Building Legacy, Land, and Community with Jeremy Sundgren | Ep5

All right, welcome to the Killer Growth Podcast. I've got Jeremy Sungren on from Sungren Real Estate and Auctions. Is that kind of how we end? Yeah, we call it Sungren Realty, but a lot of what we do is auction, so we should throw that in there probably. I think it's kind of clear on your website. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for hanging out. Glad to be here. I start with some pretty personal questions, so if you feel uncomfortable, you don't have to answer. Okay, good. If you feel comfortable. Especially in front of this big audience. Yeah, they don't chime in too much. They make it easy, but now let's keep it easy. So what's the origin of Sungren Realty, and then when did you come into the picture? Great question to start off. So my dad, Joe Sungren, started Sungren Auction in 1981. And it was called Sungren Auction. Okay. So at the time, he wanted to be able to work with all of the real estate companies in town and do their auctions for them, so he did not want to compete directly against them on the real estate side of things. So he started Sungren Auction, so basically what he would do would have personal property auctions mainly, but eventually that did evolve into real estate auctions, and then it also evolved further into a real estate company along with the auction side of things. But that's how he got his start, and that's how he was able to instantly become successful or relevant in the auction business was by not competing against those people, so that they would work with him. Correct. So where did land fall in that? So in the beginning, again, it was just mainly personal property. If you'll remember back, you weren't probably born, but the 1980s were a time of great change in the ag industry. Interest rates skyrocketed, people were leveraged, and there was a lot of turnover in the 80s of land equipment because of foreclosure. Interesting. So it was a difficult time to start from that standpoint because you might be having an auction for someone you knew that was pinched because of that increase in interest rates that was large, drastic, and fast. How high was it then? Interest rates got up 18%. We're complaining now. Correct. So I'm rambling on now. That's good. That's how it got started. It evolved into Sungren Auction and Realty, and then I became licensed in real estate in the year 2000. I started helping with auctions prior to that probably when I was about 15 is when I started doing auctioneering. And then before that, I would help at auctions by just running sheets or moving furniture out for the sale, stuff like that. So I got licensed in 2000 and came back here full-time. Licensed, just your real estate license? Real estate license, yeah. Licensed to sell real estate. You don't have to have a license to be an auctioneer. Okay, that's what I was kind of getting at. In Kansas. Good to know. You do in Oklahoma or Arkansas, but not in Kansas. But you do have to be a licensed real estate agent to sell real estate by auction or by That makes sense. regular listing. So you can do personal auctions. Correct. But not land or buildings. You could go tomorrow and do a personal property auction. Yeah. Interesting. So what was the moment through that journey? I'm assuming like any second generation business, you're like, what am I doing? I'm kind of here. I'm kind of not. You're going to college. What was that moment? You're like, I'm all in on the family business and I'm going to take it to the next level. You know, the honest truth is I did not do very good at college. Not because I don't think I had the ability to. I just didn't have the discipline. I didn't have the organization skills. I just How many credit hours are you short? That's always good. Not very many. Haley wants to finish them for you. She always says that. I'll tell you, my 10 year old Sylvie could finish them for me. And I've thought about that, too. So I think I'm like eight hours short. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's sinking on you. I'm going to fix that real quick. Perfect. So the business that my dad had started was a really good opportunity for me. I don't know that I necessarily saw myself doing that long term, full time, but it was a good opportunity. And with my lack of direction at the time, it was a real good opportunity for me to survive and then thrive at a certain point. You, I've seen you do a lot of auctions and you're a good auctioneer, whether you believe it or not. When did you do your first auction, like as an auctioneer? When I was 15, probably. Oh, that was your... Yeah, so that was when I... You were up in front of people doing a stick. Yeah, that's when I would have actually stood up there and auctioned off items. Yeah. So at a pretty young age, comparatively to most people, but I grew up in the business. And I remember being real nervous and being scary at the time. Did you like it though? Yeah. I like stuff. I like seeing what something's worth, learning what something could be worth. It's fun for me, even still today, even though the industry's changed so much. But the next stage of my journey in the business was in 2008. My dad had a partner that was going another direction. And so I was given the opportunity through my dad to buy half of the company at that time, actually 49% of the company at the time. And I did, and it was the best decision I made. That's awesome. What did that look like in that transition? How much really changed as far as your involvement with the business the second you bought in? Did roles change between... It changed a lot from the standpoint of, hey, I have skin in this game and I need to put more focus on what I'm doing here professionally and get better. Yeah. What's the biggest thing from the second generation? Because yeah, your story is kind of unique because a lot of times it's the dad's getting out, but you came in and partnered with the dad. So you're like second generation, but you also came in pretty early to help build it to what it is. So what was that transition like as far as, oh, dad, we're partners now. What'd you learn in that? Well, it was a smooth transition, surprisingly, because you hear of so many issues with those types of transitions, but I give 100% of the credit to my dad. He's not the type of guy who wants to be in the limelight. He doesn't care about receiving credit or recognition from people. He would just as soon be silent behind the scenes type of a guy. And because of that, it allowed me to come in and take a leadership role and grow that leadership role through the years. If he would have had the personality or mentality that he's the boss and I'm just there to help, but he was going to be the boss until he decided he wasn't, it wouldn't have worked. Yeah. He did a really good job of giving me the tools that I needed to be successful in that business, but then gradually phasing himself out. And when I say phasing himself out, he's still there today helping, but phasing himself out of the important decisions or being supportive of other people making those decisions instead of having to be his way or the highway. Because we made a lot of hard decisions since 2008 over the last 17 years, because the industry has changed so much. Talk about that. How much has the industry changed? And what's kind of different about your approach today than it was 15 years ago? Well, and even further back than that, when I was 15 years old, we would have two or three auctions a week. They were mostly on Saturdays and Sundays, and we were there doing them in person. Now, we hardly ever do an auction on a Saturday or Sunday. It's rarely in person. A lot of it's online. So those are on the personal property auction side of things. Those are some of the changes. On the real estate side of the things, it all hinges on technology. 25 years ago, you stuck a sign in the yard and maybe handed out some sheets to people. So technology has just changed the industry. And so again, as I get older, things are going to continue to change and evolve. And that's why it's important to me to have young people who are more apt to be able to adjust to those changes within our organization to help us move into the future. Because we, I hate to say it, but we all kind of age out to a certain extent. For sure. And I don't want that to happen to my company, just like my dad didn't want that to happen to his company. What was established and then what needed to be done next when you came into the business? So come in, 49% of the business, your dad built up, built a great thing. And then that next iteration was technology, adding in the online auction. I don't know how quickly that came after. We were real early with, we were too early with online auctions. Too early. We were. So we did some online auction stuff back in, I'd have to look, but I think maybe it was in that 2004 to 2006 range. Yeah. So we were too early and it just didn't work. Um, then fast forward to, you know, early to mid 2000 teens. And, and then we, we recharged that again. And then of course, when COVID hit, you know, it was, it was all on, you know, we were in position to function through COVID because we had that online presence already in place. So we were fortunate. A lot of people weren't, a lot of companies, similar size, similar operations as ours weren't in position through COVID to capitalize the way we were, but they're getting there now. You know, they, they've had to, they've been forced to. I feel like that would be such a hard thing to be an early adopter. And especially in the Midwest, like in Kansas, you know, South central Kansas or whatever, wherever we are. Um, but yeah, the, everyone's used to it. Even your people probably aren't excited about it, right? Like, like you've probably got both sides where the customers are like, gosh, this is what we're used to. We don't feel comfortable. And you have team members probably who are like, this isn't going to work in the first place. So you got to have buying on both sides. Absolutely. It's hard on both ends. That's right. Yeah. That's, that's great though. Good for you on having it all established before COVID. Well, we just, and I think part of it was we have other industry players in the area that are good about moving forward with technology. And so that competition is good and, and it forces you to be good at what you do. I think the, the tried and failed online in the early 2000s was also good for us because we did have a little success with it. You know, we had a couple of items where, wow, a buyer from New York purchased this item in Kansas and it brought a whole lot more than we thought it would. So we had some success. It just wasn't widespread enough. And we weren't set up to function the way we needed to, to be able to start and continue. So we, we had a little, you got a taste of it. Then a stop. Yeah. Then on the restart, we were more prepared to be successful with it. Yeah. That's a big adjustment, especially if you don't know how it's going. Right. You want some fresh water? Narbel. There you go. It's, it's magic juice from Narbel. This is the cheat code. That's the cheat code. You push that button after you move the line. You're going to show the video how I can't move the water bottle? Yeah, there he goes. All right. Yeah. Get a close up, Tyler. Can you guys make sure that you feature that? You got to get that Narbel sticker out there though when you're drinking it. Speaking of the Narbel, by the way. How are you doing? I'll tell you what, Levi is, uh, uh, you know, it's interesting. I've heard a lot of people say how, um, they look up to him and I think he's like half our age, right? Yeah. So I think. And height wise, you're looking down. I wasn't going to say that, Levi. That was for you, Levi. I wasn't going to say that, Levi. But I find it interesting how many people look up to Levi and it's because he's such a good dude. He is. And he's, uh, doing great things. So it's fun to see and it's fun to be a part of them. Yeah. Yeah. You've been there for like three months, four months. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Well, good job. No one else tells me I look better, but Levi does. Oh, it'll come. Give it 12 months. You gotta wait. You gotta wait a year. Show up for a year. And that's the big, big difference for sure. Um, let's talk about like, uh, in real estate, the most interesting thing to me is you guys all sell the same product. Everybody wants to buy that product, like specifically land houses or buildings. So you're the thing you have for sale, right? Is the thing any other realtor can sell. So it kind of comes down to a popularity contest for lack of a better word, like your term. Essentially you need people to want to do that process and that experience with you over someone else. Right. So like if you're in real estate, you're competing, um, talk about your guys' branding, your approach on, uh, being a part of your community. Like, how are you connecting with people? Um, I know there's, you've got a whole team, right? You've got all these agents inside your brokerage also that have their own networks. But kind of talk about that, that timeline and how you guys have positioned yourself to be liked, respected, selling the exact same thing using similar processes, right? Too. So that's the part that's interesting. Well, it's, uh, there's no magic sauce is, is, is the answer. But in anything you do, you have to enjoy it and love it and be passionate about it, which in turn gives you a better chance to do a good job at what you do. And so we have a good mix of people within our organization that enjoy what they do. They enjoy who they get to do it with. Um, you, you have to be honest and do a good job in addition to those things. But then back to, you know, you talk about a popularity contest. You, you, you have to, you, you have to be involved in your community regardless of what you're doing, because it's good for the community. It's good for you. It's good for your organization. And if you aren't within an organization, it's just good in general. We've, we've gotten away from what I see across our society. We've gotten away from personalization within the work that we do. You know, we order clothes online. We, we can do an auction online now. At the end of the day, it's all about people. And if you can connect with people and, and, you know, like I, I, I had pool league last night, which I only play about once or twice a year when my team needs a sub, I don't play full time. But I'm sitting there last night at the blue goose during pool league, not drinking any beer, which is hard and be at the blue goose. If you aren't drinking beer, like everybody else in there, right. But I'm sitting there and I'm just bouncing around talking to everybody that I, that I don't get to see very often because I'm not there. And, and when I'm not talking to this guy over here, this gal over here, I look around and people are on their phones. And, and so part of it is we need to get back to enjoying people because that's what it's all about. And that's what I think is a big part of our success. Having continued relationships with people. Not only are we doing a good job for them, but we actually do enjoy being around people, interacting with them and being part of their lives. Helping someone buy or sell a house is one of the biggest financial decisions that that person will make in their life. And so it's really important not only to be supportive of them and, and give them good advice, give them good recommendations on how to do it and do it right. But, but it's meaningful. And so I love those relationships and, and, you know, I'm not as involved in the residential real estate side of things as I used to be just because we have so many good people doing that within our office. And I tend to, to spend more time on the land farm and ranch side of the business, which again is a good people too. And, and, and that's, what's fun about it is connecting with people, getting to know them and then getting to be a part of major decisions within their life. So you, you kind of, that was a good transition of talking about everyone in the Blue Goose just staring at their phone. Also, you have to keep in mind, they're also doing that right from a likability perspective. Two things I've noticed you guys have great merch. I'm repping it now. That's a good looking shirt. You guys have great merch. I own a lot of it and I look forward to whenever there's more so that, that in itself is some great branding and being involved in your community, right? Because you went, if people are wearing your shirts and your hats and they, it's not even just repping your brand. They just like the shirt or the hat. Yes. You guys have put some thought into that because it's good. I mean, I've, I've printed and had a bunch of really crappy merch made that I've handed out. And the only people wear it are people that want to support me, not just because they like the merch. So if you can do both, like I just an interesting take. Cause I, I don't know if you put a lot of thought into it, but it's an enormous amount of thought into it. And, and we still always feel like we're a step behind, you know, it's hard. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's hard. But, and I, I don't know, I think it's fun to see our stuff around people wearing it and, and we, that's something we can get better at too though. I think. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's also me slowly like kind of hinting at I'm ready for some more. Well, so I think I'm ready for some more too. I keep telling everybody in the office, come up with an idea, come up with an idea. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll start, I'll start sending over some ideas. Maybe you need to come up with an idea. All right. Perfect. So then on the social media side, so that's the merch side, the social media side. We, we helped you in the past with like some SEO, some Google search and did this kind of six month thing or whatever, and then had a couple of great conversations with you and with Phillip who's helping there about content, content, content. Yep. So you brought a guy in house. Yes. Tyler Norman. Correct. Very talented creator that came in and your guys' Facebook is unbelievable. I tell people regularly go look at like clients, potential clients. Go look at Sungren's Facebook. Like if you want to be all in and build a digital presence that people enjoy, like they just look forward to what's going to come up next. Right. And again, it's that it's what you talked about. Like you've got the relate, the in-person side is important, but also like if you're going to put out content, you want it to be likable. And you guys are like Tyler spearheading that pulling out different parts of you. People, people in your group that I never thought would be willing to be on video. That's what I've been most impressed by, including you that are all on video now. But that was a great move. And do you feel like that's paying off? Yes, absolutely. So first of all, I feel like I have a camera in my face all the time and I hate it. But it's, it's been great. So I feel like Sungren Realty did a really good job of, of putting out social media content. I don't know, five, six, eight, 10 years ago, but I could always feel when we were getting a little behind or a little outdated, so to speak with how we were doing what we were doing. And so we would make changes along the way and do the best we could do. But quite honestly, for a lot of years, it was me putting that content out. And I'm not necessarily the, the creative type as, as far as what today's day and age would, would like to see, you know, my wife was, was helpful for a lot of years in, in putting out some social media content, but, but literally it was us making those posts and clicking that button and it just got a little tired. Yeah. And you guys had good taste. You guys had a good eye for stuff. And I worked with you guys a few times on a few things and like you were, you kind of knew what you wanted, but it was also the getting it done. Correct. Right. Well, knowing what you want and then being able to execute it are two different things. And, and I have a lot of ideas, executing those from a creative standpoint is not my strong suit. So fast forward to hiring Tyler Nordman and, you know, first of all, everybody should have a Tyler Nordman. Yeah. He, he has high energy. He is positive all the time. He's fun. He works hard. He is not scared if, you know, he's our, he's our marketing director, but if furniture needs drug out of a basement for an auction, he's there and doing it and not complaining. Matter of fact, he's leading. Yeah. So everybody should have a Tyler Nordman because he's willing to do anything, which is kind of how I got my start. You know, I have done everything within the business from the hardest, most labor intensive level up to an executive role. So that's another thing I encourage people to don't be scared to, to just do the hard things and do the stuff that isn't glamorous because you'll learn so much and it will make you a better person. It'll make you a better employee. It'll make you a better leader. And you guys know all about that. Well, any more on that? That was great. I, I agree. And I think the huge benefit right there, not only did you find a guy who's willing to be part of the team beyond just pointing a camera in your face, right? And then he's like, I'm not going to do that. Right. But having somebody in the trenches that understands what you're doing, that's a part of what you're doing. And then capturing that is the best version of social media, right? Like that is the best way to do it. You need someone in it. They get it. And especially if they have that ability. And that's what I tell everyone. Like we can help with that stuff, but like you're better off having someone in house and we can coach, we can help with post edit. You know, we can, we can partner out, but like businesses should do social media in house, uh, as far as to some extent, right. Right. You can have someone that's got the ability to do all of it or not, but like going in house. And that's why I always describe you guys. And I've, I've sent your Facebook over to so many people just saying like, this is an example of if you have someone focused on it in house, this is what it can be like. So, so good job and a good job, Tyler. It's awesome. Yeah. And, and, and outsourcing is, is a way to do things bringing in how, and we have to do different things and try different things. But in this particular instance, bringing that in house has been, has been a good move for us. And, and, you know, in our business, you can't say, all right, we posted this many times on Facebook and that generated, you know, we're not a retail sales business. So it's hard to, uh, to brand awareness, but, uh, I, I know that it's, it's paying dividends now and it will in two years and five years. And that's the race mindset. Yep. Good job. Um, so what's, uh, talk about land, uh, you always say, invest in land, invest in land, invest in land. Uh, what do you look for in land? Like Jeremy sees land and to me, an acre is a number, right? And then it's like, okay, here's the price per acre, but I have no clue why an acre will go for $1,200 or it'll go for $12,000. I have no idea. Like, why does an acre change in value when it's just straight land? Well, that's a great question. And there's no answer because no, no one knows the answer. I want to know, but, but we can talk about it a little bit. Uh, land is great. There's so many advantages to owning land. And if that's a question you want to ask later, I'll dive into that. But as far as price per acre on land, you know, uh, if you look at a lot of land value charts or graphs or, uh, information pieces across the country, Kansas land is a value versus land in other States. And, and I believe as in a goodbye, yes, as in a, as in a value by, because we're, we're, we're behind other States in price per acre averages. Okay. Interesting. But, but what, think about this, our land is a value versus land in other States. Land is productive in Kansas. You can use about every acre of land there is throughout our entire state, whether it's cattle grazing, tillable farming, grains, hunting, fishing. There is a use development. There is a use for about every piece of land in Kansas, or as in there are States with um, that isn't that productive. Um, here's the thing about land. It's tangible. People like to buy gold and silver, right? It's finite. You know, gold's cool. You can make jewelry out of it. Yeah. It's fun to have, but you can't go hunt it or fish it or stand on it. Take your buddies out and look at it. Can't graze a cow on it. Um, land is just really cool. As far as the investment side of things, it just continues to appreciate over time. The old saying is they're not making any more. Right, right. Exactly. And I would even argue that they're making less of it because as population growth occurs, it's using up more land to do that. So not only are they not making any more of it, but it's shrinking. So, uh, it's like Bitcoin. There's only going to be so many of them, right? Yep. But there's not a lot you can do with it. Well, not yet. Your land, gold. Right, exactly. You can't have real enjoyment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the four, the use case of just strategically, why buy land in Kansas? That's a really good point. Like it's almost always a use case for. Correct. There is a use case and it's a value. That's right. If I were to, and there's other places that are, that are always going to be popular and attractive beach property, you know, good mountain view property, water features are always going to be in high demand. But if you buy land in Kansas, there's always going to be a use for it. Most likely. And you're probably going to get a value today versus in the future. How much does water, uh, on land or springs or anything like that influence price? Water is huge. In Kansas specifically. Everywhere. But in Kansas, water is huge because it creates so many opportunities that you don't have without it. I'll say this. I think that in our lifetime, water will be as important as oil because we have to have it for so many uses. On land specifically, you know, we'll just kind of look to the functional and recreational uses. You have to have water for livestock. Yep. Absolutely have to have it. You have to have water for recreation enjoyment. You know, you can't fish without it and you're probably not going to have as successful as a hunt without it unless it's close by. Yeah, that makes sense. So water is just extremely important and quality water tends to be held in tight hands, meaning it's hard to acquire. So when it does become available, there's a lot of competition usually involved. But buying land to me is like planting a tree. The best time to do it is 20 years ago. The second best time to do it is today. Yep, it's good. Land is moving towards auctions, it seems like, like crazy. Like it's, I don't, I don't know if that's how it's always been. In Kansas. Or if that's just here. In Kansas, it's generally been accepted to sell land by auction. You go to other regions within our country and there's never land auctions. They just don't do it. And they should. Yeah. Because it gives everybody a fair chance. It creates competition and it allows you to obtain true price discovery. Sure. Of that property. Especially of that, yeah, the interest of that property. Yeah. Correct. And land's hard to price too. Yeah. Because no two tracts of land are alike, really. Yeah. You know, you can have houses that are alike or pretty similar. Yeah, comparables are easier. Exactly. Finding comparable sales on a residential real estate property is easier than on land. And again, so how do, if you look across the world, how does rare art, rare coins, rare cars, how do they sell those? Always by auction. And I put land in that category. So I just totally blinked on my pivot on that. Oh, the increase. Yeah. No, no, you're good. I was like, I just had a question pop into my head. Do you know, Ballpark, like, do you have examples, like tangibles of when somebody, if we were to list this land for what you think it's worth and eventually sell it versus we auction it off, like, is there even comparables on that, that auctions provide X amount of like an increase in the sale price for the seller specifically? Yeah. You know, it's, I don't have any statistical data on that. But I could give you a lot of examples. I'll just give you a recent example. Okay. We sold a property in Woodson County in 2024 by auction, and it brought $3,100 per acre. The guy, after owning it for less than a year, decided he wanted to sell it. And so we listed it for $3,500 per acre and didn't get it sold. He decided, well, let's just sell it by auction, which is how I bought it. I really would just want to get it gone. And so we sold it by auction and it brought $3,520 per acre. Really? So that's all within the time span of a year. Auction, buyers like auction because they know at the end of the day, if I'm the high bidder of this property and the seller accepts my high bid, I'm the buyer. Whereas in with a listing, there's negotiation back and forth. Am I paying too much? Do they have a price too high? There's just all these unknown factors. Whereas in with an auction, if the high bid's $3,100 an acre, I know that someone out there is willing to give that much for it, which gives me a little bit of comfort in giving $3,200 per acre. Right? Because worst case scenario, at the end of the day, in my mind, I have a comfort level knowing that if this doesn't work for me, someone was willing to pay as much as I was or right there close to. So that's the comfort level that an auction can give too. And I firmly believe that myself. If I'm buying something by auction and someone is willing to give just a little less than me, that gives me a good level of comfort. No kidding. All right. We're jumping off land now. We're going back to, well, it could fall in the land too. Here's a common thing I hear all the time about real estate in general, like from the consumer side. And I'm curious what your answer would be to this. And if you don't have an answer, that's okay. I'll answer anything. I'm an open book. So like from the non-realtor side, right? People that don't know the job, they don't do the job. They don't know really what the job entails. They just assume X percent of this transaction just goes to the realtor. Whether it's $150,000 house or a million dollar house, it's the same percentage. Heard that my whole adult life, right? What would be your response to that? If somebody is asking for clarification of why that is. If it's the same workload for $150,000 house or a million dollar house. So first thing, commissions are negotiable, all right? That doesn't mean that my commission is negotiable necessarily. But in general, there is no set fee that you have to pay when you hire a realtor. They are negotiable. Now within our company, we know what we're worth. We know the value we add. And we are not overcharging for that value we add. In a lot of cases, you could argue that we're undercharging for the value we add. Now, back to your question specifically. If I'm selling a $50,000 house versus selling a $3 million piece of land, the workload is completely different. They both have their challenges. They both have their intricacies. But they're just completely different animals. You know, when you're dealing with, let's say, a $50,000 or $100,000 house, you're either dealing with a first-time home buyer or an investor, or you're dealing with an estate. And all of those can have their different challenges that you have to work through. When you're selling a $3 million piece of property, it's a whole set of dynamics. You're dealing with, most likely, a fairly qualified, high-level, experienced buyer, which is nice, but they also are going to be particular on how they do things. You're going to have probably more back-and-forth on terminology within a contract. You're going to have a higher likelihood of maybe attorneys being involved on both buyer and seller end of a transaction that large. So, to answer your question, they can both be easy, and they can both be very, very difficult. It depends a lot on the people within the transaction. And sometimes it can depend, too, on the property within the transaction. Makes sense. Yeah, good. I see a lot of people get a real estate license all the time. Every day, someone pops up, I got my license, and they're popping up everywhere. I feel like it also falls off. They don't tend to go all in, or it's just there. What does it really take today? If you were getting your license today, your realtor license just starting out, and you're joining some brokerage, there's no background. I don't even know what qualifies someone to say, I've always done this, so now I'm going to be good at real estate. I don't feel like that's even really ever answered, other than I just like people, or I like sales. What would it take today to actually be successful if I joined Sungren Realty, and I got my license, and I'm going in? Let's just say residential. Let's keep it. I'm going to the residential market. To be successful in real estate, I think, is similar to a lot of jobs or businesses. You really have to do it full-time. The people that you tend to see get a license and not have longevity within the business are usually trying to do it part-time, and they're doing that because real estate does not have a paycheck unless you have a closing. Results. Correct. A lot of people try it part-time because they do have to have income to survive, and there's no guarantees within real estate. But that being said, trying to do something part-time is hard when it's a sales-driven business, because you really have to devote your full attention to it, and be available all the time. If someone wants to look at a house at noon while you're at your other job, and that's the only time they can look, you're not going to retain that customer. You have to be flexible. You have to be all-in. You also have to pick the right place to go. You need to go to an organization that represents you well, that aligns with your values, that aligns with your work ethic. We have gotten to the point where we have a lot of people ask us if they can come work at our company, and we enjoy having those conversations, and we add new agents when the time is right. But we've drawn a pretty good line in the sand on whether we'll accept any part-time agents. And we've turned down good people that could turn into good agents, but we're just not interested in not having people that can devote their full efforts towards real estate, because that's what our consumer needs. They need your full attention. How do you even recruit knowing that? I mean, obviously, it's probably easier to recruit if they're already with someone, and they migrate over, they bring over some contacts. But if someone's fresh to it, you might not even want to recruit people that have no background in it at this point. We haven't talked about Phillip Solorio yet. Oh, yeah. There you go. Let's talk about Phillip. Phillip would be one of the key members of our league. Phillip's been talked about on two of the five podcasts now. Has he really? Yeah. Who else talked about him? Did Levi talk about him? Levi. Oh, yeah. We talked about Phillip for a while. Wow. I need to listen to the full episode. So, Phillip is on our leadership team, an extremely important piece of our puzzle. When Phillip started working for us, he came from Butler Community College. And we were kind of just golfing buddies, and we're new friends. And he was in IT, right? He was. He was in IT, which is an area that I identified that we needed to add people in to our organization. My phone keeps buzzing here. So, here's what I did with Phillip. I said, hey, how much money are you making at Butler? I think you can make more here, but you won't right away. Yeah. Unless I guarantee it. Yeah. And so, that's what I did. I said, I'm going to just guarantee that you make X amount of dollars this year. And if you don't do it on your own, you're going to have my support. And so, that's how I brought him on. And that was very strategic. It was. Because he had something to bring. He had a talent you needed. Right. And he was underpaid where he was at. Yeah. So, it looked like a no-brainer to me, and it was. And in hindsight, we've made a lot of good hires. It'd be hard to argue that he wasn't the best one. Yeah. Although, there are others that could certainly make a case as well. Great hire, but we gave him an opportunity that he capitalized on. Oh, yeah. And that's how we were able to bring him on was with a guarantee. Otherwise, young guy, young family. He had a baby due the month he started working for us. Oh, really? A guy like that can't go take a job where he may not make any money. Yeah. And that's what real estate is when you start out. It's a job that you might not make any money doing. Yeah. And you might work real hard and still not make any money doing it. Because you have to have those closings to get paid. Yeah, for sure. Unless you get a deal like Philip did. Right. Exactly. Well, that's a cool. I'm glad you shared that. Well. Because that's a cool example of a strategic hire. Yes. As a broker, right? Trying to recoup. And also like seeing potential in someone. Right. Knowing their abilities. You're like, I'm going to make this happen because I know what you can do. Yep. You know, another valuable agent within our office, Ashley Casper, was a similar situation. We we made a deal with her to get her here. And she was already in real estate, young, fresh out of college, one year out of college, already in the real estate industry, had some skill set. It's already developed that we didn't have to train, but we did the same thing for her. And, you know, you look at Philip's trajectory in real estate since he started. It's been it's been a fast rate of growth and he's become highly successful. Yeah. Ashley is on a similar trajectory now, just just at the beginning stages. So it's fun. It's fun to see. Yeah. It's fun to watch because, you know, you go from them wanting me to go to their appointments with them and asking questions about how to do things to now. Now they don't even. Yeah. They don't know. It's like, leave me alone, Jeremy. Well, I mean, they don't want to come in and say hi to me hardly anymore. They don't need me now. They don't need me. Sad. Yeah. It's like kids. Yeah. It's growing up and leaving the house and never coming back. You never say hi. Right. So. You don't require them to call you daddy, though, right? No, I don't. They call me all sorts of names. OK, back to auctioneer side now again. What the hell are you saying when you're up there doing an auction? So those are called filler words. Fillers. You know, my favorite filler word is the word money. Oh, yeah. The word money. Oh, money, money, money, money. Exactly. Hey, that was good. Hey, did you hear that? That was actually really good. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bid is a good one or bid to buy. Bid to buy, bid to buy, you know, bid to buy money here to bid to buy. You know, there it is. There's just all sorts. What's another word? You want to hear a real funny one? Yeah, I do. Oh, really? Bit of bong, bit of buy. Bit of bong. On hearing a bong, a bong, a bong, a bong, a bong, a bong, a bong, a bong, a bong, a bong. Here to go. That's like what was that last one there? Yeah, go was last word. Here to go. Here to go. Here to go? Wow. I've always wondered, like, I've always assumed there's like some. So do you switch up the combo? Yeah, I mean. Just so it doesn't feel too repetitive. Yeah, although I like repetitive. So on a scale of one to 10 with auction chant, I'm not a nine or a 10, OK? You know, like a Barrett Simon would be. Going to nationals and stuff. You know, as far as his chant goes, it's high level. And he would have a completely different sound as me. Yeah, Barrett regularly qualifies for the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship. And, you know, he'll he'll most likely win that someday. He's he's too good of an auctioneer and way too good of an interviewee to not win that competition. And the interview portion of it is, I don't know. He could tell you it's like maybe 30 percent of the competition. Really? And no one's going to interview him. Yeah, he's just too good. But anyway, so he would have way different sound and filler words than me. Uh, what makes me a good auctioneer is that I can focus and pay attention to the crowd. Yeah. Yeah. You work. I can tell who's going to bid before they bid. Yeah. I have a fairly good sense of what something should bring across across a wide variety of different items and probably knowing that changes how you're sure communicating to them physically. Like really by eye contact. Like probably a lot going on up there that's beyond just you're waiting to see someone raise their hand. Exactly. You know, product knowledge is important. If you have an auctioneer trying to sell a table that's worth ten dollars and they're asking for ten thousand, they're not doing themselves or the owner of that item any justice because by the time they get down to where it should sell, they'll have lost their crowd. Yeah. That makes sense. Product knowledge is important and I've been fortunate with product knowledge to have grown up in the business, but it changes. What's the coolest thing you've ever sold in a personal auction? Oh boy. So we did a series of auctions for a guy named Larry Kramer. Okay. Larry was head football coach at Emporia State, but prior to that he was the head football coach and won a national championship at Austin College in Texas. He was the first guy to hire Bill Snyder as an assistant football coach. So fast forward from Austin College to the mid-1990s when Bill Snyder is head coach at K-State, Larry Kramer becomes the offensive line coach at K-State and then moves from there into the head football coach job at Emporia State. Rick Remsburg in our office played football for Larry Kramer at Emporia State and Larry was old school. Larry played college football for the University of Nebraska. He was an offensive lineman. Big boy. All-American. Jeez. Drafted into the NFL and his first week at practice in the NFL. That was when they just started pulling guards and blocking schemes. And in practice he says, guys, they pulled me 30 times in a row and I was ramming my head into these guys and I said, I'm not going to do this anymore. It'll kill me. You know, which you see now. A lot of those guys got CTE. So he got out. He quit. Became a coach. Had great success. Anyway, long story. I'd like a question. So when Larry would go on recruiting visits around the United States, he would stop at every local high school and ask if he could crawl under their under their stage or up into their attics. He would go to every hardware store and ask if he could go crawl around in their attic and he would find antiques, old things, oddities, unique items. And he would on his recruiting trips, he would bring home carloads of stuff. He he found in Minnesota, he found a warehouse that was full of 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s Coca-Cola items that were that should have gone out into displays within stores and they never made it. So it's a new old stock in piles in this warehouse in Minnesota. So he made a deal with the guy who had this warehouse that he would bring all the stuff to Kansas and he would slowly sell it off and he would send the guy a check. Well, we got in on that at a fairly early stage and we ended up having close to 20 auctions for Larry Kramer of this new old stock Coca-Cola. Oh, Coca-Cola. He had other stuff, too, that we got into, but that was kind of the meat of it. Yeah. But he had antiques, new old stock, Coca-Cola stuff that you look at it and you think. You're saying new old stock as in like it's a brand new item. It's in stacks that was never used. So it's never been put out into display anywhere. And we did around 20 auctions for him. And these auctions would sometimes total $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, $100,000 and it was really fun and really interesting. But what made it fun, back to what we talk about, it's the people. Larry was hilarious. I mean, he was so funny. Incidentally, Rick and I went to Larry's funeral when he passed away. Bill Snyder was there, which was cool that Bill came to that. But you'll have to ask Rick someday to tell you the story of that day. We had a long, long day in Emporia at that funeral. Before I agreed to go with him, ride with him to it. With Rick. With Rick. I said, funerals at two. What do you think we'll be home by? We'll probably have a couple of beers afterwards, right? What do you think we'll be home by? Seven o'clock. Rick said, oh, easy, easy. Well, when I walked into my bedroom at 4 a.m. and the light was on, and the light was on and my wife was reading a book, not good. That sounds like a good story. Not good at all. So you'll have to ask Rick about that story. He's got a lot of good stories. Some of my favorites. He's lived an entertaining life. Yes. Yeah, and he's all in. He's a very contagious person, though. Like, Rick is a great addition to Team Sungren. Because he does just, he captures all your attention. And he makes you not only feel really special, but he actually does genuinely care. And he really wants to make you laugh. And he wants you to be entertained and have a good time. And Rick's been, he's been very important to what we've done. And, you know, he joined us. And has been a lot of fun to work with. You know, we've been through a lot of ups and downs together and transitions in life. And Rick, Rick is family. You know, that's bottom line. Rick's family. And that's kind of what's fun about our team there is, you know, it just kind of seems like everybody who fits what we do stays for a long time and becomes family. Yeah, that's powerful. Well, I've learned a lot from you. And really appreciate everything you guys do for our community. Seriously, like you guys, you do a lot. I think your people on your team do a lot for the community. And you do great work. Obviously, we've used you for several things. And we worked with you on several things. But yeah, thanks for hanging out. And I can't wait to send you all these clips and your team, all of this stuff. Tyler gets all this footage and he gets complete creative freedom to do whatever he wants. Mr. Norman, have fun with this. Yeah, that'll be interesting. Well, we appreciate you guys. You know, when you talk about community, we love the community and we love trying to support it. But we're not doing that alone. You guys support the community. There's a lot of people here that Eldorado should be proud of the people who have stuck around here and supported this community. And we need to continue to do that. Got the next generation coming up. Here we go. That's right. Thanks, Jeremy. Thanks for hanging out. Yep, likewise.