SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, Mr. Heil. You know, we've known each other, buddy, for some time. Um and I have known a version of you that's a little different than maybe uh your college self or prior. Have you always uh looked this way? Is there any stories you can give as people want to just get to know Tim Patter?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Oh, you you le you lead me too well, Travis. Um, you know, when I was in college, my friends called me the ox. Um it was uh it was um not as endearing as as one might think. Um, you know, I gained about a hundred pounds in college. And, you know, there's a lot of uh five dollar hot and readies, a lot of uh famous roles from KFC, one too, one too many uh, you know, one too many uh uh drinks and pizzas uh over the course of four four years in a row. Um, you know, I I came back from uh from college. I moved moved back to Austin, and my uh my girlfriend at the time, who's my wife now, she said, she said, Hey, um, do you want to I'm going on a trip? Do you want to come on a trip with my family and meet my parents, get to know my parents? We're going to San Francisco. I said, That sounds wonderful. Let's do it. And uh lo and behold, it was for the family to do a half marathon in Philippi. Um, I don't think I had run more than two miles in my entire life. And uh I struggled through that race. I mean, I struggled through it. Um, I was probably like 285, something like that. And uh and uh I remember on mile three, I saw Liz's mom just barely moving, but she's passing me and trying to hide my face so that she couldn't see me, you know, because I took off the first mile I was showing everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Um it was it was uh it was a humbling experience, and and uh I made some commitments to myself at the end of that race and changed my lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Dude, and and look at you now, and I never even knew that version of you. I'd have loved to call you the ox. Um but yeah, you got you got crazy the health and all the things. That's pretty awesome. It took uh losing to your future parents and law to get you on the journey, huh?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

That's right, that's right. But transformational, a lot of transformation after that. You know, it takes it takes uh takes some low moments to to figure out what you really care about.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Well, thank you for sharing all because that was a great story.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Let's be honest. Life's messy, decisions are complex, and it's not all black and white, but these are the decisions that shape our growth. Welcome to the tension. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

All right, everyone. Welcome to The Tension. I say it every time, but this has gotta be one of my favorite guests. Uh, we are going to go deep into a topic that I think many entrepreneurs uh definitely uh need to hear. But also just in general, I think uh life, right? As as we go from our 20s, our 30s, our forties, um, you know, life continues to get more complex. And so today's tension is about the tension of scale. We have Tim Hyle with us. So, Tim Hyle, I'm gonna do my best today, everybody, to force him to talk about himself because he's so doggone humble. You never know we're sitting next to a legend here, but uh crushed it out of school doing Keller Williams, grew it to one of the top teams. And then about a decade or so ago, I remember sitting with him and he said he had this big, big idea of a company called Homework. And uh since then has had billion-dollar valuations to big growth years to struggles and COVID to all the things that business um has uh taken him down as you think about scale of that magnitude. And so, guys, this is just gonna be great. And just a reminder Tim is here to just tell you a story because scale is not a problem that we will ever solve. We're not gonna just nail it and say, when I scale, boom, boom, boom, it's perfect. This is just a guy telling you how he did it, and he wants to teach you just all the ways in which he's learning to manage it. Because I can say on the front end, my brother Timmy, uh, he is getting it done at home, he's getting it done at work, and this is a man that has really managed this tension of scale as good as I've ever seen, which is why we have him. But Tim Heil, everybody. Tim, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Thanks for having me on, Travis. This is this is fun. I'm so excited to be on. I love the theme, the tension. It's funny. I probably have used the phrase since you started this podcast at at work with my with my with my people. You know, this is a this is not a problem to solve, this is a tension to manage. You know, it comes up over and over again. So I love it. I'm excited to be on. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Heck yeah, man. Shout out to Andy Stanley. He created the quote uh that I feel like has inspired so many of us. And Tim and I actually uh for about a decade shared the same mentor. And every time you talk to this guy, he'd look at you and say, Now, listen here, Tim or Travis. Like, is this attention? You know, or a problem? And so I feel like uh Tim, you get it very well. Well, Tim, if you can, um I I I will absolutely pull out of you all of your successes, whether you want to or not. But let's start on the personal life. You know, people want to know who's Tim Island?

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yeah. Well, um I was born and raised in Austin, Texas, is where I live today. I've I've been married now for 14 years. My wife Liz and I just celebrated our 14-year uh wedding anniversary. We have four amazing kids. They are uh my youngest is four, my oldest is 12. So, you know, I would say that we're in the thick of it, but it's a different thick of it. You know, as the kids get get into sports and develop their own life, you know, it's uh it's actually for me, it's been a lot more fun than than the baby stage. So a lot going on at home, but a lot of fun stuff. Um, you know, I uh I uh have been in real estate for my entire career. I funny how I got into real estate was that uh um when I graduated from college, it was in the middle of the global financial crisis and uh yeah, great timing, great timing, you know, the perfect timing. And um, you know, I was looking for a finance job. I was looking for a job where people pay you money um to go to work every day. Shocker, shocker. Um after lots of unsuccessful finance interviews, I decided to start selling real estate. And turns out that's not a job where people pay you money to show up at work. That's a job where you show up at work and no one tells you what to do or pays you any money, and you just have to sort of figure it out. And so uh, you know, I fell into being a real estate agent and uh, you know, it turned out to be one of the most um incredible um things that happened to me not getting not getting a finance job, um, just because I learned very quickly that um any services business, but especially real estate, and that's the one I know, um, it creates such a such a gateway to be able to become an entrepreneur. And um and when when I got into that business, I realized that um, you know, sales, what was cool about sales was that you sort of have this uncapped opportunity um in front of you. And um, and you also have this, yeah, this gateway to to say, to turn your sales job into a small business and turn your small business into kind of whatever you want. And and that the idea of that, the vision of that just immediately clicked for me and became something I became very passionate about.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah. Well, I've gotten to see uh I I think you and I have known each other uh for about 14 years, and so it's been really fun to watch your journey. And just by the way, uh for the listener out there just to know more about Tim, him and his wife Liz, um, back to this whole it's all about the attention of scale, and we're gonna talk about it. But the the problem with scale is it can it can take quite a toll in your personal life. I mean, uh I've seen that, and uh obviously Tim, you've seen that. But the way that Liz and Tim, we go to the same church, like the way they have volunteered their time, their resources, their home, uh the generosity they've seen. I just think if you ever get a chance to ask them like what they do outside of just raising kids and friends, family, vacation, school, all the things, business, uh, you'll be pretty shocked that they can put it in. And I think that's a pretty cool thing. But yeah, Tim, I mean, you know, the real estate side. So give us uh direction.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

So you're gonna Well, I just I just want to comment on that is you know, um, you know, your partner in life, who who you choose to go all in with matters a lot. You know, I we if it weren't for my wife's, you know, leadership and and conviction on the personal side, um, we would have had kids later, we would have not volunteered to the same like you know, just be being finding finding the right person that you're gonna that you're gonna commit to for the rest of your life is uh maybe one of the most important decisions of all time. And that that has certainly allowed me to have a fulfilling life. Um otherwise, you know, I might be single and and lonely and obsessed with my work, too obsessed with my work.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

No, dude, true that. We a lot of people that are younger, maybe a lot of you out there uh haven't been married. My goodness, is that the truth? Especially, I would say if you've got that entrepreneurial bug, I want to go grow and build, golly, just make sure that you're you're married to someone that can keep that in check in the most positive way. Or it can get um talking about scale, can just get over overwhelming on one way because as builders, that's what we do. And so that's awesome, dude. I've definitely seen it. Um so on the real estate side, like you you get out of college. Obviously, you just told us kind of the not exactly the best time to do it. But I mean, Tim, you got to pretty crazy success, and then you opened up uh ancillary kind of um side businesses with it. Like, give him a little bit of like the Tim Lyle story in his 20s. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Man, so I was 21 years old. I showed up at the brokerage office, I had no idea what to do, and I was twiddling my thumbs for like six months because I had no direction. Uh, but I went to a sales seminar, it was like a um some kind of coaching seminar that that came to came to Austin. And I picked up in that seminar very quickly that sales is like a math formula. So you just have to figure out it's like how much money do you want to make? Okay, how many deals do you need to close, how many clients do you need to sign up? I just sort of worked my way down the funnel and I had no idea what my conversion metrics would be, but I made some up and I said, okay, well, directionally, this is it. So this is how many phone calls I need to make every day to uh to achieve my goals. And once I was able to connect those dots, I became very obsessive about hitting these numbers that I had put in front of myself. And so for three and a half years straight, I made a thousand phone calls a day. Um, I had a lot of like I set up this whole whole like uh system that helped me to do it very efficiently. Um, but I made a thousand phone calls a day. I talked to about a hundred people a day, and my whole goal was to generate five leads, set one appointment. And I was very consistent for three and a half years. And by the time I was 24 years old, I was the number one selling real estate agent in the city of Austin. And um I had done this by locking myself in a room for like 10 hours a day, making calls and going on appointments at night and uh and and built this up. And it and it was, you know, it was very much about like the this idea that sales can be uncapped, and the harder you work, the more money you can make. And I I leaned into that and I and I sort of experienced that. And then I um I I generated so much business that I needed to start hiring people. And this was my first sort of like uh move into entrepreneurship just in a in a small way. And I I hired a small team, there were four, four or five of us, and and uh, and um maybe maybe about my fourth year in um the entire thing uh exploded in front of my face. And every single employee I had walked out the door um on in the same week. Um, I don't know if it was all on the same day, but in the same week, and uh and I had a mess on my hands. I had more volume.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Can you give me like what happened?

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Yeah, so so you know, this this was my I bring this up because it was my first major, my first major uh point of growth in my career. You know, it's like the all the growth happens on the on the downturns, right? So it's like success, success, success, boom, and lots of growth and learning, and then and then kind of on to the next phase. But the first the first piece for me was that uh dealing with scale at a small at a small level, um, you know, my my success as an individual contributor as a salesperson was all about my work ethic, my drive and my obsession with the targets. Um, but it's the the moment I had to start succeeding through other people, none of those things worked anymore. Right. And succeeding through other people is a whole different set of skills around leadership and and and uh and and working with and through others, which was not what I had was good at. What I learned and what I was good at was a different thing. And so I learned very quick that you know, success through others is not about hustle, um, you know, nearly to the extent that that it's about um it's about leadership, it's about investing in in other people. And I was not doing that. I was very short-tempered, I had, I had uh, I had I had a short fuse, I was very impatient, I had very high expectations, and I sort of expected everybody to just rise to them um on their own. And I was moving at lightning speed and it just blew up. It just blew up. And and uh, you know, I I'll never forget sitting on the floor. I had it wasn't everything wasn't digital back then. So I had all these files and I had them spread out in my office, and I was so overwhelmed. And I had hired a coach, and I remember getting on the phone with my coach, and you know, um, he's just like he's like, dude, until you learn how to lead and how to really actually invest in other people, you're gonna keep running into this problem over and over again. And so that was kind of my first big uh you know, tension to manage, you know, if you could call it, which is between, you know, sales and um ambition and actually like leading through others and and uh I had to restart. I mean, I had the volume, so I wasn't restarting from like a leads or volume standpoint, but I was restarting from a people standpoint. And one thing I'm very proud of is like most of the people I hired in that next 12 or 24 months still work with me today, you know, uh over 10 years, over 10 years later. So, you know, it was it was a it was a big learning point for me, but um getting getting the right people on the bus and investing in them well, kind of the business, uh small business, but went to the next went to the next level and and uh things were really clicking. And um, and all of a sudden I I I started uh thinking that I was Mr. Serial Entrepreneur. And uh and I thought, well, if I can make this business successful, I can make any business successful. And so I spent the next few years, you know, launching a bunch of other businesses, thinking that um I had learned the trick to success in entrepreneurship. And uh, and I I found myself um spread super thin. Um, I had a very successful real estate business that was thriving and a bunch of mediocre things that I had started up that were not going very well at all. And um, and I would wake up in the morning and I would spend all my time on the things that were not going well instead of spending my time on the on the golden goose that that was going well. And that that was a frustrating phase. And and uh, you know, I I really learned in that in that phase, like, you know, compounding focus drives scale and fra fragmented attention creates a bunch of chaos. And I had basically fragmented my attention and created lots of chaos. And that that over time kind of hurt the culture of my of my core business and and so many other things. And and I eventually sold those businesses and refocused, but that was kind of the next phase of my career where I had to I had to learn that I heard to learn had to learn hard lessons about focus um and about what really drives scale.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Okay, so pause because we haven't even gotten a homeword. Um, this is too good. So I wanted to just go over your background and then we just go on to the tension. Forget it. We're just gonna talk through your story. This is way too good. So let's go back. Um let me just make sure everyone heard what was said. 1,000 calls for multiple, three something, four years, three and a half years, and a hundred would answer. So that means nine hundred times a day. What are you leaving? Like a hey, it's Tim, call me back or no voicemail.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

I had a very, very simple click to call. Um, it was a very efficient system. Happy to share it uh at another time, but it was it was very efficient. And when someone would answer, it would patch me in. But nine out of ten people would not answer because you know, you're scrubbing do not call lists, you're only calling the people you can, and and uh, and uh, you know, it's uh it was definitely a grind. It was a grind, but but over time um that grind worked, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Well, I was gonna say, like, I don't want to I don't want to go past this because if we're really gonna talk about the detention of scale, this was the creation. This is the first foundational, you know, they're gonna hear all this amazing story with the rest of your story and what you've done. But I mean, without the grind, you didn't have that. So let's just talk for a second of like, were you married at that point?

SPEAKER_02 16:50

So this is a this is a this is something I I I love to talk about. Um, and this is really for for young people, of which I am no longer. Um but um, you know, there is a certain blessing you have in your early 20s. Um baby is that you have almost no responsibility. Maybe not everybody, but for me in my early 20s, my my girlfriend, who's my wife now, she was going to graduate school in a different city. So I really had no res, I had no kids, my no wife, my girlfriend lives in a different city. So, like Monday through Friday, I was, you know, I was in the office at like five or five thirty in the morning and I was coming home at like nine o'clock at night. And I and I did that because I loved it. I did it because I was passionate about it. I was building something, and I did not have responsibilities at home. I could never do that today. I could never do it today. So taking advantage of that time was something that um I'm very thankful that that somehow I had the right people in my ear and I and I was and I and I did take advantage of that time. But I'll share, I'll share a very fast thing, which is that my first year, I made a thousand phone calls a day and I generated five leads a day. And at the end of the year, I had over a thousand leads in my pipeline. And these weren't just like leads, these were like I talked to them, I validated their motivation, I knew they were qualified, qualified leads, very qualified. They told me when to call them back, all these things. And I barely made any money that first year. I made like, I probably netted like $25,000. And um and uh and I remember at the end of that year, a lot of people around me were like, when are you gonna stop doing that? When are you gonna stop making those calls? Like, you know, people that were making way more money than I was, that were kind of doing the traditional real estate thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

And um, and I had I had this conviction, I was talking to these people every day. I had this conviction that I am building this lead pipeline is an asset that I am building and it will pay off over time. And man, I gotta tell you, um you know, year two, I think I made 400 grand up from like 25 grand, like, and then it went to a million, and then it went like the the numbers for the business just kept just went like this. Yeah, but it but it it took if I would have given up after the year or even after maybe like 18 months, um, because the results were mediocre, yeah, my my entire career trajectory would be very different. And so just like I think people in in in in sales often give up way too soon. What you're building when you're when you're building this lead lead pipeline is you're building a real asset that's not just for your that year's income, it's for your entire career trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's this is why I want to talk about it because it kind of goes into your like if this if lesson one of scale in business was how do you actually work through others and delegate, lesson two is how do you actually maximize your focus and prioritization? Like you kind of in this first year learn lesson two in that, right? Because you learn like compound, compound, focus, focus, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Yeah, well, it's funny because I had a coach. Um, I've always been big on hiring a coach, and later in life, you know, it's been surrounding myself with mentors and such. But early on, I always had a coach that that that uh that I would meet with, and and uh I remember him telling me, he said, What made you successful in the first place? And I was like, an insane maniacal focus on one thing. And he's like, Well, then what the hell are you doing now? You know, and it was like it was just like a kick in the gut of like, okay, yeah, I gotta make some adjustments.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Well, it's so good. I mean, I think like I'm glad we're not shying away because I think that most people when they hear we're gonna talk about the tension, most people like, gosh, I can't wait to hear, like, so how do I manage this? And like, how do I get it done? Like, I love my people well, that you know, maybe are my employees, and I love my family, and we're gonna get to all that. Don't be wrong. But one of the things I love about this podcast is we're interviewing wildly successful people that are telling us there are also some tension parts of this thing you may not like, which is a crazy grind. Like, I especially like you know, one of our favorite uh books as a company affordable financial is Defining Decade by Meg J. And she literally says, Your 20s, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:08

I know the book well. I know the book well. Um and and and man, I I just got a text the other day from from uh an agent that worked at at my real estate company uh maybe eight years ago, and he just said, Thank you so much for sending me that book, The Defining Decade. It changed it changed my life and the trajectory of my life, and and with stories of of that. But it was really cool. That book is a especially if you're in your 20s or late teens, that book is like or or you know somebody you care about in their 20s or late teens. Yes. That's that's a book they gotta read.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Well, we can't wait. Uh Dr. Meg J will be on here in a few episodes, and we can't wait to just have her unpack it all. So it's gonna be a ton of fun. But uh but Tim, like, okay, so it takes grind, so part of the tension is you're kind of overwhelmingly on tilted on the business side. Which is What actually creates the initial kind of flywheel or for momentum or uh call it packing the snowball so that you can finally roll down the hill, whatever uh analogy we want to use. So you grind and you learn that that's the tension right there. You can't necessarily solve it. So you just grind every day, maniacally focused, and expect that while it's gonna mean say no to some friends going on trips and happy hours and all these things, you're building an asset. You're not gonna listen to the big real estate people focus. Okay, great. So talk to me about this other one because you know my story. When you get done with call at phase one of successfully have now built as an individual salesperson that is unreal at their craft, both systematically and in their closing rates. I think there's a lot of people listening that maybe hope to get there, but then you probably weren't satisfied. A you had more leads, but my guess is there was also kind of something grown in inside of you of like the desire of more. Maybe I talk to us how you felt when you started hiring people.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just realized that like while while sales feels like it's uncapped, um, at some point you find yourself working, you know, I was working, you know, all the hours that existed in the day. And, you know, at I could there was only so much that I could do as one person. And so that, you know, one of the biggest, um, one of the biggest relief points for me was when I I hired somebody else to come and make calls next to me. And when that person was, when that person was literally doing the same thing I was doing every day, I eventually got off the phones and I never went back on. And all of a sudden it was like, oh my gosh, I have 30 more hours a week or 40 more hours a week. Um, you know, and and realized like, okay, with each thing, it's about getting it right, having a system that works, getting the right people in place, and kind of moving on to the next, to the next thing. And and I and I I learned honestly about myself, which I did not know, is that I am kind of an optimizer. Like I want to, I want to optimize, I want to get it right, but I get very bored kind of doing the same thing over and over again. I will do it for as long as it takes, but I ultimately want, you know, to to replicate it through someone else and kind of move to the next to the next thing. And and uh, you know, um, so that that was uh you know, a lot of learning through that through that phase. You know, I I was building the Heil group for um you know about 10 years, um, learning lessons every single year.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Dude, well, I I just think it's important because I think if someone's really going to talk about scale, that is one of the biggest tensions is yeah, everything's uncapped. Yeah, I love what your your quote there. But then you learn scale is dependent upon your ability to recreate those results through others.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

And that ultimately is the speed of the scale you're going to see, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:51

And that's systems, man. It's it's it's about it's about people and it's about systems.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

When in that order, in that order.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah, in that order. And and the thing is, like, like um when you think about a small business, people sell their small business, but like if if you were, it's not that you need to sell your company, but if you want to know that you're building something valuable, um, you think in the eyes of somebody who would pay you money for it, what are they buying? If they're buying your time and you, you know, if they're buying you, yeah, that that's a very low price because you might go away one day.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

But you'll never have scale.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

That's right. If they're buying a system, if there's a system that that people can come in and people can graduate out of and so on and so forth, that that is an asset that is worth a lot of money. And so um, you know, building a system that is replicatable, that can continue to be um, you can continue to move people in and move people up and move people out, and the system keeps building, um, that's what creates value. And I and I learned that, learned that early on and became very, very obsessed around systems. Everything we did, I didn't want it to revolve around one person. I wanted it to revolve around a system. Uh and and that that was a that was a that was a big a big focus of mine. Um but I but I was but I'm an I I can I can over-optimize what I learned about myself as well. And and you know, the High Group got to this place where it was kicking butt. It was doing really, really well. And um, and here I was meddling, meddling in it, trying to continue to tinker and and tweak, and and you know, it started to become like over-optimization where where it would just create distractions and things like that. And um, there became a point back in about 2017, 2018 where um where my main, my main, my main uh leader in the business, his name's Matt. He was like, hey, you got to stop messing with everything. Let me just let it let us just go execute. And uh, and and it was about that time where um I elevated him to be the president of of the org and I stepped aside and said, you know, you and I'll meet once a week, but you run it. Matt's very different than me. He's he's not the optimizer, he's the take the field guy. You know, he and and and he won he wanted to take the field and and drive the same thing over and over and over again. And uh, and honestly, if if I'm if I'm honest with myself, like that's when the business really took off. Because we had spent 10 years building a foundation, and that foundation worked. And now what it required was not continued tinkering and optimization, it required disciplined execution over and over and over again, which was not my at that point was not my forte, but it was Matt's. And and so stepping out of the way um actually allowed the thing to really take off and get to the next level, which was pretty cool to see.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Well, and I think we won't have time today. Maybe we'll have you on again. I mean, I think the uh uh scale to me, every time I talk to someone, we interview someone, whatever it may be, they always mention some, it could be a small group, it could be one person of their right hands that really are the reasons why it got there. For you, it's Matt, you know, my story with Hunter. Like, you know, and I don't think those people get enough credit. I think Rocket Fuel has done an okay job of visionary integrator, but I don't know that that's all the way it. And I think like predictable success, the book right will tell us like it gets to a certain space, you get to Whitewater, you have to hire that person to get to predictable success, but then they can overoptimize, get you on a treadmill. Like, we hear all these things. Can you give us like a quick blurb of the importance of a right hand or right hands, if you will, in this whole like scale process?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah, well, I first of all, um, when I read Rocket Fuel for the first time, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm I'm both of these. I'm I'm the visionary and the integrator.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Every visionary says that at first.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Right, exactly. And then you realize when when you finally, when that person finally shows up, um, you realize the difference. And you know, if if I were to go back, if I were to go back and uh and um talk about every major success in my in my career, there would always be a person at the center of that story that was sort of like the linchpin that took it that took it to the next level. And and certainly for the Heil group, that was that was Matt. And uh, you know, that was that was an incredible thing because um I had always dreamed of um owning a business that I was not running day to day. And to be able to to actualize that, had Matt not come along, you know, that that's the thing is like I used to a mentor of mine, Gary Keller, who founded Keller Williams, um and a very dear friend, uh people would ask him, they say, How many, how many people do you need um, you know, to build? Keller Williams is like 180,000 uh uh associates. And and and he said just five. And he would always write up, he said the difference between he would he would always say this. He'd say, the difference between your business, um, how much how much revenue did you do, Tim? How much profit did you make last year? And I would tell him some dinky number and he'd say, he'd say, Well, here's what I did. Um, and I'd say, well, what's the difference? And he'd say, My five are better than your five. And but but what he what he what he's point what he's pointing at is he's pointing at, you know, it does not take 180,000 people to build a massive company. It takes hiring the right three to five people and making them real partners in your business. And because then what they're gonna do, it's the same story for them, by the way. They need that they're gonna treat like partners and so on. And and um, and you know, you don't need three to five right away. It took me a decade to get to get the one, you know. Um, and and but once I had one, it was a lot easier to attract the second one, and so on and so forth. So good.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Well, it's so funny, uh, not not take this overly on the faith lens, but like I have often thought that in 2026, I and I know you as well, believe in Jesus. That's a great thing, cool thing. But I'm like the tension of scale, 12 dudes thousands of years later, and you and I are sitting on a Sunday singing about this guy, attention of scale. So as you think about it, I'm like you get to this place where it's grow, grow, grow. I'm a revenue machine, man. I can get up to you know 45 grand a couple years later, I'm making a million dollars. Crazy thing. You and I have always aligned in like just like the crazy blessing it is to be mid-20s making seven figures, and just like it's it's just a weird kind of thing that's maybe worthy of its own podcast and just like that feeling, but it's but it's hard because you also haven't matured. And so you let it get to your head, you're like, Well, I'm freaking great. I'm making more than my parents, I must be something, and all the things that go to those out there listening that make a tremendous income early in their 20s. Like you were very humble, Tim, in your storyline of you then said, Well, I got all these leads, I got a system, I didn't let them go do it, and then it ethically failed. Um, you know that is the story of so many leaders. I'm not gonna go on my George Washington kick, but that is literally the man's story that made us sit here in America today, right? But like, how did it feel? Why was it necessary? And like that tension, could you be who you are today? Had that not happened, and is that not the greatest tension that you must maybe if you want to scale, have that epic failure? I know I had that multiple times.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Yeah. You know, the the 39-year-old uh wiser version of me today, um, I, you know, I I go through challenging times today. You know, I it's business, business is ups and downs, you know, and and peaks and valleys. And but the the wiser version of me today reminds myself that, like, hey, this hard thing is what's actually creating strength and wisdom in me, but also in the company itself, in the business, and in all of those things. Back then, I just thought, you know, I just sat in my car and cried. You know, it was like it was very very lonely and very like, I can't believe this is happening. I don't understand, you know. Um, but you know, it's it's uh it's I mean, this is like a common quote that people hear all the time, but it's like it's not in the it's not in the peaks and the rise that that you're learning and that you're growing. It's it's always in the challenges, it's always, you know, sports is the the greatest analogy. It's like it's in the big losses, in those big moments where you missed the mark. Um, and that's certainly been the case for for my career. When I when I reflect on the things that I've learned or places that I've grown, it's when the team walked out the door. It's when the business, the side, the side business failed, or when when the the person that you were invested in, you know, chose to leave, or whatever it is, like those are the moments where you sit back and reflect. You know, somebody told me one time um wisdom does not come from experience. Wisdom comes from reflection about on experiences. And that that was like a big trigger point for me of like, if I'm not sitting down and like writing about my experiences, especially the challenging ones, I don't know that processing it to actually get the wisdom out of the out of the experience in the first place. And so that's been a big one for me.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Well, and what a what a what an interesting, I love that you said that because it's a listener out there, the amount of self-reflection that must go into scale, you will never master to manage this tension of scale and all that it is without that self-reflection. But Tim, if you would be um bold enough, which I think you are and vulnerable enough, like X number of people got hired, you feel like you did not uh lead in a way that helped, they all walk out the door. I know you as one of the things is you're a killer in business, all the great things, and again, we haven't even gotten to all the success you've had, but like your heart, if I can say it in a non-weird way, is like super tender, like you just love people. That had to knowing you as a friend and a brother, like that had to have been quite hard emotionally. Like, can you walk us through like how do you overcome that emotionally feeling like you feel humans when you care about that more than the business?

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Yeah. Well, the the first thing is about repairing the relationships. So two two of those people, two of those people that walked out, un unbeknownst to me, were um had started dating while working at at the company. And um, and uh I found this out later after they both left. Um, but it it was um it was, you know, the the one of the most important things to me was about repairing the relationships with these people. And and I am very proud to say that they got they ended up getting married and invited me to their wedding. And I went to their wedding. And uh, and uh, you know, they've got a couple of kids today, and and uh they're they're they're great people. And but you know, letting it has been very rare, if ever, that I've had people walk out the door and I don't have a relationship with them today, including, including those folks from back then. Um but you know, it's it it's unfortunate that I didn't build that relationship with them while they were working with me. But it was a, you know, when something like that happens, when you're human and you care, you know, it wasn't showing up because what was showing up was my ambition and my drive and my lack of patience and all of those things. But the care factor, like what you just said, the care factor was there. I just I wasn't prioritizing it. I was young and I was um, but but uh, but yeah, I mean, I I spent um many hours and long conversations with those folks on the other side and and uh repaired those relationships and kept those relationships long term. And and honestly, I'm I'm very proud of that. And I'm very um, you know, I've got people um that worked for me or worked in my businesses uh 10 years ago, 15 years ago, they've gone off and started their their own businesses, they've gone off and started uh competing real estate teams. Some of them still work with me today, but so many of them uh you know still in relationship with. And and uh, you know, that it's a lesson to learn when you're when you're young and and uh and just prioritizing some of the wrong things.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Well, and I've always admired you because I've seen you do that even uh with your business today, homeward of um that's not just talk. Like I think you you've really done that. You know my story to know, like uh everything that occurred for me in 2019 of just kind of this epic breakaway from uh this big company and just so many misunderstandings and rumor mills and all those things, and couldn't really defend myself. Man, I think one of the things is I go back as I hear your story, and maybe this is just good for listeners, like you you may not have the track record that Tim has. I know for me, I'd give myself like a solid C plus. Like the ones that I really cared about, you know, and like really knew, I just said, forget it. You know, I'm gonna talk to them and we're gonna repair this thing, whatever. But I think about all the others that I really wish I'd done a better job with. And you know, just to take it from Tim, like you, you if you've got a if you've got a big heart and you love people, those things stay with you for years until you do that. And so my encouragement is whether it's writing notes to them if it's not appropriate to talk to them anymore or whatever, do it because it took me some years to do that with everybody that I felt I needed to, and it's crazy the restoration and your own belief in your entrepreneurship, but also just like I think for us, we're reporting to maybe a higher power of how we uh operate. And so we want to make sure that we're living with the highest integrity, regardless of misunderstandings. And he said, she said, or you know, whatever it is, because you know it takes two to tango, there's always issues there.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Well, and and and just to piggyback on that a little bit, um, you know, the just thinking about the tension of scale, you know, I'm building a family at home. There's six of us, plus a dog, which is, you know, um whole nother set of um and I'm building a business and there's 300 of us. And, you know, I I am devoting everything I've got with my family and with my business. And so I've got people that do leave, they do move on. And it's really challenging because, you know, I tell them, I say, if you're not, if you're not like sort of revolving around my family life, if we're not going to church together or we're we're not, you know, doing kids sports together or whatever, and you're not evolving revolving around my my work life, you know, it's hard to keep up. Very hard. It's so hard. So it's like little, little hacks, like in some ways in the work world, some of these, some of these guys, I'm like helping them set up how can we partner, you know, go off and start your own business, but let's still like figure out a way strategically to be doing something together in business. Or others, like it doesn't make any sense at all. And we're we've got a text group where we hold each other accountable for working out. We we rarely see each other, but we're texting every single day, every single morning. And so there's like these little hacks of how do you keep relationships going when you when your world is building and your world is growing, because you it's not like you can just you know um go out and play golf with with all your friends that you've accumulated over your life. And so, you know, how do you the little systems to be able to continue these relationships have been really helpful for me over time?

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Goal. So that's good stuff. Okay, so um the tension of scale, you know, we go and we try to adopt the framework that we think frees people to have the right perspective, which is when did you see it? Have you actually gotten to the place where you accept that you can't solve this? And then how are you practically managing it, right? So it's been fun to hear you because I think you saw it when you hit a ton of scale and you're like, I've got all these leads. So that was like a dramatically amazing uh moment that then made you say, Well, shoot, I can't solve this on my own. I must go try to get this done. Then on the other end, right, like you figure out that like I I didn't hire all these people, and then they all left a dramatic low. And I think what we have found is people often don't notice and aren't able to even do step one of seeing the tension without the highest of high and lowest of low. They almost force us to then go into the am I gonna really accept that this is the way it is and I have to manage it. And so I think you've clearly done that, but I want to um I want to get to today. So you then learn, like you said, you learn how to hire, you get you get your Heil group and Keller Williams up to one of the top in the nation, all the great things, or whatever. A decade or so ago, you got this big idea about Homeward. And so if you could just tell everyone like what was that idea, and then if you can, just spend a few minutes saying, like, what happened? Because just so the listener knows, within like a four or five year period, you went from inside of this big company, great real estate agent, learn how to kind of scale that to a billion dollar valuation in our world, which is called a unicorn, you're one of 20 maybe companies in our city that have ever gotten the unicorn status. Guys, that's a crazy scale in five years. So help help the listener to even know and please don't be humble. We need to hear it. What happens and how'd you do it?

SPEAKER_02 41:42

Well, you know, uh, I was turning 30 and um and I was doing a lot of reflection on my life, on my past 10 years and my next 10 years. And one of the things that really came out was that um I want to build something that I read this book called Matter. And the question of the book was like, um, if your company went away, you know, in you know, in 10 years from now or even one year from now, would anybody care? Does it does it matter? And um, and and by the way, like every company of any kind can really matter, you know, um, but I I was very focused on, man, I want to, I want to solve a problem in our industry um that really takes things to the next level, that transforms the way people buy and sell homes, that transforms the way real estate agents are get connected with with uh with customers. And I wanted to do it in a way that could scale the Heil group. Because in my mind, I'm thinking national expansion and all of these things. And I read a book called The Innovator's Dilemma. Um, and Travis, we've talked about this book uh before.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

You know, the book basically says like the thing that makes your business successful today is the is the thing that makes it um that is going to destroy it in the long term, in the future. And the thing that uh they call it exploration versus um exploitation. And they they say a thriving business needs to exploit its core competencies to the best of its abilities, but to to plan for the future, you need to explore new horizons. But all of that exploration will kind of screw up all the things that makes your business good today and vice versa. And so I decided that um rather than trying to um trying to muck up this good thing that that I had that we had built, um I wanted to start something with no strings attached that would be complementary, but no strings attached so that I could have freedom to explore without messing anything up here. But you know, go see if there's go go see if there's a uh if there's a new path here. And and uh, you know, in my end in in in home buying and home selling, it's a very complicated process, a lot of strings attached, a lot of uh financing and title and escrow and insurance and inspections and remodels and all kinds of stuff going on. And so what we wanted to do was just um just create a more convenient uh way to buy and sell homes. And so uh we launched this thing called Buy Book. Before you sell, and is the ability for homeowners to for us to basically front the capital so that homeowners could buy their next house before selling their existing one rather than having to sell and move twice and go through some of the complications. And um, you know, it was a great time in the market. It was a great time, it was a great problem to solve. Um, I knew that it was a great problem to solve because I had a real estate company with customers who had the same problem every single day. And so it was able to was able to leverage this thing to test and and and uh and find out how to solve how to the problem was very clear, which is that most homeowners have a lot of equity in their house and they plan to use that equity to buy their next home, but they can't use it until they sell, but they don't want to sell until they buy. And so it's this sort of chick chicken or egg issue. And so I was able to sort of craft a solution that that really worked in a delightful way for buyers and sellers. And the business just took off and and uh we were able to raise a lot of money and and move really fast and and uh grow the business um quite large in a in a very short period of time. And uh, and then um, you know, that's been a roller coaster in and of itself, from the COVID pandemic to the 2021 real estate boom to the interest rate hike hike in 2022 and the real estate uh crash to so many other things. But you know, I I went from raising over $100 million um in capital to having to lay off hundreds of people um all within about an 18-month um time span. And uh, you know, that was you know, I don't know that we have time to go into all of it, but that was one of the most challenging moments of my career because imagine standing on stage um in front of your you know 500 employees and telling them we just had the best month we've ever had, we just had the best quarter we've ever had, business is booming, and then 90 days later laying off hundreds of people. And I never felt never felt more like a um like a fraud um you know than than at that moment. And and that that was a hit to confidence, that was a hit to um creating questions about what I'm what am I even doing and all of these things. And and uh, you know, um it's in those moments again where you learn, where you grow, where you get stronger. Um, but you know, you were with me through through um all of those moments, um, really, and and uh, you know, so so many lessons learned during that time. You know, and this was this was operating in a world where um instead of having the you know 10 or 20 people around me and we're all sitting in a room right next to each other, yes, hundreds of people, and we're all remote. And so we're communicating over Zoom. And so you can imagine like you don't have the same level of trust with your 500-person team, um, many of which you've not developed relationships with or seen in person, and your 20-person team of which you're in the same room every day um together, you know, kind of building the thing. And and you know, so that that's another challenge with scale is like you go from a family to, you know, the sports team to the city to the to the state. And ever every level of that, every level of that scale, just like going from an individual contributor salesperson to a manager or a leader is a totally different skill set. Running a running a family business versus running a you know national business, where you know, you think about like running Apple or running the government, like you can't apply the same uh, you know, skill set to from from one to the other. And so each stage of growth, you realize you have to reinvent yourself. Um you know that's been that's been a number of lessons in and of itself.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Well, shout out to Mark McClain, you know, mentor, friend of both of ours. He's told me two things on this, Tim, that are so good that help me manage the tension to scale a lot. The first is he was the first to tell me, stop calling them family and call them teammates. Yeah. And I'm like, no way, they are family to me. You know, we've been through whatever. He said, Do you know how hurtful that is to them? When's the last time you fired your family member? Yeah. I was like, ah, shoot, you know, when's the last time that someone underperformed, right? In your family, you could be like, hey, it doesn't fit anymore. He's like, that's a team. He's like, it's still good, but like I remember how hard it was for me, Tim. I know how relationally driven you are too. Like, we actually kind of like the people side maybe more than the strategy. And I think that's dangerous for us as visionary founders because then we get real hurt when we go from family to team because we're like, but this is part of why I did it. Like, I love y'all. And I and I remember him telling me that, and it was so good. And I think the second thing that's been so interesting is as this thing like scales, right? And you've experienced much more than me, so please, you know, correct me of this. Like, just the understanding that um you have to give yourself some level of credit because you may be sitting in the first time you've ever done something before, and therefore, this whole like, I should be better. Why am I failing at this? Mark's always like, so let me get this right. If you ever had this many people, this much revenue before, I'm like, no, it's the first time. He's like, Seems like you're doing okay to me, but like you're not a sales guy back in the day, you're not a manager of 20. Like, almost like part of the tension of scale, like you said, is keeping that positivity. How do you manage this this tension?

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Like, what do you what's some tricks? What's some tricks to keep your confidence high, your focus right?

SPEAKER_02 49:18

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, um, one of them is just a is just a uh, you know, you can call it spiritual, you can call it faith driven, but one of them is just remembering I there's there's a couple things. Uh a friend of mine, totally unrelated to faith, a friend of mine would all used to always tell me, he goes, it's just real estate. This is just real estate, dude. Nobody cares. You know, nobody cares. And it was sort of like like you think this is such a big deal, but nobody cares. Like just relax, you know.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

But the other thing is like Tim, I have to say on that, I'm sorry. My dad, when I used to cry when people would decline me early in my career, yeah, I'd call him because I'd be so sad I wouldn't want to make another call. And he'd literally pick up and he'd be like, You call him because it's a bad dad. Yeah, he goes, At least you're not going to war.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

And I was always like, Oh, that's true. You know, that's a good manage the tension.

SPEAKER_02 50:08

Yeah, it's what what is that phrase? Nothing's ever as good or bad as you think it is in the moment. Right. I mean, and and so, you know, but so all those things are good, but also just like just remembering that like um I've got a group of guys I meet with from my church, and they are constant encouragement in these in these times of like, um, you know, dude, your identity is not in your success at work or your failure at work or any of those things. And just like having those reminders and those people around you um is big, you know, um journaling and reflecting, I talked about earlier, but like that is a habit that it doesn't just come naturally to everybody. That's uh sometimes for people it's like a discipline that turns into a habit. Um, but that's helps you to put things into perspective and sort of re-anchor um, you know, and uh and and just having friends that are able to lift you up, you know, when when when uh when things are hard, uh, because they are hard. They get they uh I don't know that I could look back at any of the years of my career and say that they were like easy, you know, or even when I was in them, if I could say that they were fun. You know, they when I look back, I'm like, oh, that was fun, or like this phase was fun. But when you're in it, you know, you got problems every day. And that and that's that's uh I think one of the biggest tensions that I I deal with today is like the bigger the company comp becomes, the more you you naturally are served up with problems to solve. And for me, I'm not a I'm not like the the corporate CEO guy. I was the entrepreneur, I was the opportunity guy. I was the like, let's go find a new horizon and be creative. Um, but then as things build and grow, problems get served up. And and how do you balance leaning into solving problems versus you know uh chartering new territory and and all of that? And and uh and and and honestly, I would I would say like it comes back to an old trick that that uh Gary Keller taught me when I was 21 years old through some podcast I watched of him, which was about time blocking. It's like if you don't time block deep work for yourself every single day at the start of the day to drive on your priorities, and you allow yourself to get attacked by everybody else's priorities at the start of the day, you're never gonna make that up later in the day. And so, like being able to like create this time block, um, that's something that I've been fairly consistent about most of my career is like, hey, the mornings are not for everybody else, the mornings are for me. And so, you know, it's about, you know, Gary Keller used to say, by 11 a.m., I finished my job and I could basically go home and I just help people with their stuff for the rest of the day, but I finished what I needed to do. And uh there's nothing worse than getting to like five or six o'clock and realizing like you still haven't gotten to the most important thing you needed to do. Um, so that's just an old trick of time blocking has been, you know, can so any stage of your career is critical.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Well, you know what I love, uh, what you just gave the listeners is you had said early on in this podcast that you felt like it was people and systems. And I made that comment, like, hey, in that order, and it's like, okay, yeah, heck out. You know what's funny? You have literally said, effectively, if you want to manage scale, whether it's church group people that are reminding you of truth, the person that calls you and says it's just real estate, friends to pick you up, right? Whatever it may be, a rock at home to keep you still uh balanced and all the other things you want to get done. People. And then systems, whether it's time block or some of these hacks that you've given us today, all of those I would actually put in the systems category. So I think it's kind of fun for the listener to know like, we don't want you to just listen to hear that Tim's a baller and he's amazing, he was vulnerable and shared things. That's that's awesome. But like it's people and systems, and everyone needs to go through their own. Who are your people? Who are your systems personally and professionally? Because my gosh, when you start hitting certain levels of scale, I know I've experienced it, you get torn apart because you don't know who you are anymore, people bring you back. You don't know how it's gonna grow anymore, the systems get you there, right? And so, Tim, we're closing. This has been so good. I'm like, we need a hundred more hours. Um maybe, maybe we'll get those on this topic because it's too good. But if you had to, one last hoorah. I'm someone listening saying, Doc gone at this, Tim has really got me thinking. I got dreams to scale, or I'm already scaling, and they're he's convicting me on things. What's your final charge to him?

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Oh man. All right. So I've got this story that I'll make this super fast, but it's just coming to mind and I want to share it. When I when I was a freshman in high school, I did not weigh 300 pounds. I weighed 99 pounds. I was a little pipsqueak um coming into high school. And um, and I went out to play football. And I'll never forget Coach Farmer, he lines me up. I think he had noticed that I was a huge wuss and I was avoiding all the hits. So he grabbed the back of my pants and he said, Hyle, line up. And he and he put me in a three-point stance and he grabbed the back of my pants and he lined up the two biggest seniors, both of which went on to play D1 sports, um, across from me, about 10 yards, and they were each, I mean, they were massive. And he he said, When I blow the whistle, you're gonna charge. And so he blew the whistle and he launched me into these guys and they came charging. I flew back 10 feet, I landed on my back, and I was lying there looking up, and and he walked over and he said, Are you dead? And I said, No. And he said, Are you hurt? And I said, I don't think so. And he said, Good. He said, It'll never be worse than that, you know. So quit being fearful and lean in and go. And, you know, I think the just the reason why that story is coming to my mind is because um I've been through a lot of ups and downs, and I've been through what felt in the moment like, you know, just like everything was breaking, everything was broken, and it's all ending. And and the reality is like I'm still here and I'm still building things, and I'm and life, life is good. And and uh I would just say, like, you know, nothing's ever as good or bad as you feel it is in the moment. Like, even the worst downs are not really that bad in the grand scheme of things. And so just don't be fearful and just continue pushing through. Have big goals, have big visions, and don't be fearful and just and just keep going. And just know that things take time. You gotta be patient too. You know, things take time to unfold. And and uh so anyway, that story came to mind. I wanted to share it.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

So well, Ox, if I may, that was unbelievable, listeners out there. Where do the two biggest, nastiest, hardest, most scary things go get knocked down by them today? Because maybe you'll get asked by someone that loves you, how you doing? It won't get worse. And ladies and gentlemen, based on what I've heard from Tim, one of the most successful entrepreneurs I know, that's how you get to scale. Tim, thanks for being on the podcast, buddy.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

Thanks for having me, Travis. This is great.