Darren Tackett leads the Tackett Team at eXp Realty in Scottsdale, Arizona, after 30 years in the business. He started in real estate almost by accident — a pre-med track that didn't pan out, six months selling cars, and a college roommate's decision to get licensed that nudged him to do the same. Four years into a coaching program called The Core taught him the financial discipline he was missing (including recovering from an IRS tax lien), and set him on the path to eXp. When his original business partner and team leader passed away unexpectedly during COVID, Darren inherited leadership of the team overnight — and has since grown it from roughly 11 to nearly 35 agents, scaling from about $100M in production in his first year at eXp to a projected $250-280M this year.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Darren Tackett, a 30-year Scottsdale real estate veteran who built one of eXp's top-performing teams after being thrust into leadership following his business partner's sudden death during COVID. Darren is refreshingly candid about how much of his growth has come from simply refusing to operate in isolation — networking aggressively with other top-producing teams under a philosophy he calls "rip off and duplicate": if something's working for someone else, ask them how they did it, and use it.

The conversation covers Darren's deliberately loose management style — he doesn't hold agents accountable day-to-day, instead helping each one find the lead-gen channel that actually fits their personality, whether that's open houses, cold calling, or pure digital. On lead generation, Darren makes a sharp distinction: his team skips Zillow Flex entirely (he compares Flex teams to industrial tuna boats scooping up a shrinking supply of buyer leads) in favor of alliances with nearly every other seller-lead company on the market. But the most striking thread is AI — Darren says his single biggest personal lead source right now is people finding him through ChatGPT and Grok searches for "top North Scottsdale Realtor," and he's spent the last six months investing heavily in AEO (answer engine optimization) to defend that position before it becomes common knowledge. He's also used AI internally to duplicate roughly 80% of his team's software stack, cutting overhead and app fatigue for his agents. The episode closes with Darren's blunt prediction: the agent population needs to shrink, and it will — but the agents who remain will be more professional, not fewer in value.

In this episode:

• From a failed pre-med track and six months selling cars to 30 years in real estate
• The coaching program (The Core) that fixed his financial discipline — including recovering from an IRS tax lien
• Inheriting team leadership overnight after his partner's sudden death during COVID
• The "rip off and duplicate" philosophy behind scaling to nearly 35 agents in 3.5 years
• Why Darren gives agents total autonomy to find their own lead-gen lane
• Why his team skips Zillow Flex entirely — the "tuna fishing boat" comparison
• His #1 personal lead source right now: people finding him through AI search
• Investing in AEO before it becomes common knowledge among competitors
• Using AI to duplicate 80% of his team's software stack and cut overhead
• His follow-up system: FollowUp Boss automations plus a "7-8 days of pain" call cadence
• Why Darren still has agents do their own follow-up instead of outsourcing to an ISA
• The one thing Darren wishes AI could take off his plate: monitoring lead conversion
• What would need to be true to double the business — and the recruiting lesson that took years to accept
• Why Darren still tells agents to start with cold calling expireds and canceled listings
• His prediction: fewer agents in 5 years, but a higher bar of professionalism

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Jase Leonard, an 11-year real estate veteran and team leader in Chandler, Arizona, who came into the business with a strong sales background from running corporate call centers — and still nearly quit in his first six months. Jase is candid about what it actually took to turn things around: watching and emulating agents who were already succeeding (specifically Joshua Smith), leaning hard into the one lead source that fit his strengths (expired and canceled listings), and slowly building the discipline his wife's ultimatum forced him toward.

The conversation is packed with tactical detail: Jase's "stool of the chair" philosophy on lead generation (3-4 sources, never fewer, never chasing more than you can master), his team's "War Report" system that scores every agent's weekly money-making activities, and his exact follow-up philosophy — including the specific, permission-based language he uses to justify calling a lead six times without it feeling pushy. He also gets into how his team diversified beyond expireds into pre-foreclosure and probate outreach as DNC regulations made cold-calling harder, and how Zillow's lead-referral partnership became an unexpected lifeline during COVID.

On AI, Jase describes something few other guests have mentioned: building a custom Claude skill that generates an AI-created CMA specifically to preempt tech-savvy sellers who've already run their own numbers through Gemini or ChatGPT before the listing appointment even starts. The episode closes with his take on what can't be taught — strive — and his prediction that agents will increasingly resemble lawyers: less about search, more about advice, negotiation, and guiding people through a process AI still can't fully see behind the curtain of.

In this episode:

• From building corporate call centers to walking away rather than laying off staff
• One transaction in his first six months — and his wife's "one more chance" ultimatum
• Learning the business by emulating agents like Joshua Smith on podcasts and YouTube
• Building a career on expired and canceled listings — and why it still works
• The "stool of the chair": why you need 3-4 lead sources, never fewer, rarely more
• How DNC regulations pushed his team toward pre-foreclosure and probate outreach
• Becoming one of only 23 Zillow Flex teams in the Phoenix metro area
• The War Report: scoring every agent's weekly money-making activities
• Time-blocking as the antidote to "flexibility comes at a cost"
• Jase's follow-up philosophy: 14-15 touches, task-based, and the permission to "blow them up"
• Why he built a custom AI-powered CMA to preempt sellers who've already Googled their price
• The one thing Jase says he can't teach: strive
• Why he believes agents will start to resemble lawyers — advisors, not searchers

Roxanne Humes is a real estate agent and team leader with Coldwell Banker in the Pittsburgh area. Before real estate, she spent years as a buyer for May Company (Filene's in Boston, then Kaufmann's in Pittsburgh), and later helped grow a wholesale apparel company to $40M in revenue — until the 2009 financial crisis, tied to the owner's real estate investments, ended that chapter. At 42, with her husband's blessing and her father-in-law's nudge, she got her real estate license and started over from zero, with no local network and no built-in client base. Fifteen years later, she leads a team of roughly 12 agents alongside her business partner Chris Ellison and regional VP John Perry, pacing to close in on 200 team sales this year while personally handling 50-60 units of her own.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Roxanne Humes, a Pittsburgh-area Coldwell Banker agent whose path into real estate started with a layoff, a career in fashion buying and wholesale apparel, and a blunt question to her husband: what do we do now? She got her real estate license at 42, was written off by nearly every broker she interviewed with for having no local friends-and-family network, and built her business anyway — first through relentless open houses and professional photography (a rarity in her market at the time), and eventually into a team built on a philosophy she compares to a band: nobody needs to be the lead singer, everyone just needs to want to make good music together.

Roxanne walks through her three-question hiring filter (are you nice, are you actually nice, and are you interested in growth), why she brought on a business partner instead of "hiring another her," and where she believes most agents leak business — not from lack of leads, but from failing to categorize and follow up with leads by urgency. She's candid about not being the most tech-forward person on her team, but she's become genuinely dependent on AI for listing descriptions and reverse-prospecting the MLS, cutting tasks that used to take over an hour down to minutes. The conversation closes with a sharp insight from her partner Chris on why buyer-side commission is headed toward full decoupling — and Roxanne's take on why the 2020 industry lawsuit was actually the best thing to happen to the profession.

In this episode:

• Roxanne's path from fashion buyer to a $40M wholesale apparel business — to starting over at 42
• Getting written off by brokers for having zero friends-and-family network
• The early differentiator: professional photography when no one else in her market was doing it
• Her three-question hiring filter: are you nice, are you actually nice, and are you growth-minded
• The band analogy: why she doesn't need agents who want to be the lead singer
• Why "don't hire another you" was the advice that shaped her partnership with Chris Ellison
• Roxanne's A/B/C lead framework — and why most leaked opportunities are a follow-up problem, not a lead problem
• "We think about them 24/7. They think about us once — when they want to buy or sell."
• How AI cut her listing description process from 90 minutes to a few
• Reverse-prospecting the MLS: a 15-minute task now down to 1 minute
• Why her partner Chris believes buyer-side commission is headed toward full decoupling
• Why Roxanne thinks the 2020 industry lawsuit was the best thing that happened to real estate
• Reinventing herself at 42 — and finding work that finally felt meaningful

Richard Berman is a real estate agent with RenoSparksHomes.com in Reno, Nevada. He got into real estate eight years ago after a mentor showed him his GCI and Richard asked, on the spot, how to get his license — leaving a $140K/year B2B sales job in the process. His first year netted just $14,000 after expenses. Eight years later, he closed 120 transactions last year and is on pace for roughly 150 this year — with a lean team of himself, one buyer's agent, and three full-time assistants, no additional agents under him. He's built his business on a rigid, professional's schedule and a hard rule: after 7pm, the business day is over.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Richard Berman, a Reno, Nevada agent doing what most agents chase but rarely achieve: 150 transactions a year, run by a team of four, without sacrificing his evenings or his marriage. Richard traces it back to an early lesson from his mentor Alan, who caught him doing handyman-level tasks on a listing and asked him point blank: "Is that how much your time's worth?" From that moment, Richard organized his entire business around a small number of money-making activities — prospecting, lead follow-up, appointments, and negotiation — and delegated everything else, starting with hiring his own wife as his first assistant.

The conversation goes deep on Richard's follow-up philosophy (motivation and timeframe decide everything — the 3-3-3 method for hot leads, quarterly touches for everyone else), his original vendor-partnership strategy for building a database from zero, and the FAQ system he built by simply writing down every repeated question he ever got asked. But the most memorable thread is boundaries: Richard runs his business on a fixed schedule, tells clients upfront exactly when he's unavailable, and lives by his mentor's warning — "we're not saving people in the ER." Nothing he does after 7pm moves the needle, so he doesn't do it.

In this episode:

• The "Wolf of Wall Street" moment that got Richard into real estate
• His brutal first year: $58K gross, $14K net — and the decision to keep going
• The handyman lesson: "is that how much your time's worth?"
• The handful of activities that actually generate money — and why everything else should be delegated
• Why Richard hired before he "needed" to, based on self-belief in his business plan
• His original database-building strategy: cold-calling small local vendors for coffee, not big companies
• Richard's follow-up philosophy: motivation and timeframe over "the hot lead"
• The 3-3-3 method for high-motivation leads, quarterly touches for long-term nurtures
• Why Richard tells clients his exact hours upfront — and why almost no one objects
• "We're not saving people in the ER" — the boundary that protects his marriage and his evenings
• The FAQ system that eliminated dozens of repeat questions before they're even asked
• What would need to be true operationally to double his business in 2 years
• Where AI genuinely helps (transaction management, more human-sounding follow-up) — and where his own system still falls short

Chip Hodgkins is the broker/owner of Hodgkins Homes in Syracuse, New York, leading a 10-agent team with a database of over 123,000 contacts. A serial entrepreneur who built and sold roughly 14 businesses — including scaling a bearings company from $350M to $720M before selling to Emerson Electric — Chip "retired" at 40, only to be pushed into real estate by his wife days later. He closed his first two listings within 48 hours of getting licensed and finished his first year ranked #3 in RE/MAX New York State. 26 years later, he's built a business on leverage: one-to-many webinars, celebrity radio and TV endorsements (including Glenn Beck and Barbara Corcoran), and a relentless personal brand built on showing up everywhere in Syracuse.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Chip Hodgkins, a serial entrepreneur turned Syracuse real estate powerhouse, for one of the most colorful founder stories the show has featured yet. Chip walks through his path from selling a $350M-to-$720M bearings company to Emerson Electric, "retiring" at 40, and getting pushed into real estate by his wife within days — closing a $700,000 listing in his first 48 hours in a market where the average deal was $160,000.

The conversation centers on leverage. Chip breaks down his one-to-many philosophy: running live Thursday-night webinars that turned $350 in Facebook ad spend into 8 real conversations (and multiple five-figure commissions), and his signature move — calling up restaurants before they open and throwing invite-only parties for 120-150 people, covering the bar himself, in exchange for pure word-of-mouth positioning as "the guy who gets you into places before they open." He's also candid about the two moments that each doubled his business: getting endorsed on-air by Glenn Beck, then later by Barbara Corcoran.

But Chip is just as clear about the limits of leverage — he doesn't skip one-on-one relationships, citing "never eat alone" as a core philosophy and explaining why his highest-value referrals still come from individual coffee catch-ups, not big events. The conversation closes with Chip's team's follow-up standard (90 seconds, not 10 minutes), where AI genuinely helps (follow-up, not cold outbound), and a cautionary story about accidentally texting someone on New York's Do Not Call list.

In this episode:

• From a $350M-to-$720M bearings company sale to "retiring" at 40 — and getting real estate within days
• Closing a $700K listing in his first 48 hours in a $160K-average market
• Finishing his first year as the #3 agent in RE/MAX New York State
• The one-to-many webinar system: $350 in ad spend, 45 attendees, 11 appointments
• Chip's signature move: throwing invite-only pre-opening parties for local restaurants
• Why two celebrity endorsements (Glenn Beck, then Barbara Corcoran) each doubled his business
• Why "never eat alone" still matters even with a 123,000-person database
• His team's follow-up standard: 90 seconds, not 10 minutes — and what happens if you miss it
• Where AI is genuinely valuable (follow-up) versus where Chip won't touch it (cold outbound)
• A cautionary tale about AI, Do Not Call lists, and New York State compliance

Ali Keys is the broker/owner of Got Keyed Realty, serving Dearborn and the greater Southeast Michigan area. He was studying to become a doctor when limited finances forced him to step away from medical school — a decision one of his professors warned him he'd regret. Instead, Ali closed three sale-by-owner deals in his first 30 days in real estate and never looked back. Over a decade later, he's trained hundreds of agents and built a business that jumped from $12.5M to $41M in production in a single year after one pivotal hire.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Ali Keys, broker/owner of Got Keyed Realty in Dearborn, Michigan, for a conversation that starts in medical school and ends with one of the most dramatic growth numbers featured on the show so far. Ali walks through the moment he almost became a doctor instead of a realtor, and the blunt exchange with his professor that still echoes years later — "if you leave now, you're never coming back." He left anyway.

The heart of the conversation is delegation. Ali spent years doing everything himself — showings, offers, negotiations — until he hired a director of operations who asked him one question in their first five minutes together: "How can I help you?" That hire took his business from $12.5M to $41M in a single year. From there, Ali breaks down his three-part framework for keeping leads from going cold (consistency, follow-up, and value), the specific, non-generic ways his team follows up with clients, and why he believes AI's real value in real estate is entirely on the back end — never replacing the human relationship at the front.

In this episode:

• Why Ali left medical school despite his professor's warning — and never looked back
• Closing 3 sale-by-owner deals in his first 30 days in the business
• The delegation moment that took his business from $12.5M to $41M in a year
• Why "how can I help you" was the question that told Ali he'd found the right hire
• Ali's blueprint for starting over in a new city with no database or reputation
• The "recycle approach" to lead generation — no paid leads, fully organic
• Ali's 3-part framework for retention: consistency, follow-up, and value
• Specific, real follow-up tactics that don't feel like a sales pitch (the door-knocking example)
• Why Ali believes "AI won't take your job — people who use AI well will take your job"
• Where AI actually creates value: the back end, never the client relationship
• Why the human touch in real estate isn't going away, even as consumers get smarter with AI

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Sondra Hernandez, a 23-year real estate veteran and broker/owner out of Enid, Oklahoma, for a conversation about the one thing she believes separates her business from everyone else's: she actually responds. Not eventually — in 10 to 15 minutes, whether it's a call, text, or email, seven days a week. Her take is simple and a little blunt: if you're a realtor and you don't answer your phone, somebody else will.

Sondra walks through the turning point that took her from selling $20-30K homes working 15-hour days to a fundamentally different price point — not by working harder, but by advertising differently. She talks candidly about why she deliberately built a multilingual office, why she's not afraid of hard conversations with buyers, sellers, banks, or lenders, and why she ditched every automated lead-nurture program she ever bought in favor of a personal spreadsheet system. The conversation closes with her take on where AI actually helps (branding and advertising) and her conviction that no amount of technology will ever replace the human relationships at the center of real estate.

In this episode:

• The advertising shift that took Sondra from $20-30K homes to $150K+ — without working more hours
• Why "I respond" is Sondra's entire competitive differentiator
• Her actual standard: 10-15 minute response time, 8am to 8pm, every day
• Why she built a multilingual brokerage — and the disservice she believes agents do by not offering it
• Why she walked away from every paid lead-nurture program she ever bought
• Her personal, spreadsheet-based follow-up system — and why she avoids automation
• Sondra's two-part advice for any agent wanting to grow: treat it like a career, and educate yourself constantly
• Where AI actually helps her business (branding and advertising) — and where she won't hand over control
• What she believes NAR will lose in the next 5-10 years, and why she expects a national MLS
• Why she believes the human relationship in real estate can never fully be replaced

Jayson Burtch leads a top-producing real estate team in Southwest Florida, expanding up the state's west coast into St. Pete, Sarasota, and Naples. He got his start in real estate at 18 after inheriting exposure to real estate investing through his grandfather's rental portfolio, but the real turning point came a decade later — a coaching program in 2012 that took his business from reactive and market-dependent to fully systematized. Since then, Jayson's business has roughly doubled every two to three years, built on a combination of relentless work ethic, diversified lead generation, and — more recently — AI-driven database reactivation.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Jayson Burtch, a Southwest Florida team leader who's spent over a decade turning raw hustle into a systematized, scaling business. Jayson doesn't sugarcoat what it took — by his own account, his team is regularly working north of 70 hours a week, and his philosophy is blunt: "nobody works harder, I won't be outworked." But underneath the grind is a business built on real systems, starting with a 2012 coaching experience Jayson calls the single most educational year of his career.

The conversation covers how Jayson's lead generation philosophy evolved from pure cold-calling to a diversified mix (still 60-65% past clients and sphere of influence, even with heavy paid lead spend), why he holds his team accountable with a hard "5 conversations before new leads get turned on" rule, and how AI is reshaping both his marketing (the shift from SEO to AEO) and his team's ability to reactivate the massive graveyard of old database leads that would otherwise convert with a competitor. Jayson also gets candid about what surprised even him about his own business — the chaos behind the curtain, and just how many hours it actually takes.

In this episode:

• How a $400/month tool called Zillow first changed Jayson's approach to lead gen back in 2012
• Why "nobody outworks me" is Jayson's actual operating philosophy, not just a tagline
• The coaching program Jayson calls the most pivotal moment of his career
• Jayson's follow-up accountability system: 5 real conversations before agents get new leads
• Why 60-65% of his business is still past clients and sphere of influence, despite heavy paid ad spend
• The "$300-an-hour job" filter Jayson uses to evaluate whether he's actually working like it matters
• How AI is helping Jayson's team re-engage old leads that would otherwise convert with someone else
• The shift from SEO to AEO (answer engine optimization) as more buyers start their search with AI
• Why Jayson believes the agent population will shrink 65% in the next 5-7 years — but agents themselves aren't going anywhere
• Jayson's advice to his younger self: get properly educated, and don't listen to negativity about coaching

Ben Nemec is a real estate agent and team leader in Huntsville, Alabama, running Team Nemec / Huntsville Homes For You. He got his start in real estate after his mother-in-law, a longtime Huntsville agent, brought him on as a partner following an unconventional path through hospitality management, nonprofit sports sponsorships, and a near-miss Coast Guard officer application. Thirteen years later, Ben leads a team built on referral-driven business, disciplined database follow-up, and a firm conviction that relationships — not platforms — are what actually grow a real estate business long-term.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Ben Nemec, a 13-year real estate veteran and team leader out of Huntsville, Alabama, for a conversation that pushes back hard against one of the industry's most repeated assumptions: that social media is the engine of growth. Ben's take is blunt — it's a facet you have to lean into, but it will not bring you long-term success. What does? The relationships you build, how you treat people, and the job you do for your clients, compounded over years, not months.

Ben walks through his own unconventional path into the business, the moment he realized real estate has no overnight success stories, and the specific systems — signed calls, open houses, database touches — that have quietly outperformed paid leads for his team for over a decade. He also opens up about the boundaries he had to learn the hard way to protect his family, and gives a clear-eyed take on where AI actually fits into a relationship-driven business.

In this episode:

• Why Ben believes social media "will not bring you long-term success" — and what he tells his team instead
• Ben's unconventional path into real estate — hospitality school, the Orange Bowl, and a near-miss Coast Guard officer application
• Why there's no such thing as overnight success in real estate ("a slow burn, month after month, year after year")
• Ben's actual lead generation philosophy: sphere of influence, signed calls, and open houses over paid leads
• The #1 way agents leak opportunities they already have (and it's not lead volume)
• Why Ben credits his CRM (Brivity) for keeping follow-up from falling through the cracks
• The moment that changed how Ben protects his time with family — and why he got emotional telling it
• How Ben's team uses Claude Cowork — and where he still won't let AI near a client relationship
• Ben's advice for any agent wanting to grow in the next 12 months
• Looking 5 years ahead: what changes in real estate, and what never will

Drew Wyant is a real estate agent and broker/owner in Columbus, Indiana, running a 1% Lists franchise that now spans nearly the entire state. After leaving a 10-year healthcare career and getting licensed in 2021, Drew built his business from 11 sales in his first year to 130+ in a single year as an individual agent — while also growing a team of 23+ agents managing roughly 100 active listings and 75 pendings at any given time. His full-service, 1% commission model has become his core differentiator in a market of 1.8 million+ competing agents.

Show Notes

Tim sits down with Drew Wyant, a 1% Lists broker/owner out of Columbus, Indiana, who went from cold-calling For Sale By Owners in his first year to running a 23-agent team covering the whole state. Drew breaks down the pivot that changed everything — realizing he was already netting 1% on relocation deals and deciding to just charge that upfront — plus his philosophy on follow-up, referrals as "compound interest," and where AI actually belongs in a real estate business (hint: not between you and the client).

In this episode:

• How Drew went from 11 sales his first year to 130+ in his best year
• The relocation-fee insight that led him to launch a 1% commission model
• Why "good customer service" is not a unique value proposition
• His actual follow-up cadence (7-8+ touches before a lead converts)
• Running a 23-agent brokerage while staying personally active in sales
• Where AI helps (compliance, paperwork, transaction coordination) vs. where it hurts (client relationships)
• The "flywheel" argument for prioritizing deal volume over margin early on
• One piece of advice Drew would give himself on day one