[Episode 2 in the Inside Whissel Realty series on Real Estate Team OS]

From head of acquisition for an eliminated partnership program to ISA team builder to EOS integrator and hands-on COO to eyes-on/hands-off COO, Chris VanderValk has seen and contributed a lot to Whissel Realty Group brokered by eXp Realty in San Diego.

In this conversation, he walks the line between criticism and positivity, explains how the Agent Concierge Experience team and new Agent Advisory Board help agents, talks through lead sources, and describes how and why they left the cap model and allowed agents to claw back splits through GCI.

A top theme: creating more leverage for agents.

A primary lens: “We have to make this so valuable people can’t leave - period.”

A result: the #1 real estate team in San Diego and consistently a top team in the nation and in eXp Realty globally.

Watch or listen to this Inside Whissel Realty episode with Chris for insights into:

- Improving processes and results through a culture of “hyper criticism with positivity”

- The arrival into and evolution of the COO role and the EOS process (including a layoff, a resignation letter, and a democratic process)

- How and why they’re launching an Agent Advisory Board (including interviewing, selecting, tasking, and rewarding the agents)

- Ways to enhance agent productivity in a profitable way (including their ACE or Agent Concierge Experience team)

- How and why they successfully transitioned from a cap model to a no cap model and uniquely allow agents to claw back splits through GCI tiers

- A rundown of top lead sources from open houses to the “belle of the ball” (Zillow Flex)

- Enhancing agent leverage in 2025 through changes to the ACE and ISA teams

- Why the traditional job of a real estate agent is “illogical”

At the end, the fun and relaxing nature of catching, cleaning, cooking, and eating halibut and corvina.

Chris VanderValk:
- https://www.instagram.com/chris_vandervalk/
- https://whisselrealty.com/
- https://thewhisselway.com/thewhisselway

Real Estate Team OS:
- https://www.realestateteamos.com/subscribe

- https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos

- https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/

Within a couple of days of recording this conversation, Whissel Realty Group brokered by eXp Realty in San Diego, had 42 transactions scheduled to close. On one day! This type of performance isn’t possible without mature and optimized systems.

Kyle Whissel welcomed us into his recording studio and his real estate team to help us kick off this 9-episode series taking you Inside Whissel Realty, who consistently perform as the #1 team in San Diego and a top team in the nation and across eXp Realty globally.

• How to get past vanity metrics and how to know who knows their numbers.
• Seven key inflection points on the team-building journey.
• How they know which agents to bring on and which to cut.
• The elusive power of brand building.
• How they’re keeping agents in the three most dollar-productive activities.

Kyle shares all this and much more right here in this conversation!

Watch or listen to the first episode Inside Whissel Realty for insights into:

- Two benefits of running the team on a system (specifically: what life was like before and after they implemented EOS)

- Why the systems run the company and the people run the systems - and where that leaves the leader

- Two things you can expect to hear more about in this 9-episode series

- How and why he shifted out of commercial real estate into residential

- The piece of direct mail he can still see in his mind that sent him down the team path - and two big mistakes he made in the process

- How you’ll know if you’re the right person to build and lead a team and what type of agents you should design for

- The financial and cultural upsides of “running the play that’s called”

- How they’ve built a company that keeps agents doing the three things that make money (going on appointments, prospecting, and negotiating contracts)

- How to know who knows their numbers - and who doesn’t

- Where he turns for credible, valuable insights to help him learn and grow as a person and as a business

- The power of brand, the value of video, and the challenge of marketing attribution

- Key points of inflection on his team-building journey

- Why top agents love seeing low performers get cut - and what minimum standards must be met to stay on the team

At the end, learn about a Buffalo pilgrimage, a serious student, and late-game legs.

Kyle Whissel:

- https://www.instagram.com/kylewhissel/

- https://whisselrealty.com/

- https://thewhisselway.com/thewhisselway

Real Estate Team OS:
- https://www.realestateteamos.com/subscribe

- https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos

- https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/

Shawn Getty sold 186 homes in the first half of his third year in real estate, including a stretch of 60 homes in 60 days. And he did it all with $0 in ad spend.

Shawn started the team-building process 6 or 7 times before getting the traction he has today (including losing 27 agents all at once). But Getty Group, brokered by eXp Realty in Calgary, has grown from 4 to 48 agents in an 8-month window this year.

Learn his tactics for agent attraction, the structure of his recruiting conversation, and many hard-learned lessons from the fits and starts of building his real estate team.

Listen to this Real Estate Team OS episode with Shawn Getty for insights into:

- Two basic truisms of team success

- Multiple false starts on the team-building journey

- Building an education-based and skills-based team of people who hunt together, rather than alone

- Growing agent count by 12x (from 4 to 48) in under 8 months

- How to attract agents using Instagram

- The specific conversation structure to bring agents onto your team

- A free social media tactic drives 30-40% of their business (and that other agents make fun of)

- A free social media tactic to become top of preference, not just top of mind (with a specific example)

- The two ways he’s working on the main bottleneck in his business today

- Why teams will be bigger, more prominent, more impactful, and more needed in the future

At the end, learn about “the uniform of the wealthy,” “the champion sweater that can’t be beat,” and the balance in being all on or all off.

Shawn Getty:

- https://www.instagram.com/shawngetty

- https://www.gettygroup.ca/

Real Estate Team OS:
- https://www.realestateteamos.com/subscribe

- https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos

- https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/

Four and a half years ago, Kyle Draper started Serene Team (brokered by eXp Realty in Los Angeles) with two agents he’d mentored earlier in his career and an admin.

Today, the team is more than 40 agents strong - and growing. As you’d expect, the path was filled with hard-learned lessons and supported by the guidance of mentors. Those initial team members? They’re all still contributing.

Learn about the challenges in the 7- to 12-agent range, the nuances of a transaction management system they put into place, and which tools and tech have been vital to turning online leads, past clients, and sphere opportunities into closed transactions - including video.

Watch or listen to Ep 046 with Kyle Draper for insights into:

- Setting and managing expectations

- Three hurdles for new agents to clear in the first 21 days before earning a spot and a mentor on the team

- What he had to put down before fully committing to real estate and starting a team (at the onset of COVID)

- Which staff positions he’s hired locally and which he’s hired internationally

- Finding your right team size and the specific challenges in the 7- to 12-agent range

- Why and how he stepped back into sales production

- Inside the transaction model he’s running, including its nuances, benefits, and challenges

- Balancing investment of time, energy, and focus on online leads, past clients, and sphere - especially when the latter two drive most of your business

- How the FUB-Ylopo pairing helps the team create and close more opportunities

- When, why, and how his team uses video email, video messages, and screen recordings - including very specific stories, use cases, and wins

- Two reasons teams will get bigger in the future

At the end, learn about two competitors receiving flowers, cutting a car payment nearly in half, and the two sides of a wonderful weekend.

Kyle Draper:

- https://www.instagram.com/thekyledraper/

- https://www.zillow.com/profile/Kyle%20Draper

Real Estate Team OS:
- https://www.realestateteamos.com/subscribe

- https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos

- https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/

Chase Whitney is doing geographic farming activities today that he was doing as a pre-teen to support his parents' real estate business. After more than a dozen years as an agent himself, Chase still does many hands-on, in-person, face-to-face, and human-to-human activities that can’t be scaled or leveraged.

But he’s also passionate about tech and improving The Whitney Team’s marketing and finances through that passion.

Learn how they expanded from a father-mother-son trio to an 8-person team, the 5 pillars of their tech stack (and his preferred vendors for each), what he learned using 7 different CRMs in 7 years, how he overcame shiny object syndrome, and much more!

Watch or listen to this Techtember episode with Chase Whitney to learn:
- The when-you-know-you-know aspect of team culture

- Moving from a father-mother-son real estate business to the fits and starts of building out their real estate team

- Why old-school, manual, hands-on, and human-to-human marketing is so valuable in a tech-enabled age

- Overcoming the challenge of being drawn toward shiny objects

- The five core pillars of your real estate tech stack and the two rules that support them all

- What he learned by migrating their database through seven CRMs in a seven-year period

- Tips for improving your retargeting ads and alleviating ad fatigue in your target audiences

- How their direct mail strategy is targeted and tracked with tech

- Why front-facing IDX is irrelevant and what to look for in a real estate website solution

- Ways to leverage your best asset - property! - to create more valuable conversations

- The two main problems or questions that agents and team leaders reach out to him with

At the end, learn about bleeding red and gold, hours of research to save $2, and the problems with audiobooks.

Connect with Chase Whitney:

- https://consultwithchase.com/

- https://4realestatehelp.com

- https://www.instagram.com/chasewhitney_re/

Check out the book we talked about but couldn’t remember the title of:

- https://www.amazon.com/Oversubscribed-How-People-Lining-Business/dp/0857086197

Check out Real Estate Team OS episodes with people Chase mentioned:

- Ep Elena Kee https://www.realestateteamos.com/episode/real-estate-crm-elena-kee-technology

- Ep 043 Chelly Herren https://www.realestateteamos.com/episode/techtember-operations-real-estate-tech-stack-chelly-herren

- Ep 028 Jeffery McGonigle https://www.realestateteamos.com/episode/real-estate-agent-proficiency-jose-samano-jeffery-mcgonigle

- Ep 041 Justin Benson https://www.realestateteamos.com/episode/techtember-shaping-tech-to-your-way-of-doing-business-with-justin-benson

Connect with Real Estate Team OS:
- https://www.realestateteamos.com/subscribe

- https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos

- https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/

Deep experience with transaction coordination and operations.

Roles on mega teams and small teams alike.

A passion for and understanding of technology.

Lisa Vo brings more than a dozen years of industry experience and specific strengths and insights to this Techtember conversation.

Watch or listen to this Techtember episode of Real Estate Team OS to learn:

- The need to challenge flexibility with standardization

- A 13-year journey into real estate through multiple roles and teams, including four of the main roles she takes on now

- The key questions she asks to diagnose a team’s tech stack and CRM

- How to know if you’re using too little tech or too much tech in your business - and advice for both types of people

- How to untangle a Franken-stack of too much real estate tech

- Specific tools you can use for efficiency and convenience … even if you don’t know how to write code

- Benefits of joining a real estate team, including a done-for-you tech stack

- Keys to a great TC function

- Distinct stages of tech implementation for transaction coordination - and which tools you need as you progress

- Trends toward real estate teams and teamerages

- Advice for someone who fears or hates tech in general and AI in particular

- Why she’s most excited about industry-specific solutions when it comes to AI

At the end, get fun stories about YouTube, a MacBook Pro, and Astros.

Follow Up Boss Success Community:

- https://www.facebook.com/groups/followupbosscommunity

Lisa Vo:

- https://lisalovesfub.com

- https://simplyclosed.house

- https://huzi.ai

Real Estate Team OS:
- https://www.realestateteamos.com/subscribe

- https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos

- https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/

From studying supply chain management to running operations for a team from 0 to 100 agents to becoming COO of a real estate team committed to per-agent productivity, Chelly Herren’s seen, tried, learned, and achieved a lot - especially in the zones of real estate tech and real estate ops.

And she’s here to share it with you.

- How to simplify your tech stack for more efficiency and less redundancy.
- A disciplined approach to evaluating the true cost and true benefits of new technology.

- Specific tactics to increase agent understanding, buy-in, and adoption.

It’s all here in one helpful and engaging conversation!

Listen to this Techtember episode with Chelly Herren to learn:

- 3 reasons people join team leaders (not just join teams)

- Her path to COO of The Hyland Group, including helping build a team from 0 to 100 agents in a couple of years and a couple of markets

- The profile and structure of a highly productive team, including a leader closing 100+ transactions per year

- Her two-step process for evaluating the tech the team had in place and redesigning it to reduce redundancy and increase per-agent productivity

- Transparency and efficiency gains from managing transactions inside Follow Up Boss

- The most common tech theme, question, or problem she encounters (consolidation / simplification)

- The 3 main questions she asks when evaluating whether, when, and how to add new tech to their operation

- A caution and question to help you consider the full cost of new tech and weighing it against the benefits

- Specific tactics for better agent buy-in and adoption of new tools and tech (including an SOP library and agent tools website)

- How she keeps up with trends in real estate operations and technology

At the end, learn about Swifties, Zonies, leftovers, designer purses and wallets, information saturation, and pilates vs beaches.

Connect with Chelly Herren:
- https://chellyherren.com/

- https://www.prescottareaproperty.com/

Guests mentioned in this episode:

- Ep 016 with Emily Smith https://www.realestateteamos.com/episode/emily-smith-intrapreneur-entrepreneur-teamerage

- Ep 023 Christy Belt Grossman https://www.realestateteamos.com/episode/operations-leadership-real-estate-assistant-coo-christy-belt-grossman-ops-boss

- Ep 041 Justin Benson https://www.realestateteamos.com/episode/techtember-shaping-tech-to-your-way-of-doing-business-with-justin-benson

- FUBCON Session with Jon Cheplak https://www.realestateteamos.com/episode/jon-cheplak-real-estate-teams-traditional-brokerages

Connect with Real Estate Team OS:
- https://www.realestateteamos.com/subscribe

- https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos

- https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/

Real estate agent.
Operations leader for a real estate team.
Partner in a real estate brokerage.
Real estate tech consultant.

These are just a few of the roles Lee Adkins has played and seats he’s been in over the past couple of decades in the industry.

He’s the Co-Founder and Chief Partnership Officer of Amplified Solutions, a team that designs, implements, and manages your team’s Follow Up Boss leads and systems.

We invited him into this Techtember episode to help you assess and audit your real estate tech in general and your real estate CRM in particular.

And many of the insights are simpler and more analog than you’d expect.

Watch or listen to this Techtember episode to learn:

- The fundamental and often overlooked importance of a plan

- How he went from touring musician in a band to real estate tech consultant

- The two most common problems he encounters when assessing the tech stack of a team or brokerage (with a nod to the “I didn’t know it could do that” problem)

- Specific questions to help you find and implement new tech effectively

- Using a pencil and a piece of paper for your business plan, operations manual, or tech stack

- Why to click through all the Admin tabs of your CRM

- Setting, forgetting, and benefitting from the Follow Up Boss pixel

- Why to set all your reporting to the same time frame

- Knowing who to talk to, getting to Smart List Zero, then getting out to connect with people and earn commissions

- Where to get hours of in-account, on-screen, show-and-tell training on Follow Up Boss

At the end, learn how a rock band is like a real estate team, how fast $9.95/month racks up, and how to help your team unplug.

Follow Up Boss resources:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDmR8fGtgojAuhaYlB6n8xn8yJwkPCLPU
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/followupbosscommunity

Amplified Solutions:
- https://AmplifiedSolutions.com
- https://www.instagram.com/amplifiedsolutions/

Real Estate Team OS:
- https://www.realestateteamos.com/subscribe

- https://linktr.ee/realestateteamos
- https://www.instagram.com/realestateteamos/