Just 2 Minutes - Interviews by Kamil Sarji

23-From Top Agent to Sales Trainer: The Mike Tessier Success Story

• Kamil Sarji • Episode 23

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 Get ready to be inspired as Mike Tessier, top-performing agent turned elite sales trainer, shares his incredible journey to success. Learn how Mike went from struggling in a hot real estate market to becoming one of the top agents in the industry and eventually training and mentoring other agents to greatness. This episode dives into the strategies that propelled Mike to the top, the mindset shift he needed, and the challenges of growing a successful team. Discover the value of persistence, leadership, and continuous improvement, and why understanding your business is the key to long-term success in real estate. Whether you're a real estate professional or just curious about the industry, this episode is packed with wisdom and actionable advice to take your career to the next level. 

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Kamil Sarji:

Welcome everybody. I'm Kamil Sarji, your host of Just Two Minutes today. And, uh, today's very exciting. I have Mike Tessier here.

Mike Tessier:

Hey everybody.

Kamil Sarji:

Mike, you want to tell us about you, what do you do?

Mike Tessier:

So I do a lot of different things. Uh, I'm a licensed realtor. Have been since 2003. I'm also a licensed mortgage loan originator, and I also do commercial lines of insurance and personal lines. So I wear a few different hats, all surrounded in the same environment in businesses that we all work in. So it's, it's exciting times.

Kamil Sarji:

Yes, for sure. So Mike's here because we want to talk about his background. It's super exciting. Things that he's been through. All right. So we're going to start our two minutes, just random questions, and then we can talk about the exciting stuff.

Mike Tessier:

Absolutely.

Kamil Sarji:

All right. So I'm gonna get my timer here. And, um, so you're at a fancy restaurant and you know how they have the, uh, utensils everywhere. Um, which out of the three forks is your favorite?

Mike Tessier:

Well, depending on what I'm eating determines which fork I'm going to use. I mean, the salad fork is smaller with less tines than your dinner fork. And there's also your cocktail fork, so it really depends on, uh, what's being served.

Kamil Sarji:

If you were to use, uh Just one.

Mike Tessier:

You know, I'm a salad fork guy. smaller bites, I like to chew my food, make sure it's, uh, properly digested.

Kamil Sarji:

Okay. Skateboard, skateboarding, surfboarding, or snowboarding?

Mike Tessier:

All three.

Kamil Sarji:

All three?

Mike Tessier:

All three.

Kamil Sarji:

Which one's your favorite?

Mike Tessier:

Still snowboard.

Kamil Sarji:

Snowboard?

Mike Tessier:

Yeah, the kids and I do double black diamonds, um, they ski, I snowboard.

Kamil Sarji:

Have you ever, uh, been up so high? And didn't realize like how, um, dangerous it was or how

Mike Tessier:

No, for the most part we, you know, I put both the kids on skis at four. Um, they're way better than I am. I try to keep up with them at this point. But we haven't come across anything yet that we can't handle.

Kamil Sarji:

Very cool. Are you a city boy or a country boy?

Mike Tessier:

City boy.

Kamil Sarji:

City boy. So why do you hate the country?

Mike Tessier:

Well, I don't hate the country. I love it. Um, I just, I grew up in the city, so I have a lot of city mentality. Um, you know, I live in a town, um, at this point. But the reality of it is it's not much different than a city. You know, we live in different times than, you know, 50 years ago. We're too connected to the city.

Kamil Sarji:

Uh, where is this world going to be in ten years?

Mike Tessier:

Ten years, huh? Phew. I don't know. I, I really don't. Um, the only thing I worry about is what today's gonna look like and what tomorrow's gonna look like.

Kamil Sarji:

Okay. Very good. What'd you think of that?

Mike Tessier:

That was easy. It was good.

Kamil Sarji:

Random questions.

Mike Tessier:

And it's only a couple minutes, right? As you know full well that if you get over like three and a half minutes, nobody's watching you shit. I seem to get to that turnoff where I'm like three and a half minutes into some stuff, unless it's like great content that you need to spend a few minutes on. After about three and a half minutes, I'm like, all right, what else can I be doing while this is playing? Multitask it.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah. That's why I chop them up into little shorts. But yeah, the whole interview, there's a lot of good stuff in there. So like you, I have an awesome, awesome background. Very interesting. That's why I wanted to bring you here today. You started with a brokerage and pretty much went from being an agent, and then you started training and becoming this master sales, uh, trainer.

Mike Tessier:

So true. What what ended up happening is when I first got licensed back in 2003, I was in Franklin, Massachusetts, one of the hottest real estate markets in the country at the time. And six months into it, I hadn't had a sale. And I was prospecting, doing what limited I could. I had a sale, my first sale, it was $769,000. Got my commission check. This is great. It took me 10 years to sell another house for that value. Don't get me wrong. I figured out, I didn't know enough people in the market I was in to stay in that market. I came to the Rhode Island market that we're in because I had more contacts, more leverage to actually do business. I also figured out that I could do three sales back in the mid 2000, 253,000 dollars apiece faster than I can get and sell one of those houses for 750, 000. So I decided I was going to make it up in volume.

Kamil Sarji:

So being in Franklin Market versus here, what do you think was the reason? You think it was because you knew people?

Mike Tessier:

So, uh

Kamil Sarji:

Why Rhode Island versus Emmaus?

Mike Tessier:

Because 26 years old. It's very hard to get somebody to hand you the keys to the most valuable possession when you don't know anything about buying or selling a house personally. Right. Like, it was a bit of a struggle. When I came to Rhode Island, the people that I knew were at an age where they were starting to buy houses. So, they were buying starter homes. At which point it was easier to be their guide. I understood the pieces. I had a great mentor when I came in. He caught me on a prospect and worked the business the right way. Pre internet. And then the internet came. He ended up, he was retired at that point. Then the internet really took over in our industry. And it became, where do we go next? How do we make this work? You know, there were a few years where it was just a transitional market, we, then we had the housing fallout in 2008, 07, 08, you know, housing market fell out, watched a lot of realtors get out of the business. And it was a slow, progressive climb back, but, you know, I changed brokerages a few times because you always think that the grass is greener elsewhere. You never realize you got a watering room lawn. And if you're not investing in you and in what you're doing, somewhere else isn't going to make it different. And then I connected as an agent working for Nathan and slowly started climbing through ranks of his agents. One of the things that I realized is that even though I was in my market with all the contacts I knew, I just didn't know enough people. I was limited by the people I knew. And I realized I had to meet more people. I had to get in front of more people.

Kamil Sarji:

At what point when you were with all these other brokerages, what point did you realize like, Okay, Nathan is the one that's actually, that's gonna, is the right one for me.

Mike Tessier:

So, listen, I have tremendous respect for Nathan. He handled something that most people will never even comprehend or reach and achieve. So what I would say is, I got to a point where there was another agent who got in the business maybe a year or two after me. And he'd gone to work with Nathan a few years before I did. And I started looking at his stats in the listing service. And he was doing 26, 30 houses a year pretty consistently. And, uh, I should, there's something there. So, right before I went to move to work with him, I realized that the stand alone agent step can't do this job as one agent for. If you want to be burnt out and out of business, you're one agent for a couple of years and find out how taxable it is. I have to nail the it's a quantity, turn it off, have to pick new gens, give you some time. So, as I was watching the statistics of this other agent, I flat out said to myself, because I got to believe in myself first. And say, God, if you're doing that, I can do double that. I had to do twice that.

Kamil Sarji:

Oh, nice, competition

Mike Tessier:

So I went to work. I, I interviewed with a couple of other teams and organizations because I really was at a point where I didn't want to do it by myself. I figured that out pretty quickly in the business. And I went and interviewed with a couple of other teams and their deal wasn't as good as Nathan's. Everybody complains about Nathan's. The only deal was still better than most of the other teams. The people think I bring deals. They don't.

Kamil Sarji:

Uh, Why weren't, why weren't people seeing that when they were looking at profitable? They didn't do the numbers right? Is that what?

Mike Tessier:

Well, so, you know, real estate has a lot of people that are more interested in being liked, you know, and I see a lot of friendships or relationships in real estate that are there while you're at the same company. But then when you go to work for a competitor, you're no longer friends, you know, or you're friendly enough if there's a deal to be had, but you're not going to go and have dinner with your family. Things of that nature. Um, so there's some change that goes on when I change companies and the camaraderie in the business. But as I started looking at the numbers of what they were doing, I started to realize I don't understand and can make sure that I get where I'm not being. And one of the first things that we had to learn is that. There's a process, you know, buying and selling real estate is a process, it's not an event. So once I understood the metrics of how to manage the business side of it, which is, you know, if part of what he's trying to teach you how to run it more like a business, they'll never let you see the financials. It's what it is. But when you talk about why other agents don't see the benefits of going there, I don't know that, you know, everybody's sitting up on their split. In fact, they're looking at the wrong numbers. You know, an agent that gets, you know, 90 percent, do you know, or more out of their He usually doesn't get broker services, doesn't get return phone calls timely, and it's nothing more than that. It's kind of enough to eat in the bowl for the broker to want to be at the death stadium with the agents that they live with. And you start to figure out that they're focused on those big percentages, doing four or less sales a year on average, which is what the average broker does, is four or less. So they're worried about their 90 percent on the four deals, where if I could get half of the 90%, 45, or even 40, but do 12 deals, I think I'm winning.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah. Cause you're doing the math. It makes sense.

Mike Tessier:

That's right. If you're going to put. X amount of business in front of me and I have to go capitalize on it, capture it and bring it home and then work it and get paid. Only instead of worrying about one or two deals, you know, I should call it deal to dirty word, transactions at a time, you know, where you're focused on those things and every little thing that goes on in them is a major stress and anxiety. And I know you've seen agents when they get to, they have one or two transactions going on at a time and they're really struggling with it. It's one or two. I wrote 15 in a month one time when I was an agent, in February, which is a short month. You know, there was two other guys in the company that actually did those kind of numbers after me. One did it before me, one did it after me. But I went from selling, you know, 15 houses a year on my own. You know, which is nothing to sneeze at a decent split to selling 40 plus a year at a lesser split. But I was doing so much more. I'm overclosed a lot. Then I got to about 60 homes a year and I started to realize that this was good. And I had to work my way up from doing 40 to 60. And there was competition. There was guys that were there ahead of me. They've earned their spots and I kind of had pushed them through you know, they can, it doesn't work for us at the time. We get three appointments to my one. But he would only sell two or three more houses a year than me. So my conversion was much better.

Kamil Sarji:

Uh huh.

Mike Tessier:

But these are things, I didn't know these things until I got into the management and then they were like, well, yeah, we used to send you on the hard stuff, we used to send you on this.

Kamil Sarji:

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Mike Tessier:

They were like, oh yeah, we full well known, we looked at some of these things, like you were the fit for this one. They're like, you know, some of these guys work a better price point market. You know, they're down in South County selling higher end homes, but we sell the hardest. That's easy.

Kamil Sarji:

Wow. They were still selling them. Like they were giving the hard stuff and you're still selling.

Mike Tessier:

Multifamilies, five, six units, three units. At this point now, when somebody's got a multifamily and they want to start negotiating commission. We go the wrong way. They want to go down while I'm going up. I've had to explain to people like, I'm sorry, you got a three unit here. You don't live in it. I need that a four masters. I got four people I got to work with. I'm going to have to charge you four times cost.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

Nobody wants to hear that, especially investor.

Kamil Sarji:

It is a lot of work.

Mike Tessier:

Hey, you know, and, and I got to tell you, the investor

Kamil Sarji:

And tenants don't want to show. They're like, Oh, I'm busy. I need 48 hours. You can't do this. Like Well,

Mike Tessier:

I'm going to throw out a gem right here. I wouldn't take a multifamily listing once I got to understand how to run the business properly, if I had to notify the tenants. And I would flat out pass on it at the table if the seller wasn't going to notify the tenants. I'm telling this, I'm not interested. You have not enough money that you can pay me to do this if you're not going to be involved. And I'd have to explain to them, we're in this together and your boss is over there and going to get in our way. So how this works is instead of them telling you, no, it's not convenient, blowing me off, not being there, locking the door. Let them out when I flip the key in the door and have them be arrested, which I don't want to have happen. I would just rather have you let them know when we're going to show the property, so that when they pull all the crap that they're going to pull with me with you, eventually you allow that idea that they're stopping you from getting what you want. And then you're going to make the appropriate moves to make sure we all get what we want. And, you know, if that's one gold nugget that comes out of this for people, when you talk about understanding your value, I know my value is not chasing around a bunch of people that don't want to see the building sell. There's no value in that. So I would rather pass on the business than know that I'm going to lose.

Kamil Sarji:

Wow. That's awesome. That's interesting because it is a lot of work having to deal with, you know, trying to get, and the tenants don't want to sell their home because they don't know what is going to happen with the new tenant, the landlord.

Mike Tessier:

The best investors, people that understand that time is money and that it's not just about them, will do it. People that only care about themselves and don't give a crap. They don't care if the building sells or not. They do if they get their number. But the reality of it is, they don't want to put any work, no I'm handing it to you and I'm done.

Kamil Sarji:

Right.

Mike Tessier:

That doesn't work in today's world. I'm sorry, you, you put all these people in here that don't respond, don't do whatever. And then, you know, when the landlord's involved in the setting up of the showings on these multifamilies, when the feedback starts to come back, I've had them show up. I've asked them, logical, you just stand there and let them, and you can actually follow these people through your building to see what it is. We don't have to tell them who you are. I've done it. Usually they walk out and they're like, all right, take the purse down. You know, and it isn't that that was my objective. Yeah. It's the fact is, you think you're holding this piece of gold, and it is gold, but it's not polished.

Kamil Sarji:

I love that.

Mike Tessier:

And you want polished money. You want market value, but you're not delivering a market value product. Well, the buyer wants market value products, the market value money, it's that simple. So these are ideas that once we can convey them without it becoming nasty, aggressive, or anything that would be a put off to somebody, you're going to win 9 out of 10 times just being professional. On having balance. Walking from people. I've done more business from people that I've told I didn't want to work with them and they wouldn't leave me alone because they're like, well, no, somebody said I had to talk to you. And I would tell them, yeah, but you don't want to do it the way it needs to be done. I'd rather pass. I don't want to do it this way. And eventually they come around and they go, well, I gave it to somebody else and they couldn't sell it. I go, right, because they didn't understand you need flood insurance on your property. When I sold you the house, we talked about this. You were cash. You don't need flood insurance. But when you go to sell it, you're going to, I'm like, nobody wants to pay five plus thousand dollars for flood insurance. They get no nothing for it. And as you start to explain to these people, the little things they forget, they start to come around and be like, you're right, okay, let's do it your way. It works. It's an event. It's a process, not an event.

Kamil Sarji:

So at what point did Nathan say, you know what? I want you to run or be the sales trainer.

Mike Tessier:

So it's an interesting dynamic. There was a woman who worked in the front of the office and she wanted to be an agent. So I, you know, I encouraged her, like you should do it. It took her a few times to pass the test. But then she was done and I said, listen, I'll just have her work with me. You guys don't have to give her anything. I'll help her along and we can get her up and going. About six months into that process, she was doing open houses for another brokerage with her friend who was an agent elsewhere. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't do that.

Kamil Sarji:

Wow, okay.

Mike Tessier:

I'm like, that's just not allowed. Period. And she was like, well, I don't see any reason why I should go do your open houses when I can do this one with my friend. And I said, because you eat off of my stuff. You don't eat off your friend's stuff. And I kind of realized like, oh, you might not be the right fit to assist me with the overflow of my business. So about six months later, one of my investor clients had a tenant and he said, I want you to take this kid on. So I talked with him and I was kind of like, eh, I'm not sure. But when I met him. I was instantly impressed with him. I didn't like his phone skills.

Kamil Sarji:

How do you know if you have a good sales brainset?

Mike Tessier:

Well, at this stage of the game, there are tests out there. They determine different personality types and different motivations, and some of those tests are highly effective.

Kamil Sarji:

Did you test him or did you ask or talk to him and try to interview him?

Mike Tessier:

I talked to him on the phone and I just didn't like the way he communicated on the phone. A lot of yeahs, a lot of, you know, like slang. He was young, you know, a millennial type kid. But he didn't understand how to talk to people that are actually gonna do something. But when I met him, I liked him. He had the right look. You know, he had the right set. I figured we can polish him. So he came on and worked with me about six months in. Like I just said, just drive him past. You see the car. You're going to return phone calls to these people as we go to appointments. Because I would be 25, 30 appointments a week for real estate. I'd be going all over the place. So I just had him get in the car and ride with me. And then he would hear phone calls with clients and stuff and start to understand how to do the business, how to move things along. Yeah. And he started getting better about it. And then there was one day he and I were in the office. And I was showing him some math on the board and explaining it. And Nathan and Rachel, who was his, he's his president now, were in their office listening to me explain to him. And six other agents came to sit because they couldn't understand the concept that we were talking about, about income and expense on multifamilies. And as I was explaining it, and a little background, my mom's a teacher, my grandmother's a teacher, so I grew up with teachers. I understand how to teach and coach somebody along. Because they used to do it to me. So I was giving him the advice and it. You know, we got to a point where like every Tuesday in the afternoon, we would be there and more and more agents started showing up to listen and to try to learn some things. And then we got to a point where it was COVID had happened. And I was actually at home with COVID, lay in bed. And I got a phone call where Nathan said, I want you to be my sales manager. And I said, no, I'm not interested. I'm like, nope, not interested.

Kamil Sarji:

It's a lot of work.

Mike Tessier:

He's like, no, no, we should talk about it. I said, no, I'm just not interested. So we talked about it another time and I said, I don't know, I'm not, I don't think it's for me. I don't play well with others. Like when I want what I want, I want it. I don't let too many things get in my way when I'm after something. So we had a good chat about that and then finally he said, look, I don't know if the, if the guys on the team will follow anybody else. You're one of the few guys that throws it down, speaks up, says how it has to be, and then you also have the track record to prove that it works. He's like, I got some guys here that could probably be better at educating, but I don't think that the group will follow them entirely. He's like, they'll all follow you. They know full well, like, you get on the phone, they've heard you deal with people to the point where In five minutes, you've solved something that most of us are like, how the hell are they going to get through that?

Kamil Sarji:

So did everybody already know you by that point, at that point? Like when he asked you?

Mike Tessier:

I was five years on the team at this point.

Kamil Sarji:

Okay. Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

Like I had earned the spot. Yeah. They knew I was in the top three consistently every year.

Kamil Sarji:

Mad respect already.

Mike Tessier:

Yeah. Either three categories we were tracking and I was number one, two or three in all three of those categories. I was never one across the board, but I was always in the mix on everything. So I had a thorough grasp of everything and I was the only agent that did commercial at the time, commercial real state so doing that piece of it too, adding that in was like, well, you're the most well rounded, polished and capable. Plus after I'd been training, you know, the agent that worked under me and then all the other agents sitting in, and they actually were reaching out more and more. At the end of COVID finally he said, look, you know, I just need you to do this so I can grow. He's like, I can't grow with anybody else. So, we started doing it and we doubled. We went from 17 agents to 35 agents in about 12 months. And that was by testing for the right personalities, hiring people that we felt were coachable and trainable, and educating them on how we do it. It wasn't pleasant, and I would tell you we had about maybe a 40 percent stick rate, so I would hire five to keep two.

Kamil Sarji:

Wow. Okay.

Mike Tessier:

Because in 30 to 60 days.

Kamil Sarji:

On top of like interviewing them and making sure they're good, the five that you thought would be perfect, only two would stay.

Mike Tessier:

Right. So we would start training.

Kamil Sarji:

Okay. And the training. Okay.

Mike Tessier:

So we would do like a full week training.

Kamil Sarji:

Uh huh.

Mike Tessier:

And then they'd have a 30 day mentor program that we had instituted so that somebody would oversee what they did. And then I would get involved if the mentor came to me with issues so that we try to keep them moving along and we track everything.

Kamil Sarji:

It's great, like, uh, if you can, like, accelerate the dropout so you know who's the people. Did you kind of, like, create it that way?

Mike Tessier:

No, no, no. It just became the number that would, that really kind of stuck around at 40%.

Kamil Sarji:

And what day of the 30 days would they?

Mike Tessier:

It was different for every person. So everybody, you know, usually, when I say stick rate, we would, two out of five, it would probably take them about six months.

Kamil Sarji:

Six months to bust out.

Mike Tessier:

Six months before they would either leave or we would occasionally ask people to leave. We were one of the only places that terminated agents and we didn't terminate them for stupid stuff.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

We terminated them for not being people of character, you know, and, and I know that's something that a lot of people don't always understand, but if what they were doing wasn't upfront and in the proper way, why would we have those people around?

Kamil Sarji:

All right.

Mike Tessier:

If they're doing this kind of stuff, they're going to keep doing it. And what are they going to eventually try to do to you? Some of them just, they couldn't sell. You know, you get to the point, you'd be like, Hey, you know, we've given you this many opportunities and you've converted zero.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

You know, maybe sales isn't for you. You know, and, and some of them are still my friends. I've had people actually reach out to me and be like, you letting me go was the best thing you could ever done for me. Cause I realized that wasn't for me.

Kamil Sarji:

And they're in different career.

Mike Tessier:

They're in different careers because they would have been broke in six months. You don't have enough money behind you to be in real estate. How do you get started? And sometimes, you know, I would ask them as I was hiring, you prepared to go six months without a paycheck? And they all said yes. And in a month or two, they'd all be crying. They have no money. And we talked about this. Like, it takes six months to build a pipeline. It takes six months to get going.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

I'm like, the advantage you have here is that If you're doing it, it'll work. If you're not doing it, it won't. And, you know, I learned a lot about agents. Interviewing and training a lot about agents. You know, not everybody's good at what they do. Some people do this because they have a passion for real estate, but they're not a true negotiator. They're not a salesperson. They're not somebody that, you know, wants conflict or invites it. Not that I'm looking for conflict ever, but I'm not shying away from it either. If conflict's going down, We're going to stand our ground, you know, and I think there's a lot of people in our industry, in the real estate industry, that the minute there's conflict, they're out. They can't handle it.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah. They can't just give up.

Mike Tessier:

And, and unfortunately for their clients, those are the people that are losing because they're not fighting the hard battle.

Kamil Sarji:

So in that first week of training, what are the like, in order, like the most important thing that you're teaching? Like what's the top five things that you're,

Mike Tessier:

Well, it's been a few years since I did it through the training, but you know, ultimately the training would be to explain to them how we worked as an organization, how they were to utilize all the right people in the organization to take the load off of them so that they could focus on just selling. The whole goal was to get salespeople to go sell, not to hire people that liked real estate that don't sell. You know, I don't get a broker's license because I don't understand the idea that not every realtor wants to be let's go all the time. And in business, I struggle with that idea. Like people want to have businesses and I get passive business. You know, Hey, I got, I put money into this so that somebody else can run it. They've got their salary and I get my residuals or whatever you want to call it, my piece of the pie. In real estate though, I found that there's people that get in it just so that they kind of have something to do when they feel like doing it.

Kamil Sarji:

But during the interview, wouldn't that pop up when you're kind of interviewing these?

Mike Tessier:

Yeah, so we, when I would interview people, I would ask them a series of questions. We would have a very straightforward interview to try to find out a little bit about who they were, why they wanted to be in real estate. That was always one of the questions. Why do you want to do this? Right.

Kamil Sarji:

Which, why?

Mike Tessier:

And most of the, if they couldn't answer that question, you know, why would I want you? You know, so it would be a, why do you want to be in real estate? Well, cause I've always loved doing it. Okay. Why should I want you? Well, I'll work real hard. I'm like, sure, everybody says that. I'm like, but what do you bring to the table? You know, and you have to ask those questions, you know,

Kamil Sarji:

you have to bring these out that they didn't even think of. And sometimes they don't even know.

Mike Tessier:

One of the best questions that Jamie gave me was, when you were in high school, did you play sports? And usually, you know, the people that played sports were like, oh, I played sports. I'm like, great. Did you start? On the bench. Believe it or not, though, it says a lot about who they are because most of the time they'd be like, no, I started. Okay. So you got a bit of a drive. You're competitive. Oh, I sat the bench. Oh, you know. And not that that's a problem either. I just want to go. And then we move on. So what else did you do? Were you involved in other act? You know what I mean? Like, because if I've already eliminated that you're not competitive and it's not that you're not competitive, but you might not be competitive enough and in the sales game, you better be ready to go for it. I would try to find people that were all in, you know, people that had nothing to lose by going after it. And it's hard, you know, people will tell you exactly what they will and won't do if you listen.

Kamil Sarji:

And especially if you've got someone who's doesn't make anything and kind of has to like trust the process and trust in what they're doing is going to get them money. That's hard.

Mike Tessier:

It is hard. It's not hard when you're sitting in a room full of people that are doing it because, you know, the buyer agreement, most companies didn't do that until recently. And I can remember agents saying like, no one will pay these numbers. No one will do this. And I would stand in front of 35 agents and just be like, I don't know, we've built a brokerage off of this idea. Did people do this? Yeah. Like, this place runs because of the fact that we run it this way.

Kamil Sarji:

Mm hmm.

Mike Tessier:

But those people that don't believe or, well, I don't feel right doing it. Okay. Well, maybe you should think about if this is the place for you or not. It's not personal, you know, and that's the biggest thing. It's not personal. It's business.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah. So after the interview and they kind of like, cause there's some techniques and like different things that you can play games. You said, is there a test or anything that someone can do?

Mike Tessier:

So I would meet with these folks and interview them. And if I liked them and I felt like they were somebody that we could move, then we would send the test to them.

Kamil Sarji:

What kind of tests?

Mike Tessier:

Personality profiling, sales, sales test.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah. Okay.

Mike Tessier:

Things like that. Try to get a baseline on.

Kamil Sarji:

And how accurate and how, like, what percentage is that accurate to finding the right salesperson?

Mike Tessier:

So you set metrics that you're looking for and you draw the line where you're not going to go below these metrics. And I can tell you that 75 percent of the people with the metrics that we hired underperformed.

Kamil Sarji:

Really? Okay,

Mike Tessier:

I was taking brand new agents, no experience training them and they were doing 20 plus sales a year in the first year.

Kamil Sarji:

That's amazing.

Mike Tessier:

A brand new agent.

Kamil Sarji:

So interview and the test, 75%.

Mike Tessier:

Because they hit the certain metrics we were looking for. My friend Nathan said to me, if you want to hire people that are really going to go out and do it, like hit it out of the park, find poor, hungry, indetermined people. He's right. You know, every time we've hired somebody that had some means or whatever, they don't want to do it. They decide that they're going to show up when they feel like it because they don't need the money. You know, same thing with people that have full time jobs that want to get into this, you know. The reality is they pick and choose when they want to work this because they have their full time job. The minute something doesn't fit in the part time real estate world, that's what goes away. They go to their job, they go to their family event, and they don't service your client. You know, and I mean, you're a broker owner, you know. Even though your agents sign these clients up, they're your clients.

Kamil Sarji:

You're right.

Mike Tessier:

You're actually the guy on the hook for them. The agent's got some, you've got the bulk. So the last thing you want is someone running around not treating a client right, because it's your real estate company that's getting the ding on it.

Kamil Sarji:

So now that you have these perfect candidates, new agents, what does it take to get them to be high producing agents? I mean, besides the support and the opportunities,

Mike Tessier:

you gotta find them qualified opportunities. And then there's a piece where goal setting is important. They have to have goals. There has to be some sort of accountability. You know, again, running a team like a business versus running a real estate office hoping they want to be in business is different. You know, and for me, that's my journey since, since parting with them and going to a few other brokerages. I realized not everybody wants to run their business this way and, and that's fine. Everybody should run their business the way they want. But when I look at some of the things and they're always thinking that it's going to be better elsewhere, the question is how come you haven't invested in you yet to make it better? And, you know, everywhere I've gone in my journey has been to improve myself, not to just figure out if I can make it, you know, better over there and easier. Like, I'm not looking for the easier path.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

It's clearly not the road. But I would get them through the test. I would get them trained. I would get them in front of qualified prospects and

Kamil Sarji:

The trained part. What's, what are you training?

Mike Tessier:

We would role play. We would go over procedure, we would go over documents, we would go over terminology to insert into contracts and terminology to never allow in a contract. And we would drive the point like, don't just roll over. If the contract's not right, if it's not meeting these standards, stop the car, pull it over, take a breath, whatever you got to do, go back to the table and let them know this and this and this have to be corrected. And we would try to teach them how to read the contract, how to understand it, how to understand that everything you put into the contract has a cause and an effect. I worked with a very gifted agent who used to put redundant cycles in her contracts. To the point where like you couldn't remove it, I mean you could, but it was like if this doesn't happen then this won't, and I'd be like you gotta take that stuff out. I'm like all you're doing is creating a situation based off a document that either they surrender or they don't. Like, it's already accounted for, you just make it, it's redundant. Like I said, she was gifted, you know, but she overthought it really badly. You know, hopefully those things have changed since she's moved on. But yeah, we would teach him how to manage the transaction, how to interact. You know, it's hard to teach people to be on time. It's hard to tell people to get dressed, but you have to do it. Like we're professionals. You know, there's nothing worse than when you show up to somebody who just came off the golf course with sweat running down their head. Listen, I love golfing. I'm not a great golfer, but I love to golf. But I don't rush from the golf course to an appointment, I show up dressed to do business. You know, and that was a hard lesson to learn, but it's important, you know, people want to be professional, but they don't want to be professional all the time.

Kamil Sarji:

Uh, right.

Mike Tessier:

You know, and to some degree, like on the weekends, if I'm out and someone's asking me questions, you know, and I'm with my family or whatever, I'd be like, listen, I'd love to chat with you. Why don't you give me a call by the day? We'll make it time. I'll come out and meet you, I'll have coffee with you, whatever, you know? We can kiss pay on. The reality is, I want to have this conversation, just not on my family's time. We can't borrow family time for business anymore.

Kamil Sarji:

Hmm. Because you've done that in the past.

Mike Tessier:

Well, yeah. You're cheating on your family with your business.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

You can only serve so many people, you know, and at some point you got to be in the moment. So yeah, you got to turn it off. But you have to be able to afford to do those things too. Some agents, you know, need to build enough business that they can pick and choose.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

Choice is important.

Kamil Sarji:

Great, great information. So do you go out with? The agent on a showing or a listing appointment? Or you've done a lot of role play that you don't even need to.

Mike Tessier:

So we did a lot of role play and then, you know, if it was a listing appointment, we would have the newer agents. Once they master working buyers, then you start teaching them how to work a listing. Because if you don't understand what a buyer is going to buy in a house, how are you ever going to explain it to the seller when the seller's got their own issues going through their heads on this stuff? Yeah. So usually, you'd have to be with us and have a track record, you know, for listings, but yeah, we would send you out on appointments with another agent to see how he did it. I would go out with the agent when they would have their opportunities, and for the first five or so, I would just do the listing appointment, secure the listing, let them run it, so that they would at least have the experience of the business on the back end. I would go get it. Yeah. I'd bring it in, and I'd bring it in, and I would ask them flat out, like, what's the number? What's the percentage we're charging here? And they'd be like, blah, blah, blah. I'd be like, okay, so I'm going to try to get more. I'm like, and you know, let them negotiate. I'm like, but if that's the bottom, that's the bottom. All right. And I would just go and get it and they would learn a lot, you know. And there were a lot of times where I would have to go meet with their clients with them to go over home inspection. So it, you know, as the sales manager and the trainer, it really did take time at nights and weekends on top of the full workload of going to make sure that they're successful. Eventually you get to a point where the statistics are in their favor where it's like, I don't need to go with you anymore. You can do the job. You know, I would go with them for the first five.

Kamil Sarji:

Okay. I was going to ask how many.

Mike Tessier:

It was about five. And I would help them secure the first two or three. Then I would have them do it. And I was there to make sure we didn't lose. You run the process, I'm just here to observe. And we would tell them flat out, just here to observe. You know, you know, I wouldn't tell him exactly who I was, you know, I'd just be like, no, I'm new, whatever. And I would just sit there and then there's a slide that had my picture, you know, when we were doing presentations. So that would come up and they'd look at me and I'd be like,

Kamil Sarji:

combatant, I might be that guy.

Mike Tessier:

You know, and then I would have, they would have questions like, oh, what are they new or whatever? And I'd be like, no, they've been with us for over a year. I'm like, I'm just here to make sure it's a quality control thing. You know, and it really was a quality control thing, like let's make sure that we're hitting the numbers, we're hitting the standards. You know, everybody thinks that everybody runs their business differently than they do. When you actually see how people run their business, it's either good or it's not. What works for one may not work for another. I like structure. I, you know, I like discipline. I like goal setting. You know, I like achievement, accountability. Those are the things that drive everybody. People that don't like that stuff, they're not really the people I was looking for.

Kamil Sarji:

So all these things that you take into consideration as you're like building your sales training, how many hours in a day should someone put into real estate?

Mike Tessier:

Depends.

Kamil Sarji:

Cause you know, you don't want to light nights and weekends. I mean, if you were aiming it right and doing it right.

Mike Tessier:

If you're not working 50 hours a week as a full time real estate professional, you're not a full timer. That's the truth. You know, and while you're going to give up your Saturdays and your Sundays pretty regularly and you're going to give up some weeknights pretty regularly, you know, you got to account for those three, four hour blocks somewhere. I shouldn't even generalize that, but the average person, if they're working three to four hours at night, means they're going to start their day three to four hours later in the day, or they're going to take a block in between. For themselves unless they have another job. But I would find to do 40 plus sales, it's Monday through Friday of setting it up so that you can work the nights and the weekends. So it's really like 60 plus hours to do volume. To handle that much load.

Kamil Sarji:

Yeah.

Mike Tessier:

So yeah, when you think about those things, it's definitely you gotta have the right personality and mindset to go chase that kind of business. Well, you know, the average agent's pretty happy doing one or two a month. Two a month's a good life. It's good living. One a month pays the bills. You might be a little bit broke here and there and, you know, have a little debt you're carrying, you know, and you also don't want to get in trouble with the taxman. Cause once that happens, it's a slippery slope.

Kamil Sarji:

Yup. So, if we were to take someone and throw them in middle America, where they don't know anybody, what do you suggest for them, like how do they become a successful agent?

Mike Tessier:

Well, I would think if you're taking somebody, an experienced agent or someone fresh, no experience.

Kamil Sarji:

Uh, experienced agent.

Mike Tessier:

Experienced agent, you drop them in the Midwest with no contacts.

Kamil Sarji:

What should they do?

Mike Tessier:

Well, the first thing they should do is probably go meet with every loan officer and title attorney. in their market and start building up a network through that, you know, cause the loan officers are going to be looking to build that relationship and you know, you don't know anybody. So now you need to get invited to some networking events where you might actually meet somebody or get to a point where you start getting a loan officer that wants to partner with you to host home buying seminars. So you can actually try to meet with people, you know, I would say to have that person do some credit services so that they can start thinking about the high hanging fruit, not just the low hanging fruit of, Hey, these people have a 620 credit score and. You know, they can get a mortgage, but they'd like to get a little bit of a better rate. We're going to put them on ice for six months and then not ghost that person.

Kamil Sarji:

Uh,

Mike Tessier:

stay in the present with them because all their friends are going to hear like, Oh, this realtor is helping me fix credit. He's got me connected with a loan officer that's doing this. So that I can absolutely get this done the right way and get them to buy ability so that they win. And when they win, I win. And it has to be a win win. You know, that's the thing the agent doesn't realize or most agents need to realize is it has to be a win win. If your client wins, you win. If the client wins and you don't win, then you didn't set up the expectation or your paperwork properly, you know? And then that's just what it is. You know, we've talked earlier before we got on the podcast. You know, about agreements and enforcing them. And what I've found is that if you set up your agreements properly, you should always be able to come out with enough to feed your family and move forward.

Kamil Sarji:

Uh huh. Yeah. What was that feeling like when you trained an agent, a new agent, and then you saw them become super successful getting awards and what was that feeling like?

Mike Tessier:

Oh, a huge sense of pride. Like a father pride. You know, I nurtured this person. I gave them some tough love some days, but I always had their interests in their back. And my team knew that. Like the people that worked under me, they knew full well that if they called me at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday, I would still take their call. If they needed me to go meet with somebody because they were struggling, I would do it. You know, if it was seven o'clock at night, you know, like I really had their backs. I went and fought the hard battles for them if I knew the context, if I knew who was involved and I had a relationship, I would get heavily involved. The goal was just to make them successful, you know, and when they were successful, I was successful. So it was a good fit, you know, their interest was at heart.

Kamil Sarji:

I mean, you've changed so many people's lives, it must be amazing.

Mike Tessier:

I have a lot of people that I still am in contact with, that I used to work with, that absolutely still reach out to me for advice. Like, hey, what do you think of this or that? You know, I tell them all the time. I'm always here, I'm always available. I'll always get back to you, but you know, our time working together was good, but they've moved on in different directions as of I, so I don't see us crossing paths again. I, it'd be great if we did, but I think I gave them enough they can do a stand on their own.

Kamil Sarji:

That was the last question. Have you thought about starting your own real estate coaching or training?

Mike Tessier:

I have. I have. I've spent the last year and a half or so looking at what's going on in our industry, trying to figure out where the need is. One of the biggest problems that I'm running into, and I don't know if it's just me or the way I look at things, but it's something that I'm heavily worried about, is that some of the dynamics of these folks is very self centered. So, they're not willing to invest in their business, in the marketing of their business. They would rather buy a new car, they would rather buy new clothes and go on vacation than investing in the business so that the business can provide a car and clothes and vacation. So, you know, as they're doing this and they're not willing to invest in the business, most of them are willing to invest in themselves. You know, I can put out free material and do all the free in the world, but I'm only going to get broke people that don't know how to make money and there's no benefit to anybody in that. Because they're going to come, they're going to show up, they're going to suck up the time. And then they're not going to go do any of it. It's just that poor, hungry, and determined thing. Do they have that?

Kamil Sarji:

So are you going to start? Are you going to start one?

Mike Tessier:

No, probably not. I'm at a point where I don't know exactly where the next road is. I'm still waiting on a few things to kind of work themselves out. Very curious to see how the industry reacts to the new way that we deal with the non commissioned split. You know, I'm very curious to see how that goes. I think it's going to be 12 more months of a lot of folks trying to figure it out. I just, you know, I'm not quite sure I'm ready to throw my hat back in the ring. I've been on the sidelines the last couple of years, semi retired from the real estate industry. I mean, I'm doing the mortgages and I've been doing the insurance, but you know, in terms of working buyers and sellers, I've been very selective on the ones I've worked. Mostly just cause, just sitting back, you know, not really looking to do more than I need to, but I'm in the process of building something.

Kamil Sarji:

How do people get in touch with you?

Mike Tessier:

They can Google my name, comes up, I own my own domain, bought that thing the day I got into real estate, I bought my name. You know, I've got a web address for the real estate, I've got a web address for the mortgages, and we're gonna have a web address for the insurance. You know, like I said, I've been looking at a lot of different pieces. I've been looking at how to market effectively, trying to figure out some pieces. AI is something that's, unfortunately it's here. And if we don't embrace it, we're going to be extinct. So I'm trying to figure out how to leverage that into all of this.

Kamil Sarji:

Awesome, very exciting.

Mike Tessier:

It is. It is. It is. You know, I think ultimately I'd like to maybe develop a one stop shop with all the services that I can provide in one location, you know, and build out something like that. But we'll see. I think the next 12 to 18 months is going to be a heavy indicator on which way it goes.

Kamil Sarji:

Awesome. Very cool.

Mike Tessier:

I appreciate your time.

Kamil Sarji:

Well, yeah. Thanks for stopping by and getting interviewed by me.

Mike Tessier:

Anytime, Kamil.

Kamil Sarji:

Take care.

Mike Tessier:

Take care.

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Kamil Sarji

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