Episode 370 – Sharran Srivatsaa, President – REAL Brokerage, LLC

00:00:00 - Sharran Srivatsaa

What I do well is not that doing something well is thinking about the thing. So there's a great quote that says the problem is not the problem. The problem is how you think about the problem. And a big thing for me is I tell Anthony, I tell all our agents at REAL every single call that we do with our agents at REAL, I open the call with the same exact phrase because I want them to see and believe what I believe, which is, hey, my name is Sharon Trivata. I serve as the president of REAL. And all that it means is that I work for you.

00:00:33 - Bill Risser

You're listening to the Real Estate Sessions podcast, and I'm your host, Bill Risser, executive vice president, strategic partnerships with RateMyAgent. RateMyAgent is not just for collecting reviews. It's a suite of powerful tools and features designed to help improve your online reputation and visibility while making it easier for new prospects to find you and reach out. For more information, head on over to Ratemyagent.com. Listen in as I interview industry leaders and get their stories and journeys to the world of real estate. Hi everybody, welcome to episode 370 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend today we are going to have a lot of fun. We are going to be talking to the president of REAL Brokerage LLC, Sharran Srivatsaa. I'm telling you, I've done a lot of research on Sharran and what he's doing in the world of real estate. I've got some friends at REAL who speak so highly of him and I can't wait to get this interview going. So let's get it started. Sharon, welcome to the podcast.

00:01:34 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Bill so grateful for having me. I'll tell you, most people don't realize this one thing, which is how much effort it takes to create a show, how much effort it takes for us to even schedule this has taken a while. But your commitment to not just finding cool people and cool stories to bring to your audience you don't have to do this, but you do it. Not just for you, but for your love to share. And it takes a lot of production time and production effort. And so I just want to thank you for creating that time and space to share with the world.

00:02:05 - Bill Risser

Well, thank you very much for saying that. It satisfies this curiosity itch I have. So it does serve a purpose and I think thank you for recognizing that. That's awesome. Well, look, I always like to start at the beginning. This podcast really focuses on the background of the guests. I love to get your story because everybody has a story. Very few people, I think about ten out of all the guests I've had knew they were going to be a REALtor at the age of ten, right? My guess is you had no idea at that age, what you're going to be doing. So let's start there. You were born in India, and ultimately there had to be a decision made somewhere along the line. I think all of your success came outside of India. So let's start there.

00:02:44 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Yeah, the crazy part about all of this is when I think back at everything that has happened, I think most of the things in my life were average. I was born into kind of an average environment. I went to an average school. I was an average kid. I had average friends. I had average kind of family members. I had average aspirations. Everything was average. But I had one thing in my life that was absolutely extraordinary. And that one thing were, my parents are my parents.

00:03:16 - Sharran Srivatsaa

They are phenomenal people. And my dad always said these words, and I never knew what they meant. And he said, you always want a bigger and better future. And as an adult now, I realize what it means. But as a child, it was just a trite saying that my dad had it's like, hey, you got to have a bigger and better future. And when push comes to shove, my dad always indexed over index invested on a bigger and better future.

00:03:42 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And I'll never forget the time where he sat down on a park bench and asked me, like, hey, you don't feel like something doesn't feel right? And I do a lot of therapy to be able to share this. And there's this phrase that I use often, which is, disclosure is disarming. Everything that I had done online to share the story, to share what I'm doing, is I want to be open about it because as I tell the story, it allows me to process it better, and then maybe someone will connect with I had undiagnosed Add ADHD because it's uncool to have that in India.

00:04:19 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And people, they just ridicule you for being dumb. And no one really wants that. I was the smallest kid. I never hit my growth spurt. I mean, I'm 6ft tall now, but I never hit my growth spurt until much later in high school. So I was the last to get picked on sports teams. And Bill, I'll tell you this. I remember being bullied and never actually telling anybody about it. Like, there was a time when I would have to go from one classroom to the next classroom, which was right next door, but instead, I ran all the way around the campus so that I wouldn't get beat up in the lockers.

00:04:53 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Now, my parent, nobody had any idea about that because I was like, I know if I walk through the lockers, I'm going to get beat up. And it was to that point where my parents realized that something was wrong. And I remember it was like my 10th birthday, I believe. I was sitting on a park bench, and my dad said to me, he goes, we have to build a bigger and better future for you, either here or elsewhere.

00:05:13 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And my parents had never been outside the country, not even to visit. And for them to have that level of perspective, they were like, hey, something this environment is probably not the right fit for my son, is what my dad thought. But we didn't have a lot of money, and he couldn't really buy my way out of the country. So he said, hey, Sharon, we need, like, a passport, we need a ticket, we need a skill to get you out. And we were on this park bench sitting in front of a couple of tennis courts, and my dad said, can you hack it? And I was like, can you hack what? And he goes, we got to get you a skill, an individual sport, or he knew that I was not musically talented. I was colorblind, I was toned half. He goes, all of those are out, so maybe sports is the only answer. So I started taking tennis lessons when I was, like, 910 years old, and tennis was the ticket for me to playing on the pro tennis tour and leaving India.

00:06:03 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And my dad believed that that was what will get me out. And we put everything else as secondary, and we put tennis as primary. So the entire family focused on, hey, we're going to get Sharon the skill so that we can give him a bigger and better future. And that was the extraordinary part of what the family did.

00:06:21 - Bill Risser

Wow, ten years old, so immediately into tennis lessons, I'm assuming, and you start playing in local tournaments and all this other great stuff, but you ultimately make it to a school in Iowa, right, where you could play on the tennis team and get an academic scholarship. As and that's that's how you got to the US.

00:06:40 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Well, the crazy part is I never realized that once you play pro tennis, you bust your eligibility to play college tennis. That's true, and no one told me that. So I was like, hey, I'm going to go try my hand at playing pro tennis. And I played all the pro tennis tournaments that was possible in Southeast Asia, and I turned pro, and that was what it was. And then I realized that my applications to Oregon State, Ohio State, all the big tennis schools in the US. Were I got the athletic scholarships, but they were like, hey, you busted your eligibility status. You're not amateur anymore. And so I had to say, well, okay, well, I'll play D three tennis and get an academic scholarship. So I was number six on my team the first year on a division three school, because then I realized that everyone else was five people that were ahead of me or better than me. I'd done the same exact thing, which is super wild. And so it was powerful to be some high 900s in the world and still play number six on a division.

00:07:38 - Bill Risser

The team, luther College, right in the middle of Iowa. That had to be a little bit of culture shock, maybe.

00:07:46 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Well, sort of. So there's a great story there, which is so I went to know the coach at Luther, was friends with my coach on the pro tennis tour. That's how I got to Luther. And he was clearly the hotbed for talent that did not know how to bust their professional status, which is super powerful. So he totally sent back the entire team, which is amazing. He was a great coach, great professor, loved playing for him. And I'm actually super glad, because when I arrived on campus, I didn't know anything or anybody. I had no connectivity, nothing. I was just glad that I was in a new environment to win and play and have a bigger and better future. But here's the craziest thing, Bill. I graduated from Luther in the spring of 2001, so 2022 years ago. The crazy part was, this past year, I was invited back to be the commencement speaker.

00:08:40 - Bill Risser

Wow. Nice.

00:08:42 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Which is wild if you think about so I'm back to campus and I'm like, wow, 22 years later, I got a bunch of gray hairs, but I could still remember my time there. So seeing that Delta of where I was and speaking to those kids, sitting and graduating was an insane experience, because I was telling my parents that being a commencement speaker is something that is a bucket list item that you never put on your bucket list. You never want to do it, but when you're invited to do it, you're like, this is insane that I would actually be invited to do something like that.

00:09:18 - Sharran Srivatsaa

That delta was really powerful. But the crazy part is what people don't know is that the day I got to campus and it took me many years in therapy to get through this, because I never had to tell my parents is but the day I got to campus, I didn't have any money. Meaning I had a check. My parents sold everything that they had when I say everything, my parents sold every single thing that they had to send me to the US.

00:09:41 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And the crazy part was, my dad sold his Scooter, his only mode of transportation, to actually buy my plane ticket. The level of sacrifice is insane, and I took that as a gift, and I said, Well, I'm not going to let them down. And that was kind of like the driving force behind anything else. So when I showed up, I had a check that I took to financial services, and I said, here's my check for one year's worth of tuition. And, well, it was an international check from in those days, which took like seven to ten days to clear.

00:10:12 - Sharran Srivatsaa

So the lady said, hey, here are your dorm room keys, but your meal plan doesn't activate for like, seven days till this clears. So I had no money for seven days. And so I went to every rush party that gave pizza and group your floats, right? Like, every single one of them. And that's how I connect. But then one weekend happened where there were no real parties. Like, it was kind of dead, and I didn't have anything to eat.

00:10:33 - Sharran Srivatsaa

So I'm walking around campus, like, looking for a party. Probably in 12 hours, since I had anything to eat. I see two guys throw a couple of pizza boxes into a dumpster. And I said, well, it was later in the evening. I was like, I'll just wait till the evening. And I was like, I'm really hungry. I'd love a couple of slices of pizza. So sun went down. I put my hoodie on. I jump in this dumpster. I grab this box of pizza. There's two ratty slices. I grab it, run to my dorm room, eat my two slices of pizza. I had this feeling like, wow, I didn't even know what this meant, but super grateful that I got some food to eat. Well, the next day is where the fun happens. It's amazing how your body and your mind goes back to where it got food again.

00:11:20 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Just like a ragged dog, right? So I go back, and I see I'm not joking I see a bunch of people throw subway sandwiches into the same dumpster. And I'm not talking, like, little mini subs. I'm talking party subs. I go, wow, this is a bonanza. And so I wait till the sun goes down. I jump in the dumpster. I grab this party sub. I have no idea what's in it. And then out of nowhere, something, like, hits me. And I look at I can't see what it is. It's dark, and I start bleeding, bleeding in my cheek. And then out of the corner of my eyes, I see two beady, lit up eyes. Well, there was a raccoon in the dumpster fighting me for, like, a box of pop tarts.

00:11:56 - Sharran Srivatsaa

So I'm grabbing this all American box of pop tarts, which is like strawberry, by the way. I'm grabbing this all American box of pop tarts. I get smacked by a raccoon. I'm bleeding. And so I grab the box of pop tarts, I grab the subway sandwiches, I kick the raccoon, I jump, and I run. While it sounds like a good story now, it was super scary as a kid at that point. And Bill, that was, in a lot of ways, rock bottom.

00:12:24 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And it gave me an interesting lesson. I was like, if this is how bad it can be, I'll be okay. I will tell you that a lot of people have different superpowers, and I don't think it's a superpower, but I'd say that I can take a lot of pain. I can take a lot of mental anguish. I can take a lot of stress. I can take a lot of pain. I've built a lot of capacity for taking a lot of beat down. And whether it's good or bad, the biggest of things don't bother me. Like, small things irritate me. The biggest of things don't stress me out at all. I reckon it was all based on that early experience of saying, hey, I can just take a lot of pain.

00:13:09 - Sharran Srivatsaa

It's very hard to put me down. And I think the big part of coming back up rebounding overall, the resilience component. I learned then, I learned at that point when I was 16, 1718 years old, and I think that's whenever I get to a tight spot and I want to take more risk as an entrepreneur, I go back to I mean, is that as bad as it could get? I'll be okay. And so I think that resilience is I think about that, and I'm very grateful for that. It's helped a lot.

00:13:38 - Bill Risser

That is a level of perspective that I've never heard before. That's impressive. Before we wrap up on tennis, I have to ask you this question. Who is your guy? Out of the top three? Is it Roger, Rafa or Novak? You got to have one. Everybody has one. They, like, the best.

00:13:52 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Yeah, I'll give you in the order, roger Novak, Rafa, in that order. I just think Roger Federer is just he's a gift of the sport. Like, when you talk goats, he's a gift of the sport. And one of the things what a lot of people don't realize is Roger Federer played, call it 20 plus years of tennis with almost no injuries. And there's a reason for that. The biomechanical efficiency of Roger Federer is unmatched and he can train like, Rafa is so much like, the effort to result ratio is insane, but he gets it done. But there's a lot of effort to result ratio issues when it comes to Rafa, even Novak. But Federer's effort to result ratio is the smoothness and the biomechanical efficiency are amazing. And I think that we have a lot to learn from that, from the business perspective, too, because people wonder about the whole 80 20 rule stuff. It's very real. If we actually audit our lives, the 20% is what drives a lot of the 80%. And the elegance and the efficiency of how we do things really goes to how we think about the world. So to me, a lot of it is, I think about not what I want to do, not what I want in life, but what I don't want. Like the not to do list. The don't want list is really powerful. A lot of people call it multiplication by subtraction. Like, what can you take away to actually have something really powerful? And I think what Roger Federer has done really, really well is that the minimalism, the simplicity, the efficiency is so beautiful that the reason he's been able to win so much is for biomechanical efficiency. And I think about that a lot internally on our teams, too, is like, how can we be more efficient? How can we be more scalable? Are we doing the right things? And can we make a list of the things that we should not do that is more important? Like, when people think, hey, we run a publicly traded company. We have long term goals, both quarterly, to hit numbers and longer term goals, and I think about the opposite of that. I'm like, hey, all right, if we want to hit those goals, what are the things we should not do? And being really disciplined on the things we not do is actually so much more important because creating the not to do list is the bigger discipline component than actually saying, this is what I am going to do. Because if you spend your life never having to do the things that you don't want to do, you win so big because you're spending 80% to 90% of the time doing things that you want to do. And it's a lot easier for people to tell you about the things that you don't want, because if I told you, hey, tell me the flavors of ice cream that you don't like, you can reel all of them off. But if I tell you, give me, like, three flavors that you like, you're like, well, you instantly go to the well, right? Because we instantly go to what we like and the judgment around it. But when we don't like something, we're very clear to say what we don't like. So I really force both kind of agent and team leaders from private equity, all the companies we've invested in, to say, hey, what are the things that you don't want to do? And let's over index on that because worst case scenario, you eliminate all the things that you don't want to do, and that really gives you kind of the essence of what you want to do. And I think that's where Roger Federer really shines.

00:16:53 - Bill Risser

Wow. You end up working in the tennis industry for a few years. My guess is that it was a natural fit for you. You got to travel. You're in these resorts around the world, we'll call it, as a coach, and it's Burwash, I think, right part of his operation. Yeah. But ultimately, I think you get to a point there. I'm going to put a word into your mouth where you go, there's something bigger and better for me, and you make a transition, not a small one. You're like, I'm going to Wall Street. How does that happen?

00:17:25 - Sharran Srivatsaa

the Sharran path of events is, after I graduated from college, I had a computer science and math major, and I had this idea for a piece of software. So that was my senior paper, and I was invited to pitch at this program computer science contest at UC Berkeley.

00:17:44 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And I was pitching at this contest, and one of the judges pulls me aside after the contest, and he's like, hey, kid, you're not going to win. I was like, oh, thanks a lot, right? But what you built is really cool. I invested a couple of guys that you should talk to them. What you built could be really interesting for them. And so that was my first startup. And so I lived with my aunt and uncle.

00:18:03 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I had no money. I lived with my aunt uncle, and we built the startup. And I realized the power of ownership and equity. Like, I was not making a lot of money at that point in time, but I got a decent chunk of ownership, not as a core founder stock, but one of the early employee stock, which was really powerful. I was part of raising money on Sandhill Road. So we raised money, and our business got bought during the technology boom. So I saw more money as a 21 year old kid than most people will see in their lifetimes, which was very cool. So I got a chance to pay my parents back to buy my grandma a house, to wipe out all my debt. It was great.

00:18:37 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And then I still had some money left over. So I talked to my mentor, who was the same guy who told me that I was not going to win. And he became kind of my mentor, and he's like, hey, you will never get a chance to pursue what you may love or what you think you may love. How long do you have money for? And I was like, well, if I don't make much, I have money for five years. He goes, Great, you got five years to go. Do what you want to do. Go do that. So I spent time teaching tennis in the Caribbean, Dubai, and on Maui for five years. And then I called him and I'm like, hey, what do I do next? He goes, no one's going to hire a teaching pro.

00:19:08 - Sharran Srivatsaa

So you got to you need some kind of track shifting that needs to happen. And he goes, the only way that you can do that is you go to business school. And business school is the ultimate track shifter. No one can say anything else, and you have a great story. You've got an exit, you've got world. Kind of a unique experience. But I said, which business school do I go to? So here's how I chose.

00:19:30 - Sharran Srivatsaa

It had to be warm, meaning it has to be south of the Mason Dixon line. And it had to have a feeder to Wall Street because my mentor said, the next thing you need to learn or you should learn is Deal Structuring. Because if you have both technology experience, hospitality experience, and deal structuring experience, you can do anything you want in your life. And so there was only three schools that I looked at. It was Vanderbilt duke UNC and I went to visit Vanderbilt.

00:19:55 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I loved it. I canceled my Duke and UNC visits and I stayed at Vandy. And right out of Vandy, I went to Goldman Sachs. I was the only person in my graduating class to get a job at Goldman that year. I had 39 one on one scheduled interviews to get that job. 39 one on one schedule. This is not including dinners, lunches, phone calls, nothing. It was 39 scheduled one on one interviews to get a job at Goldman. And Bill crazy when they tell you about Goldman recruiting. It is insane. I'll give you a real estate example around this.

00:20:25 - Sharran Srivatsaa

So this was 2007, before the 2008 crisis, when I was sitting in this conference room, managing partner of one of the offices of Goldman walks in. He drops like this, his Folio and all his client material. And he says to me, he goes, I have 27 prospecting calls to make. Our markets are going in the tank. Why should I even bother to spend time with you? He was mad. I don't know if he was putting on a show or not.

00:20:52 - Bill Risser

Yeah.

00:20:53 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And then I said so all I did was I was just curious. I was like, Well, I mean, what's happening? That's all I said. And he just tells me his story. And I'm like, this is great, but I'm like, how do you deal with that? So I literally was interviewing him, which was awesome, because I was like, this is the day in the life of the job that I want. I should probably know what I'm getting into. And then he tells me, he's like, here is a list of 30 potential clients that need to call. Call him. And I'm like, you want me to call him? He's like, yeah, call him. He's like, if you're a hotshot, call him.

00:21:23 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I'll tell you what I did. And, Bill, I had no idea what to say or what to do. So I said, I was like, hey, I'm happy to call all 30 people right now. Do you have a script or something that you would want me to say that makes this easier? Because I bet you have some kind of language pattern. And he cracks a smile. He gathers his stuff, puts it in his bag, shakes my hand, and he says, you're going to do fine, kid.

00:21:49 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And he walks out. And then I catch him later and I ask him. I'm like, hey, I really appreciate that you went from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll. Like, what the heck happened? And he goes, I've asked every single hot shot MBA that has come through that same question, and you are the only one in 17 years that asked me, hey, just give me a script. And I'll call. He goes, you showed me that you're coachable. You showed me that if I can give you a script, you'll do everything.

00:22:16 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And I was like, well and I told him I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. He goes, that's the point. He's like, if you were just open for me, giving you a piece of guidance to go do something, I want to offer that to a lot of people, right? If you don't know something, just ask. People will give you the path, give you guidance. Don't try to be a hotshot. And that was a really great lesson for me overall.

00:22:37 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And that's what really skyrocketed my career. I mean, I spent three years at Goldman, three years at Credit Suisse, and a lot of it was, if I didn't know how to do something, I'd be like, hey, can you teach me how to do this? And then they teach me. And then I would just go learn and memorize it, and I would get really good at it. And then that gives you confidence.

00:22:53 - Sharran Srivatsaa

There's a great saying I've been thinking a lot about this, the difference between ability and capability, right? So ability is just raw material. So my ability to walk is just raw material, but my ability to walk on a tightrope is capability. So we think that just because we get an appointment and we can go in and deliver something, that's ability, but to go win the appointment, to have skill around that, that's capability, which is skill.

00:23:17 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And I think understanding the difference between ability and the capability is humility. If you just know that there is a delta, there is a gap, you know how to fix it and you know how to solve it. So I'm just in this constant quest for, hey, how can I pay a coach, a mentor, whatever it takes to just shorten the gap between ability and capability for me. And if I made an extra million dollars right now, if I just had an extra million dollars right now lying around, I would invest it in coaching. I don't coach. I don't have any of that. I'm not trying to sell anybody anything, but I would rather invest it in a coach. Like I hired a coach just to teach me ten years ago, just to teach me how to write email. Now I have 110,000 person email list because he taught me how to write email.

00:23:57 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I still have a coaching session with him once a week and he critiques every single email that I write. Wow. Right? But he separated the delta between ability and capability for me because now I just have an expert saying, well, he accelerated success. And so the biggest lesson that I kind of learned at Goldman was meritocracy wins. But if you can just build a skill that you can win on, very, very hard to take it away from you.

00:24:23 - Bill Risser

This is all stuff that you bring to the table today. It's amazing, right, that all these things, all these pieces of the puzzle that kind of put Sharon together here as you haven't even entered real estate yet, it's. Amazing. So let's do that part next. Let's go to Telus, right? And first of all, you get to go to Orange County or La. It's beautiful. I grew up in San Diego, spent 40 years there. So I know what you're experiencing now, living in California. Talk about how real estate entered the picture for you.

00:24:55 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Yeah. What I've noticed, and I think every person who's connecting the real estate industry will probably connect with this it was a total accident. So I was a banker on Wall Street, and the same venture capital judge became my partner. And he said to me, he's like, hey, I'll teach you how to invest money. I'll teach you. Like, he took me under his wing as his son, and that was super powerful. So he's still my partner today in several of our ventures.

00:25:21 - Sharran Srivatsaa

His name is Peter Lowey. He's an amazing guy. And he said to me, he called me at Goldman, and he said, hey, we have a chance to invest in this real estate company. Are you interested? And I was like, hey, if you're interested, I'm interested, because you know way more about this than I do. I don't know anything about real estate. I just own my house. And he goes, Well, I know the broker really well, and they have, like, a decent management team.

00:25:40 - Sharran Srivatsaa

It's a small check. Would you want to write it? So we wrote a small check to invest in this company called Telus, which was one office at the time we invested, it was one office, 13 agents in Beverly Hills, somewhere in that range. Just as a good kind of angel investment, we used to get quarterly reports just P LS, et cetera, look at it. And so because I was in the investment banking business, when someone sent me A-P-L-I looked at the P L, like, I actually looked at it because I saw it every single day, and something looked off. And so I called the CPAs and like, hey, like, these three things don't add up, like what's happening? And they said, oh, wow, we probably have to do some forensic stuff around it.

00:26:18 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And we found the then CEO was embezzling, which was kind of a bummer know, we're trying to get this real estate business off the ground. And so my partner and I at that time so I took a leave of absence from Goldman, flew to California, and we released the in for interim basis. We bought all his shares. So my partner and I now own the vast majority of this company. And so we were like, okay, I have a six week hiatus from Goldman. I need to find a CEO to hand this off to so that I can go back to being a banker. Well, six weeks, the four or five weeks in can't find a CEO at that time that we appreciate and trust and want to be a steward of the business. And I'll tell you something really weird that happened. I was playing with a spreadsheet, and I know this is going to sound really trite, but this is truly what happened. I was playing with the spreadsheet, and we were roughly doing $300 million in gross sales volume in one office.

00:27:20 - Sharran Srivatsaa

It's Beverly Hills. So we had a bunch of good agents and they were selling some decent homes. And by mistake, I added an extra zero. The 300 million was 3 billion. And suddenly my spreadsheet completely changed. I was like, Wait a minute. We are all printing money if we actually have this. We had the traditional business model at that time. This would be amazing. So I went to the board and I was like, hey. Which was just five of us. And I was like, hey, I have an idea. If we actually do this, I will stay and run this company. But you got to run it my way. I think that I can get us from 300 million to $3 billion in under three to five years.

00:27:58 - Sharran Srivatsaa

They were like, Sean, there's no way. And I was like, here's the plan to do it. These numbers are insane, but you have to follow my guidance. If not, I'm out. And the board was like, if you are going to buy in, if you're going to run it, go nuts, right? We took the business straight from a business plan. I'll tell you the two things that we learned. We took the business from one office at that time, when I took over one office and 30 ish agents in Beverly Hills to 22 offices and 700 agents in under five years.

00:28:26 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And then we sold the business to Douglas Elliman. We were roughly doing 5 billion in annual sales. We had a $10 million production threshold for every single one of our agents. Meaning if you didn't do $10 million in sales, you were automatically fired. And the culture of performance, I literally took Goldman's culture of performance as in role playing and training, and I made that the part of the culture. So I would show up in sales meetings. I would drive 450 miles a week to every office meeting, and I would do listing and buyer sales, call sales, role play, live in the office meetings. There was no cutco knives or compliance or home warranty. Nothing in any of those office meetings. Sharon showed up, and I trained you. Like, we were getting really good at our skill and bill. That is what helped us win.

00:29:11 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Like, we won so big because all of our agents were so deeply skilled. And when we were acquired by Douglas element, we went to this Element National Conference and I ran this session. It was like 4000 people. And I would say, hey, so who can explain pricing? Literally every teles agent stands up and can explain pricing. And everyone looks around saying, how can you do this? And I was like, how can you not do this? And that was a big key of that.

00:29:35 - Sharran Srivatsaa

But here's the greatest lesson I learned. The greatest lesson I learned during my time at Telus was all these business plans are built in a vacuum. So you and I start a company. We're like, we're going to hey, next year, we're going to do blank. But for what reason, we have no idea. So three years in, I started Soft Shopping. The company. So I would go to the Berkshire Hathaways, the then realities of the world, and say, hey, here's all our stuff. What would you pay us? And I'll make up numbers. They'll say, oh, we'd pay you 20 million. I'd be like, cool. Thank you. What if I wanted 50? And they'll say, hey, Sharon, if you wanted 50, you need to do these five things.

00:30:14 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And I'd be like, thank you so much. I take those five things and hand it to my COO. That became the business plan for next year. I would shop it again the next summer, and they'd say, Sharon, great job getting it to 50. And I'm like, what if I want 100? You got to these five things. I'm like, thank you so much. I take the same model. I give it to my we did that three years in a and I tell you this now because people think it makes sense, but that is exactly what we did. So we built the business plan based on what the buyer's models would be so that I was building it.

00:30:41 - Sharran Srivatsaa

At least I knew from a synthetic valuation perspective. And then when Element came along to potentially buy us, it was really simple because we had done everything that everyone else had told us to do. Our books were in order. Our management were in order. Our entities were in order. Taxation was in order. Like, literally, I could hit a button and send them a seller report, and small things like that took multiple years to do. And so I often tell that's why when we get into private equity now, we have 124 private equity investments, and I tell all our private equity CEOs, you should go to market every year.

00:31:11 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Whether it's soft or a formal process, I want you to go to market every year to get at least one bid, because the questions that they ask you are going to reflect the business plan that you need or at least the thinking that you need in the current environment for what happens for the future. And I think whether it's a real estate company or a technology company or an agent's business, we need to somehow say, hey, if it's a real estate agent and they have a team, they don't know how to do this. They should almost think, wow, if I had to take this team and merge it with another team, what would that other team ask me? They would ask me, do you have a CRM? Cool.

00:31:46 - Bill Risser

Great.

00:31:46 - Sharran Srivatsaa

How much money did you make from that? What is your actual marketing spend? So now the dashboard lights up, which is so much cleaner. So instead of forcing us to build a business when we need it, we force ourselves to build a business based on what somebody else wants. And that small thing is what helped us get I mean, I can't give you the numbers, but it was one of the largest transactions that happened in the united states, and it was super cool for all of us because we hit timing right. We hit earn outs right. We had all of that right from a macro perspective, but the pre setup for all of that was going to market every summer and getting the business plan and making that the business plan for the next year.

00:32:26 - Bill Risser

Sharran, what you did at Teles is amazing, and that model is so different than what you're doing now. Now, we're kind of glossing over a few things. Like, you're not just part of one VC. You've got multiple companies you're with. I think you're focusing on multifamily right now. But Tamir comes calling, and you're a very busy guy. And so, first of all, there had to be this moment for you where this is such a different model than what I was doing in maybe. And for you, I think the challenge is going to be you're going to love that because it's your opportunity to find that way to do something great with real brokerage. So let's talk about that.

00:33:08 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Yeah, this answer is actually A different one, and this is a hard one because I still am not over it. And this goes to a lot of truth and vulnerability and a lot of therapy, and I am in a better place to talk about it now than I was when I started doing this process. And the reason is, when we built and sold Teles, the three, four partners made all the money, but the 700 plus agents that were involved got nothing. They helped us build this great company. They helped us imbue this insane culture. Yeah, they followed us. Yeah, we put money on the line. Yeah, we were at risk. Yeah, we led all of that. That's fine. But they were now part of another company, which was good for them, but they didn't partake in any of that, and it drove me into insane depression.

00:34:00 - Sharran Srivatsaa

It was super hard for me, and I did not know why that I did not get a chance to share that with all of them. Now, sure, I could turn around and handed money out, but that's not how it works. But it was really hard for me. And personally, I swore that if I ever did something in the future, it would be built around an ESOP model, an employee stock ownership plan model, or a model where everybody that was involved in creating the business benefited from the business, and I was retired, and I was an investor. And when I say retired, I was not trading time for money. I was like, hey, I was an at risk investor. And I promised myself that the next time I was going to do something, everybody that was involved would benefit from my work, even if I made a minority part of the pie.

00:34:55 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And I actually sketched out a business plan that is very similar to Rails. And I wrote it down, and I shared the first time I met Tamir, I shared parts of it with him. And he's like, hey, man, we already built, like, 80% of this. Why would you want to rebuild all of this? This makes no sense. And I said to him, I was like, I don't want to go work for anybody else. I'm sorry. That's not my jam.

00:35:17 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And as I get to know him, his heart, his kindness, his vision is so amazing, and the two of us are like two peas in a pod. And I love and respect that guy. So he when I talk about him, tears come to my eyes, because I truly have insane love for that, for Tamir.

00:35:41 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And the one thing that he talks about is he's like, hey, you do what you think is right for REAL. So in a way, we don't talk much a lot during our day to day work. We have very clear separation of how we run the business. But philosophically, we're deeply aligned because he and I believe in the power of partnership, not between us, but with our right now 12,000 plus agents. We want them to win. And when he told me his story, he gave up everything in his life to make REAL succeed.

00:36:13 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Like, he let go of all his real estate investments. He even rents his home right now, and he put all that money back into REAL. For somebody to give up so much because he believes in the partnership of the power of we is greater than me, that was super powerful for me. So I got a chance to say, hey, these are the ten things that I want to do. These are the three things that I don't want to do. He was like, that's really funny. These are the three things that I want to do. These are the ten things that I don't want to do. And that rarely happens. And both of us have enough overlap that I don't have to coach him on any of the things he's doing.

00:36:45 - Sharran Srivatsaa

He doesn't have to coach me on mine. And whatever we're unsure of, I know that I can have a good sounding board for. And that was the beginning of REAL, but my time at REAL but how I got introduced to REAL was there were several teams that I was advising who wanted to make a transition. And I was like, hey, if I'm advising you as a team and you want to go to REAL. I don't know anything about REAL. I can't in good conscious advise you. We have to meet with the key people at REAL to see if this is a good fit for you. So when I came into brought, I brought a ton of revenue to REAL even before I started at REAL. And that was a really nice way of that's.

00:37:20 - Sharran Srivatsaa

How I got to know Tamir on the board was me bringing teams to REAL and I got to see it and from an agent experience perspective. And that led to hey, would there be an opportunity for us know, do something differently? And that's how the opportunity started. So I've been at REAL at this time less than a year. We've had a chance to double the business in the last eleven months and I'm tired. It's been a good run.

00:37:47 - Bill Risser

The whole work life balance thing in what you're doing there's not really work life balance. My guess is you've come up with a system or a strategy, something because you're a dad, you're a husband and you're really important to REAL. What are you doing there? How are you keeping those things kind of together?

00:38:06 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Well, I think that's hard and I'll give you a couple of answers around that. One is to do great things, you must do fewer things. And so I'll give you a couple of things that I don't do. I don't watch the news, so there's no news in my life. I don't watch sports, I don't golf. The things that are recreation for a lot of people are not recreation for me.

00:38:29 - Sharran Srivatsaa

So all that stuff is removed from my life and by choice because now I spend all of that with my children and that works really well. But my family has a very good understanding of what is important. So I don't get guilt for working on the weekends or working late or I don't get guilt for that because they know that I have a 100% inflexible schedule and I have a 100% flexible schedule. If I need to go take my daughter to dance, I can take my daughter to dance. But my dad says this. He says I work 80 hours a week, but I choose which 80 hours I work, right? I wake up early. So I wake up at 445 every morning.

00:39:11 - Sharran Srivatsaa

And I found pockets of time where I do certain things. I've engineered my life where one, it's good for me, but also my family is very supportive of it. Like my wife would never guilt me for saying, hey, you're not present. She knows that that is what drives me. So if I need to finish dinner and do emails, I don't have any guilt around it. And I think a lot of people don't have that conversation with their family.

00:39:33 - Sharran Srivatsaa

They're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to get ridiculed for doing XYZ thing. I'm not a big kudos and support to my family for them being on the same page as me. And I tell my wife, you can do whatever you want. I can do whatever I want, but if you need me, talk to me, because I can't read your mind. And so that's been really helpful. But I'll give you an important phrase that we use at home a lot, and the phrase is, be where your feet are.

00:40:01 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Be where your feet are. And I'll tell you this one story, and after this, you may be like, hey, we're done. But here is the story. So maybe, like four or five years ago, I used to drive home, pull in the driveway, and as soon as the car hits the driveway, the kids come running out.

00:40:18 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Like, the driveway door opens, the kids come running out. But I'm on the phone. I'm on the phone in the car, trying to squeeze out that one last call. And then as the kids come running out, they're banging on the door and the windshield. And I hold my finger up, 1 minute, 1 minute, 1 minute. This happens for one day. It happens for one week. It happens for one month. And it happens over and over again. One day, I pull into the driveway, garage door opens. No kids come running out. It's a very sad day. I remember the day like yesterday. That's the day I hung up the phone, and I swore that I would never do that again because I taught them how to treat me. And so I realized that now if I want to take a phone call, I pull into my neighborhood, I pull over, take the call.

00:41:01 - Sharran Srivatsaa

When I get home, I get home, and outside my house, we have an olive tree. And when I get out of my car, I take my work and I put it on the olive tree. It's on the olive tree. And I walk in the house, and I am dad. I am where my feet are. I don't look at my phone. I mean, I do, but most of my work intentionally has been put on that olive tree. Now, it sounds weird and trite, but it gives me something metaphorical to work with. And then in the morning, when I get back up and I get in the car, I grab my stuff from my olive tree, and I'm back doing what I do.

00:41:39 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I think that people miss that. And I think a big part of this is really getting to understand this phrase of be where your feet are. Because if we can't have that depth of that relationship, of that consciousness, of that time together, the only people that are going to remember that I worked late are my children. Nobody else cares. Sure, in a few years, we're going to have a different leadership team. No one's going to care. But my children are going to remember, and maybe they'll do the same thing to their spouse and partner, I don't care, but I wanted them to do it the right way. So I really think a lot about this, which is be where your feet are. And I'm not perfect, but I keep saying that over and over to myself, which is be where your feet are.

00:42:27 - Bill Risser

That's awesome. And the things that you do, the amount that you give on all the social networks, the amount that you give at Rise, the amount that you give on your 05:00 a.m. Call, all this stuff that you're giving back, it almost feels like your dad and your family gave you a lot. It feels like you're getting this opportunity to have a little payback karma wiser in the universe. Is that fair?

00:42:52 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Sort of. But I think that we all have to evolve in how we think about the world. And what I mean by that is when you give from your gifts, you never run out, right? And I think that what a lot of people do is they force what they do. And I've had a lot of time to reflect and I say, hey, these are things that I do, these two things really well. I do these 100 things not well. I'm going to do a lot more of what I do well. And what I do well is not that doing something well is thinking about the thing. So there's a great quote that says the problem is not the problem, the problem is how you think about the problem. And a big thing for me is I tell Anthony, I tell all our agents at REAL every single call that we do with our agents at REAL, I open the call with the same exact phrase because I want them to see and believe what I believe, which is, hey, my name is Sharon Trivatsa. I serve as the president of REAL. And all that it means is that I work for you. And there's a reason for that. And the reason is that it's true. It's true. And what it does for me is it programs and gives me an anchor of what is truly important. So when Anthony reaches out, I'm like, I work for him. So if he thought that this was an important thing, I should do it. Well. There's times when some people do dumb things and I'm like, bro, I'm not going to do that. I say it nicely, but when you give from your gifts, you never run out. And I think the more we think about if you have truly good awareness, you can continue to give a lot more from where you thought that you couldn't do. So I think capacity is exponentialized when you're truly giving from your God given gifts, if you will. So I try to save more on that level of the world and I can see, I get tired, resentful, frustrated when I'm doing things that I'm not giving from my gifts. When I go to bed tired, angry, frustrated, resentful. I realize that there were things in my day that I probably should not be doing or someone else is better served to do that it's someone else's unique ability. But when I'm in my day where I get to show up and I give and work for our partners, feels like a good day.

00:45:09 - Bill Risser

Yeah. Michael and I, Michael is our CEO. We had a chance to meet Pratesh at the T 360 Summit last spring. It was a blast talking to him, talking about some of the technology, the app and the tech inside. REAL is unbelievable. I think your adoption is incredible. I mean, maybe we can talk about that part of it as well.

00:45:28 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Yeah, well, the interesting part about adoption is you synthetically have to force it. Meaning we tell our agents, hey, we have 100% adoption of our technology because you don't get paid unless you use it. And while it's kind of tongue in cheek to do that, it's important. And we built technology from a reverse thinking, meaning most brokerages would build technology with agent tools first. Hey, here's how you do social media, here's how you do marketing, here's how you can make a slideshow. Here's how you get some landing pages. You can do all of that. But what people don't realize is most people can do that on Canva for $5 a month. And we realize that, well, what is important for REAL is for us to build things that an average agent or team cannot build themselves. If our focus is that, then it allows us to say, hey, can we build something that is cost prohibitive for Anthony or Bill, that is more important. And creating that is the hardest part. So over indexing, when we say, oh, we have this idea for a feature, I'm like, well, can they build it themselves or do they have a proxy tool that they can use themselves right now? If there is, and why should we build that we shouldn't? And so the purity of thinking around that is that's why we flipped the idea. And we said, hey, let's build infrastructure first, because we want the technology to fade to the background where someone is like, hey, I'm on this app because I get on it. I can see what's happening. It's simple, it's clean and it's cool. I get it. But it doesn't blow me away every time I think about it. We don't want to blow anybody away because the blowing away stuff everybody should do differently on their own because different people have different ideas on what blows them away. But foundationally speaking, everyone needs the same infrastructure to work. That's why we build infrastructure to work first. Now, when you have 100% adoption, now you can layer in tools on top, because when I have adoption, I can get more adoption on tools. The problem with the other brokerages are seeing is they spend all these resources to build the agent tools. They don't get adoption. And then now they're like, oh, crap, I spent all this money building these tools. You're not getting adoption. Should we build something else? And then you get defeated. But for us, now, it's flipped because now we have infrastructure. Then we can build an AI layer. Then we can build an agent tools layer. But you already have 100% adoption, so it's much easier to get feedback on those things. So our thinking has been, let's build things that they can't build themselves. And then once you have 100% adoption, it's much easier to get adoption on.

00:47:44 - Bill Risser

Everything else real quick. Just two more questions. First of all, what's next for REAL? What's next?

00:47:50 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Yeah, I think there was a great quote. Someone said, I don't know who it is. And we talked about the rise of real. And the rise of real, to me, on the outside, feels egotistical. They're like, look at us. Rise of real. But that's not it. The rise of real is a very, very humble thing for us. Meaning it took us this long meaning it took us three years, this model, to get into all 50 states in the four big Canadian provinces. It took us this long to get market penetration. Took us this long to build infrastructure. It took us this long to derisk so many people that joined us early. It took us this long to have the early adopters get validated. It took us this long. And the rise right now is because everything that we built so far is table stakes.

00:48:35 - Sharran Srivatsaa

That is the rise of real. Because a lot of people are like, look at us. We're amazing. I'm telling you, we are not amazing yet. What we have built is table stakes. In our minds, yes, our table stakes may be significantly different than everyone else and significantly better than everyone else because we've had a chance to think about the world differently. But we believe that what we have built so far is table stakes. Like, we needed this baseline to run a good business. In fact, if we stopped building anything, we'd be just fine for ten years. And that's when you know we have table six.

00:49:06 - Sharran Srivatsaa

That's when you know you have a baseline that you can operate a business well. But this is where the good stuff happens. This is where we're like, hey, how can we connect the consumer to the real estate transaction? If we don't go to the consumer, then we're putting all the pressure on the agent to have to go to the consumer.

00:49:20 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Can we assist in that process? What is the role of AI? Is it generic AI or is it functional AI? Well, currently we have one piece of AI called Leo that is answering 700 questions a day on average. That is three to four support people on a payroll basis. But the crazy part is not the three to four support people. It's the instantaneous answers that our agents are getting at 11:00 at night about their transaction and that is just in beta. So how do you get the consumer facing touch? How do you get the overall efficiency and then how do you get the new stuff? We're launching like we're launching. We realize that one of the things that we have not done or the industry has not done well is that it's always told the agent, the way you do well is to sling more homes, is to sell more homes, which is fine.

00:50:09 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I understand that from a production perspective, however, that is a sales business. That is not a career. A career involves a lot more. A career involves ups and downs in production. A career involves ups and downs in market cycle. A career involves a safety net and a nest egg of some sorts. So I think a lot about this one thing.

00:50:29 - Sharran Srivatsaa

How do we take real estate from a sales business and make it a career for agents so that they know that I don't have to look at my business plan and say I need to do 10% more this year. They know that I do whatever I do and I get paid to do whatever I always do. Meaning I get paid in stock or in whatever comp to produce. I get stock for just capping and hitting my normal targets. I get stock when I get compensated. When I attract somebody to the firm, I get paid on revenue share, which is cool.

00:50:59 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I help build and grow the firm so the firm is rewarding me. Can we actually build career based financial incentives for people so that they realize that they just don't have to sling more homes? They can do what they already do, but when the market changes, their life changes and other things happen, it's smoothened out and they can live in this ecosystem for a much longer period of time. I really think a lot about that one thing. Bill how do you take a sales business and turn it into a career? Because when you do that, you don't get 100% adoption, you get 100% love.

00:51:30 - Sharran Srivatsaa

That is the key. People are thinking about money and adoption, but when they think about, hey, if you create something that has never been created before an independent contractor, or go out and do what you do best, but instead you bring them together and say, hey, we want to build a career for you. I think you have this depth of love and bond that you have with our partners, that it can never be replaced. And that feeling is way more powerful than anything else that we can build.

00:51:57 - Bill Risser

Sharran, I'm going to ask you the same final question I've asked every guest since Jay Thompson. I don't know if you know Jay, but he was the guy who had to work for Zillow and be the public outreach guy. So I've known Jay for a long time. But the question is very simple. What one piece of advice would you give a new agent? Just getting started.

00:52:16 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I think about a little framework called the GPS. G for goal, p for plan, S for support. So you need some kind of goal. When you have some kind of goal, you need some kind of plan. But a goal and plan is not enough unless you have a support system. In a business like real estate, the fastest way to succeed is to plug into an ecosystem of success. It's like a young rookie wide receiver showing up at the Kansas City Chiefs right now. They will win so much faster because they're in the system. They're in the ecosystem of success. So I would say put your ego aside, find the greatest support system you can be in it'll collapse your learning curve. And what you get is what we talked about before, the difference between ability and capability. Because when you get your support system, you get accelerated capability. And once you have that, you've won in numerous ways. So goal, plan, support, and just plug into an ecosystem of performance, because once you get that, capability always wins.

00:53:18 - Bill Risser

Sharran, if somebody wants to reach out to you, what's the easiest way for them to do that? I imagine social, maybe.

00:53:23 - Sharran Srivatsaa

Yeah, social is the easiest. I give away all my stuff. Everything that I do is for free. I don't charge for anything. Everything in my world is for free because it's my way of giving back to the world. Instagram is probably the easiest way. It's my full name, but I also have a podcast very similar to Bill's. Bill's, yours is better than mine. It's called Business School, and I try to make every single episode, which is a solo episode. I try to make every single episode if I were doing a paid course. So every single episode is designed like a paid course. So if I were not going to charge for that episode, I would not put that out. So every single episode is designed like a paid course. I spent a lot of time designing it. And so if you want to check that out, as Business School is the name of the podcast and totally free.

00:54:05 - Bill Risser

Well, we'll put all the links in the show notes for all of this stuff. Make sure you know how to get a hold of Sharran. Sharran is just through the roof. Good. Fantastic. Thank you so much for the time because I know how busy you are. Thanks again for a wonderful episode.

00:54:20 - Sharran Srivatsaa

I appreciate you. Thank you so much, Bill, thank you.

00:54:22 - Bill Risser

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