Cameron Van Klei, CENTURY 21 Creekside Realty Ltd., had a vision when he joined Century 21 in 2015. He wanted to get to 100+ Realtors® in 5 years making him one of the largest real estate companies in the small town of Chilliwack B.C. Listen to this episode of the Real Estate: Real Success podcast to learn how his brokerage attracts and retains agents by providing a unique training culture, helping them succeed in their careers.
Interested in opening your own brokerage? Learn more here
Cameron Van Klei, CENTURY 21 Creekside Realty Ltd., had a vision when he joined Century 21 in 2015. He wanted to get to 100+ Realtors® in 5 years making him one of the largest real estate companies in the small town of Chilliwack B.C. Listen to this episode of the Real Estate: Real Success podcast to learn how his brokerage attracts and retains agents by providing a unique training culture, helping them succeed in their careers.
Interested in opening your own brokerage? Learn more here
Welcome to the Real Estate. Real success podcast, where we talk about key business, successes, and Lessons Learned along the way in the hopes of inspiring brokerage owners and managers to find new ways to grow their business. I'm gioco Cuttino. In this episode. We're going to talk about the importance of culture and training in building a successful brokerage. I'm lucky to be joined by Cameron van. Clyde. He is a broker owner of Century 21. Each side headquartered out of Chilliwack British Columbia. Cameron. Thank you so much for being with us today. I wanted to start off Cameron by you giving us a little bit of background on yourself and your journey to owning your own brokerage. Can you do that? Oh, man, what do you want to know? Just tell us your story. Tell the story of like, why I'm a broker or, why are a real estate company this point? Just give us a little bit of background on your career. You know, where you started, what got you, you know, what? Got you interested in possibly owning a broker. Just give us that little bit of a background on yourself. So all, you know, will start, you know, five years old, I grew up in a construction family and basically had to go to the job site all the time. I always had to go sweep out a house before soccer practice. I had work every evening weekend, summer holidays. And so when I graduated I thought like I never never want to do construction ever again, and then I went to University for a semester and that that wasn't for me either. But I'll never forget, I was on the job site. I was digging the trench in the Pouring rain in Chilliwack, which is cold. And there's this white car showed up a fancy car and there is an umbrella popped out and it on high heels and she tiptoed past me and I didn't even know what she was doing. But I knew she was a realtor and I thought that's what I want to do. I want to get out of the rain and I want to make money and so I signed up my real estate course that day and that was back in 2006 and I can start my real estate Journey, but in the process, I had played a lot of sports. I played University of ball. We ball and I actually was coaching basketball to local high school for a bunch of years. And in that process. I actually learned that it's more fun coaching basketball, and, teaching, kids, how to be young men than it ever was playing basketball. And I was kind of like my start into a real estate broker during like, I actually have way more fun coaching and teaching Realtors than I ever did selling real estate myself. So the kind of got me to where I am today. So, when did you join Century 21, so I, oh man, it feels like forever already. I started back 2015. I think September 2015, is when we opened our doors for the very first time. Alright, so when you open your doors, how many was it? Just yourself. Was it a start-up brokerage? Did you have a couple of agents that joined you? What did, what did that look like back back then? Yeah. I was a I was a 29 year old kid ready to light the world on. On fire. And so, you know, of course, you think everyone's going to run over and start with you, but it started with me and my assistant and actually two other realtors in the office that I was in before. And when we started, we didn't even have a location, yet. We literally worked out of the den of my house. So we set up four desks in a row and we all just started working on a bit and it was a fun Journey since then. So Cameron you and I started around the same time because I started about six and a half years ago, to and Century, 21 has changed so much in six and a half years. I personally think we are the best kept secret in real estate. Can you tell me what you think? Some of the biggest changes have been since you joined. Now? There's actually been a lot of changes. It's funny. Like, when I when we opened in July kit, everyone knew a Century 21 months, but it had been an old brand. And so when I first started telling you like, hey, I opened a Century 21. You should join us there like will do we have to wear a gold jacket and so there had been one into like like years and years before but I mean in the Last six and a half years has been a lot of change mean, branding is fantastic. A lot of agents who join us are excited. Just because The Branding looks good and it's professional. There's, I mean, there's a great online university. There's there's lots of great templates and there's a lot of really good resources that are actually up-to-date and relevant right now, which is, which is nice. Yes, you're right to Cameron. There's been so much change in the look of the brand overall. Like it just looks fresh and contemporary and relevant to, you know, to younger agents, so, That's, that's great. So let's talk now about your growth because you just said, you know, you opened your brokerage and you work it out of your Dan yet, you know, for death that you're all working at. So your assistant and two agents. So that was back in 2015. Now you have and I just looked up these numbers you have 110 agents. You are the 18th largest office by production in the Century 21 World, which of course, as you know, it's 14,000 250 offices and 86 countries. So congratulations. Plus you have one of the top Global 21 agents at your brokerage. So gosh, that your growth has been significant. And so how does give me an idea how that compares in your market like people, you know, might not be familiar with Chilliwack BC. So, how does that compare in your Market? Yeah, me sometimes actually pinch myself. Like when you hear that out loud, It's actually kind of a crazy thing to hear. Yeah, so we're from a small town. So hopefully I can inspire. Inspire some small town Brokers out there. I mean, our population is about 100,000, if you round up right now, but our board small, we have about 370 members on our board. And so that's my total recruiting pool. I don't, I don't really have anything outside of that. And so, I mean, that we're 113 agents, I think today, technically. Yeah, it's a small pool to pick from but we can do giant numbers that we're I think we're over a billion and real estate sold already this year. So it's a lot of fun. Wow, so I love that you corrupted. The numbers 113. So you hired three people since that. Are you three people joined you since I looked at those numbers, I'm a couple weeks ago. So, again, sorry you said you had 375 realtors in your Market or members in your Market. Yeah, roughly that many definitely you have 113 of 375. That's absolutely fantastic. So that that I guess puts you number one in your Marketplace. Yeah. I mean we check the stats just to make sure that we're accurate and so I mean there had a broken, a brokerage in town. That was number 14. As long as I can remember. And as of Q3 of this year, where we've done 190 million more in real estate sales than they have and about 300 more transactions. Now, it was up to Q3. So it'll be a lot more by the end of the year. So we are we're by far the number one broker General countdown to Well, you know what? That makes me feel, you know, extra excited because Cameron, I remember the first time that I met you, you know, I came out to Chilliwack. We went to Earls and Chilliwack for lunch. And, you know, I think that was back in 2017. I remember you said, you had 30 agents at that time. And that you said choko, five years. I'm going to have 100 agent. I'm going to be the number one biggest Brooke. The number one, Brokerage in Chilliwack. And here you stand, you know, in less than five years. By far the number one Brokerage in chillax. So again, so, you know Cameron I'm so proud of you because a lot of times, you know, when you sit down with someone and they have, you know, a vision, a vision is great, but you've like overachieved your vision. So again, congratulations, I think that's absolutely wonderful. So what do you think some of the key ingredients have been to your growth? Oh man, that's a hard question. I'll Cal back that up a little bit. So I remember selling real estate back in 2008. My first year was 2007. So the market was super busy. I thought it was God's gift to real estate because I could sell a lot of houses in a good market then the market crashed and I was the worst realtor ever. I had no concept how to sell houses and I remember going to my broker back then I said, I don't know how to sell a house. He goes. I don't know what to tell you. Try it. Try this CD and he gave me this old Tom Hopkins, CD. Cheeseball sales guy from the 90s, who knows? Most people have never heard of, but that was kind of my moment in real estate was like, oh, like this business requires like, education, and learning and being good at your craft. And so, that's kind of been the major push in my growth of a brokerage and know. Before I even open The Brokerage, I read several books on how to start a brokerage and how to run a brokerage. And I do a lot of reading and a lot of educating to kind of facilitate that growth All right. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, some of the like, what you pride yourself on at your brokerage like, is there, you know, you talked a lot about education and you yourself, you know, do a lot of reading and stuff like that. So I guess education is kind of a key component to your growth in the success of your brokerage. Yeah, my two foundations and I learned this, the more I do this is you can only be known for so many things like you can't do everything and so everything. Brokerage runs around culture or education. If it doesn't have to do with being better educated, or better culture. We try to avoid it. We stick with those two things. Great. Well, let's talk about those two things. But before I do that again, you've gone from, you know, your self and two, other agents, 213, agents. What are you doing to recruit agents to your business? Can you tell us, you know, some of the tricks of the trade that you're doing to attract agents to your brokerage when all the secrets right now? Hey, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of things we do. It's not just one thing. I would say, one principle. We use is the word fo most for the fear of missing out. It's one of the greatest motivators of people and so we actually share everything that we do in our brokerage and so any of my competition, they actually know what we're doing. And so we will print our education schedule and we'll share on social media what events were doing. And what what things we have coming up before going hiking or going on a run or raising money or office means Those things all go online. We also do a newsletter to our local real estate board. And so every month the realtors in our in our brokerage and outside of our brokerage. They're getting an up to date list of like who's joined our office. And what our new stats are at and what company events we have coming up. So other agents know what we're doing and feel like if they're not a part of it, they're probably going to miss out and then we're sneaky to because when people open up those emails if they click on The five six seven times, then their candidate for me to make a phone call to and say like, hey, are you interested in our office? So, that's one thing we do you want. Keep going to want to do all the things. I want to know, all of them. Oh man, obviously education is a huge thing. So I really pride myself on having their best education and the most relevant education. So if you're in our office, every Friday, we're going to have an office meeting from nine forty five to ten. The first 15 minutes is going to be local information, you know, listings and How do you do multiple offers and some of those things? But my last half hour is always structured education, like relevant education. So, how do you get better at closing? How do you build trust learning the anatomy of a house prospecting? How to build your business? How to tax plan? And so I've been doing that since day one every Friday. I mean, we have great turnout and then what I do is I invite, I don't know, anywhere from four to seven Agents from other brokerages. I invite them out to an office meeting meeting so they can experience. Our culture and often we used to know as much anymore, but they would just keep coming to office meetings. Like some point, you need to sign up. You can't just come to our office meetings and be a part of another brokerage endlessly that works great. One of the other things I learned. This is like a John chap like that. He's a great real estate coach in North America is. It's all about kind of the heart and how you can help people. And so, a lot of the times I'll actually take an experienced agent or a newer agent from another brokerage and I'll take them for coffee. Lunch takes way too long. So I'll do a coffee and I'll say, like, hey, tell me your story. I actually care about your story and who you are and how can I help you in real estate? Like, do you need some coaching? You need some help. You need some tips. This is what I do and we have just a good candid conversation for half an hour, an hour. And I don't even bring up Century, 21. Nothing branded. Nothing pushy. I actually just legitimately want to know who they are and how they're doing and if I can help and often that turns into them, asking me like hey, how can I be a part of your office or or asking other questions? News about our office and it works, fantastic. So, well, that's such a good idea to, you know, to start to build that Rapport about, you know, how you can provide value to an agent. Not, you know, not just the Bronx of brand, of course, as, you know, a ton of value, but what value can you bring as a brokerage owner? So, I think that's great. And just a question to about, you know, inviting Agents from, you know, your competitors to your office meetings. Who do you, how do you decide who to invite? Do you just, you know, our, if they click on, you know, the email five or six times, you pick up the phone and maybe that Action leads to an invitation to your office meeting or how do you decide that? Yeah, that's why I'm jealous of people and bigger boards. Like if I'm in Vancouver Toronto Mike why we could just recruit way more than I can do now, but I have my hit lists and of course you can't bug someone too often. So I actually just write out my list of like my top candidates have who I want to be in my office. And they'll get a text message for me to say. Hey, this is the office meeting this week. We're, you know, week one of our success series. We're going to teach you how to manage your database or something like that and we We'll take six of them. And then if they don't respond, then I'll text the next text, but we probably hit them. Probably once every quarter or something like that. Great. Well, that's excellent. So thank you for sharing those recruiting tips with the rest of the people that are listening. Now. I want to talk a little bit about your two principles for success, as you mentioned, its education and culture. So let's start with education. And I know you have a philosophy is I'm going to call it hashtag always learning because you're always using that on your social media posts. We are I noticed. So why do you think education is so important in building a successful broker? Do you talk a little bit about that? But you know tell me again why is education and training so important? Yeah. It's a great question and I think I think because that was my aha moment in real estate back in 2008, where I knew that if I wanted to be good at this business and go somewhere, and I actually had to be learning what I was doing and I think that so under taught in our industry, our industry. Is so full of rules and regulations and don't do this and don't do that. And you better not think about this. And I actually think that agents are better if they don't have commission breath. So if they're actually good at their job, they won't get themselves into trouble. And so, if you're always learning and always educating yourself, I think you're going to be the best version of who you can be, and that's a big deal to me. So that's, that's excellent. So you do a lot of training. What are some of your most popular training sessions? Cool, you know, I'm sure there's ones that are way more popular than others. Tell me a little bit about the topics and stuff that you talk about you train on. Yeah, I mean, I think we should break it up into two things now, but we do. So, my port agents have been with me for five and a half years. Now. They don't want to hear the same thing over and over but but you need to teach listing presentations over and over and you need to teach fire presentations over and over. And so we have our Friday meetings where we teach relevant things, obviously, but then I actually have courses where we do it like once a week. Now for all of our new agents. Agents, so we re teach how to close and how to do a listing presentation. But if I jump into like my favorite series of beer, we're actually starting one like next week. It's called our success series and too many Realtors are like bumblebees are like at a new flower every ten minutes and they can't just stay on the same flower and I understand it because I'm a realtor to. And so the success stories that we do really like breaks down. Like where does your business actually come from? How do you set up your systems around that and then set your goals? The next year so that you're not always trying to do something new. You actually just attack the things that work and it helps you mentally. So it's kind of its kind of like business planning for real estate agents. Another favorite one we do is we actually we do anatomy of a house and so I bring Realtors to a job site. And so, we walk through a house. We put in our hard hats and our vests. And I show them all the different pieces of a house at different stages. We walk through a lengthy developments. We show them how roads are built, so then they're like, so then they actually have Have a working knowledge of what houses look like. So how do you decide that? Those are some of your training topics? Like how do you decide on your training topics said you decide that that one was, was important, for real estate agent. Is it just through trial and error? And these are the ones that you get good feedback on. Or how do you decide the topics? Yeah, that's a great question. I'm probably not the smartest person in the world. And so I think about like, hey, so what do I wish someone would have taught me? I was in good English there. I wish someone would have taught me blank. And then that's where I start from. And then I read a lot of books and so I'm always Learning when I'm reading these books and you're like, oh, that's something that I should have taught someone. Or I was I was already naturally doing this in my business, but I should teach other agents how to how to implement this. And so between what I wish I would have known and books. Teaching me things. That's the basis of my education, right? So I think you had mentioned that you have your Friday office meetings every week that you dedicate a component of your office meeting towards some sort of training session, and then you have, I think you said that you Rain new agents. Did you say on a weekly basis since some of the basics? Yeah, that's Yeah, so I mean, sorry, go. No, I was just gonna say, how frequently are you holding these training sessions. Are you doing it twice, you know, a week or sometimes some weeks. Are you doing extra courses or how frequent are you holding these training sessions? Yeah. It's I mean if I look at it from a macro perspective throughout the year, we probably run. I would say about 70 education seminars or brokerage. So I would say 40 of 52 weeks. You're going to get our weekly meetings and then for my new agents, or going to run little series, For them to kind of get the basic training out of the way. So they understand how to start their business and then on top of that we actually do National coaching programs to. So we'll do a Brian buffini course or jarryd. James course, we're going to do a Ryan. Serhant course coming up in January here. And so it's a mixture of like what new agents need what's relevant in market today and what national coaches have to teach us. So yeah. And pretty much every realtor that's joined. Our office has increased their business immensely. It's actually mine. And what some of them have done? So do you track that, you know, just to make sure that, you know, you know, all the training that you're doing is making a difference. Or how do you, how do you track all that? Oh, we're big trackers in the background. We're kind of dorky. That is a hard thing to track but in our successors that we run every year. We actually give our agents like a little workbook and so they do the tracking and then they actually bring it to me so they can see what how much they've increased year over year. What? Category of their businesses increase year-over-year and if they bring it to me, I mean, I'm cheesy. They get a $5, Starbucks gift card, which can almost buy you a latte these days. And so then I'm not telling them how to track but they're doing the tracking and are being rewarded for it. And then I get to see what my agents are doing. I mean, we have an agent or office when she joined us six years ago. Like she was, I mean, her family had to pay her real estate, dues, and she's making over a million dollars a year in our office. And so there's, there's some really cool stories that happen. Well, that must be so, Satisfying to you to watch these people, you know, just just grow in their careers, right? And and be successful. That like, that's probably as I'm sure as an instructor as a trainer like, that's probably your biggest sense of satisfaction on fire. Yeah. So these training sessions, let's talk a little bit more because I'm sure there's a whole bunch of listeners out there that are interested in, you know, exactly how to maybe put together a program like this. How long do your training sessions? Go? Like? What's it? What's a good time frame? Because I know sometimes if They're too short. You're not learning enough that they're too long. You know, you lose focus of your participants. So, how long do they go? Yeah, so I try and capture that 45 minutes period. I mean, will do it'll be an hour meeting, but 15 minutes will be, you know, talking and chatting and drinking coffee and then 15 minutes or sorry. At 45 minutes is structured learning beyond that. I mean, Realtors are busy, we got stuff to do. And so to say, hey, stay in my training seminar for four hours. No one wants to pay attention. So 45 minutes like hard I don't want to be respectful of their time. And so if I
say it's going to end at 10, it's going to end at 10:00. It's not fair to them to end it at ten. Oh, five or ten ten. And sometimes I feel like I'm on a roll and I want to keep talking but you got to give them the parameter. So it's 45 minutes. That's great. And are you finding success in doing, are you doing all these training sessions in the virtual world over resume or you doing them in person or you doing a hybrid of, you know, what is seeming to be successful for you these days? Yeah, I'm not back up the question a little bit too. I think I forgot to mention is like I put a lot of time into these education seminars to. So still 45 minutes will probably take me an 8 to 10 hours of time. Plus my staff, making my notes look better. So I'll give them a rough draft of notes. After 810 hours Mill, turn into a PowerPoint. Make it look better because our agents deserve good content and relevant content and then to catch you up into like what our meetings look like. I I strongly believe we're better together. And so when we are in a room of people communication is hire, people can raise their hands, things are dealt with quickly, answers are dealt with quickly. And so I mean we've been in this pandemic and so you're trying to make everything work and so I I bugged the heck out of my agents. I want you in person, but we still do everything via Zoom. So if we have 100 agents, we can have 20 of them on zoom and 30 them in an office meeting. We can Can you know make sure everyone can attend? So you're kind of you're doing that little bit of a hybrid model. Yeah, it's our big office meetings is definitely the hybrid model from my new agents. It's actually in person only there's we don't let them do Zoom. We do groups of 6 to 10 in the boardroom and we can have good conversations in great. So let's go back to what you talked about. So 8 to 10 hours of your time to put on a 45-minute training session, plus your staffs time. To make a great PowerPoint presentation, you know, does it get easier like after you've done 10 does it get easier to get faster as it? No, it's just a bit. That's how long it takes to put on really great content. Yeah, and that's when you do a podcast like this is like, oh no, Brokers are going to know my secrets, but the secret is, you just have to work hard and so I'm confident that I can probably at work most people but it does get easier over time and so my first couple of years man, I look back, it was hard work, and it still is hard work, but I probably have a base of about 200 educational seminars in my Dropbox file. Now. Wow, to hunger know about under probably. Yeah, and then what I can do now is I can jump back into 2017 and I can pull up one of my education things from there and I can tweak it a little bit and we can put some new graphics on it and then we can kind of regurgitate it a lot quicker than we could have before. So. Wow. That's crazy. 200 sessions. Well, good for you. That's a lot. I can't even. So let's talk about what elements are important to having a successful training session. Like you've done, you've done so many trains as you said, there's like 70 training sessions a year that c21 creek site agents experience. What, what are some elements that make them successful? I think they have to be something that actually helps your business. And so in real sense of this before, as we kind of grew up with a whole bunch of regulators that run our industry and have no concept of how to sell a house or run a business or be an entrepreneur or deal with the uncertainty of, maybe not selling a house next week, next month or next week. And so I feel like if you can really key on the how can I actually help your business? How can I help your family life? How can I put? Boundaries on your time? How can I blank? Blank? Blank agents. They Up to those because they need them, and no one's willing to teach those things. Right? So finding the real true value of what agents need in order to be successful, provide a better level of service to their clients, everything that they need in order to grow their business. That's great. And we're from a small town. So selling a house in a small town is different from selling a house in Los Angeles. And so a lot of these National coaches will be like knock on doors, cold call, all the things that basically I would want to shoot myself if I had to do those things. And so we teach them like, how do you deal with the database? How do you talk to your friends and family? How do you convert leads? How do you do open houses things that actually work when you're talking to a real person. So that's great. Thank you for those for those examples. You know, we you you had mentioned like hopefully that you can expire inspires some, you know, smaller town brokerages out there that that may be tuning in with us. If someone want to start a training program, so maybe they've relied on the training that's happening from the Grandeur from there, you know sociation if someone wanted to like create their own training program or start their own training program. What tips would you give them a call people? That are better at it than you step 1? I always make sure I mean, is way smarter people than me out there for sure. I'm just one person but I think it's important to always be be a mentor and be men teed. That's a word, but you need someone in your life that you can call and ask questions to for me. Starting my my career, it was Books for the first part. And now I have other people now where I can call them at any point. It's fantastic. So, start with their so start finding a brokerage that you look up to and we'll hopefully share information and just ask them like, hey, what should I have in my train schedules and most people will share them with you quickly. Great. And I guess, you know, I guess the key to is not to take on too much, right? It's like it's like anything. It's like, you know, in January, everyone gets back to the gym. They go really hard and then it's just, it's not sustainable. So what would you give you know, what, tips would you give? On one if they're just starting off. Like, would you give tips on doing maybe, you know, a couple like a training session on month or, you know, do you have any guidance with regards to that? Yeah. Yeah, lots of guidance. I mean, and that's why when I say our brokerage has run off of education and culture. I have you have to pick two things. You can't be everything, and Cameron is a broker in 2015 would have said yes to everything and now I'm a little better at saying no, but it's still so hard. But if I'm a brand new broker and I'm starting a brokerage, I mean sit. Self in an office, lock it for eight hours and actually just start with the schedule. So, so maybe it's once every two weeks you're going to do with education. So fill that time in block your time, where you're going to prep it, block your time. Your staff is going to review a block the time when you're going to teach it and then write out the 26 events or whatever that you're going to do. And then you'll follow through with it. You just got to start that plan. Rate to my, we got some emergency vehicles outside her building. Here we go near them. If not, that's great. So, thanks so much for all of those tips with regards to, you know, your training program and what other brokerages can do if they want to start a training program for their own brokerage. Let's now, talk about your second principle, which is culture, and I know you're big on that. So how important is culture in retaining your existing agents and attracting new agents to your brokerage. Oh man, I short answer is culture. So so important sometimes I hate the word culture and a brokerage is such a buzzword. I was like, I have the best culture and I'm like, what does that mean? Like and so I think culture is different for every brokerage, but your culture is very, very important. So what does you talked about that right? Everyone and you're right. Everyone does throw culture around, right? It becomes a buzzword. I've got the best culture. So what does culture mean to you? Like if someone said culture? What does that mean to you? If yeah, I know because I some people will say about culture as a family and sometimes I struggle with ax. My family hasn't been always the nicest or the most fair to me. And so what kind of culture do my agents deserve? And I think they deserve a culture where they're inspired and it's Hard-working and they can learn and be accepted and actually be just become a better person and a better realtor. And so, our culture really centers around this, the hashtag always learning. Like, how can you be better? How can we be better? How can we increase your business? And, yeah, we spend a lot of time around that and we want to have fun. Right? I mean, what's that old saying in real estate? Like, if people know like and trust you, then they'll buy from you. And so, we actually have to like each other and like, what we do in the process, right? Great. Well, I like that. So your culture Revolves around continuous Improvement. Let's call it that, you know, having fun, even though you're working hard, you know, you want to have fun to everyone's in this business because they loved it. Right? And, you know, and just being accepted, right? It feeling like you're part of a team of like-minded individuals that are all trying to make this real estate industry. Just better than ever, howhow, okay. Now that you got the vision of what you want your culture to be like, how do you create that culture? And that's where the Fun happens in stories happening, I guess. I mean, what's what does it say? They say like love is spelt t, ime. And so if you think of your culture as something you have to like put love into its you got to spend time at it. So in office, obviously we're going to have our weekly office meetings pre-pandemic. We would have a happy hour and office once every two weeks where I'd by Budweiser and some chips just so we can hang out and kind of talk with each other. We do for company events a year and so real estate is a family business. People are lying to you if they don't think that's true. Your business affects your kids, your wife, your parents, everyone. And so those four events of your, we invite the whole family out, like, bring your spouse. Bring your kids, bringing your Grandpa Grandpa, if you want. And we mean, I got mad at my system. We spent way too much money on our summer party this year, but we had, we brought in an extra hour and a bouncy castle, and a little water slide and it charcuterie table because it's, you know, Instagram mobile. And we have a great time. We really care about Out that stuff. Wow, so you get, you get the families involved with the Realtors. And as you say it's you know, it's so many people support the Realtors, right? You know, you got kids and everything and then you get to know people a little bit deeper, right? Then just at the office. You got to know their family, their background and their kids and everything. So that sounds a lot of fun. Yeah. It's I mean if a nation calls me, they're bringing me an offer and I know their wife and their kids and I enjoy working with them. Of course. I'm going to be biased to working with them. You're going to be excited to work with that deal. And that's what I The office, right? I also know part of your culture revolves around giving back to the community. So I want to talk a little bit about some of your community initiatives because you're doing some amazing things. So can you tell me about some of your most current fundraising initiatives? Yeah. Good question. My got tingles. I love this stuff. Like life is just so much bigger than us sometimes and are our first two years. Open your brokerage. I was inundated, we didn't have any time to kind of get into this. Out of what I wanted to do, but probably in year three, we started something called Creekside cares and I think we have a social responsibility to give back. I think we're completely blessed in what we do. And so me being able to coach Realtors brings a sense of self satisfaction, but helping other people who need help is actually just enormous. And so we started this thing called Creekside cares, a couple years ago, and I think what you're trying to get as probably, we just did this run into BC Children's Hospital. And so, I mean earlier home and last We had a new agent. He literally signed up an office as a 19 year old. He was just finishing up beating cancer. And so, he was in BC Children's Hospital for most of his high school years. At the time. My wife was just diagnosed with breast cancer. And we thought, you know, what? Why don't we do something cool and we're going to go run from Chilliwack to Vancouver and raise money for BC Children's Hospital. And that's one of the examples in life where it's like it was just so much bigger than us and we thought by running We were going to make a difference but in the process we raised a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. When we got there. I mean we had about 100 people at our Brokers cheering us on when we went to go start the run. When we got to BC Children's Hospital, There Was, You Know, 50 or 60 people there. But the thing that I underestimated is there was kids in the hospital that couldn't come out that were holding up signs for us. And they were telling their parents that they were running laps in their bedroom of the hospital. So that when they get healthy they want to be like Cameron and Jaden one. Run to Vancouver. And so yeah, we got to inspire young kids to go beat cancer and live life which is way way cooler than I ever thought. So, well, you know what Cameron and that gives me tingles like that's just such an amazing story. And you know for those people that don't know how far it is to run from Chilliwack BC to the Vancouver Children's Hospital. It's over 100 kilometers. You might do have an exact. Yeah. Yeah, so I ran with Jaden in our office who was one of the most inspiring guys, I know. So he ran the full hundred and three kilometers. I had to get on the bike for a little bit. So I only managed, I think, 72 or 73, km/h, 15, km/h stirred, a just do it killed me. So I underestimated how much did a feat it was to run that far. But yeah, it was it was a it was a long-running truly incredible. Well, you know, on camera and you know, I'm a runner too. And when I heard that you were going to do it, I'm like, okay. Wow, that's great. Anyways, you know, congratulation. I know that's just You know, just an example, of all the things you do throughout the year. So, you know, you talked a little bit about Creekside cares and I just love that name so it because it really kind of sums up. Really what you're trying to do, right, is give back to the community. So do you, you know, support multiple nonprofit organizations with under Creekside cares? Or how does that work? Give us a little bit more detail of what that looks like. Yeah. Good question. I mean and this is where maybe from a Big Brand perspective, like you guys might not like it as much but we really try to keep it local. We're still a local broker choosing a local community. And so we we know the stories in the families in our community. We really want to help them. And so if you walk into our office right now, there's going to be a Christmas tree at or locations. And on the Christmas tree ornaments of families that we want to support and so someone can take an ornament off of our tree and go buy them gifts and food for this Christmas season, and this is one example, and so we want to do things as locally as possible. Impact the people in our community. Well, that's a that's a really great idea. Now. Do you get there? You get your other Realtors involved and you know, what type of initiatives that you do or is this something that just, you know been going on for a while and you're you know, you do similar things every single year. You know, how do you decide on what organizations to support? I mean, we first of all we have some most generous realtors in this office that I've ever seen. Like when we were raised a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars for BC Children's Hospital. Like I cannot believe how much The realtors in our office gave to it. It's actually mind-blowing. We give them all an option on every one of their deals to donate, twenty one dollars to the Creekside cares fund and then we set up a committee and then that committee decides where we're going to put the money in, what we're going to do with it. So, I mean pre-pandemic, our goal was to go down to Mexico and try and build a house for a family and then, you know, covid hit and changed our world a little bit. And so we've really stayed local in any way possible. Again, you know a big thank you from all of us here. Head office to all of your Realtors and all the people in the Chilliwack community that, you know, continue to support all the niches that you did really, it's, it's quite amazing. So, you know, I know that, you know, when we start talking about this community involvement, you said, oh, that's, you know, this is the stuff that I love. This is the stuff that I wanted to get to what drives that passion to give back to the community. Oh, that's a hard question. I mean life is just so much bigger than ourselves and it's bigger than money and it's bigger than some of those things. And and I think there's just a satisfaction of being able to help other people and a lot of realtors get into it because I mean they'll sit in my office like why do you want to be a realtor? Like, well, I want to I want to help people and so I think naturally that's that's our inclination and then when you get to be a part of things that are bigger than yourself you're like, yeah, that's the good stuff. And so it's just fun being a part of it. Great. Well again, thank you so much for your efforts. You know, I know that, you know, the last I'm going to say gosh coming up in two years right to covid. You know, what, it'll be two years in March. When, when it really started happening, the world has changed so much over the last, you know, 18 to 20 months, has your leadership changed. Like how has your leadership change or hasn't even changed? And during this time. It's my leadership will keep evolving for my whole life. I hope so. So, so my goal in life is to be teachable and I want to keep learning things. And so I look back. Even a couple years ago. I'm like, white people, followed a wing nut, like, me into this Brokers. What were they thinking? And so, I really try to be a better leader. All of the time. I'm never going to be perfect and I suck at it sometimes, but I'm always trying is kind of the point I want to do, and I think if that's your mentality and your agency, that they'll run their business, the same where they're not going to be perfect, but they're always going to try. And what are some tips? Like it. Again? You started basically a start-up brokerage you in a couple agents. Now, 113 agents, what? And so you've gone through that, you built it up yourself, you know, of course with it, the help your support team, but what tips would you give other owners who wanted to grow their brokerage? If they're saying, you know what 2022? Sorry 2022 is an important year. I want to actually take my brokerage to the next level. What are some tips that you would give them if they wanted to grow their brokerage? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I mean, what one thing is that, what is your, why do you want to grow your brokerage? What's the reason for it? I would say, find a really good Mentor in your life. So when you can look up to and ask questions, I mean me, starting this brokerage, if I look back at some of the struggles is, like, I didn't have a family member in the real estate brokerage business to be like, hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. Hey, Uncle. How do I do this or when things happen? I didn't know if they were normal or not. I just thought wow, I'm experiencing something else. But I mean, I mean, this would be my shadow to my the Prairie. He's been my like Mentor managing. Joker from Vancouver. And even though we don't talk a lot. It's fantastic to know. I have another guy in my corner, who's done it for a long time. Or even, I'll say the Fulton sisters. I'll shoot them a text, and be like a question about this. And so, if you want to grow, you need to surround yourself with other people who have done it before or doing it at the same time. All right. Well, I think that's a nice to have those people to call or just you know, you know bounce ideas off of right? And kind of share best practices. You know, we talked a little bit about gosh, you know, if I would have known this back when I started, you know, knowing what you know, now what are some words of wisdom that you wish someone would have told you before becoming a brokerage owner. And I probably wouldn't have listened if they were told me anything. It's way harder than you. Think there's there's less money in it than you think. I think a lot of Brokers get jealous of some of their agents because their ages will be making more money than them, but that's okay. So, I was fortunate enough to know that my Y in starting a brokerage was because I actually, I cared about people and I wanted to coach and teach and mentor. And so, if you're going to make less money, but get to be a part of something that's bigger than yourself. That's really Really cool, but if I look back at this six-year Journey, now, already, it's hard work. There is a lot of knows, there's a lot of rejection. Yeah, but I think the stroke will makes life better. I really do and so I'm very I'm very grateful for it. And you know, there's as you said, you know that it's hard work, right? And I'm sure that you've experienced ups and downs over those six and a half years. Can you share with us what you think? Think one of your biggest challenge has been since owning a brokerage and how you overcame that commanded the, I don't know. There's a few, I mean, it's funny. This is not necessarily a biggest challenge. But when I first open a brokerage, I had several people in my life, tell me that I was going to fail. I had a broker in town, take me for lunch and said I was going to fail. I had family members say it, which was probably the best thing that could have happened to put a chip on my shoulder and it was like a I'll prove you wrong kind of a thing which I was fortunate. But I think one of the hardest things that they don't teach you is that you like your agents or you love your agents or they're part of who you are, more than they even know. And so in the first couple years when an agent would leave my office, it hurt it was painful because I put my heart and soul into my brokerage and then they would leave and not out like most of the time on good terms, but not always and that was hard. It would keep me awake on a Friday night. Like oh, oh, who's going to leave my office and no one ever told me that would be a part of The struggle. And now I still struggle with it, but now there's confidence of like this is what we do. And this is how we help. And if you're part of a great, if you're not, that's okay, too. So do if I answered your question, but yeah, no, no you did. And I know that I know that it becomes personal like, even you know, any time that it just, it's just become so personal. So, you know, you've had struggles, you've had, you know, ups and downs. It's a lot of hard work, you know, we talked back in 2017. That you want to be number one in your Market. What has fueled your drive to becoming number one? What's your to reflect back on yourself? Like really what drives you every day? What, why do you wake up in the morning? What motivates you to achieve what you've achieved? Yeah, that's a great question. You asked me that a couple weeks ago and I put some notes down like, no. I don't know what the answer is, but I think I nearly do know the answer. So, in my early 20s, there was this, there's this magazine. It was like National Geographic Adventure. A magazine and the top of the magazine. It's a dream, it planet do it. And so that was kind of my moment where I realized that like if you make Every Day Count you can do really cool things. And so I life is an adventure and we get to be a part of really cool things. And if you, if you put the work and effort and time and every day to actually doing something, you're going to get somewhere really cool. And so a lot of my motivation is is like the details aren't sexy and waking up early, like isn't sexy and people make fun of me for saying, That. But like The Daily Grind turns into really cool things. Over a career and I love seeing seeing them. Like I got to be a part of a fantastic run and a big brokerage and mentoring people and helping change lives. And I feel like regular people don't always get to be a part of that. So that really drives me now. Like, so that's great to know. And, you know, as we wrap up here, I'm going to ask you this question is, what's the biggest challenge that you've ever experienced in? Your life? Doesn't have to be within, you know, your last six and a half. A being a brokerage owner that ended up being a blessing in disguise. Oh, man, you're going deep. Hey. I'll kind of jump back to it a little bit, a little, like I think the fear of failure was really hard in my life. And so I feel like at a younger age. I people that said that I couldn't do it and it was hard on me and part of you wants to believe that you're like, yeah, maybe I'm not good enough and I'm just a regular person but that's actually turned out to be the biggest blessing in my life is like I'm just a regular person, like a lot of us and have regular people will try and read and Surround themselves with mentors and they get men to eat or whatever. It is on. Side life can be really cool. And so yeah, I mean those people saying that, you know, you're just average, you're not good enough or you're not going to make it. That turned out to be one of the biggest blessings in my life. Probably. That's great. Well, I appreciate you going. Deep with me. So is there, is there anything else you want to share with, you know, our listeners, you know, any other tips to brokerage owners anything that maybe we haven't discussed in this conversation. Yeah, I think oh man, I could I mean I get excited about this stuff but like to do things that scare you I think a lot of people are scared to open a brokerage and it is intimidating and they might fail and that's okay, but I think you got to get over there and do things that scare you and then get into the grind and do it every single day and really cool things will happen. And I would say further surround yourself with people that you want to be liked. And so when I talk about culture in my office, I get to walk into the bullpen in the mornings and I have guys are trying to beat me to the office. Now it's like I'm surrounded by awesome guys and gals that want to try and outwork me or trying out learn me or trying out whatever and it's not even verbal communication. It's just being around those people that make you better. Yes. I love that stuff. That's really fun. That's great. Well, and you know, with those type of people and when they you get like that, you can feel the energy, right? It's like it's just, it's such positive energy, that makes everybody just better. Yeah. I got this young guy, my office and he's door knocking three hours. A A day. And I'm like, that would kill my soul. And he's like, I gotta do it, three hours a day, and he's in the bullpen probably behind me right now. And I think he's on listing number three in the last couple weeks, as a brand new agent and he's killing it. And so without him knowing that he's influencing me. I'm like, wow, I can learn something from this guy, like he's out hustling and pushing and I do man. That's that's the good stuff in life. What Century 21 we say Relentless, right? And definitely, he's Relentless. So that's that's great Cameron, if anybody want to have a conversation with you. Words, or they had another question after listening to this podcast. How can people get a hold of you? Google me? It's your phone. Number two, right? In your back office. Phone number is my background, my my staff made it. So we're very well branded today. But yeah, you can email me, you can text me. You can direct message me. You can do anything. I'll get ahold of you and I love helping. And so, if anyone has any questions, that's my world. I'd love to help in any way possible. Rachel, you've been just a phenomenal guests. Thank you so much. Cameron again, congratulations and all the success that you see in. Congratulations, your realtor first. Keep giving us. All you got, and we really appreciate your commitment and your hard work and you're supporting the brand. So thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you co co, I mean, it's fun, having a brand behind you. That's the same thing. Put in the effort putting in like the time in the grind and it's evident. We have fun with it, right? We got a younger crew coming to see Entry 21, and I feel like we're growing as a, as a brand, across the across the country, and it's fun. I get to be a part of something bigger than myself, even through Century 21, so, it's good. Thank you, absolutely. So, thanks again, and and you're right. It's super fun. So, take care of Cameron. Thanks so much. See you later.