How Systems & Strategy Help You Work Less and Earn More with Lynea Carver

Sherri Johnson (00:00.926)

All right. Well, hey, welcome back. It's the Sherri Johnson Show podcast. I'm so excited. Today's guest is Lynea Carver from Seattle, Washington. She is going to share some really important topics today that I think we don't talk enough about. And if you are listening right now, I want you to open your mind. I want you to realize you are exactly where you're supposed to be to hear this particular guest, featured guest, because Lynea and I met in, my gosh, a year ago in Miami, Florida at the EXP convention. And immediately I was drawn to the way she thinks, the way she has systems in place, the way she operates and her unbelievable beautiful mindset and beautiful spirit of caring for other people. So I'm so glad to welcome you to the show, Lynea. Thanks for being here.

Lynea Carver (00:51.607)

Thanks, Sherri. I'm glad to be here. Always. Any opportunity to sit down with you is one of my favorites.

Sherri Johnson (00:53.902)

This is a long time. Yeah.

Sherri Johnson (00:58.766)

Wow, well, we feed off each other and it's just, awesome. It's so great. I love getting texts from you. have to tell you that's like, you you write me back and say, that was awesome. And I'm like, no, you're awesome. That's what we get to do here. So it's just, it's really great. First of all, do me a favor and you've been in the real estate business for how long? Tell us how you, you know, you got in the business, just a couple of minutes about the scope of your business, where you sell.

Uh, you're in Seattle, Washington, one of my favorite places, Puget Sound. mean, would be Island. made my decision by the way, to get my real estate license in Coupeville and would be Island. I don't know if I told you the story, but that's where I decided to get my license in 1996. So you're in Seattle. Tell us about your average sale price. I know you've done some things we're going to talk about that magical ways you've increased your income by working less. That's one of the things we're talking about, but tell us about your like.

How long you been licensed and what does it look like for your business and where you are today?

Lynea Carver (02:01.739)

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, Seattle, by the way, Coupeville has some of the best oysters, by the way. So next time you go, like just oysters and mussels, like the best, best. Yeah, my husband and I went there for...

Sherri Johnson (02:10.158)

I them, yeah. I had the muscles. I had the muscles at that little place. I have a hat that says Coopville with a muscle on it. Do you know I'm talking about?

Lynea Carver (02:19.893)

Yep, I do. My husband and I went over to kind of that area for our mini moon when we got married. And we just went and visited because we love oysters. So we went and visited all like the oyster shops up and down that little like, peninsula right there is really really awesome.

Sherri Johnson (02:34.606)

Well, and the ferry, like, I mean, I don't know, there's like 50 or 60 cars. You get on the ferry. I was, it's crazy. And then, also just to tell you, I went deep sea fishing and we caught salmon. One of the best trips I've ever been on in my life. And we ate the salmon. I mean, it was unreal. was like, you could just imagine seals and I got to experience that it's just, it's epic. So, um, I'm glad you get to live there because it's just a really cool place to live.

Lynea Carver (02:40.129)

Yeah, it's a big fairy.

Lynea Carver (03:03.134)

Yeah. Born and raised. So yeah, born and raised in Seattle. Got my license in 2018 after 12 years in corporate America. And before that I actually did loans and I did subprime loans. So, you know, and that was between 2006 to 2008. We don't have to talk about what happened. But I will say I was not one of the ones I did, I was not one of the ones who made it through that one. I did not make it through the 2008 crash in the loan industry.

for a lot of reasons. I basically chalk it up to the fact that I was a very irresponsible, late 20 something kid who didn't know enough about money and I couldn't make it through without having a real job. So I got into a quote unquote real job. And I just over time kind of followed in my mom's footsteps. She is an active real estate agent today. She's been in the real estate industry my whole life. Decided to get my license in 2018 so I could make 500 extra dollars.

Sherri Johnson (03:45.314)

Yeah, totally.

Sherri Johnson (03:56.728)

type.

Lynea Carver (04:01.527)

a month. That was my goal. I was like, okay, you know, asked my mom, can I can I make $500 a month by selling real estate? She's like, yeah, cumulatively, maybe not every month, but cumulatively. And I was like, okay, good enough for me. But it actually took me like, two and a half years to get my license. I just kept finding other things to do until it really just happened. And then I was working my first year and a half in real estate part, I'd call it part time.

Sherri Johnson (04:21.773)

and

Lynea Carver (04:31.575)

but my mindset was not part-time. did not have a part-time mindset, real estate mindset. I just had a part-time hours in real estate. And I like to clarify that a lot because we can talk about that a little bit later, but I really like to clarify the part-time mindset I did not have. And I basically, my first full year in real estate started 2019 and I made $100,000 my first year in real estate. And I was like, okay. And that was, like I said.

Sherri Johnson (04:43.724)

Yeah.

Lynea Carver (04:58.721)

part-time hours. only worked evenings and weekends. And by the end of the year, I was like...

Lynea Carver (05:08.186)

$100,000 selling houses. I, my corporate job was making just above that, just slightly above that. And I was like, I wonder if I actually had more hours to pour into this business if I could make more than that. Like $100,000 your first year is not a bad income. And so I ended up going full time. quit my, I like to say I retired from corporate America, February 7th of 2020.

and dove headfirst into real estate. And we know what happened in 2020 in real estate, right? Yeah, I quadrupled my income. within that, like that year 2020, I quadrupled my income. So it was definitely the right decision. In Seattle, my average price point is right today. It started out back then it was around 520. Today my average price point is around 890.

Sherri Johnson (05:38.765)

Yep, I do.

Sherri Johnson (05:58.766)

Perfect. And I hope everyone just heard you say made a hundred thousand dollars in your first year with a part-time hours, but not a part-time mindset. And I also want to say that you were like, just want to make 500 bucks extra. I have to comment on this story. That is awesome. my God. And I remember hearing bits of the story that

Lynea Carver (06:05.345)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Sherri Johnson (06:27.829)

is so inspiring. So you have been the last, I don't know, five years now doing the thing. Do you feel like, I know you want to talk about the signs of burnout and agents. You have a lot of systems you've put in place and you have a manageable team. I would call it, know, systematic team. You do that on purpose. A lot of agents.

start a team for the wrong reasons. They don't build the systems. We've seen this so many times. You coach a lot of these agents like I do. And it's like the burnout, the stress, the signs of burnout. Why do you think like talk to this audience about signs of burnout, how to prevent that if someone's a solo agent or they're running a team and they're burning out, it's across the board, isn't it? It's like it's everywhere. And I call it, I actually call it crisis selling because

It's a form of crisis and it's really crisis selling. It's unmanageable. It's not fun. I want to hear your thoughts on this because you have, I believe, really effective ways to recover from burnout. And I know you're going to help the audience here today with your expertise. So why does burnout happen in real estate? Do you think?

Lynea Carver (07:43.199)

Well, a lot of reasons. really like crisis selling. just wrote it down. Yeah. I think there's a lot of reasons burnout happens. think first of all, think about the average person that gets into real estate. Okay. Most, most real estate agents, it's not their first career. It's their third.

Sherri Johnson (07:46.305)

Yeah, good. That's what we do.

Lynea Carver (08:03.563)

most real estate agents are third, this is their third career. So they're already coming into real estate with habits, whether good or bad that they've picked up along the previous 10, 15, 20 years of work life. And they get into real estate because they want to, kind of like me, I mean, very similar to me, get into real estate because it's good money. But what happens is,

If they're getting into real estate as a third career, usually they're not coming into it as an entrepreneur, they're coming in as an employee. And so they're trying to run a business that should be run by entrepreneurs as an employee, which means that you have, you you come from a nine to five job, you have someone looking over your shoulder, you have people telling you what to do, you know exactly where your swim lane is. If you're like me and you're in corporate America, you know that this is my role and this role has a dotted line that leads to this role, et cetera, et cetera.

Right? So you come into this industry where it's very, very low point of entry. It costs $1,000 at most to get your real estate license. And it's the only industry you can walk into that has millions and billions of dollars in inventory that you have to spend $1,000 to have access to. So that being said, in real estate school does not teach you the ins and outs of real estate.

It teaches you how to get your license. So you think that you're just gonna like, once you have your license, you know how to make the business work. I'm just gonna ask my friends and family or I'm just gonna, you know, go put my, go do some door knocking or I'm just gonna go host an open house and people are just gonna come crawling to me all the time. And so you kind of, that's kind of like the majority of what happens when you get into real estate. Now there's always, as you know, exceptions to every rule, like not, that's not for everybody. So that is the majority.

That is about 55 % of real estate agents fit that little criteria. So what happens is they come in and then all of a sudden they do exactly what I did. They go knees deep, knees deep in trying to just help everybody. We help everybody. want like, I want to just sell a lot of houses. I want to make a lot of money. I want to help more people. I want to make people's dreams come true. I want to help people build wealth through real estate. Right? I hear that all the time.

Lynea Carver (10:22.231)

Like it's just, there was always like this purpose there that, you know, seems like almost like it seems like a selfless purpose. Um, it's like, I just want to go and help other people achieve their goals. And so when you do that, you have to do that by selling, by being a salesperson. You have to do that by being a marketer. You have to do that by being an administrative assistant, by being a transaction coordinator, by being an operations manager, by being a social media manager, by now in 2025, being a content creator.

You have to do all of these things to be successful in real estate. And it leads to this massive cycle of turn and burn. And that's what happened to me. in 2021, remember I told you, I went full time February 7th of 2020. About one year later, I came home after day 18 of showing 14 hours in a row.

Like I just was out for 14 hours and my husband who is very new at, we were very newly married at the time. just kind of basically said, he, he was like, you know, I got married to you so I could be married to you, but you are now married to your job. And he's like, he's like, I just don't know that I have, that I have room for my wife to be married to something else. And so I had to make a choice because I.

Sherri Johnson (11:33.838)

Mmm.

Mmm.

Lynea Carver (11:47.935)

like many other people, got into the business to help other people achieve their goals. That's what I was in the business for. But my husband wanted to support me getting in the business so I could help us have a thriving marriage. And so ultimately, you know, that's when I realized I was burnt out and I was doing the same thing that everyone else does. I mean, that's what we do in this industry. It's a third career.

You know, I had a lot of passion, a lot of drive and I was helping other people achieve their goals. And then it's, it's, there's just, mean, I know that was a little more than what you asked the why, but like that's the story and that's how it happens. And there's, like I said, 55 % of real estate agents are going to experience that sort of similarity. 87 % of real estate agents are going to report burnout in the next year or two.

And when you think about the fact that there's 3 million registered real estate agents in the US, that's over 2.4 million real estate agents are going to experience in Reno.

Sherri Johnson (12:51.47)

That's right. It's so true. you know, I did coin crisis selling what's in my book. And I actually believe that, you know, it's the roller coaster ride. It's not having systems. It's jump how high we don't manage our time properly. There's so many levels. But when you just said, you know,

we don't take care of what's really important. And for your husband to say that, I mean, that just hit me. It's like, it's exactly the point. I looked at the same thing. I said, I was single, I didn't have kids. I could churn and burn and go, I wasn't married. And I actually didn't have, when I looked back, I didn't have great relationships because of it. And that's a sacrifice. And then I ended up going into,

management leadership and running offices and having agents and it was a completely different level of stress. And it wasn't necessarily the evenings and weekends is bad. I mean, I still worked 24 seven, but it just wasn't that grind. I think if you're listening right now and you're and you're saying, I identify with some of this, you know, take a look because it doesn't have to be like this. You know, we are always on defense, playing defense, there are ways you can play offense.

to be more effective for yourself, for your family, for the people you love so that you can love them. The point of this is, and when people join coaching, we say this all the time, it's not to burn out. It's not to work harder. It's actually to work smarter. And I think, Lynea, what I'm gonna add one thing to that too is that no one has a strategy. They don't have a plan. 97 % of agents do not have a written plan. And so there's a wing in it, you know? And you can only go so long.

I see people get divorced. see people get, you know, their health is a mess. and they're stressed out, you know, and it does not have to be like that. You really painted the picture really well. tell us, you know, you had that moment and then you put in, effectively created systems that would free you from this burnout. So what does that look like? We have, we hear people say, create systems and agents are like, I don't know what that means. So really kind of how, how can you explain what kind of systems did you create?

Sherri Johnson (15:12.76)

How easy was it or hard was it to create these systems? And is it like something you do once and then now you have the system built? What are the advantages and what else can you share with everybody? Because it's really the answer.

Lynea Carver (15:25.751)

Yeah, mean, systems are definitely the answer. Like when my husband had said that to me, you know, I felt, and he didn't say this, but I just took it. I mean, I'm hearing more than he said, right? But I basically heard I had to choose between him or my work. And for me, there wasn't an option. Like I wanted both. I wanted to have a thriving marriage and I wanted to have a super successful business. And for me, that's what I had to figure out. And so, you know, the first, the first step to really

Sherri Johnson (15:41.838)

too.

Lynea Carver (15:54.953)

you know, putting systems in place was understanding my strengths and understanding a little bit more about me. you know, when I came from corporate America, I was in business process improvement. I had a team of 200 people. I had systems for improving our sales on that team from like, we picked up a 2 million. I like to just kind of tell people like I was a, I managed a cosmetics department at a major department store and we had 200 employees.

So you know it was a massive, massive department and it's bigger than most brokerages and most department stores these days. But at the time, our sales price there was about a $65 average price point. And so I was like, want to just, I want to improve that. I want to be, I want to recognition. I'm a word of affirmation person. I love language. I like recognition.

I didn't want to be number three in the company anymore. I wanted to be number one. In order for me to be number one in the company, I had to pick up X amount of dollars, which is basically $2 million in product sales. And doing that with a team of 200 people, the only way to make that happen is with systems. You have to put systems in place that empower the people to make the decisions to want to provide people with better service so that the people want to spend more. That's how it works. And so when I did this in my real estate business, I had to kind of go back to those roots. I said, okay,

I had to understand what about the real estate business really inspired me. And if you're like me, you like to read a lot of books, you hear all the people say, you've got to have a really big why. And your why has to be something beyond yourself. And you're all this like woo woo stuff around your why. And as much as that's all fine and dandy, my big, big thing that I really had to discover is that my why had nothing to do with anyone else. My why had to be in

incredibly selfish. My wife had to be because I want to have a healthy marriage. I want to have a thriving marriage. that's the only reason. There doesn't have to be any other reason behind that. It doesn't have to be to leave a legacy because I don't have kids. It doesn't have to be a reason to leave a legacy. It doesn't have to be to build wealth. It doesn't have anything to do with that or to make an impact and serve other people. My wife is because I wanted that. And as soon as I understood that, that's where it was really easy for me to look at things from different lens.

Lynea Carver (18:14.315)

I ended up cutting, I mean, I fired, unfortunately, I had to fire people because there were people on my team I had to let go. I had to cut all the people that just weren't bringing money in if I'm being fully honest, they weren't bringing, they were costing me more in money and energy than they were returning. I did that. I cut a lot of like, of course, went through my PNL statement, cut everything. And then I said, okay, of all the different pillars of my business, like your business has multiple pillars.

I look at your pillars of your business are sales, operations, marketing, people, human resources, finance, and then compliance, especially in a real estate business, you have to have compliance in place, right? If you don't have compliance in place, you have no license, you have no business. So I had to look at all those things and say, where is the biggest bang for my buck? And where do I need to start? And I learned that sales was the biggest bang for my buck, obviously, right?

Sherri Johnson (19:08.035)

Yes.

Lynea Carver (19:10.583)

So I looked at like, where do my sales come from? They're coming from people. And I evaluated all the sales that I had made over the last year and a half. All the people, because had sold, my second year in real estate, I sold like 35 or 40 homes or something like that. It was pretty crazy. So I had a good data pool and I went through and I basically did the Marie Kondo method of tidying up. And you know what she says is she's like, you go through, if you touch a piece of clothing, you touch an article and it sparks joy, you got to keep it. And if you don't, you let it go.

So I went through every single one, I printed out every single house that I sold and I looked at the people, the names of my clients, if it's seller or buyer, and I was like, does this person spark joy in my life? And the answer to most of them was no. And I discovered that by that time I had sold a total of 75 homes, of the 75 homes that I had sold, I had 15 clients that if I were to wake up every single day and only work with that client and no one else, I would be 100 % happy. And I built my business around that one person.

And so when I say I built my business around that one person is I essentially like learned, like I had to dig deep and learn what was it that made them tick? What made, what was their decision making? Why did I like them? How did they make decisions? Where were they at in their life? What did they do for work? What did that tell me about their personality? What did that tell me about what they're looking for? Right? I had to understand all of the, essentially the psychographics around those people. Because if I understood the psychographics around those people,

Sherri Johnson (20:37.059)

Yeah.

Lynea Carver (20:40.843)

My sales would improve, also my marketing would improve. That's why sales is the biggest domino. Because my marketing would then improve, right? Because now I know, okay, so I know that this person has this problem. This problem has nothing to do with the market. This problem has nothing to do with whether we're in a seller's market, whether Nara is getting sued, whether Zillow's buying out, follow a boss or whatever, all the market noise that we hear. This person's making a decision regardless of

and they're making decision because they're feeling this right here, or they're feeling this right here. So my marketing learned to speak to those people. So I started building marketing systems around those people. Then I worked on the people side of it. I was like, okay, so now I need people to come in to help me with the marketing and the sales. I need buyers agents to come in to help me talk, to work with these people. And so I have marketing systems and I can teach these buyers agents how to talk to these people, right? So that's essentially how it started.

Sherri Johnson (21:37.803)

And I haven't heard, I haven't heard psychographics in a while and I, I, it all the time. I also want to tell you that I used to teach total quality management and statistical process control in my first life, in manufacturing SPC and ISO 9,000 and like systems and processes. And again, another reason we connect words of affirmation is also my love language. you know what I hear you saying too is.

Lynea Carver (21:51.415)

Love it.

Sherri Johnson (22:06.262)

You need to be the CEO of your business. And I always like laugh because everyone says chief executive officer. say chief executing officer. Like you have to be executing an action plan and your first pillar you're describing as the sales piece. love how you almost made like an avatar of your perfect client. Who is your perfect client? Why do you enjoy them? And I hear you talk to that it's fulfillment. Like this is what makes you happy.

What a way to approach the business in such a positive, proactive way that you're not just taking every deal because it's a transaction or it's a commission check. Like you're literally looking at the business and saying, how can I make this the best for my family, for my marriage, for my life, for my health? And then ultimately you built that. you know, and I want to mention too, you said, you know, you were putting together

your why a lot of people say this like what the why isn't enough like yes, we all have a why Sometimes I think we have a lot of platitudes of Word where people are just like who wants to 10x and then and then no one says like Here's how to do it actually and what I know you do is you close the gap of learning So that someone can actually set a goal and then here are the steps actual steps not just talk but actual

Lynea Carver (23:14.903)

and

Sherri Johnson (23:34.543)

concrete action items that will get you to that finish line. And so that's why I love your approach on coaching. We've talked, you know, last year about all the different ways, strategies versus platitudes. That's what I just heard because you know what? You can say a lot. Like there are people that just motivate and there are people that transform behavior. And I know you do that with your, whether you're coaching your team or coaching agents that hire you.

But let's talk too about, so that's awesome. And then you were able to, what I love is close more revenue with half the amount of production and work less, make more. And I love this to elevate to what would be a higher ticket client, a higher level client. In the book 10X is easier than 2X. It talks about

There's less competition at the higher price points. Do you find that that is applicable? And then share with us how you did that. Work less, make more. What was your strategy to do that?

Lynea Carver (24:44.513)

Yeah. yes, I definitely think there's less competition at the higher price point. and that's why, that's why discount brokerages and discount agents, like the only thing they know how to discount is that is the commission. That's it. And, and that's kind of like, that's honestly what got the industry in trouble. Right. We just like, that's the only thing I have to offer is just a commission and we're just going to put a flat fee on it, whatever happened, you know, and we know that's not, we know it's all, we know that's always been not true.

Unfortunately, the consumer is the one who saw it that way. So now the industry got in trouble. so what I did is, you know, remember a second ago when I told you that I really understood the psychographics of my person and I knew what they needed. part of that, like sales or guess sales and operations systems that came in play where I knew what was daunting for them when it came to the whole buying and selling process. Most of my clients are

at this point, they're selling a house and they're also buying a house. It's rare that I'm working with a first time buyer these days. So most of my clients are selling and buying or they're selling for their parents or something. But what I learned with all of them is that by the time they were ready, by the time they had made the decision to buy or sell their house or they made the decision to move, they no longer wanted to deal with anything.

They were already in these positions in their life, these fields in their life, kind of where I came from. They're in a very decision making role, a very, very high demand role on their everyday life that having to make more decisions just created more fatigue for them. So for me, what made it easier for them was to create an option to where they didn't have to make any decisions. To where the only decision they had to make was to hire me.

That's the only reason you just have to make the decision to hire me and I will make all the decisions with your support. Of course, not for you, but I will make sure that I'm helping guide you in the right decision to make and you're going to trust me. And that essentially allowed me to start offering more of a premium for what I do, more of a white glove service for my sellers specifically. And, you know, essentially in increase what I what I my price.

Lynea Carver (27:02.729)

increase my price, not my price point, my price, what they're going to pay me. And I did it by basically listening to what my client wanted and creating something for them. Because if I knew that I only wanted to work with these people, why am I bothering trying to create all these other things that, I mean, yes, I need to have something for some kind of random people that might come in, but why would I put all my energy into that when these are the people I want to spend my energy on? They're already telling me what they want. So why am not just

Sherri Johnson (27:06.646)

Yes, yes, please.

Lynea Carver (27:32.597)

working on them. And so that's what I did is I started commanding a higher premium. And then, you know, in that whole in that whole thing, like they're getting the tip top service, right? I mean, I have not only for me, like, you know, this systems involve setting up automations and setting up workflows and things like that, right? So all of that's working for me. I'm not putting a lot more effort into it. I'm just putting more time into the relationship with them.

and all the things that they need are already kind of automatically happening on the back end. So they're just like, my gosh, this is the best service I've ever had. I know someone else who's looking to buy or looking to sell right now. We want to send you to them and they're people of their same caliber. So when you attract a high, when you command a high, a high ticket or a high value, you offer a high value. People will pay for the high value first of all, and then they're going to have people that want to also pay for that.

Sherri Johnson (28:24.812)

Absolutely.

Lynea Carver (28:29.951)

And so that's what happened. And that's, that's how I do it today. mean, today I don't spend any money on my real estate business other than what I'm marketing home home for sale. That's it. Everything, everything is all there for me. I sell like, like I said, half the amount of homes that I used to sell. make the same amount of money or more now, because obviously I have a higher price point. I'm getting more referrals, and because a higher price that I command, but because they are high value people, they have higher value properties.

Sherri Johnson (28:41.506)

I'm

Lynea Carver (28:59.063)

So when they're going to sell, automatically increases that price point. So I'm essentially tapping two different sort of income funnels, if you will.

Sherri Johnson (29:08.206)

I love it. you know, price is what people pay. Value is what they get. The agents who deliver top, the highest amount of value, first of all, provide more value. People will hire you and provide even higher value. They'll pay more. They have no problem. We do it as consumers. We do it. Right. get a better experience. And so what a great lesson. And so we have agents that are saying, you know,

Lynea Carver (29:26.933)

Yep, I do it all the time.

Sherri Johnson (29:36.866)

this is the price in my market and you know what?

Lynea Carver (29:39.275)

Yeah, I hear that all the time.

Sherri Johnson (29:41.091)

Let's stop saying that, please. You dictate what you want. I just had dinner with a top agent here in Cleveland last night who he said, you know, somebody said, this is, you know, put this deal together, but you have to give up your buyer side commission. He said, are you? And then guess what? That deal got put together. you know, it's about valuing your service and what you do. Top professionals, accountants, attorneys, what have you. Okay. Consulting. do it. You.

can dictate what your value is. And I will also say that many times I have said as a listing agent, you someone says, oh, you sold my house so quickly, which days on market right now are a little higher across the whole country. But when the house sells so quickly, right? wasn't, you didn't pay me, you know, you're not paying me for the two days it was on the market. You're paying me for the 28 years or then in any case, whatever, eight years, five years, expertise, knowledge, marketing strategy.

negotiations, right? You're paying for the value. And I think that is something everybody needs to adopt and implement as soon as possible because right now it doesn't have to be this is what our market does. You are an ambassador. You are your own free agent. I mean, you're the CEO of your operation and you can with confidence do what Lynea is doing every day all day long. I want to ask you, I have

We, you know, before we started, this is a very good, segue because I think agents right now, some are struggling. Some need a hand. Some need to reevaluate where they're at. some need to pivot faster. Some need to adopt and change and make some significant changes in how they operate. So they can get out of crisis selling and burnout. and,

command a higher value or command a higher price point. Share it with everyone. Like what are the things people should stop doing? What should they start doing? And then how can they improve their business, you know, in the next 12 months?

Lynea Carver (31:49.205)

I love this question. my favorite thing to do. Also, I do this every week. I don't know if you do this in your business, but I have this, part of my system is at the end of every week, I do a start, stop, improve exercise because you have to all constantly reevaluate your business. Okay, so here's the first thing. Here's what agents should stop doing right now. And they're probably going to hate me for saying this. It's very controversial, but I'm going to say it. It will need to stop going down the AI rabbit hole.

Sherri Johnson (32:14.05)

Okay.

Lynea Carver (32:18.635)

I love AI as much as the next person, but the more rabbit hole you put yourself in, first of all, the less you're going to be able to think for yourself, the less critical thinking skills when you will have the more you rely on AI to do work for you or to do planning for you. Okay. The second thing is it is just a bunch of noise. I literally got off the phone with an agent the other day who came to me stressed out about, don't, I've been, I haven't sold a house in two years, which

Sherri Johnson (32:21.902)

Yeah.

Lynea Carver (32:46.687)

As you know, Sherri is the story of a lot of agents right now. And I said, okay, so let's take a look at your time. Where are we spending our time? Do know how many hours a day she was spending on the education for the latest AI tool?

Sherri Johnson (33:02.382)

I don't even wanna know.

Lynea Carver (33:03.191)

six hours a day for the latest AI tool. mean, you name it. It was the latest AI prompts, the latest like chat GPT, the latest like there's a new AI video maker now. Now, you know, like you never even have to like leave your house and you can just have a bunch of content. Your AI video twin, she's spending time on all that. And I'm like, well, I wonder why you haven't sold the house in two years. I'm just...

Sherri Johnson (33:05.666)

Bye.

Sherri Johnson (33:16.716)

Right. Uh-huh.

Lynea Carver (33:29.621)

Just gonna put it out there. Maybe you should stop doing that. Stop going down the AI rabbit hole and start reevaluating your business from the inside out.

diagnose the root of the problem of your business. Like if your business is not where you want it to be, whether you are selling houses or not selling houses, selling a lot of whatever it is, if you want to get to the next level, you have to diagnose and reevaluate where you're currently at so you can make improvements and make and grow. Like until you do that, you're not going to get anywhere. Like you can just try to, we do this also, which is the other part of the reason we burn out is.

How many calls a day do you get with someone who's like, I've got leads. Hey, I've got leads. Hey, I've got leads. Hey, I've got leads. Hey, we specialize in content creation. We specialize in this. I don't know how many freaking phone calls I get or text messages I get every single day trying to sell me the latest tool. And if I didn't understand what the root of

Sherri Johnson (34:18.625)

Absolutely.

Lynea Carver (34:22.625)

problem in my businesses or the core problem that I'm trying to solve is, it would be a lot easier to just say yes to those things. But it's really hard because I'm like, that's not the root of my, that's not the core of my issue. So you need to start reevaluating where your business is going and diagnosing how you can get there. And then I think that the improve, the improved part is improve the community that you're around. You and I talk about this a lot. Like the community is everything. and

Cause I came like where I came from the brokerage that I was with before. you know, it was interesting and I, know we were going to probably talk about this. So I'm going to jump right there, but the brokerage I was with before, it was interesting because, know, I was the, I was the top performer there and I had been in the business for just a short period of time. And I was a top, there was, there were two other agents that were selling more houses than me. They'd also been in the business about 30 years versus my three.

Sherri Johnson (34:59.458)

Yeah, sure. All right.

Lynea Carver (35:17.239)

And what I learned there is that there's zero community. Zero. And so when I really started putting myself in this space where I actually have community and what community actually means with support, encouragement, accountability, feedback, training, training, training is not a hero there because you can go out there on a rabbit hole training, but actually having the people around me that were on the same growth path as me that wanted to collaborate.

and really were genuinely coming from a place of, care, and I care about your success, that changed my entire business. It changed everything about my business. So stop AI rabbit hole, start diagnosing the real problem, and then improve the community that you're around.

Sherri Johnson (36:02.616)

Wow, I love it. think we, shiny object syndrome, our port industry has been a victim of the shiny object, you know, and that is so true. So many agents are spending so much time trying to be on social media. And I say to them, how many houses did you sell from that? And, you know, I'll give you credit to those who are increasing their sales from their social media, but a lot of them are not.

and it's a waste of time and they are getting zero return on their time, zero return on their investment. It's not okay. And you need to, I agree, stop with that right now. An AI is supposed to help you be more productive, not have you, you know, doing things you shouldn't be doing. It's so, it's like a distraction. It's a total distraction. And if you're using it to make your business more profitable, okay, great.

But I don't think anyone should be spending more than, know, again, if you're not filling your calendar with appointments, mean, nothing's going to happen. Sales make...

Lynea Carver (37:03.499)

Nothing matters. The thing with the AI video though is like literally I was just told, I don't even know what it's called, you would literally, Sherri, you and I right now could take a picture of ourselves and we could have this AI video be at a coffee shop drinking coffee.

Sherri Johnson (37:11.565)

I can't.

Sherri Johnson (37:22.86)

Right, and that's really interesting videography that I don't know how I'm going to use that to...

Lynea Carver (37:30.859)

So why wouldn't you just want to leave and go have coffee because guess what? You can talk to people.

Sherri Johnson (37:33.026)

Don't get the coffee yourself. Yeah. I mean, it's not about being, yeah, it's not about being in a fake reality. You know, I mean, that's just not it at all. I want to comment. You said community. And what I hear is collaboration without competition. you know, you've been, you've made the move, you switch brokerages. You're now at EXP. You've been there how long?

Lynea Carver (37:44.78)

Yeah.

Lynea Carver (37:58.945)

Four years today, just got my, just got the note that says happy anniversary, four year anniversary when I logged in. Yeah, four years today.

Sherri Johnson (38:00.351)

my god.

Sherri Johnson (38:03.966)

or four years today. And you've tapped into the community. A lot of places say there's collaboration. I've never seen the collaboration that I've seen in literally 29 years. I've not seen it ever at this level. There really is a sense of sharing community. I think it's because the company is owned by its agents. There isn't that weird

You're still my competitor feeling that I've seen at a lot of companies. You also said, you know, sharing and pouring into each other and giving like it's such a, it's just different. And it doesn't, I can't even put it into words, except I've never in 29 years seen what I have seen at EXP events, EXP agents working together, collaborating. It's unreal. And you don't.

see it unless you can experience it. What do you think, you know, if an agent is looking at their business from within, I love that, and saying, okay, what needs to change? know, is it their, you know, is it their environment? Is it their current brokerage? How do they make that decision after they've been somewhere? You were somewhere for a long time, agents are out there right now thinking, this is all I've ever known. And it can be scary to leave friends or,

leave what you thought was, you I think what happens and a lot of agents tell me this now, they're like, I'm in love with how the business was 15 years ago, when we did come to the office, you know, COVID changed the way we work and, and we're a lot more mobile. We've always been mobile. Every company is almost cloud-based at this point, not the cloud-based, EXP level cloud-based, but like most your stuff is on some kind of a platform. You're mobile, working from home. You definitely have a home office.

And most people tell me they don't go to their office. So if someone's scared or they don't know what to do with, you know, they're like, should I look at other companies? You know, there are a lot of brands that we're not promoting any particular one here other than to say, how do you know you're at the right company? And when do you know it's time to do a deep dive into looking at other options? What advice would you give people?

Lynea Carver (40:20.239)

brokages are can also be a shiny object, right? Cause I mean, you can, you think sometimes I, you have some people you probably hear of agents like this who just kind of hop brokerage to brokerage brokerage thinking, thinking that the brokerage is going to be, it's going to be the solution. so I would go back to reevaluating what's actually not working in your business. Right. And, find a brokerage that has a solution for you. If you don't have a coach to help you get there, find one. First of all, that's the first step.

Sherri Johnson (40:30.914)

They do.

Sherri Johnson (40:35.043)

Yep.

Sherri Johnson (40:48.79)

Excellent. Yes.

Lynea Carver (40:50.059)

And then second of all, find a brokerage that also supports that growth. Like for me, what I realized, and the reason actually I came to eXp, first of all, I liked eXp before I got here. I liked that they were disrupting. I liked the disruptiveness. I'm drawn to disruptors. When someone disrupts something in a major way, you have to pay attention. Because there was something underneath that you just don't see. And I liked that...

Sherri Johnson (41:07.949)

OK.

Lynea Carver (41:16.875)

you know, as a newer agent, I saw eXp probably the first year of me being in real estate. As a newer agent, I was kind of like, why do people like, you know, in my in my like, local forums, why do people like hate this brokerage so much? Like, what's wrong with it? And it's because it was the first of its kind, it really like became successful. And so but what actually made my decision to come over was when I was at my previous brokerage, that was a very traditional brokerage. It was, you know, I

hadn't, like I said, I had an office and I was, number four, number three in my office. And, I, I was a leader. Like I like words of affirmation. So I was recognized as a leader. You know, I got a top award, certificates. got, asked to teach a lot and give back to my community, my office, by teaching, you know, the ways I was making business happen. I loved that. but one day my managing broker brought me into the office and she had me sit down and.

Sherri Johnson (42:05.549)

Okay.

Lynea Carver (42:15.317)

She complimented me, you know, I definitely see you as a leader. doing like you, you definitely had basically told me all the things I wanted to hear and I loved it. And then she said, so I wanted to see if you'd be interested in taking a managing broker position. And that's actually what did it for me. I, it wasn't until that moment that I like, I literally looked up and she's like, what are you looking at? And I was like a ceiling.

And I saw for the first time in my real estate career that that's where I was headed. That's that until someone actually painted that picture for me to show me that that was the path I could move on. The only way I could grow in real estate or grow from there would be to sell more houses, start a team, start my own brokerage. mean, all the traditional ways. And I had knew like I had already kind of experienced a little bit of eXp just because I was in a coaching group that a lot of people are on eXp. So I got to hear about them.

But I knew that EXP didn't have that ceiling. And that's actually what made me go. that's so if someone is, if you're at the point, if you're in the business right now and you're at the point where you're trying to figure out where is that next level that I'm going, you have to really understand again, reevaluating with inside you what you want out of life. But then you have to ask yourself, where are you in your current position, your current community? Are you going to get there?

And my answer for me was quite plain and clear. was no, I'm not gonna get there staying where I was. So I made the move.

Sherri Johnson (43:49.441)

love the visual of the ceiling. The fact that you looked up, saw the ceiling and said, no, I'm going to be boxed in. It's not going to give me that level of financial income or potential. What great advice. you know what? is a, and you were attracted to EXP. You were attracted to the model. You saw it. You like the disruptiveness of it. I

I think I just heard you say like this model gave you all of the things that the legacy brand couldn't give you, which are multiple revenue streams, stock equity and just to name a few. is, yeah.

Lynea Carver (44:31.241)

and community more than anything. And the thing is, I didn't even know until I came to eXp, I didn't know what I was missing at all. I had no clue because like you said, this is the only type of only time in my real estate career. And I was at two brokerages prior to here. So I've been at other brokerages. And like, this is the only time in my real estate career that I've ever actually experienced community the way we experienced. And it's hard to explain. It's, you can't really explain it. There's no words to explain it.

Sherri Johnson (44:47.598)

Okay.

Sherri Johnson (44:59.351)

now.

Lynea Carver (45:00.243)

other than you just don't know what you're missing.

Sherri Johnson (45:03.692)

And then you experience it. I will say, you you and I are in a, we're in a circle group together and we get to spend all this time together, events throughout the year. We've seen each other probably, I don't know, six times now. And then every, you know, online we're together all the time. We collaborate together, we share ideas. We do, we actually do this at this level, but we do it on such a massive level with hundreds and hundreds of other top performing.

athletes, like level athlete people. mean, just today we were listening to Trenton Shelton, is, you know, NFL. When you think about the game that you just put yourself on, I think there's huge opportunity for people to look from within, look at the models, make sure you really know. I mean, honestly, it is in your best financial interest to do the math.

and to look at every option and say, what is out there? Where have I been? Have I just hit the blinders on? Or am I really aware of what you didn't know, what you didn't know? And then you get here and you're like, this is unbelievable. All your friends will still be your friends at every company. mean, we are an industry of really eclectic, unbelievable people that foster off each other, grow off each other. You're building an unbelievable

team across the country. How many states are you in? Right now, mean.

Lynea Carver (46:34.679)

We're in 18 right now and we're in four countries. So we're US, Dubai, yeah we're in Peru, I'm sorry, Brazil and Mexico.

Sherri Johnson (46:37.912)

Wow.

Sherri Johnson (46:42.294)

I like to listen.

again.

That's amazing. I was with you when you had your hundredth agent join you. And then before this, you just told me you're at 150 and growing. This is so exciting. The legendary real estate club is the name of your EXP organization. If I have that correct. Um, I'm thrilled to know you. I am more excited that I get to spend, you know, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to see you and spend a week with you. You know, it is. It's really amazing. You help so many people. This podcast is.

in my mind, just truly just a launching pad for people to listen and take the advice from Lenaya Carver. You can connect with her on social media. All of her information will be in the comments. You can can connect with her for referrals. You could connect with her across the country. I'm excited. I know that we're going to do great things together and I'd to have you back on the show again if that's okay with you. Awesome. Great. And so, you know, the takeaways I want to mention.

Lynea Carver (47:41.141)

Yeah, love it. Anytime. Super tired thinking.

Sherri Johnson (47:47.631)

You talked a lot about burnout. You talked a lot about the solution for burnout, which people need to hear. We don't talk enough about that. You talked about what to stop doing, what to start doing. You know, make sure you have a system. And my, one of my favorite things is demand or command rather a higher, you know, salary, a higher pay.

Lynea Carver (48:08.043)

Give more value. Yeah, give a higher value. Provide a higher value.

Sherri Johnson (48:13.73)

Take it next level, work less, make more. What a great story. I can't wait to see what you're gonna do, because you're on to doing amazing things. And of course, I'm here to support you and we support each other. That's what's so great about this environment and the community we're in. Everybody, thanks for listening. Please leave a comment. Tune back in for the next episode of the Sherri Johnson Show. This is Sherri Johnson with Lynea Carver from EXP in Seattle, Washington. Until next time, we'll see you guys.

Lynea Carver (48:24.215)

Thank you.

Sherri Johnson (48:43.554)

Have a great listing of sales week. We'll see you soon.