Freedom By Design In Business & Life with Jon Campbell | Episode 135

I love your quote too, man. So your quote was I believe in you more than you believe in yourself. Is that your own quote? Was that quoted by someone? Where'd that come from?

Uh so I actually heard that from Gary V. Um I just heard him say, like, I believe in you. I don't think enough people are told that. I mean, I j it just happened to me uh the other day. One of my one of my team members, they texted me and they said, Hey, uh, can I have a one-on-one with you? I said, of course. Starting to use that statement a lot more. And um, I believe in him. His name's Joe. And uh that text was actually, hey, I'm gonna quit my day job. And uh like I was so like legit proud of him in in that moment. And then um when I had the meeting with him, he was like, Yeah, I have seven under contract, I have four active listings, I have like six buyers. I felt bad because I actually did not know what his pipeline was. Right. And then I'm like, holy smokes, like, oh, he's like, he's doing the thing.

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Right here, guys, reach out to John Stacks and his team at Property Management Redefine. We'll take good care of you. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Garrety. And I'm Sean Mooney. Today, Sean, we have a very special guest, someone from the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. We have John Campbell, team leader of the John Campbell team. How are you doing today, John? Real good. Can't complain. Welcome, man. Love it. So John's team is one of the top performing real estate teams in Pennsylvania. He has built a business centered on systems, relationships, and creating opportunities for agents to grow beyond traditional real estate sales. While leading his team, John has traveled the country with his family in a converted school bus, also known as CAB, the Campbell Adventure Bus. We're gonna get into that. This has proven to John that business success doesn't have to come at the expense of freedom and adventure. Today's focus on scaling businesses, developing leaders, and helping people build wealth through real estate. Alright. So if I have it straight. That was pretty good. Thanks, man.

What's the admission tickets? Do you do it state by state where you like bring like uh hitchhikers on board and you charge a fee?

Free beer? Just uh any anybody that has the thumb up.

Uh the adventure meter would go like through the room. That's true. Get some sick content on social media. You did that.

Oh yeah. Who's this Willie guy with no teeth?

Nicest guy ever. Um, all right. So in 2024, you bought a bluebird school bus, rehabbed it into a home on wheels, and in the summer of 2025, your family of four started driving and living in the bus traveling the U.S. Do I have all that correct? Yes. And why? Yeah.

Um it was one of those things that uh uh people talk about their retirement, and uh there's a lot of talk about like, oh, I'm gonna travel the country, do all of this. And um, so I I I've been traveling the country a lot, just um speaking at different events, uh hosting different events um for real estate. And um I got to a point where I was like, I was sick and tired of going to happy hours, going to these dinners, and um, you can only do so much of that. And I was like, man, I'm in these cool places. Like, we're in Cabo, Mexico, we're in Hawaii, we're in like California, we're in all these like just Tahoe, we're in all these beautiful places, and I'm doing all these speaking things, but the speaking thing only takes an hour, two hours, and then it's all networking and mingling, and um no offense, but it gets to a certain point where it's like I already know all these people. Right. Um, I can text any of them and and and get on a call with them real quick. Um, so I'm like, you know what? I'm in these all these cool places, let me just travel and like bring my family with me. Um, let them experience that. And uh short answer is one day we got a truancy letter from the state of Pennsylvania saying that um you couldn't miss any more school with my one uh my oldest son. Oh wow, or we'll issue a warrant for your arrest. And uh I've never heard of this thing ever. And I'm like, man. Public school, I'm assuming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I'm taking my kids uh like to all these cool places and and we're experiencing life, and I get this letter and it just stopped like everything. And I was like, what? So had to had to do some thinking, and I was like, all right, well, we had to think of like, all right, let's start homeschooling. And then now that we're homeschooling, how long ago was this? About four years ago. Okay. Yeah, four years ago. Um, and uh so my my I have a I have a nine-year-old, a 22-year-old, and a uh six-year-old. And so at the time, uh my son was a junior in high school and um going into his senior year. And then my son, uh nine, he was also just gradu, or not graduating, he was uh graduating in kindergarten. And so uh yeah, so we pulled him out of kindergarten, or not out of kindergarten, he finished kindergarten, and then uh yeah, we didn't send him back to uh school. Uh our senior, he did finish uh school, and uh, but yeah, we we took him out and we started knowing that we had a lot more flexibility with a lot more things now. And so uh it's like when you get to a plateau in life or or with anything in business, um, you have to interrupt that pattern, you have to do something different. So I would literally just driving home the one day, and uh, we've talked about this bus thing for a while, but we always talked about it like later in life, like when the kids got older, when the kids got out. Wouldn't that be cool? That kind of thing. Exactly. And then um just driving home from the office, I call up Meg and my wife, and I said, Hey, it's time. And uh I just felt like I was in Groundhog's Day, like very successful, doing different things, but at the same time, um, I wanted to challenge myself even more. Like, what can we really do? Um, can we build this business and live the life we really want to on the road? So uh yeah, we uh uh two weeks later, uh well, my wife found the bus like right away. Two weeks later, we um flew out to Kansas, one-way ticket. Um, never drove a bus before. Uh landed in Bumble Fans, and um yeah, uh met the nice lady Sarah. Uh she taught me how to drive a bus in a state park and uh literally drove an empty school bus. There was one bus seat, there was a driver's seat, and there was one bus seat that my wife could sit in, and it was just the two of us, and we just hoofed it back to Pennsylvania um in an empty school bus.

Oh man.

I am where where are we going with this first? Uh Mr. Mooney.

I am uh I am so jealous. This is the greatest story I've ever heard.

Well, I have one quick question. Yeah. All right. Did you own a house in Pennsylvania or rent a house in Pennsylvania at the time? Yes. So I still own a house and I still own a house. So you didn't you didn't get rid of your house, you basically just like set up for like permanent traveling. Yeah.

Okay. So so it took us about a year to renovate the bus. Um, so my my cousin actually came uh it was a Christmas uh day, uh not day, but it was around Christmas time.

Yeah.

And uh he was talking about like how he he's just getting sick and tired of of uh doing uh high-end kitchens and high-end bathrooms, and he's a he's a contractor, he remodels things. And I said, Well, we have this project if you want to like start tackling it. That's awesome. And uh he's like, I'm in. And this guy's like six foot one, and uh so the bus is not that tall. So when he's in it, six one doesn't go very well with a school bus. Yeah, he's his his head's literally hitting the top. He didn't extend the ceiling up a little bit for himself? No, no, there's a whole story behind that. But yeah, so we didn't do that, and um, yeah, so he yeah, it took us about a year. Um, but he watched YouTube videos, um, reached out to Wow, so he had never done anything like it just happened to be super handy.

Never converted a bus to a home before. No. But it was like when he got done, no idea.

Yeah, and so when we got done, um, yeah. And there were some interesting things like uh he did the electrical the right way on a house, but it's not the right way on the bus. Yeah. So uh actually when I touched the outside of the bus, it was actually electrified and it shocked me. We realized we had to reverse all of it.

We gotta ground that. Exactly. Well, it's funny because there are people who actually rehab vans, rehab buses.

Not true. Um my favorite part, one of my favorite parts of this story is your reaction to the letter, right? If that letter doesn't come, who knows what would have happened. Yeah, good point. And so I just love the idea of someone telling you, you have to do this, you have to conform to what we say you need to do with your children, mind you. Yeah, and I just love the reaction of no, we really don't need to do that. We're going to do this. Um, and it's it's a life lesson, you know, it's something you can take away in life, but in business too, um, where you can continue to conform, or you can kind of pivot out of that and and go your own way.

Yeah. I tell people all the time um that when you hit that fork in the road, you do have two choices, and you might have seven choices. Um, but too many people go back to that comfortable route. And um I Because it's easy. It's easy. Um, it's it's known. And I challenge people to get lonely. Um, to get like there's gonna be that moment in time where as you're making those decisions, you're gonna bring in other people, you're gonna bring in uh like just mentors and just other opinions. Opinions. Yeah. Um, but it's gonna be lonely in that one moment because you're going and doing something that probably nobody has done it before. And yet, when I tell this story or when I tell them uh that leap of faith that I took with my family, yeah, it was still calculated because there was stuff we had to do, like setting up homeschooling, figuring out what we're gonna do with our house while we're away, um, all of those items. And yet in those moments, it was it was lonely, yet you you can just you push through because you know there's gonna be something better on the other side. Um but we didn't know what.

Yeah, we didn't know what it's a lot like when when I started my insurance agency, you know, it was a time period where you have this idea in your mind, you have a way that you want to build it out, but it does invite those opinions in where it's like, are you crazy? Yeah, are you nuts? No, you can't do that, right? Because it wasn't a blueprint of sorts to like just follow the directions and go this way, and if you do it this way, then your outcome will be X. So you you you're charting a path for yourself, and you you there is that lonely part where you have to kind of push aside those opinions and and people's thoughts and persuasions, and you have to be grounded in your idea, and you have to have so much belief in that idea because it does need to carry you through that period of time.

What people don't understand is uh we battled like I call it the 50-50, where it's like 50% of people called us crazy, 50 per 50% of people were like, that's awesome. Genius. Yet um we had to battle through that and ignore that, and then what ended up happening was when we did our first two and a half months in that that summer of what 2024? I don't even know the dates anymore. Yeah, um, and we went from Pennsylvania and uh all the way to Portland, Oregon, uh, to go to one of my buddies' weddings, and we were pushing it because we had an exact date we had to be there. Yeah, and um, but when we got back, um it went from 50-50 to 100% of people. Every time I tell this story, they have the same reaction you just did was that is the coolest thing in the world. Yet when we were going through all the tough times of building it and creating this, um you had those naysayers, and even those naysayers that were like, Oh, that's crazy, they're now like, that's so cool. So and and I think that's a lesson in business and and in everything anything. It's as you're building it, as you're going through that journey, it's very tough. You're gonna have people pushing back on you. You have gonna be have people pulling you and pushing you and uh helping you as well. Um, but at the end of the day, when they see the results, they're like, that's awesome. Um, I love what you built, or or you see these rich people and you're like, I want their life. Yeah, you don't know what they went through to really, really go through that.

It's such a good um it's so relatable to business, you know, because we're all self-employed. And when you go self-employed, it's it's not the norm. Like we, you know, some families it is, most families it's not. You talk to people, it's like, oh, what do you do? Oh, I work for this company, I work for that company, or I have a government job, or like I've been here for 30 years, I do sales for whatever. And then you talk to someone in real estate, and while the public doesn't look at it that way, like the public thinks like, oh, you're a realtor, like, how does that work? Do you get like a salary or like do you get something to like keep you alive and then you make a little bit of money off of your sales? And and the answer is no, unless you used to work for Redfin. That was like kind of like the only game in town who did that. But basically, Hauser. Houser, you taking this on of being like, all right, first of all, we're going to Kansas to buy this butt. What do we even know about buses? I don't even know how to drive one. So there's that. Then you bring it back, you're like, and how are we gonna make this a home? Oh, yeah, let's talk to our boy. So then your buddy steps in and says, I've never done this, but we can figure it out. You're like, awesome, someone I trust, you know, I'm learning as I go. So you do all that, but I think probably the hardest part, if I had to guess, you know, not the homeschool, because you're already doing that, was just like leaving your home and being like, where are we gonna be? Like, where are we landing? And like, how long are we landing there? Yeah. But the beautiful part about all that is it's like, who cares? Who gives a shit? You guys don't care. You're like, look, I can work if I need to work, the kids can learn if they need to learn. We can eat when we need to eat, we can sleep when we need to sleep. So let's just go and let the wind take us where we're gonna.

So the funny thing is um we actually didn't have that issue. Um interesting. We already mentally were prepared to know we were leaving. Um the biggest mental hurdle I have had was leaving my team. And um, I had to prepare my team. So like when I bought this, when I bought the bus, letting them know, hey, like I'm gonna be gone, I don't know when, but and you just start leaving these little nuggets saying like hey, and you start like for real. I'm going in. And then it got to all the way to the point where I'm the only one overanalyzing this now. My team got to the point where they're like, Can you please just leave? Right.

We got this.

Um, and uh when they told me that, I was like, Whoa, um like this is and then that's what it was actually settling in for me was like yeah, whoa, this is for real. I can be on the road. And um, as as the journey progressed, I realized in that moment that I was actually overmanaging things. Um I was hawking my email, I was um not empowering them as much. I was the answer guy. And if you're the answer guy in your business, you don't have a business, you have just another job. And um I realized that all right, um, I don't need to have meetings every single day, I don't need to have all of this. Um I can assign them ownership of a certain number, I can assign them uh ownership of a certain responsibility. And yes, I'm gonna check in with them, yes, I'm gonna help them out, but I don't need to be over their shoulder anymore. I don't need to like get updates every single day on different things. Um and uh it was so freeing um in those moments, and uh that was a huge breakthrough for me as we're traveling, as I'm feeling more disconnected from the day-to-day, yet more connected with the team. And I actually had people coming uh like on calls with me saying, Hey, um, even though I haven't seen you um literally in months, um I feel more connected. And um and that was a big that was a big like aha to me. Uh and um and just being like, you know what, this this is working, and not only is this working, it's it's proving that I can do this and build a better business, but it's also paving the way and showing other people a path that they can do this as well.

Yeah. Do you think that connection came? So it's kind of in reverse. So you would think if you were gone for months, the connection would stray. Is there any part of that that was yes, we're we're maybe interfacing less, but that time that we interface, we're not worried about all the minutiae. We're we're more talking about you and your life, me and my life, and like the big the big ticket, the big ticket items.

I call it just intentionality. Um, everything that I was doing in that moment became more intentional. So instead of me just being like, oh, I'm gonna check these emails and respond to this and respond to that and respond to everything. Um, I realized I could just be more intentional. Like, hey, I want you to bring me an agenda to our next meeting because um I want this to be about you and I want to help you get wherever you need to go. Um, and so it was just being more intentional with everything. Instead of um having a meeting just to have a meeting, um, I think I I was starting to fall into those traps of like, hey, we have a meeting on every Tuesday, we have a meeting every Wednesday, we have a meeting every Thursday. Um, but why are we having these meetings? Um, what is the intentionality behind that? So just like I went through my closet and my clothes, um, I mean, we're going from a 3,500 square foot home to a 270 square foot home, I think it is. Easy. And um, like literally the the bus is the size of my bedroom, my closet, my master bath, like like I think that's actually bigger than my my uh my bus. And um yet it's like all right, no, I don't need to collect shoes anymore. No, I don't need to like have 17 shirts in the bus. Um I can actually start to be intentional on like what I wear. So then I need five. Yeah, then I started being like like what Zuckerberg does and like what uh what what's his name from uh Apple used to do? Just wear like a black shirt all the time. Yeah, yeah. Same and uh and I was like plain, yeah. Black, gray, they always talk about just eliminating all these decisions. Yeah. Um but then you actually do take action on it, and you're like, oh, this is real. Like this is uh this is so much better.

Do you know what this reminds me of? So let's let's bring this back to like real estate a little bit. So I was having a breakfast breakfast yesterday with a friend of mine who's not he's not a realtor, but he's in he's adjacent to the real estate space, runs a business, and uh we were talking about teams. He's actually in the process of like writing a book about teams, and he was asking me about real full disclosure. John and Tim both work at Real Broker, so people know. Um but uh his uh he's he has family with another brokerage, and we were he was at he's like, Okay, Tim, it's been two years now. You know, how do you like it? Of course, like, yeah, we love we love it, it's great. But I said, here's the thing the people who have been doing this a long time, this goes back to the I live in a house, my kid goes to public school. The people who've been doing that for a very long time know no other way. There's no other way to look at life. Then there's the the new companies that come in and just look at it completely different. We happen to be at one of those companies, and I told him, I was like, here's the advice I would give you for the person we're thinking of. You they need to be Okay with their brokerage not giving them an office. Because everyone just assumes in our industry that's what that's what I'm paying for, that's what I get, that's what I need. And I said, here's the thing: you you don't need it. You're like the perfect example of not only like, do I not need an office, like, I don't even need to have these in-person team meetings every week because everyone, every other team leader in this country be like, oh man, we meet once, twice a week. We get on Zoom every day, some of these teams. And the fact that I think it boils down to one, you having the guts to do it, your family being behind you, we want to do this as well. But two is also like seeing the forest through the trees. You're like, I don't need to be hanging over their shoulders all day telling them what they're doing wrong or what they're doing right. I need to empower the right person or people within my business to be responsible for the day. They probably want that. They do. And then I can be here to give that person or people what they need on a daily basis. They can call me every day, they can text me every day, they can email me every day, they can zoom with me every day if it's something very super important. And I'm not touring a national park with my family at the moment because I don't have a signal. Nailed it. But the fact that that you have let go, you still run a very successful organization, one of the you know, one of the bigger teams in Pennsylvania, and you don't even live in a house where your business is, like even close to it, is dude, it's like it is, it's kind of like inspirational. Like even like Mooney's reaction being like, Man, that is like that is unbelievable. It's just an unbelievable unbelievable way to look at life. I would pay a lot of money to to do that. Maybe you should get a bus and start with that and see if Katie likes it.

No, no, no. Well, you left in November, and uh it's what, middle of June right now? And uh uh Tuesday was the first day I was back in the office since November.

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Oh, that's crazy. Can you paint a picture? So from the business perspective, yeah. Um, just so that we have a better understanding of of what it was prior to uh like meetings, how the office was set up, your staff, you know, all of that. And then I'm curious how you operate now. Um, like what those meetings, what's those touches, what's those reviews, like all those things. Like the structure, the expectation, yeah, of like what it was and what it is now.

Yeah. So um what it was before was uh me, uh just running everything. Um so we would run uh multiple leadership meetings throughout the week. Um to be honest, I forget all the days of the week because I've literally just I still do have an office. Um I have an office, it's in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Um we used to have an office that was very large, um close to 8,000 square feet, like very large. Holy cow we moved out of that. Um, and uh when I first moved out of that, the tenants like or the landlord's like, Why are you moving? And I said, We don't need this space. And so we moved to an office about 1,500 square feet. Um and uh so all that office is right now is it's one big bullpen area, a conference room, and then there's two private offices and a storage closet. How big how big is this one? About 1,500 square feet, if that. Yeah. Um, and uh so but again, it's much more intentional. Um like agents come in, it's just a big open room. Anyway, um, and then what happens is uh we have uh we had meetings throughout the week. Um we always had a Tuesday sales meeting. We still do have a Tuesday sales meeting, so yeah, um we do have a weekly uh cadence of that. But now we only have two meetings a week. Um it's it's a Monday, it's what's called a wig call, a widely important goal, and I can walk you through that. And then a Tuesday sales meeting, and the Tuesday sales meeting is really meant to just provide value to the agent on different training topics. So, like yesterday we did everything about um we have this AI call system that's just blasting calls right now. Um it set 50 some appointments last a week and a half. And um, we were just going through the pros, the cons. What is this thing doing? What does the handoffs look like? Um he loves that. We get my note. Um everything that's happening there. Um, but the the thing that we also had to change is the foundational piece. And the foundational piece is what's called, we call it R-R-E-K. So it's your role, your responsibility, your your expectations, and your key number. So as an agent, the role is like what do you do as an agent? Uh are you prospecting? Are you holding open houses? Are you um It's like a marketing pillar? Sales pillar. Yeah, like like what are you doing? Yep. And then the the R the other R is responsibility. So, like, how do you do that job? So as a leader and as a trainer and as a sales manager, that responsibility is is a key piece. So it's like, all right, how do you do this job? If you can't explain that to that agent, well then what the heck are we even doing in this business? Like you got to figure that out so you can teach them. Um the E is just expectations like, all right, hey, we want you to have two new listings a week. We want you to have um all of your notes into follow-up boss or CRM system within 24 hours. What is that actual expectation? And then key number is what is that thing that if I come up to you and I say, Hey, what's your uh and so what for us it's 10 active buyers and or 10 active sellers or a combination of both? So hey, can you tell me with a straight face that you have 10 active listings or five like A buyers that are ready to buy in the next 30 days in five of each? Um and it's a quick number. So it's like something that they can just focus on, saying, like, all right, hey, I just put one of my listings under contract, so that's great. So I'm not uh yes, we do track under contracts, but that's not the number I care about. I care about the active listings because I know that those will like you need a pipeline at all times uh building into so um that's that key number that they own. It's that 10 number. So it's like, all right, all these activities that you're doing, I don't care what activity you do, but they should all lead to you getting one of those 10 at all times.

So how does that how does that work from a team standpoint? Is there like a certain expectation for you as the team leader? Like if someone's falling behind, if they're at five, or if they're at two, is there like a warning and then hey, you know, like you're at two, I need you at ten, and then the next month they're still at two, or they're at one, or they're at four. Like, how does that work from like a Yeah?

So so the first thing I people say is just like why? Like, all right, yeah, yes, we expect you to be at ten, or if it's new agent, we expect you to be at five, but like why? Why are you not at that? And then you hear every excuse under the sun. Um what I've also found is most of those excuses are just um there's one of two reasons. It's either a true personal reason, yeah. Um, and uh this for any leader that's out there, if you don't know your people personally, if you don't know their husband, their wife, their girlfriend, their dog's name, their cat's name, um, I don't know how you actually manage a good business because um you need to get to know your people and they'll they'll start to share things. And um that's a big burden on my shoulder of knowing some of these things, but it's like, no, if you don't handle their at-home issues, it's going to bleed into the work issues. And that's usually a majority of what they are is like, hey, if we can help them get out of a certain situation, um, they'll just accelerate through. And then the other time it's they just don't know what they're doing. Um, and then that leader doesn't have like a clear path for that agent to just explain to them like exactly what needs to happen, the coaching, the the training of that item that they need to do. Um, so if if they're like good just at home and they're they know what they're doing, at that point it's like, all right, why are you not hitting these numbers? Yeah. Um, and it's yeah, it's not effort, it's not any of that. It's usually one of those two things. So if you can handle those two things, um, you you're rarely ever gonna have an issue with like somebody not performing. Um but if they do, yeah, we we tell them, hey, like what is it? Is it something at home that we need to fix, or is it something personally? Sometimes it's just take the next 30 days off. Like um you might need that at home. Um it also might be like, hey, my bad. We just didn't train you right on this. Let's take the next couple days and we're gonna go deep on this and until until you understand it.

Gotcha. Let's I want to go to something real quick. First of all, shout out to Dustin Broome, uh friend of ours. He was on our show. You were on you were on his show. Yeah. And I listened to the episode, it was great. So on his episode, and this this also is like my thing. It speaks this speaks to like the way I look at it. You're like, I was not a co-calling prospector when you got started in real estate. So we're going back to when you got started. So when you got started, the one thing I've told Mooney in this story, I was like, we have to have John on because I want to talk about this. Yeah. You again, you looked at it differently. Everyone's telling you, get on the phone, get on the phone, call people you know, call people you don't know. I don't care who you call, call people. Like that's what people told me. I was just like, I don't want to do that. It's just it doesn't feel natural to me. Not that I didn't want to work hard, I just thought there was maybe another way to look at it. So one way that you looked at it that you talked about in that show is that you didn't have any listings when you're brand new. Rarely people do. So you started borrowing other people's listings and hosting open houses every day. Every day. Yeah. And not only that, you would take like dozens of open house signs and just like strategically place them like all all over the neighborhood. Like, talk about that. Like, why did you start doing that? And like what did you realize from that? Well, the crazy thing is it still works now.

Um so and I proved it. So right before I left on the bus um back in November, so this is the fall, we'd we held a training on this, and I personally did it. And so what I did was a Tuesday, so our training is always a Tuesday at 10 a.m. So uh I got to this house, it was a vacant house um in in our area, and it was a ranch home, and um I took signs out and I just blanketed the neighborhood. I probably put 40 signs out, probably took me a good half an hour before the open house. I just blanketed the neighborhood with open house signs, and they were directionals just pointing to this house. Uh, we had about 10 or 11 agents show up for the training, and I said, you know what? This is our training today. We're not like role-playing, we're not doing anything. We're doing it. Watch and learn, kids. This is the open house. Yeah. Um, so the funny thing is, a nosy neighbor stopped in. Um, cool, like you're always gonna get one of those. And then I watched two other couples come in, um, and they came off this hill uh uh the coming down. And um, so I greeted them, did all the normal open house stuff. I was like, where'd you hear about the open house? Oh, we just saw the signs. Um, because here's the funny thing is I did not advertise this on Facebook, I did not advertise this on Zillow, I did not advertise this on the MLS at all. There was no online advertisement. Whatsoever.

Just let people see it and pop in.

It was just a proven point of like, you can host an open house any day of the week, any time of the week, and you will get people. So here's what happened: two couples came in. The one couple needed to sell their home in order to buy the home. Um they're like, we've been looking for a ranch home. We actually do need to sell our house in order to do this. The other couple that came in, they were actually shopping for her brother that's out of town, and they're like, Yeah, he's gonna be moving in. So we had the possibility of three transactions on a Tuesday at 10 a.m. by just setting up signs and again being intentional about it. And I tell people all the time, I said, If you if you're not busy, you have to fake it. Like you have to show people that you are busy. So, how do you show people that you're busy? Well, one way online is like just go start showing up like houses. If you're like, Well, who do I show to? Yourself. Like, show that you're showing a home right now. People are gonna be like, yo, Jonathan is the busiest agent in the world. This guy's crazy. You know, it's funny, they don't see they never you don't ever show your clients in a video or anything like that. You're always just showing yourself doing stuff, and it's like just go show yourself doing stuff. Same thing with the open house. Like that open house, uh, if we would have online advertised it, I mean we'd have had a bunch of people, but yeah, like go Facebook Live, go like I'm sure there's better social media gurus that have better tips.

But you wouldn't take the foundation of that theme and say, look, I'm doing nothing more than just putting stuff everywhere that people can see while they're driving around or walking around, and then they just stop in.

Yeah, but but big point here, it was a Tuesday attempt. So you're you're actually working off of a handicap to even further the point too, that it doesn't matter what time, it doesn't matter where the house is located, it doesn't matter what time of day. Like all of these things don't matter. You can always get people that are actively looking or mildly looking to look at a house. Yeah.

Here's why I love open houses overall. Um, and still to this day, again, like my team runs open houses every other day um with different listings that we have. Awesome. Um, and so but the the the other thing is is that uh when you're in a rut or you're brand new or you're let's just use you're in a rut. You're like, oh man, like this this calling. Your confidence is low, your sales are slow, social media stuff, like you can't just build a brand. It takes time. And um, I had a mentor tell me that the only way to get out of a rut is to do something physical. And um you can't just like sit around and like drain in your own thoughts. You can't like go try to build the next like best social media campaign. Um, like you have to get into action, like physical action, like go for a walk. And what's the best thing is like go bang some signs in the yards um all around. If somebody's like, hey, you can't bang a sign in the yard, sorry. Do you mind if I like put it on the edge? Like just chat it up with people, like like practice your your scripts and your dialogue. Um, and uh that's why I love them because you just get into physical action and um and and it's also like all right, well, how do you get to motivate home buyers and home sellers? Well, they're literally coming to you. And it's like then you can even use that open house as like your office if you want to. If you don't have a physical office, it's like, hey, now I have people coming into me. Like, I couldn't even get into this office here today where I'm at right now because it's locked. Yeah, the open houses aren't locked. So it's like, hey, just have the people come to you and then yeah, check on your emails, like follow up with people while you're there, uh, do all your normal like stuff. Um, that's why I love open houses.

Yeah, I mean, calls are outbound. We've talked about this before. Open houses are inbound. Like you're literally you are trying to attract people to what you're doing. Yes, you know, again, Tuesday, Saturday, so does broker open, does it, it's all the same. You are attracting human beings to a house for a reason. And it's usually to try and sell it.

Why does new construction have a model home? That's why. It's just the open house, they just don't call it an open house. Right. They say come to our model. That's all it is.

Yeah.

Where did you learn that? Like why new construction. Yeah. I I mean it's just one of those things. Um, and also it's like, all right, what's the easiest way to get people in the door? Hold an open house.

Or having 50 signs.

Yeah, exactly. Um, or or what's the well, what I love about the signs is one, um, people are just driving by like they want to live in that neighborhood.

Let's we let Mr. Non Real Estate weigh in here.

This is um we've talked about you on the show. We've used you as a reference on our show. Here's why. You ever hear the term like stop the scroll? You ever hear like the saying breaking the pattern? Yeah, the purple cow, you can collectively put them over here, and that is what you're doing. If there's one sign, you everyone just drives past because it's just another house for sale. Yeah, if there's 25, 35, 45 sign, it's not just another house.

Something's going on.

The the you're you're sparking something inside of someone that builds intrigue and they have to know why. Why does this house have 25 signs? Why can I knock it out of my neighborhood and not I I have to go see what is there. And it could be the most average home in the state, but the that that they have to know. Yep. And you're feeding that with what you're doing.

Yeah. And there's there's no cost to it. I mean, yeah, you have to buy signs, but then at the end of the day, it's repeatable and it's just effort to go pick up the signs, put the signs out. Um, I I have this saying, it's called contacts over cookies. I want to make some t-shirts over this. That's a good one. But um, I hate open houses where I walk in and it just smells good, the music's perfect, and I'm like, you know what? This agent still spent so much time on that, and that's bullshit. Like, no, go put more signs out, go knock the neighborhood, let them know who you are, being like, hey, just come by. Like, there's no pressure of anything. But um Hey, we'd love to see you at our open house and let you know, let me know what you think. Yep. Yeah, they're they're always worried about, oh, what's the spread at the open house? Like, and I never have food there. Like, I might bring some waters if it's like a hundred degrees outside. Right. But um, like, yeah, people just overthink all of that stuff. And it's like, no.

Um Or they're pre-programmed. This is this is why I love your the I need like I need to go on the bus and like do a couple states with you.

The contrary let everyone else know if that's okay first.

Yeah, get the permission from your wife. I you know, get the kids.

Who's this guy crashing on the couch? What's his name?

Like, listen, like I don't know, I just met him. There's those pop-up things you put on top of the car when you travel. I'll just like get in there and we'll be we'll be good. Uh a contrarian point of view is what I love most in life. Yeah. It's they do the open house and put the spread because that's what their boss does, and that's what they did, or that's what their mentor tells them to do. They don't actually go through the thought of hmm, what's gonna build the most interest for my client at this property to get this house sold for the highest price? Exactly. Because if you start with that, you're not worried about the spread. Yep. Correct. You're walk you're walking the sidewalk to let everyone know and invite everyone because chances are high that this house is for sale and someone in this neighborhood has a relative or a friend that wants to live near their relative or friend and is most likely going to be the buyer of this house. So if I can talk to all of these people and let them know and make it feel good because of this connection, you've just improved the the marketing for this house by a hundredfold.

Oh, yeah. I love it. So good. I love your quote too, man. So your quote was I believe in you more than you believe in yourself. Is that your own quote? Was that quoted by someone? Where'd that come from?

Uh so I actually heard that from Gary V. Um I just heard him say, like, I believe in you. And um I don't think enough people are told that. Um and uh and uh I mean I j it just happened to me uh the other day, um actually last week, um, and um one of my one of my team members, they texted me and they said, Hey, uh, can I have a one-on-one with you? I said, of course. So we booked it. And uh I'm trying to get better at like preparing for these one-on-ones as far as like can you send me over an agenda? Yeah, because going in blind is like, what is this gonna be?

You're gonna get in all sorts of nonsense.

Exactly. So um he goes, uh, so he's uh he was like a part-time agent. And uh so many people I hear like in the team leader world, they're always like, never hire a part-time agent. And uh again, another contrarian statement, I guess. Right. Like, you're an idiot. Like, no, there's there's people that need to do real work to survive, and but they have bigger dreams.

Some need training, exactly, and that's the other thing. So, like you have to start somewhere if they maybe that person's not the best, but if they get the good training and you teach them how to do it, maybe there's a big upside over there.

But I've started to use that statement a lot more, and um, I believe in him. His name his name's Joe, and uh that text was actually, hey, I'm gonna quit my day job. And uh like I was so like legit proud of him in in that moment. And then um when I had the meeting with him, he was like, Yeah, I have seven under contract, I have four active listings, like six buyers. I felt bad because I actually did not know what his pipeline was. Right. And then I'm like, holy smokes, like, oh, he's like he's doing the thing. Um, and uh he texted me then, so I think we met on Friday, and then uh he texted me on Sunday on Father's Day and was like, I quit. And uh he goes, I just sent the email right after we talked, and uh his future wife was like freaking out, being like, Wow, you're really doing This and she goes, It's a weird time that you're doing this. He goes, Well, what else am I gonna do? Like, I have no more passion for this. And um, but it's in those moments of like that that little statement of like I believe in you. Um, sometimes somebody just needs to hear that. Um, because they might be dealing with something, they might be dealing with um all the questions of like, should I quit my job? Should I like really go into real estate full-time? It could be anything, and um, but you have to mean it too, like like and and show it. And um, I mean it, and uh, I I want to help him out, and and we're we're gonna help him out. And um, yeah, it was the first time he was always on our meetings virtual. He came into the office on Tuesday, and I was like, dude, this is so weird seeing you, but I also haven't seen anybody in months anyway. But uh yeah, it was just a good feeling. Um, so I I think too many people just don't say that enough.

Such a great conversation, man. Appreciate you taking time out of your travels.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Okay, we're not done. Moody's gonna do it. We're not gonna have to uh have the last word here.

W I G. Yes. Oh, good, yeah. That's I need you I need you to frame it out for us and talk a little about what it is and why you do it.

Yeah, uh, wildly important goal. So um there's certain things that uh if you make things overcomplicated, they're gonna be overcomplicated. And if something's overcomplicated, nobody's gonna take action. And so why the important goal is just one team goal. Like, what are we gonna get to in order to uh uh accomplish whatever that goal is? The unit count volume? Yeah, so for us it's just a simple unit count for that. So um goal this year is just to do 300 transactions. Um we realize that, like, hey, we're not gonna sell 2,500 homes right now. Um, we've we've shrunken down, gotten more intentional and things. Um but that's the wildly important goal. So it's like, all right, how do you reverse engineer that? It's pretty simple. Agent A, what are you accountable to this 300? Agent B, what are you accountable to this 300?

Agent, you get the idea. Well, that's pretty good. Instead of just dividing it by the amount of people you have, you're like, you're really dying. They have to own that.

It has to come from them. That's cool. And at the end of the day, if if their transactions are left, say 50, 60 are left, that's on me. So it's either I have to train them up where they can do one extra deal like to make it happen, or I have to go hire somebody. I have to go find somebody else, or I have to do it personally. I'm not gonna do it personally. Um, so uh, and I see too many team layers that do that. They just take it all on themselves, being like, oh, I'm gonna do it. I'll do it, I do it. And um, I'm cool, like you do you. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but um, I'd rather like live my life the way I want to live my life right now and uh impact more people along this way. So anyway, so the Wig Wildly Important Goals it's one thing, and then what we do is every single Monday, um, it's our first meeting on a Monday, it's 15, 20 minutes long, it's not long. Um, they have to do two promises. So it's a promise to themselves. What are they gonna do? The reason we use the word promise is it's very hard for somebody to be like, hey, um, I call it breaking a promise. Are you gonna break a promise to yourself? Are you gonna break a promise to me? Are you gonna break a promise to the team? No. Um, that's a very hard thing for somebody to do.

It's very serious.

We used to call them commitments, we used to call them like uh, well, commitments was the last one. And like, cool, you're gonna break your commitment, but we changed the promises to really like jab at them. Um so what they do is they make a promise for the week. What are they gonna do? It might be host five open houses, it might put put two under contract, it might be activate two or three listings, whatever it is, but that's their promise. I don't make a judgment of it. The only thing I judge is whether they kept their promise or didn't keep their promise. And so what they do is they set it for the week, and then the following week they report on that. All right, hey, my promise last week was I just did this, this, here's the results of that. That's all that is. Then there's numbers in there. So uh they have to report on all of their lead measures, which are basically like their activities, their calls, the spoke withs, um, one-to-one emails sent, one-to-one text messages sent, open houses held, um, anything that you can do physically, like like you can you can change that outcome. The outcome you can't really change is like new listings or under contracts. You can't just wake up and be like, I'm gonna get a new listing today. Right. Um can you at that's a byproduct of you making the phone call, you setting the appointment, you doing all of that. Um yes, you can wake up and be like, I'm gonna make 10 phone calls today. That you absolutely can do. Um, so what we do is we do lead measures, and then it's a simple Google spreadsheet, and they have to manually take their numbers from the CRM system and input it manually. And the only reason we do it manually is like everybody has these like, and there's nothing wrong with like Cisu and all these other like and I'm sure AI could just take it now and make a dashboard of it. And there's nothing wrong with dashboards and leaderboards and all of that, but the act of doing something because they call it a player scoreboard. So like if if and I use this example all the time, if you're just shooting around at a basketball like hoop, um, cool, like you're just shooting around, you're having some fun, you're not really keeping score. As soon as somebody comes to that playground, they're like, yo, you wanna you wanna run, you wanna, you wanna like play, um, and you start keeping score, what happens? Things start to intensify, things start to get heated. Um competitives come out. So that's the purpose of this exercise is I want them to know what the score is. And too many agents that I talk to, they're like, I have no idea how many like homes I have under contract, I have no idea how many homes I sold, I have no idea how many calls I did. Right. Oh, let me just log into follow up boss and see the actual uh number. Um, but there's no meaning to it. So for them to physically take that number and put it in there makes all the difference on that. And then um and then they just make a promise for for the next week.

That's great. Am I good now?

Well, John, uh, I would get like reprimanded if we dove into the You already are reprimanded. The AI calling, so I will let him cease the meeting right now, and maybe we pick it up another time.

Yeah, I think we can do a round two. So before we shut this one down, why don't you tell our listeners and watchers where they can learn more about you and everything you got going on?

Uh yeah, so two ways. Uh Instagram, uh ask John Campbell. Um I always want to say dot com after that, but it's I'm showing my address.

Does the bus have a handle that does?

Yes, I was actually gonna do that. Yeah, so uh on Instagram also is uh Campbell Adventure Bus.

That's what I learned a lot about this. Yep. Awesome, man. Hey, really appreciate you sharing your time with us today, and that's all we have for this one, folks. Thank you for tuning in again to another episode of Bricks and Risk. See you next week. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets, and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today. You can find all BR episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.