed, And then I think about all the other aspects of my life, my fitness, my fun, my family, my finances. And I actually map it out and I look at my calendar. I'm like, I got 24 hours in a day.

If I take care of my faith, my heart's right with God, then I can take care of my family. If I'm in a good spot with my wife and daughter, I'm not distracted, take care of my fitness. If I'm in great shape and I'm eating well, my energy level's high, then I can go have fun. I can go fly fishing. If I fly fish, then I'm super happy.

I can go to work and I cannot resent my work for stopping me from doing the things that I love, which is most people's lives, they work, work, work, work, work, work, work, but they resent the work because it stops them. Living the life. They go home, their wife is mad at them cuz they're not getting attention, they're eating crappy food because they're not putting time into their fitness and it's a vicious cycle.

So I kind of reverse the cycle. And then what I do personally, that helps. And I lots of videos about how I do this on my YouTube, 15 minutes in the morning to half an hour, 15 minutes at night, mind sweep everything in my brain on paper. And then I map it out and I organize it. And then I look at my calendar and I think.

Biggest tip I can give people of how I stay consistent is that routine. It's the night before. That's the most important. The morning's actually easy because if you did it the night before, it only takes 15 minutes in the morning to re-sort it. But then when you wake up, don't touch your cell phone. I get into prayer and mindfulness.

I journal, I move before I touch my phone, I'll have clubhouse playing in the background because people like you are running great segments and everything else, but it's very intentional versus the life that we both know exists that I fall into time and time again, right? First thing I do is I grab my phone, I scroll, scroll, scroll.

I'm getting all this intake and energy, and I just, I start the day falling forward, right? So in order for me to stand tall, , I have to make sure that I have a routine and structure and do my best to stick to it. But for everybody watching this, I hate it. Maybe 60 to 70% of the time I'm far from perfect, right?

But because I do it consistently, my 60 to 70% makes me better than 95% of the world. Cuz most people have a plan. Their plan is just not having a plan. So that's how we

do it.

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serve you. Okay, so your

focus is being the best c e o. What does that look like to you?

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So that everything that's in my brain of how can we reposition sites, how can we get energy behind sales? And then as I implement and try stuff and find stuff that works, I always try and bring it to the house and then give it to my team so that they could do the same for their people.

Because like when Kate sees the Prime logo, I want it to be like the Nike Swoosh on an athlete. You're like, oh, he's got that contract cuz he, he's the best. So that's where it starts. It actually starts with me with my. getting back into production and being the number one agent on the planet, and then bringing all of that information back to the company and systemizing it.

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mistakes that you see leaders make today?

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You know, I had that discussion about the agent that I parted ways with recently, and I've been working on that with him since November. He was not the right fit for our culture. Doesn't believe personal branding matters for agents. I could worry about that and be like, oh no, people are gonna think he went to another brokerage.

Or I could be like, this is the best thing ever. Cuz we're getting close to. Who the right avatar is of the people that need to be here. And it's interesting cuz my relationship with him is probably better than ever. His brother builds great properties. We're gonna do lots of business together.

The offboarding meeting was probably the best one I ever had. I said, if you need help, you call me like I'm here for you as a friend.

Because if my friendship was only reliant on the business, I wasn't really your. And I think a lot of business owners, the biggest mistakes that they make is they get very emotional about business and it trickles into their personal life and it affects their personal relationships.

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members that you've had right now or in the past that maybe you've had to let go?

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I'm just trying to solve four. . And my wife actually helps balance me out a lot with that. I spoke to one of my agents, and we had had a conversation about a year ago and I never even thought again about the conversation cuz I assumed that they knew where my heart was at and like why we had that conversation.

When we had a follow up kind of year end review with that agent, there was a couple things that were brought up about how I communicated that and some assumptions that were made about how I interpreted a. , like it almost like it was a negative thing and I was like, I'm so sorry if I wasn't able to communicate that effectively.

And my wife was there with me and she's like, yeah, yeah, I get it. I live with him. And I know that sometimes it's just how his brain works. It's, I, I'm very much in the guard guide, govern mentality where like, I want to protect the herd. I assume everybody knows where my heart is at and that truthfully,

I do care about them probably more than they care about themselves in some instances, but I also have to recognize that a lot of these people don't know me, know me, and it it's a relationship building process. So I think. What I've found is making them feel safe to communicate that with me and making it in net positive and not getting emotional has really helped develop some relationships that like I trust, trust these people.

And if something happens that shows me that maybe that trust was misplaced, again, not being attached to the outcome, it doesn't affect me. Cuz I know I'm focused on what we talked about at the beginning, the purpose,

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never comfortable, but the more that you do it, the better you

get

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in five years is gonna be a nothing burger, right? if you're growing, like really, even when you're in it, it seems like it is the end of the world. But so did the relationship. That didn't work out when you were 14, right? And like you'd laugh at yourself. Now if you look back and you're like, man, that was my world.

I loved him so much. And you're like, really? as an adult, we look back on our kids and we're like, oh, you'll learn. But the people that are 70, 80, 90 are looking at us, you and I right now. And they're like, oh, you'll learn.

So I think it's all in perspective.

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Like you talked about, you have to continue to grow. I mean, every single day we are in communities, very growth mindset and we've gotta continue to do that so that we're able to handle those situations. Not only from experience, but also just remembering it's all in our mind, it's all perspective.

And man, it can be hard. It can be hard to remember that when you're so in it and you have like all the

feelings.

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I don't wanna be a part of this. Stick my head on the sand and run away. I think the biggest thing that I've learned is being released. I know who's I am, I know how God feels about me regardless of what man does. So I am a hundred percent not attached to the outcome cuz I'm not taking a U-Haul to my grave.

I've never seen anybody that at their funeral or talking about everything that they had. I think it really comes down to separating yourself from other people's narratives and what the world is telling you is success and it's that self master. There's a j, Rob Deek is a guy that actually blows my mind cause he's really proved it in his life.

I started listening to his podcast and really it's just about that self mastery, right? And it's about getting better and becoming a multi-function human being that can execute, amplify, and bring light to the world versus negativity, right? And I happen to be doing that in the real estate and say the media space, but you're doing it in your space and we wanna get around other people that are doing it in their space.

And I. The more you get around those types of people, the easier it becomes when we realize that we all have struggles. And what you just described, and it is hard, doesn't seem so hard when you bring it to the table and Ramon Ray jumps in is like, oh, I got fired from the un. What are you talking about?

And like, I fired a, a client that was 155 homes. I just fire them $900,000 homes, 155 of them because their internal culture was affecting mine. But I think you have to figure that out with a good collective

And community of.

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there was one trigger that really, they did something to one of my staff members. My staff member was super upset about it. She felt completely mistrusted in the way the situation happened, there was a few things that happened prior to that, like that I won't get into just for the purposes of, I don't talk about people in a negative light at all, but they showed me.

How their internal culture operated. I reached out to the developer and we're still friends with their family, got no issues with them whatsoever. But I messaged her and I said, Hey, unless you're willing to fire internal sales team and give me control of the marketing and pricing, I can't continue.

Cause I said, your internal culture's affecting mine and I can't allow that, and it would be parted ways, and it was totally fine.

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wanna let them go because you know, you gotta get rid of them. Yes.

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And a couple things that popped up. And I, I think, again, not a bad guy at all, super, super friendly. We get along to this day, but I think there's an organization out there for him and a culture for him, or maybe he wants that competitive environment and. I'm gonna take care of me. You take care of you.

that's totally okay. There's a ton of brokerages out there that do that, just not here. But it, it takes, takes time to figure that out.

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Talk

about leadership and the importance of having mentors to help you.

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Looking for ways of how to do things was very difficult cause I was always looking into new areas, right? And Blue Ocean Shift is a great book. I'd look to other industries and be like, okay, how can I apply this to real estate? When we got into real estate, we didn't wanna do it the typical way that it's done.

We really wanted to market differently and build our community and systems completely different. But what I found was, There just wasn't enough for me here. So when I look at mentors and mentorship, what I started realizing was looking at people that are doing things that you want to do or practitioners in their craft and then being inspired by them a, is one of the best ways to find mentors.

I got lots of mentors that don't even know who I am. I just consume all their content. I think they're doing great stuff. I support them and maybe they haven't been on my podcast yet, they probably will one day. but they're in my ecosystem. How you show up with those people for a length of time can put you in a position where they can become a physical, real life mentor.

right? So like Scott McGilvery is a good example of it. I worked his investment summits for years along with hundreds of other people. But you know, always given his team critical feedback on like, Hey, this is what I got from the last summit from this one. This is our systems. I think you should do this.

And going back and forth, building relations with the teams, and then constantly pouring into their organization and trying to give them value and them giving. Got us into a place where when they launched in McGilvry market and started doing some other stuff, we developed a personal relationship because he was able to see over the years us building our organization just like they were building theirs, right?

Quite often mentors or people that I work with now, they watch you and I don't think if people realize that, I think people want to get around a guy like Scott for the photo op, when in reality the way to get around a guy like Scott is to become a practitioner and do something that he finds interesting.

Right. . The other mentor I like to mention cuz people will know him and I don't like name dropping, but Ryan Sirhan is a guy that I developed a great relationship with. The way I did that I've talked about many, many times, it wasn't sending him a whole bunch of money or just showing up in his office and asking for the photo up.

u. So when I met Ryan, it was:

You should meet him. I'm like, what's he gonna teach me? He's in Manhattan, looks like a cheese ball. He's a million dollar listing. Like the persona that they made of him was just this very egotistical guy, right? And my buddy Jazz was like, no, no. Like he's very much like us. Like he's a practitioner.

n my YouTube channel. So that:

I'm like, this guy's an actual practitioner. So remember being in a cab on the way back and I still have the email. I call the email and I'm like, Hey, can I. Meet with you once a year. I'll pay you whatever you want, just for that meeting, right? Like wanted the mentorship and he said no. He's like, I don't do that.

I am billing a team, blah, blah, blah, but come, come by the office anytime, right? Let me know when you're in soho. And I'm like, well, that speaks to your character. But I kept up with it. So then I thought about the meeting I had with Jenna s, and she was like, well talk about systems, and so on and so forth. I remember copy and pasting my SOPs and just sending 'em to her and be like, here's how we do it.

Here's our drip campaigns, blah, blah. Time went by and we kept collaborating and doing different things. I had Dean Kane do a cameo, the guy who played Superman, and be like, Hey, you need to talk to Justin goco. You need to mentor him.

Like I was just doing the most random stuff right.

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[:

And then eventually Kyle, Scott,

c e of Sirhan Ventures, like, Hey, we built something. We kind of wanna test it out. So I was like one of the inception babies for the courses. But then what I did was every time I met with him, every year I'd bring him a complex problem. He would give me feedback, I would go do it, and then I'd come back and like, okay, so I did that and now I'm doing this.

And that's what I tell everybody is like really to get close and build relationships with somebody like Ryan. . Now we're friends. Friends, like he's a mentor. Mentor versus just part of something. Initially that I, I'm part of one of 15,000 people. It was, I think bringing him complex problems and realizing he likes solving them and then implementing it and be like, oh, this guy's not wasting my time.

Like he's actually doing something that's pretty cool. What could I learn from him? And the collaboration with his team and the backend. So from a mentorship perspective, for anybody watching this, pick your Ryan. and get in their ecosystem, but don't expect them to just turn around and give you an hour of their time.

You're not gonna get their cell phone number, but get in their ecosystem and it might take 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 years. But so what if you're actually committed to the process and you actually care about that person? It should take that long, especially if you're in it for the long run. But if you're just in it for the photo op, don't even waste your time.

Just call Cameo and have them do a little shout up to you if you

want that.

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all people

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video

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Why is that important

to know the dreams of the people that are working with?

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My wife was incredibly supportive and obviously my partner, but we felt like we didn't have that leadership right? Or somebody that saw more in me than I saw in myself. And actually my wife was the one that probably saw more in me than I saw myself. And I see more in every person that's here than they probably see in themselves.

And I think ultimately the high, high end purpose. God sees what he sees in me and I want to be that light in their lives so that they can see what he did for me. So ultimately that's why I asked the questions cuz I want to know, cuz it's easy for me to assume, well you should be doing this cuz I know this'll make you successful.

Like what do you want to do? Maybe you only wanna sell 26 houses a year and you want to travel and you wanna build a referral business. And a team business is cool. Like we can do that. But I think if you don't ask the questions and you don't know what they actually want, how could you possibly be of service to those?

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help kind of shift their mindset to creating a cul, a great culture with their.

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out.

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Great leaders are tough, but fair. people wanna grow. We really do wanna grow. And you have to push them into that growth. you're creating a great team over there, so thank you for taking some time to chat with us today. I so appreciate you

and everything that you're doing what's the best way for people to connect with you,

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basis.

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that you feel like is like a good intro to Justin?

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We created a really helpful resource. It's our free culture assessment. It'll only take about five minutes to take, and you'll receive a customized report, which includes your overall culture score, as well as your score in each of the six immutable principles of a dynamic culture from Matthew Kelly's book, the Culture Solution.

You can get it at floyd consulting.com/culture. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, lead with culture.

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About the Podcast

Lead with Culture
A company can only become the best version of itself to the extent that its people are becoming better versions of themselves. What’s the key to making that happen? Building dynamic cultures so people love coming to work and accomplishing great things together.

Hosted by Kate Volman, CEO of Floyd Coaching, Lead with Culture is a show dedicated to exploring how great leaders create workplaces where people can thrive both personally and professionally.

Conversations are inspired by Matthew Kelly's bestselling books The Dream Manager, The Culture Solution, and Off Balance. Guests include incredible leaders as well as Floyd executive coaches sharing stories and providing insights into real strategies used to attract and retain great talent, execute effectively, become better coaches, build teams and grow businesses.

Whether you're a CEO, HR executive, manager, or simply part of a team, this show will help you become a better leader.

About your host

Profile picture for Kate Volman

Kate Volman

Your dreams are yours for a reason. What are you doing about them?

Our vision at Floyd is to make work fun and engaging for as many people as possible, by delivering world-class training and creating cultures that lead to thriving businesses that are profitable, scalable, and sustainable. My team and I show up every day excited to make this happen.

My team and I can help you build a dynamic culture so people love coming to work and accomplishing great things together.
➡️ Coaching. Everyone needs a coach. We have a coach for everyone.
➡️ Training.
➡️ Speaking.

I love my career and the journey it took to get here.
⭐️ I led the sales team, improved company processes, and created programs, workshops, and initiatives to help business owners build better relationships and execute results-driven marketing strategies during my eight years at the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce.
⭐️ I initiated content marketing strategies that drove more traffic and increased brand awareness while in my role as Marketing Director for the City of West Palm Beach Community Redevelopment Agency.
⭐️ I started a boutique marketing agency and helped business owners leverage digital marketing and video.
⭐️ I founded and facilitate Inspired Action, a goal-setting workshop specifically designed to help women achieve their goals.
⭐️ At Floyd, I lead a team of incredible people dedicated to helping people and organizations become the best version of themselves.

My mission is to help as many people as possible live a more joyful life doing more of what they love.
🎤 Check out my podcast Create for No Reason, a show about making something for the pure joy of it.
https://anchor.fm/createfornoreason

I love to network, collaborate, and help people achieve their dreams. The best way to connect with me is at kvolman@floydconsulting.com