After making the leap from commercial to residential, Kyle Whissel has become an unstoppable force in real estate. As the leader of a consistently top-performing team in San Diego, California, and the US, he’s a big believer in building systems that will carry you to the top.

At Whissel Realty Group, it’s not unheard of to see 42 transactions scheduled to close—in one day. And they do it all on a foundation of strong systems and culture.

The Challenge

Aligning systems and culture

By the time Kyle started Whissel Realty Group, he’d finally found his sweet spot in residential real estate. The only problem? A chaotic business structure was wasting the team’s time. “We had meetings just to have meetings,” says Kyle. “There was no agenda. It was like, well, we should probably talk once a week.”

“We would hop on these meetings and it would be like, ‘Alright, who's got something?’ It was just such a waste of time.” 

No direction. No structure. And possibly too much vision. That all changed when Kyle found the EOS Model®. Kyle studied the real estate greats. To succeed, he knew he’d not only need to deliver listings and leads, but also leverage. n

With a clear business structure and a lot less wasted time, the only thing standing in his way was his ego. Kyle is the first to admit that building leverage for the team meant getting out of their way. 

“The second biggest change for me was being ok with not being able to get what I want,” he admits. “I kind of look at it like Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka, ‘I want it and I want it now.’ You go to all these events and [you come back with pages of notes for your team] you don’t realize they’re doing more harm than good.”

By developing a set system for prioritizing Kyle’s ideas, he prevents himself from doing damage to his team. It also helps him stay crystal clear about the things that are worthy of his attention.

“If I know every little detail about every little thing, that means I’m not empowering my people to run the company.” 

Today, that team includes more than 120 agents and 16 full-time staff, and an international team of expert VAs. And all of them know exactly what’s expected of them. Better still, they have the systems they need to drop the juggling act and spend more time in dollar-productive activities.

The Solution

Providing leverage for agents, profitably

At Whissel Realty, the systems run the company and the people run the systems. And that’s where Chief Operating Officer Chris VanderValk works his magic. “As teams, brokerages, teamerages, whatever, we always prioritize leads—you need to give leads. But you also have leverage,” says Chris. The question for Chris was: what if we switched it?

Chris got to work figuring out new ways to provide agent leverage, while protecting profitability. With these  activities as their non-negotiables—and with more than a little help from team Director of Operations, Shannon Youssefi—he created a brand new agent advisory board, transitioned the team to a no-cap model, and built out an Agent Concierge Experience (ACE) to consistently and profitably deliver more leverage.

And it all started when they decided to switch to an open lead management system.

“I knew about Follow Up Boss and that was the pivot that quickly turned around database management for us. FUB gave us backend control over lead flow management.” 

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Building a strong sales foundation

The team started out using another company as their real estate CRM, but as the business grew and agents started losing focus—they knew they needed to make a change. As a third generation agent and former Listing & Transaction Coordination Manager, Shannon put both sides of her real estate brain to work and started systematizing.

“If you want it to be an efficient process, it has to be a duplicatable process that you follow day in and day out—then you can deviate where you need to. We use Follow Up Boss as the core tool for the beginning stages, all the agents use that.”

With the ability to centralize leads from all sources—open houses, pay-per-click (PPC), Zillow Flex, and more—she built the backbone of the sales funnel that would eventually lead the team to its top-tier status. But with a transaction rate that reaches up to 42 closings per day, she knew she couldn’t stop there.

“For listing and transaction management, we use Open To Close, which integrates with Follow-Up Boss. This allows agents to see things in real-time which has been a game changer for us.”

“One of the things we have is a very clear form structure where from within Follow Up Boss, when an appointment gets set, the agent submits a very short form for that appointment. The form triggers different things—sending out a calendar invite to the client and putting it in our agents' calendar, it also updates our numbers for how many appointments we’ve had,” explains Shannon.

“It updates the system automatically so that we have really solid data in terms of conversion metrics.”

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She has automations in place for key milestones along the funnel, including after an appointment and when a listing gets signed. The result is solid data that helps the team understand how to make the margins work as they scale.

As a major bonus, this also makes life much easier for Rachel Choo, Director of Sales at Whissel Realty.

Using data to guide agent performance

Rachel Choo is all about transparency. As the Director of Sales at a top-performing team, Whissel’s annual sales goal is her primary focus—which also means keeping a close eye on agent recruitment and retention.

“What’s our sales goal and how do we get there? There's a lot of different ways that that plays out in terms of looking at numbers.” 

In Follow Up Boss, Rachel can drill down to the micro level for a deeper understanding of how the team is performing. As a former elementary school teacher, she’s big on using this data to provide feedback and help agents grow. And as a former ISA, she has no illusions about what it takes to win. 

“A lot of times, income is a roller coaster for agents. As people who run teams, helping agents manage their own emotions and their clients’ emotions is important. Emotional regulation actually becomes a huge piece of why some agents are successful and some aren't,” says Rachel.

To reduce the overwhelm and make it easy for agents to focus, the team at Whissel Realty moved to a lead team policy. Instead of agents getting team leads from various sources, they're hyperfocused on either one source, or one way of getting team leads.

“It really helps agents dial in. They know the scripting is the same for each one. We get to mastery a lot faster than ‘Hey, take this call from this one source.’”

Agents at Whissel Realty know what the lead experience is and are confident in their ability to convert. And they know they’ve got support when they need it.

Every week, Rachel tracks how many self-generated leads agents are adding to the pipeline, number of appointments met, number of pendings, and more. With a clear view of the right leading indicators, she can create high-impact training based on the real challenges agents are facing.

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Creating an ACE team

In the wild world of real estate, leadership at Whissel Realty knows you need to be ready for whatever comes next. Through the Agent Concierge Experience, they provide agents with the leverage they need to provide an unforgettable client experience, even in a fast-changing market. 

By outsourcing non client-facing tasks to a team of international VAs, tasks like writing offers, scheduling showings and updating the CRM are now completely off their plate. Not only does this allow agents to focus on appointments, prospecting, and negotiating contracts, it also gives them more time to sharpen their skills.

And that’s where Agent Success Manager Katy Carlson comes in. The former yoga studio owner and agent strongly believes in the power of building a cohesive community—especially now.

“In this climate, you have to set yourself apart as an agent because there are a lot of agents doing the bare minimum.”

Since day one, Kyle and the team have placed huge value on the role of the brand—both in their agent- and client-facing communication. And for over a decade, Media Manager Bryan Koci has been applying this philosophy to every piece of content the team creates.

Kyle brought Bryan in to help create the kind of ‘surround sound’ effect that captures audience mindshare, builds trust, and leads to better sales and recruitment outcomes. 

“Structure, communication and trust. Without those, you can’t be a high-performing team.”

Like Bryan, Director of Marketing Max Bolanos has seen just how effective a multitouch approach can be. His main goal is to maximize the internal marketing team to become a full-fledged marketing team from start to finish.

“The same message has to carry through. With a multitouch strategy, the same start point has to get them to the same end point.”

While Bryan and Max make sure each touchpoint delivers the right message, Katy makes sure that message is embodied in their agents through regular roleplay and coaching.

The Results

Becoming a top team

Adrian Quijano is the #1 agent at Whissel Realty by GCI and he’s got the track record to prove it. Adrian has doubled unit sales for 3 years straight from 15 to 30 to nearly 60 then 120. The secret to his success? Choosing the right team with the right systems.

“It's kind of like a light bulb, right? When you plug into a team that has the systems, blueprint, resources and leads, you're going to light up.”

When recruiting agents, Adrian looks for a positive attitude, strong work ethic, and coachability. He knows from firsthand experience, that’s the way to win.

“When I first started, I looked up to the top four in the company, I call them the core four. They were consistently at the top and I wanted to be at the top. I figured the best way to do that is to be around them, ask them lots of questions, and learn.” 

Today, Adrian has built his team within the larger Whissel team, including 4 assistants, a listing agent, showing agent, and personal assistant.

“80% of my activities are income producing—talking to clients, being in front of them, calling, following up. Those are the activities that I’m doing right now, only 20% is admin.”

The way he sees it, this level of success wouldn’t be possible without the systems Kyle and the leadership team put in place. Instead of wasting time on admin, he’s out there paying it forward by recruiting future top agents.

“I wouldn’t be able to do 5 to 10 transactions a month if I didn’t scale my business and bring in the right people. I almost have a mini Whissel Realty Group within Whissel Realty Group, and Kyle allows me to do that.” 

Adrian’s not the only agent building their business inside the group. Karlee VanDyke closed $45 million in her first 2 years on the team. 

“Now you have all the systems, and you don't have to, as an individual, go and purchase a CRM. You don't have to purchase office space or marketing collateral. It's all here.”

In addition to the incredible leverage the team provides, she attributes much of that success to the supportive environment at Whissel.

“Agent relationships and leveraging who other agents know is huge. If we're writing offers, we can speak to them and get a little more information about where the offer needs to be in order to serve our clients.”

Of course, it wasn’t always this easy. “I think when you first start or if you are lost, whether you’ve been in the industry for twenty years or one month and you need a reset, this team is the place to go,” says Karlee.

By joining a team that empowers agents to do what they do best, she’s skyrocketed her business while building the kind of relationships that will take her far into the future.

At Whissel Realty Group, the sky’s the limit

When it comes to providing leverage and scaling profitability, Kyle and the team are just getting started. 

“The business I have today was not built overnight,” says Kyle. “It was built a quarter at a time.” It’s taken years, but Kyle and the fearless leaders at Whissel Realty Group have developed a scalable system that lifts everyone higher. And we can’t wait to see what’s next.