How to Build a Successful Real Estate Team Without Chasing More Leads | Roddy de la Garza

Roddy de la Garza (00:00)
I totally resonate with what you just said. And the first thing that I learned about myself that I never saw in myself, and this is one of the positives, right? Is how brave I’ve been to take chances. I’ve never considered myself a brave person or anything like that. But when opportunities presented to themselves themselves to me, I had to learn to say yes, right. And no matter and instead of that mindset of what if I fail. I learned, and this was due to I had a minister in Dallas when I was there, and she would correct my language and she would say to me, But what if it all works out? What if everything turns out better than you ever expected?

Quentin Edmonds (02:08)
Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest here, and I cannot wait for us to peek through his lens, gain from his knowledge. This gentleman is a team builder. He is a trainer. He wants to teach people to focus on the opportunities that’s right in front of them.

he’s an area team leader, he’s a business owner. I mean, this gentleman knows this stuff, and I cannot wait for us again to let’s glean from his experience. So I want to introduce you all to Mr. Roddy D. De La Garza. How you doing today, sir?

Roddy de la Garza (02:48)
Great

Q, that’s a great introduction. I appreciate it so much. Yes.

Quentin Edmonds (02:52)
Absolutely,

man. I appreciate your grace, sir. I appreciate your time. You’ll hear me say this at least one more time for sure. I think time is our most precious commodity. And so I value you being here. I know how podcasts works, you know, like we we have a guest and we we do the conversation, the talk, but still I can’t do this by myself. So I value you being here. And so sir, I am the type I like to dive right in. Love for you to tell the people.

Roddy de la Garza (03:18)
Sure.

Quentin Edmonds (03:21)
What’s your main focus these days? If you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, kind of how you got into the space. And then also tell us what market you’re operating in. So sir, you have the floor.

Roddy de la Garza (03:32)
Thank you. I I think that’s awesome. Amazing. Well, I was born into this industry. My father and and and stepmother owned a real estate brokerage. It still exists today, owned by my stepmother over 53 years. So I was eight years old on the weekends, measuring houses, putting up signs, listening to my dad talk about real estate. The one thing I said I’d never do Q was be in real estate because every time we were supposed to go to the zoo, every time we were supposed to go to my grandma’s, someone had a showing or something. And I had to learn just to

color in a book and sit in the car or accompany them and be goofy. But after I graduated college and I realized that what I was pursuing, I was pursuing a film production career. I didn’t like sitting on a set for 12 hours for two minutes of film. I I I learned easily quickly that that just wasn’t me. And I told my dad I wanted to change my major. And he was like, No, absolutely not. Just finish your finish your your education and get your real estate license. So that’s what I did.

And it has never been a mistake, you know. So I first got licensed in 1993. The big impetus to my career was when I took the venture to leave the family brokerage. We had a family brokerage that had been a long time in Harlingen, Texas, the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. My first houses were $40,000 houses Q. Those were the first properties that I was selling back in the 90s, and interest rates were 14%, you know. So I I’ve I’ve seen three major crashes in this industry.

And I’m always resilient, always pivot, always change. But the big change for me in my career happened when I became I was the the second ever listing specialist for Redfin in the about 2014 in the Dallas market. I started to see where technology, teamwork, and and that approach integrated. And in one year I sold about 108 houses. And

I will tell you also that I almost I almost died. It was just so much volume, you know, it was really, really busy. And I stayed on that trajectory. They I ended up relocating with Redfin to Los Angeles to their most competitive market. If if you’re a real estate investor or if you invest in real estate fintech companies, you know Los Angeles, Southern California is one of the prime markets everyone wants to know. So I moved into Los Angeles wondering: does my Texas drawl? Do the things that I say? Will people like me, all that kind of stuff.

Lot of insecurities, but I was like, well, if I don’t take the risk, I’ll always wish I had. So that answered the question. And that brought me to Los Angeles in 2015, end of 2015, 2014, around that range. And then from there it’s just been one nice trajectory of growth. I ended up leaving that brokerage after it went public. And after I started to decide what feels right for me. So today I focus not on volume.

I focus on quality. I realize that a lot of volume at a reduced commission rate is not the same as quality. Quality transactions, with folks who are going to continue to repeat and and and refer to you, you know. So I’ve built a team now. I’m at another I’m at a cloud brokerage called Epique, which is and that’s spelt E P I Q U E. And people always wonder how to pronounce it and spell it. But we are the fastest growing real estate.

Cloud brokerage in history. We achieved in a short number of years what it took the others much longer to do. And it’s because they resonated with my value proposition. And I think it’s because I saw the amount of work my parents put into it. And I saw the health toll that it took on me when I was striving for production that was never fully acknowledged. Like I could never please the brokerage. I could always do more, right? How do I get more?

So I would say today I focus on holistic team building. I focus on people being grateful and understanding that there’s enough opportunity in front of them to be able to build the career of their dreams. And I’m in my mid 50s now and I’ve told myself I’m not going to spend any time. I want to spend an hour doing something I don’t enjoy. You know, I want to build people. I want to do transactions. My team has done 52 transactions to date, but it’s not all on me.

Because I teach people how to build a brokerage and a team and invest in themselves and others so that they can have the life they want to live.

Quentin Edmonds (08:32)
Rowdy, thank you so much, sir, for man, just taking me through the journey. I you know, when people talk, I see in pictures. So I as you was talking, I was just seeing things fall into place. And so thank you for taking me through the journey. I often say this, destiny has no wasted moments.

Roddy de la Garza (08:49)
Amen.

Quentin Edmonds (08:50)
Right?

We’re borrowing from every leg of the journey, right? Everything makes sense. It may not make sense at the time, but once it completes, you it makes sense. Once you come out of it and you go along in the journey, it makes sense, right? And so I would love to know what has the journey, what has the moments revealed to you about you? Has it revealed like humility, discipline? Has it changed your you know look on innovation? What has the moments revealed about you, sir?

Roddy de la Garza (09:16)
I totally resonate with what you just said. And the first thing that I learned about myself that I never saw in myself, and this is one of the positives, right? Is how brave I’ve been to take chances. I’ve never considered myself a brave person or anything like that. But when opportunities presented to themselves themselves to me, I had to learn to say yes, right. And no matter and instead of that mindset of what if I fail.

I learned, and this was due to I I had a minister in Dallas when I was there, and she would correct my language and she would say to me, But what if it all works out? What if everything turns out better than you ever expected?

Right. And by approaching that, I was able to say yes to the move to Los Angeles that transformed my life. I will tell you, there were a couple of times I was so tired of real estate that I detoured into other careers. One of them was I I worked as a a youth counselor in New York City.

Metro area for adolescents going through different issues and stuff like that. I quickly realized after about two years that I preferred the stress of is the refrigerator going to be there on closing day versus is is this child going to be alive next week? It takes a very special person to do that role and it wasn’t me. But do you know what I learned from all of that? I learned to case manage

I learned to create plans. I learned to create a document or a plan that takes my investor client from acquisition to resale on a detail. I learned so many techniques in order to create a continuum of care for clients that’s repeatable as needed. You know, I would have never gotten that education if I hadn’t taken that detour. So I guess the one thing I would tell you is don’t assume the road where it ends.

‘Cause I never know what’s coming. The sometimes the solution to what I think I’m dealing with, whether it’s a team member’s problem or an argument with a client or an acquisition that’s going wrong, I turn it over sometimes and I give it a pause. And sometimes the solution just comes out of nowhere, you know? And it’s just fantastic because my mind is limited. The hive mind of my team and my brokerage, that’s infinite.

Quentin Edmonds (12:10)
Yeah, yeah. Whoop. Man, thank you for that reflective answer. I wrote it down. I’m brave. I wrote down those two words. I was going through a very difficult time in my life. It was my early to mid thirties. And you know, you and I we’ve talked, so you know, we we kind of got a background. So I was sitting in church, didn’t really want to be in church. I I had kind of abandoned.

My roots of how church looked and was trying something a little different, right? Right, right. And Pastor Sammy Foster, who I consider a mentor at one point, we never really talked face to face, but I just sat with some of the things that he said. He said, When you know who you are, you know what to do. And that has always settled in me, and that still settles me to this day. And so when I hear you say I’m brave, that lets me.

No, I’m talking to a person who knows who they are. And I always ask that question about the destiny, you know, have no wasted moments. I make that statement because I want people to realize at the center of everything that you do is you. And when you know who you are, you know how to operate in any space that you’re in, any business that you’re in. You know when to leave, you know when to come back, you know when to pivot. So when you know who you are, you know what to do. So when I hear you say, I’m brave.

I know anything you face now, you’re like, listen, I’ve overcome this. I’m gonna overcome this as well. And and and so that’s why I thank you so much for that reflective answer. I really do.

Roddy de la Garza (13:42)
I’ll share with you that it used to be when I was when I was in a when I was in a corporate culture that I could never the cheese always moved. You know what I mean? The cheese always moved. I woke up every day with what new hell is this? Like when my phone rang, when my email came in, it was a way to live of just like, my gosh, what’s the next horrible problem? And I was like, that’s no way to live your life. That’s no way to do.

Today, as my own, as my own, you know, business owner, as my own entrepreneur, and what I teach in my team is when something comes that feels difficult, embrace it and just kind of go, wow, here comes a lesson. Here comes something new, right? I’ve not experienced this before. I’m incredibly uncomfortable. I’m gonna learn something and befriend it. Yeah. You know, don’t deny it, say, here comes something that I wasn’t expecting and it’s gonna teach me something. Yes.

Quentin Edmonds (14:31)
Often say and Roddy, I thought I was original when I said this. And when I went to look it up and kind of start putting some movement on the saying, I realized other people say it, but I often say failure is fertilizer, right? Failure is fertilizer. And if you know anything about fertilizer, you know, sometimes it’s dung mixed with dirt, and you mix that together to get the soil ready so you can actually put a seed inside of the

dung in the dirt, and so a lot of time, like you said, you know, you got to be uncomfortable with the awkwardness with the newness of it, and sometimes it’s flat out gonna stink. Like sometimes it’s just it’s gonna be messy, it’s gonna be dirty. But if you allow yourself to put nutrients in that fertilizer, something grows totally amazing. Sometimes something grows that you literally can eat from, and something grows that you literally.

have new seeds that you can plant all over again. So sometimes you just gotta let the process work itself out.

Roddy de la Garza (15:28)
Beautiful analogy too, because sometimes as well in this industry, right? Things are removed from you. Sometimes it’s an agent on your team, it’s a person provided that’s provided some type of resource. It’s been friendships, it’s been companies, it’s been stuff that was painful to lose. But then I have to remember that nothing grows without pruning. And what feels like a loss is actually strengthening me to go further than I could have if that was still with me.

And I truly believe that because sometimes some of the most painful losses create the most substantial growth. And what bor how boring would it be to see the TV movie of Q’s life if you had no struggles? Right.

Quentin Edmonds (16:07)
Movie without conflict, right? Nobody’s watching it. So yeah, no, so true. So true. So listen, you you’ve been successful, you’ve built teams, you’ve pivoted in different businesses. So I have to ask you about maybe like your system or your style, right? So I I’m I’ll put it like this: what is maybe one operational thing you’ve done, let’s say the last two years that has really helped you be successful?

Roddy de la Garza (16:35)
I I am a licensed broker in the state of California. I could run my own operation, I could do that kind of thing. Many folks I find are also in that position. What I found though was my joy was not in it, right? In the operational sense, in the compliance. I know all of that, but that wasn’t where I that wasn’t where I grew every day. The best decision that I made was outsourcing that to a cloud brokerage partner. I have my team and I

we can rely on their on their compliance checks, their payroll. We can rely on so much. And then also I navigated from a previous brokerage that I was at, which was like the largest brokerage, where I was actually their regional director of growth. And I was bringing in about 1200 agents a month at the time. But the thing was is that you can bring in agents and grow, but growth without strategy instigates malignancy. Growth with strategy builds muscle, right? And I could not.

You know, growth for the state’s sake of growth without an attention to retention is a huge issue. And there’s several of these platforms, for example, that are lead provision platforms that pin the agent down to referring specific lenders to using specific type. They take away their creativity. They somehow take a horse and tell it to run in this lane.

And nobody likes that, right? I’m the kind of person anyway. Maybe this is the preacher’s kid in me too. But you tell me not to do something, I immediately want to do it. You tell me that it’s been done the way, this way, all the time. I think, okay, well, that is just that’s that’s conformity. It’s not creativity. It’s not where I live, right? A good friend of mine, that I haven’t talked to in a while and I should, his name is Tom. He told me one time, he goes, All I need my brokerage to do is let me run and give me more hay. You know, let me be

brokerage and let just give me more hay. And that’s what I found is that the true thing that we’re learning as a reckoning in this industry, unfortunately, we’re seeing agents be bought and sold like a commodity, right? We’re seeing these brokerages buy agents as if that’s going to create their loyalty to them. What I do different is I flip the paradigm. This for many years, the brokerage has been the marquee star, their name above everything.

Right. And then you were lucky to get in there. And there were several layers of middle management that siphoned off the success of that agent. They would even recruit you knowing, okay, we have about a 90% failure rate. They got three deals in them. The first three deals, we’re going to take the biggest percentage because that’s their risk aversion. Right. If I mentor you and I take the biggest percentage, the likelihood is that I’m going to make as much as you as possible before you quit the industry. Well, what if you create a place where agents prosper?

What if you create a place where they want to stay? What if you flip it upside down and the star, the marquee, the Marilyn Monroe, the James Dean, the Lucille Ball, what if that’s the agent? And my role as the broker is to produce and direct? My role is to provide and create an environment for them where they will thrive. Right. I can do that. I don’t want to gamble and move forward betting on your failure. Yeah.

I don’t want you to come to me unless I think what I have to offer is going to build you into the agent of your dreams. You know? And so I think that what we need to do now in this industry is be immaculate in our recruitment, exactly what you do and don’t offer. I’ve seen so many agents, I’ve seen an agent cash out their 401k to go all in on real estate and then not be able to get support that they need, you know, things like that. So I think like you have to love people, you have to.

Quentin Edmonds (19:48)
Yeah.

Roddy de la Garza (20:09)
Provide them the tools that were so freely given to me. Other people taught me things. I want to give it to them. And what really rec w r resonated with me when I came to the where I am now is we’re one of the first brokerages. We offer healthcare options, we offer dental options, we offer vet care options, a 401k plan, we offer free sign installation, a billboard in your area, things like that, because I want you from day one to feel valued and a part of everything.

I don’t want you to have to earn and climb some patriarchical hierarchy, right? Earn your worth so that then you can be told, can you give me just a little bit more?

Quentin Edmonds (20:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I love your approach, I love your philosophy. You know, so you know, you and our our background, we was, you know, taught how important the body is, right? Like we’re one body, right? People say community, people say relationships. You know, and I always say community is common unities, people doing things with one purpose and goal. But I love how you frame and I’m gonna use the body analogy because I

I believe the body, the way the body is designed, it’s designed to heal itself, right? And when you understand how important every part of the body is, you attend to the body as it’s needed, right? If if your finger is is hurting, if you jam your finger, you’re not grabbing your toe. You’re like, no, I’m grabbing the finger, right? Like every part of the body moves the thing together and put it together and makes it and work work. And so I love how you frame it.

About how you make it seem every part is important. Let’s not just crown the head. Let’s take care of the whole body. Let’s make sure everybody can function within this community. That way we all grow together, we thrive together, we we we we replenish each other together. And and again using the body analogy, we heal each other as we go along. So

Roddy de la Garza (22:04)
That’s yeah, that’s that’s perfect because what I was gonna say is one of the reasons I w I was sharing with you previously that I lost my father about two years ago. And he and I, he was my real estate mentor. He my dad bought a real estate business before he knew he needed a real estate brokerage license. So he had the person he bought it from had to retain the broker until he got his broker’s license. And he’s had that b he had that business for 53 years. My stepmother now runs it.

But the thing that’s that’s interesting is that it’s always been within me, you know, to to kind of look at that and see that. And I understand brokerage as family and brokerage as community, right? But developing a common language, a common ability to communicate with each other is very important. I mean, we had awkward conversations, we were on other side of agency on a contract and we had to sit at dinner, right? But now what I’ve done is I don’t like the concept that we’re our brokerage is family, because families are extremely dysfunctional.

I do like community. I love the analogy to the body. It’s disparate systems that when brought together can function at a higher level. And when well trained and executing on a regular basis, they become better. They don’t become worse. Stagnancy and indecision on your body or on anything kills it. So one of the things that I’ve been really focused on the past couple of years is agents being able to recognize the gifts they have within themselves.

Already, there’s a non-stop barrage of things that people want to sell us: a quick hack, a quick trick, a six-week course that’s gonna turn you into a top producer. There’s all these endless things that I basically think take the potential for filet mignon and turn it into ground beef. You know, they’re grinding up these agents’ hopes and dreams into something that I think is is unconscionable. So when my dad passed away, he and I used to read Dr. Joyce Meyer’s Ending Your Day Right together.

And when we would chat about three times a week, we’d talk about the night before, you know, how that went. So when he passed away, I got the idea of, you know, one thing I want for my team is for us to all have a common thing for the day. What are we working on? Where do you owe an amends? Where do you owe a thank you? Or what can you contribute or learn today? But it’s just different steps or actions. So that’s when I put together the book Above Asking: Daily Mind Work for Real Estate Agents.

It’s basically that same concept. Every day of the year and every month have their own specific theme so that teams and agents together can focus on what they already have, not what you need to go get. I remember I was consulting a new agent and she was like, Well, I’ve been offered the opportunity to buy portal leads for $3,000. Should I do it? And I was like talking to her, and I was like, Well, I said, you could do that. You’re going to be one of multiple agents receiving that portal lead.

Or you could take you could take, you know, 30 of your clients out to lunch. You know, you take 30 people in your random sphere out to lunch. Get out of the house, go do stuff, go be with the people who know you, go add value. I can guarantee you just get out and be present, be part of your community, go donate, go to whatever spiritual practice you choose, go to be physically active, coach your kids’ football team, whatever it is, get out there.

And that is gonna that is the fix to not having leads. Do you know what I mean? Or not having opportunities. If you’re an investor and you’re just texting people, do you have anything off market? You’re one of 500 that’s doing that. But if you go attend those agents MLS meetings, if you go and network with them, if you sit down and go and you meet people, you know what? You’re gonna be, hey, that Q guy who comes to breakfast is really awesome. Our industry is also on a day of reckoning where the online leads

don’t work anymore. There’s so much scam out there. Get back into your community. So that’s the idea of the book was to just create a system by which we as team leaders, as brokers, as any real estate professional, mortgage lenders, stagers, anyone can sit back and see the bounty that’s in front of them if they’re just brave enough to step into it.

Quentin Edmonds (25:59)
Yeah, man. Roddy, I love man. I love everything you’re saying, sir. What’s next for you, man? Is there a certain is there is is there a goal you reach, you know, you’re you’re aiming for? Some people don’t believe in goals, some people like standards, right? But what’s next for you? What are you looking to solve to scale next, man?

Roddy de la Garza (26:16)
You know, it’s to keep keep the sense of wonder that I have every day within this industry, the idea of like what new thing is gonna present itself, right? Because there’s so much chaos right now. One of the things I think is hilarious is the battle of the CEOs of these real estate companies. You know, I remember when we didn’t know who the CEO was of any company, I think the first one I remember is like Lee Iacocca or something like that. Like they’re like

why are these people punching each other in the throat and doing all this when their agents can’t close deals? You know, I want a CEO who’s obsessed with giving me things. What I want to do is my goal is to have incredible retention on my team. My goal is to continue. I mean, I have lead sources that turn into four, five, six deals a year. You know, once an investor comes with me, they stay. I want to continue to grow and provide a prolific situation.

Where everyone prospers around me. I’d like to add agents to my team. I’d like to, I’d like to, you know, just continue to continue to provide something that comes natural. It is a gift that I have because of my parents, because of the volume of transactions. It’s a gift to understand and care enough to build the agent in front of you at the level that they’re at. I can’t, not everybody wants the same career, but everybody’s dream is honorable, right? There’s that part of it.

Yeah. I want us to be less reliant that the quick fix is somewhere else, that I can hack this and people to start to realize that investment, that mortgages, that real estate, dude, they can be an art form. You can you can do real estate like a violinist plays at a concert. You can do real estate well. And it’s just as artistic and open and creative as you can be. And I think we’ve lost that.

The Glengarry Glen Ross idea is not going to work on the new generation. You know? Nothing breaks my heart more. I’ve seen also in roles where I visited other teams where people are competing on cold calls for $20 bills. You know, that does not build somebody’s spirit up. You know what I mean? What builds their spirit up is finding out what their dreams are and creating an action plan to get them there.

Quentin Edmonds (28:27)
Yeah. I continue to love the way you frame like the way you want to grow, how you want to grow responsibly. And it makes me think of something one one of the things my mentor has said, right? ‘Cause I don’t have nothing original, right? Everything is like just, you know, what I’ve kind of learned just from, you know, people in experience. But he said he says there’s a difference between growing and swelling, right?

Roddy de la Garza (28:50)
I like that.

Quentin Edmonds (28:51)
If you’re at a gym, you’re working out, you know, your arms are growing, your body’s changing. But sometimes if you injure yourself and it starts to grow or swell, that swell was not growing. That’s not healthy growth. The swell, it seemed like it’s getting bigger, but actually, there’s an infection somewhere that needs to be figured out. And so when I hear you talk about growing, growing responsibly, you’re not trying to swell a business.

You’re not trying to pour all this toxic stuff into making it bigger. No, we want to grow this responsibly. And when I hear you talk, it makes me think about that the difference between growing and swelling. A lot of people are swelling stuff. Things are getting really big and they are confusing that with growth. But when you start to really look inside, there’s a lot of toxic stuff, and some people need some antibiotics. Some business.

Roddy de la Garza (29:45)
The the idea is is like you can you can wake up every day and contribute to a tumor or contribute to a muscle. Which one do you want to do? You know, and and that’s just it. Growth for the sake of making sure overhead gets covered is not the same as growth to create something that resonates with healthy quality. You know, I think that that’s that’s just the part of it is and I think we’re all still learning that in this new industry where this agent is the star.

Dude, you look at everything that people are trying to sell you, they want the magic that occurs between a broker or an agent and the client at their kitchen table. Yeah. You know, that the the the they want that moment. They want you to be thinking of them the moment someone turns back to you in the grocery line and says, Are you an agent? You know, they want to do they want to get into that. And I don’t think anybody cares anymore which brokerage you’re at. They don’t. If you’re out there in your community, if you’re showing up, if you’re contributing, if you’re

living the kind of life where people go, how does Q do that? Right. That’s what’s going to make a successful person in this industry, not conversions on how many, how many applications you can get to a particular vendor.

Quentin Edmonds (30:56)
Yeah. So well said, sir.

If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you?

Roddy de la Garza (31:05)
The best way is to reach out to me either on social media, on LinkedIn, or on Instagram @roddy4real, like real estate. So Roddy for Real. I also have my book available, Above Asking: Daily Mindwork for Real Estate Agents. You can search that on Amazon or you can go directly to the URL aboveasking.store and that’ll allow you to be able to purchase it.

And then of course my website is just roddydelagarza.com and you can reach me there for training opportunities, for brokerage consultations, for all of that kind of stuff. So any of those methods, I’m happy to respond back to.

Quentin Edmonds (31:43)
Yeah, I love it, sir. Listen, man, let me say three things to you sincerely. One, I’m gonna reiterate again, thank you for your time. Think time is our most precious commodity, so thank you. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for the gift of what I call your authenticity, your vulnerability, your integrity, showing up as your real and true self. Because I believe our stories plant seeds for people. Some part some somebody gonna come and water that seed, right?

But that thing can grow at any given time, but it’s the seed that still is resonated, that’s still there. So thank you for planting seeds today. And lastly, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today.

Roddy de la Garza (32:26)
My pleasure, Q. Thank you so much.

Quentin Edmonds (32:28)
Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard my friend. His information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him, but definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Roddy. So, sir, I thank you again and everybody else. Y’all have a fantastic day.