Real Estate Systems That Help Agents Generate Leads, Close Deals & Scale Faster

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (00:00)
it’s really…

I think more simple than most people want to make it out to be. It’s just like show up and go to work every day. you apply yourself for six to eight hours a day, I’m not looking for agents to work 12 hours a day, but if you show up and you do a couple of things, mean, one is you prospect, you follow up on the leads that you have, or you follow up on the ones that you got. Then you follow up on the people that are already in your pipeline and continue to move them through the pipeline to become clients. And then you go out and you do field work, right?

Michelle Kesil (00:05)
Yep.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Dylan Nonaka, who is a realtor in Hawaii, part of EXP Realty. So excited to have you here today, Dylan.

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (02:13)
Thanks for having me.

Michelle Kesil (02:14)
course, let’s dive in. First off, for those not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (02:21)
Our main focus is residential real estate. We run a real estate team that covers all four major Hawaii islands and Las Vegas. We just expanded Las Vegas late last year. so we primarily focus on residential and condominium sales. There is some land sales depending on the island, but that’s the main focus.

Michelle Kesil (02:39)
And how did you get started in real estate?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (02:42)
it was a long road, I-

first got started in real estate. My mom was a real estate broker. She got into real estate when I was in high school. And when I came back from the service, she made me get my real estate license to help her when I was in college. And so I did it kind of part time at that point. It wasn’t something I was super interested in doing as a career long-term. So I went off and did some other things for about 10 years. And then in 2015, she wanted to move towards retirement, slowing down. And so I reactivated my license and started to help her. that’s, that’s kind of how I got.

involved in it and things evolved from there. I realized it was probably a good idea, was probably a good career at that point. I had a shift in my mindset around doing it as a career.

Michelle Kesil (03:15)
And what do you know?

Amazing. What do you feel have been the main keys that have allowed your business to grow and run successfully?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (03:28)
The main thing I think is treating the business like a business. You know, I think most realtors just kind of wing it and figure it out and they don’t have organized systematized business. for me personally, I realized early on in my career, I mean, I was a decent realtor, a decent real estate broker, but I was better at creating processes and systems and repeatable, just standard operating procedures that can create.

predictable outcomes and I found that if I can provide that structure to agents and provide them with opportunity, I was a better lead generator. You know, always, I never suffered from not having enough leads. I was suffering from having too many leads. And so I leveraged, you know, those two skillsets to build a real estate team. And that’s been, I mean, that’s,

That’s definitely been the biggest strength that we’ve had is just doing really, my whole philosophy is right. There’s a lot of great realtors out there that are great at serving people. And if we can keep them doing that and not having to worry about the client acquisition and the lead generation and the systems and processes behind converting those leads and then serving them at a high level, we can get them to focus their time on their highest and best use and what their skill set is. And that’s what we focus on doing.

Michelle Kesil (04:38)
And how do you have that constant flow of leads?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (04:43)
Lots of different ways. pretty much, I mean…

Online is been the world of lead generation for a while now. We do Google Pay Per Click, we do Facebook and Instagram advertising, we do a lot of stuff on YouTube. We have a web property called livinginhawaii.com, which is a funnel of people who are interested in Hawaii lifestyle and moving here, and then gives them the option to contact us to help them with relocating and buying a home. We’re partners with Zillow, so we get a ton of leads from Zillow on their preferred program.

Those are kind of the external lead sources. And then of course, it’s about training agents to generate leads in their, from their sphere and from their communities via effective open houses and, and reach out and, and asking for referrals. So, it’s, it’s really everything. mean, leads are the lifeblood of any business. And, and so we put a lot of time and effort into one, generating the leads externally, but to give an agency skill set to generate them on their own and knowing how to convert them.

Michelle Kesil (05:40)
Would you say that, like what’s the proportion of your client base for those that are already living in Hawaii and those that are looking to relocate?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (06:36)
In general, it depends on the island. It’s about 60 40 statewide. So 60 % buy from in-state 40 % buy from out-of-state. It’s not a perfect metric because the only metric.

The way we measure that metric is where is your address when you purchase, right? So when you tell escrow, hey, my address is in California, whatever we consider you an out of state buyer, but that doesn’t account for the people who may have moved away for a couple of years and are moving home or may have a business somewhere, but actually spend most of their time here and they’re buying their home with references somewhere else. So it’s not a perfect metric, but it’s pretty reliable. That varies island by island. Some islands have a higher proportion of out of state buyers.

Kauai and the Big Island, Oahu it’s about 80 % in-state. So it varies but you know statewide it’s like 60-40.

Michelle Kesil (07:22)
And how is the market shifting right now in Hawaii?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (07:25)
It’s very, very slow. It’s not really shifting. It’s been pretty stagnant for we’re going on three years now. ⁓ Ever since rates went back up, we had a huge drop in the number of transactions at the height of

Like for example, on the, on the, on the big Island where I live at the height of the market, was 7,500 transactions a year. We’re down to just over 4,000. So it’s been a huge contraction in the number of deals that are happening, but that’s been pretty much consistent 20, 23, 24, 25. And this year is actually starting slower year to date than it did in those years. So, um, the market’s slow, the markets it’s stable.

prices haven’t fallen dramatically or anything like that, but it’s a higher skill set market, which I like. Agents got to have a higher skill set. They got to have a higher value proposition. And I think that’s where we thrive. So we’ve been okay. mean, we’ve seen our business grow year over year and we’re already this year we’re up 19 % in terms of units and 22 % in terms of volume sold. So we’re doing just fine as an operation. It’s just the market. I have a saying, we don’t participate in the market. It doesn’t matter what the market’s doing. If we go to work and

We do the right things and we’re consistent. We can succeed no matter what.

Michelle Kesil (08:37)
Yeah, can you expand upon what those skill sets look like in these times of, yeah, mark and insert Tinti’s.

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (08:44)
Yeah, it’s really…

I think more simple than most people want to make it out to be. It’s just like show up and go to work every day. you apply yourself for six to eight hours a day, I’m not looking for agents to work 12 hours a day, but if you show up and you do a couple of things, mean, one is you prospect, you follow up on the leads that you have, or you follow up on the ones that you got. Then you follow up on the people that are already in your pipeline and continue to move them through the pipeline to become clients. And then you go out and you do field work, right?

Michelle Kesil (08:50)
Yep.

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (09:11)
You show properties, you go to inspections, you go on appointments. And fundamentally, if agents

focus.

in on those three main activities. What we coach too is you do all of your lead follow up nurture and generation in the mornings and you do all of your appointments in the afternoon and you break your day up into two halves. You’ll always have a consistent pipeline, a consistent flow of business. It’s when agents, the biggest skill set is probably avoiding and we have a, it’s kind of a joke, but we call it real estate cosplay, right? Like people like to like dress up and go on lunch dates and do things that they feel like are real estate related.

open houses and stuff, but if you’re not talking to clients or actually serving them, you’re not really generating income. so just having agents be self-aware of that and avoiding the things that do not generate them income and build their business is a learned skill set, unfortunately, but that’s something that we focus it on.

Michelle Kesil (10:00)
Absolutely. And what are you most focused on solving or scaling to next?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (10:38)
Decentralization of leadership has been a big focus the last 12, 18 months. We went from a startup team in 2019 with my brother and a couple of friends to a statewide team of over 150 agents in six years. So it’s been rapid growth and expansion. with that,

We operate on four separate islands. So to go visit agents on another island, I literally got to get on a plane. mean, there’s, know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s like operating in four separate states at four separate markets, even though it’s, it’s just statewide. So, developing leaders and managers in, markets and, in smaller groups of organization within the organization is definitely a focus and we’re moving in that direction. It never happens as fast as you would like it to, but I think for us to continue to grow and support it just at a high

We’ve got to have decentralized leadership.

Michelle Kesil (11:27)
Yeah, absolutely. What have been some of the biggest challenges or obstacles that you’ve had to overcome in this role?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (11:35)
Well, definitely finding leaders is a big piece of it. Something that’s always difficult when you grow and expand is delegation of duties. And I think that’s something that holds a lot of people back. I’m lucky, I think, better at it naturally than most people are. come from a military background and I understand that you have to be able to trust people to do their jobs and you have to be able to delegate your responsibilities and authorities to other folks. so…

One, getting over that personally, and then two, finding the right people who want to take on those responsibilities can be difficult. But we’ve been lucky. I definitely believe that your vibe attracts your tribe. when you have intentions in the universe and you need certain things, the right people will emerge. And as long as you have the ability to recognize not necessarily…

the right talent, if you can recognize potential and then…

trust that it develop, things usually work out. And so far we’ve been very fortunate. mean, every time we needed somebody to play a key role, that person has emerged. And it’s mainly because we just provide the opportunity and believe in them. we have a culture of it’s okay to fail, right? I mean, that’s, think a thing that holds a lot of people back because they’re so afraid to do the wrong thing or make a mistake. And I make it very clear that this is just a business full of failure and mistakes. And that’s part of what we do. And I’d rather you

take the initiative and mess it up then take no initiative and not do anything. that has helped, think, develop leaders and help us find the right people.

Michelle Kesil (13:03)
Absolutely. And how do you like work with investors versus, you know, just normal home buyers?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (13:10)
It’s, um, you know, at the end of the day, a buyer is a buyer and every buyer is unique. mean, I don’t, investors is definitely a category of buyers. One of the things that we try to do with them and it’s not just, uh, buyers, but we do have investor sellers, right? That buy, that buy land, build spec houses and then sell that we, that we work with.

The biggest thing is just matching them up with the right people with the right skillset. And we definitely have a sub a subset of agents that that’s, that’s their bread and butter. They focus it on short-term vacation rental condominiums, or they focus on new build spec homes. So, ⁓ getting the right people to serve those clients is an important part of it, but we have a, because of our size, we have, a lot of experience and just data and expertise on the market. That’s, that’s I think greater.

than an individual agent who’s serving maybe doing 10 or 15 deals a year, I can look across the board and see what are trends in the last 50 vacation rentals that we’ve sold or the last 25 new bills that we’ve sold that can help provide better information, more actionable data for an investor. So that’s part of the value proposition that we provide them and let them know that they’re not just working with one individual agent, they’re working with the experience and ⁓ reach of the entire team.

Michelle Kesil (14:20)
What are your goals or any exciting opportunities that you have for the rest of the year?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (15:09)
Yes, we’ve already started that in Vegas. I’ve definitely found that the things that we do here in our evolution across the state applied pretty much on different islands. I every island is unique culturally and market wise, but

We’ve definitely gotten to the point where, you know, our systems, 90 % of the system works no matter where you are. So continued expansion outside of Hawaii and into other markets is definitely on the horizon. What exactly that looks like, I don’t really know because it’s a who not how situation. I mean, our expansion to Vegas was the right people reaching out and being interested in helping us do that. And so that’s something that I’m always looking for. If there’s people in other markets that can

utilize

our systems and our processes and things that we’ve built to help them grow and scale. We can partner and do that. And so it’s a cool thing about the…

world that we live in and the EXP business model is really you can expand globally, expanding nationally is not, I don’t want say it’s easy, but it’s very low barrier to entry. There’s a lot of things that we can do that we just weren’t available in previous years with the franchise model and other restrictions on the business model that are totally just not even in our way at all now. that’s just continued growth. I never intended to build a statewide team.

It’s intended to go to Vegas and just try to build systems that support agents and that has led to growth. So we’re just going to continue to do that when opportunities arise.

Michelle Kesil (16:32)
Yeah, can you expand on some of the specificities of these systems that have allowed you to grow?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (16:38)
Yeah, so it’s relatively simple. mean, I,

recognized early on just for myself. So the very first system I ever built was a Google doc that helped me write contracts. So I, when I first started and I was brand new, I went and looked through my mom’s last 10 closings and I, and I compared all the contracts, I’ve laid them all out on the table and I started to look and say like, Hey, there’s commonalities in this paragraph. We always put in 10 days or if in this paragraph, we always put 14 days. And so I, I knew like, I could standardize if it’s J one, you know, we’re always going to put in 14 days because that’s what you do for an inspection period. And then where

was variability, I could compare, hey, why is this different for a condo versus a house versus a piece of land? And then have some templates involved on, know, cutting paste language and things like that. And that helped me personally. Be more efficient in contract writing and be more consistent and be able to do it faster. And then I realized that other agents could use that and they could leverage it and get better writing contracts quicker. And we’ve really built that up to a very

complex. We have a website that basically has everything you need to know how to do to succeed in real estate, either written out or created for you, templates, checklists, processes, SOPs. And so we can, it allows us to deliver a consistent product to a client. Like my expectations for how a client should be served are clearly laid out. And so a brand new agent can really come in and follow a system, a checklist, step-by-step process that can

help them take a lead to an appointment, to a consultation, to put in a house on the market in a very consistent manner. And so that’s it. I try and I tell agents, mean, you know, we can provide you everything you need to succeed. I just cannot give you work ethic. Like if you can bring the work ethic, we can give you everything else. And so we’re constantly evolving on that and building, you know, with the way the market shifted recently in recent years with biorepresentation agreement.

We had to shift on what our consultations look like, what does our language sound like when we’re having those conversations, how do we overcome fears and objections that people have. And so that’s mainly my focus now is kind of chief strategist of looking forward. It’s like, do agents need as things change and evolve and creating those resources for them? So when the time comes, they have everything available to them that they need.

Michelle Kesil (18:55)
Amazing. And what advice would you give to someone that’s wanting to get started in real estate?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (19:00)
I would join a team. I was fortunate to kind come into the business with my mom and my stepdad. So I had some built-in mentorship and guidance. think most people get into this business and just join a brokerage based on if they know.

the logo or they have a friend there, but they don’t really evaluate what does it actually look like from a training and onboarding standpoint? What does it look like from an opportunity standpoint? Um, that’s that’s a big one. think that’s going to drive the future of real estate is, is who’s providing you with opportunity. It’s very difficult to build a large book of business from scratch. There are outliers who do it definitely, but that’s the vast majority do not. I mean, that’s why eight out of 10 real estate agents fail within the first two years. Um, I always thought that that statistic was

a stupid business model and I’m like why can’t we have you know eight out of ten succeed I mean I can’t have everybody succeed but I’d rather flip that on its head and that’s something that we focused on doing but um yeah going forward I mean that’s the that’s been the focus is is just being ahead of of what’s happening and providing agency resources and um

Just consistently showing up. That’s like I said, in the beginning, I mean, for somebody who’s thinking about getting into it, you want to attach yourself to a proven system that you know you can succeed in and, and.

One of my biggest pieces of advice for new agents that are evaluating that is don’t talk to the leader or the broker. Ask them for references of the newest three agents in their organization and ask them what their experience has been because that’s the user of the product and you don’t want to get the sales pitch from the team leader or the broker. You want to get the actual review from the people who have been in it for six months and that’s going to give you all the information that you need to know.

Michelle Kesil (20:37)
Amazing, thank you for sharing. Well, before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more, where can people find you?

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (20:45)
Yeah, I’m the only Dylan Nonaka in the world. So if you Google me, I’m very easy to find. Or you can find me at Kona Broker, K-O-N-A Broker on Instagram. And I post pretty regularly almost every single day, the real estate advice, thoughts, ideas. And so if you just need some easy coaching and you can go there to get that daily. if you go to my bio, link to all my stuff is there. You can book a meeting with me and I’m happy to help. Anybody who reaches out, that’s one of my

Responsibilities now is there’s a lot of people that helped us get to where we are and I feel a more responsibility to do the same. So I mean I do quick 30-minute coaching calls or consultations with folks all the time from anybody anywhere in the country. It doesn’t have to be in my market and if I can help just reach out.

Michelle Kesil (21:27)
Perfect. We’ll appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Dylan Nonaka @konabroker (21:30)
Thanks for having me.

Michelle Kesil (21:31)
And for those tuning in, you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Dylan who are building real businesses and we’ll see you on our next episode.