Build the Magnificent Life You Want Through Consistency with Daniel and Tali Kowall

[0:00] Welcome back to the IRI Agent. My guests today are Daniel and Tally Cowell, co-founders of Cowell Boutique Real Estate with EXP Realty in Calgary, Alberta. Before real estate, Daniel owned and operated an auto shop and built custom cars. That’s pretty cool. And it was the background in systems operations and hands-on craftsmanship that brought him into building a boutique real estate practice with his wife, Tally. Together, they serve Calgary and the surrounding communities of, oh, you’re going to have to help me with this one, Okotos. Okotos. Oh, blew it. Yeah. Cochran and Airdrie. Airdrie, yeah. They’re just kind of suburbs of Calgary. Yeah. Most primarily in Calgary, but sometimes in those areas. My ignorance is showing, guys. I apologize.

[0:52] Combining a high-tech client experience with the discipline of a well-run business. Daniel and Tally, welcome to the IRI Agent Podcast. Yeah. Thank you. Excited to be here. Yeah. No. So what in the world got you into real estate coming from the custom cars? And tell us a little bit about that. That sounds really cool. Yeah. So my story, it’s a bit lengthy, I guess, but essentially, like I have corporate or sorry, commercial real estate in my family. So my grandfather and my father were both commercial developers. So they did a lot of strip malls, shopping centers in the city. My grandfather actually built the first enclosed mall in Western Canada. So a lot of history there in real estate, but my passion was always in cars. I loved cars. I love tinkering on cars, driving cars, driving cars, driving cars, driving cars, driving cars, driving cars, driving cars, driving cars, driving cars, driving cars.

[1:48] So I actually went to a college in Ontario that kind of specialized in a business degree in automotive. So I thought I was going to kind of pursue the automotive world, which I did for a long time. So I got out of school. I did actually work with my father for about three years. And I just, I couldn’t do the desk job. It was more of a property management role. You know, just sitting at a desk, doing filing, that sort of thing. I just couldn’t handle it. I need to be out and about more salesy stuff, you know, more entrepreneur stuff. So I kind of, you know, ended up more pursuing automotive, did a couple advertising jobs with Kijiji Autos. I was the first sales rep for it, which Kijiji, I don’t know if you have that in the States, but it’s essentially a subsidiary of eBay where it’s a local marketplace.

[2:35] So they kind of rivaled AutoTrader at the time to get, you know, dealership advertising on their paper. So I was the first sales rep for there. And then my passion was always in more motorsports, modifying, modifying cars, racing. So I eventually opened up a shop. We did some really cool stuff. We had some like, you know, Porsches where we did some engine swaps and really cool things. It was a lot of fun, but at the end of the day, the business just wasn’t making money. So at the end of the five years, I closed it down. It’s kind of in between deciding what to do. And then Tally was kind of like, well, why don’t you kind of get back into real estate? It was tough at the time to get back into commercial because that sort of business, you kind of have to work your way up from kind of a young, prepared age.

[3:20] You kind of have to go to school for it to get to that point. And I didn’t want to like start at the bottom again. So that’s when kind of residential came in. It kind of gave the opportunity to, you know, be an entrepreneur, make some good money, put all my sales and marketing skills that I’ve acquired through being an entrepreneur and a business owner and then apply it to another business where a lot of the same concepts applied and kind of grew it from there. So, yeah, very happy where I’m at now. Putting all your commissions into cars. Yeah, exactly. So it came from a world where you’re actually, you know, working for your passion, which kind of killed that passion to a world where you can make money in a business and then use the money to your passion, which keeps it more fun.

[4:09] Sure. Sure. That’s really interesting. Yeah. Wow. So it sounds like maybe the commercial world is a little bit different in Canada than here. And it’s, you know, I mean, I think like from the development standpoint, it’s certainly different or than the sales side. You know, like if you get into commercial sales, this is different than like, you know, actual like development, et cetera. Yeah. So when you got started in real estate sales, you decided to go residential. Did you join, consider joining a team? Consider how did you, you know, what did you get started with as far as like a, how did you choose your brokerage, that kind of stuff? Initially, when I first started, I, I mean, I interviewed a few local brokerages and then I had kind of a, kind of an acquaintance I knew that was also kind of a car guy, but a successful real estate agent.

[5:04] And, you know, he had some Lamborghinis and stuff. So I kind of thought he was a cool guy. So I’m like, you know, where, where is he at? So he kind of brought me into Remax. There was a nice local Remax, Remax brokerage at the time that was kind of inner city and kind of had a bit of a different vibe than some of the other Remax ones. So I started as a solo agent in Remax. I kind of got recruited to some teams initially, but at the end of the day, I, I decided that to really grow my career, I had to be solo. I didn’t want to give, cause I already built up a huge network from being born and raised in the city and to the various things I’ve done. I didn’t want to give my network to a team and have them capitalize off my network.

[5:47] And I wanted to build my own brand and I was willing to start slow to build that. Rather than, you know, kind of giving that to a team, taking half, half my commission and doing it that way. So for me, I started as a solo agent there and then, yeah, switched to EXP about three years later. Okay. And Tali, when did you start or join in with the real estate fund? Yeah. So it’s pretty interesting. So we have three kids and prior to real estate, I actually had a very time consuming career. I was in a director role for a sales company. And the hours, because the team wasn’t all in Calgary, we had team in Toronto, we had team in Vancouver. It was early mornings, late nights. Um, and I didn’t love that, especially when Dan had his, um, automotive shop, he had more flexibility and I was always really stuck to that even more than a nine to five.

[6:47] I want to call it an eight to six. So when I had said to him, maybe you should consider real estate. And then he did. I said, you know what, if it works, I’ll just leave my career and I’ll join you. So I did that when I was pregnant with our third child and you know, he had already, like he said, he has a large network and a lot of his network was also my network because I wasn’t a realtor. So when I started, I had said to him, I don’t want to be your assistant. Like I want us both to grow the business. So yeah, I was pregnant and I started door knocking our whole entire neighborhood just to introduce myself. Cause I said, I got to start somewhere, do something that he’s not doing to grow the business.

[7:28] So yeah, that’s how I joined him. We’re very happy. Yeah. That’s a, that’s a lot of transition. I mean, I know we, we also have three kids and I tell everybody that for us, at least it was, you know, that the first kid is probably the biggest transition. Like that’s like, you know, that’s a whole different life. Like you’re, you’re, you now are responsible for some other little beginning of kind of a little slug that just, just, uh, yeah, you got to take care of that thing. Um, and then the second one was like, you know, more, but it wasn’t quite like adding number three into the mix where you’re playing zone defense instead of man on man. And so, uh, that’s, that’s a lot to start, you know, uh, a new career, uh, as well as, as have three.

[8:11] Was that, was that challenging? I mean, yeah, like for sure. There’s challenges too. And I think that some of the challenges, which is why we both gravitated towards real estate was, um, you know, simple things like school drop offs or if the kid’s sick, like if, you know, if you’re in a corporate job, job or something, it’s, it’s difficult to leave and like deal with that kind of stuff. Whereas if we’re both in the real estate world, you know, plan our own days and schedule, it’s easy to, you know, work off each other that way and, you know, do those pickups and take care of the kids and do all the things you have to do. So for me, the biggest struggle was thinking I’m leaving like a relatively lucrative career behind.

[8:52] And now I want to make that same income, but I was also realistic, I think in that it will come if I put in the work. So yeah, I would say probably at the beginning it was tough. And like, then I had the baby home with me, um, in my first year and I’m still trying to grow the business. So yeah, I will say that like financial component, at least in my head, maybe not for dad, because he was already busy doing it. Um, I was like, well, we got three kids and like, it’s not cheap. So that was definitely, I think this, the struggle, whereas from a scheduling standpoint, that was easy. Now I could pick them up, drop them off. If they’re sick, there was more flexibility. Um, but yeah. Yeah, it definitely took time to figure, figure it all out, how we can, you know, work with our kids and our, you know, have a work-life balance and do it all together.

[9:47] So it took time, but we were in a good place now. I would love to, I’d love to dig into that a little bit more, if you all don’t mind. And, um, the, I think that, you know, a lot of times Erica and I have, uh, struggles with, uh, like all the coordination that’s required just for parenting. Now that you all add in a business on top of it, like, does it, is it easier? Because you’re kind of doing the same thing like in work and in, or is it, is it add another layer? Like, I feel like it could add another stressor, um, if you will. Like, I mean, just having to just constantly coordinate, uh, with the same people like this, I hope you don’t mind. I hope, uh, I hope that’s not too personal of a question.

[10:29] No, no, not at all. I mean, yeah, I think it’s a bit of both. Like it’s, um, you know, the same, for example, on the weekends where like we have open houses to do, so we’ll have to, you know, one of us will be out doing the open house and the other one’s like, you know, with all the kids on the weekend. Or the other one has a showing while an open house and we have to coordinate the babysitter. Sometimes that, like the showings and then in the evenings with the extracurricular activities and the showing, but then we also have kids and we don’t have a nanny. So it’s all, yeah, like it is somewhat of a coordinating nightmare, but I feel like I’d probably manage more of the coordinating and we just make it work.

[11:08] Yeah. Um, like this past year, the kids love aftercare. So they’re just at school for longer and they’re happy and that helped. So we had like, we stretched the hours of the day, daycare. So yeah, that helps us grow our business, but we have had conversations about maybe we want to spend more time with the kids. Is that going to contribute to more of a scheduling nightmare? And we just take it as we’ll try and see. Yeah. And you know, if it doesn’t work, then we’ll find, you know, put them, take them out of aftercare, put them back into aftercare or something like that. Yeah. I think working together definitely does help because we can, you know, since we are together with the family, we can, at the end of the day, we can go over our work and, you know, we’re in the same place at the same time type thing.

[11:56] So we can, we don’t, we don’t have to like, it’s like we’re sitting at an office and we have to talk about work then we can, you know, pick and choose hours of the day more easily, but strategizing in terms of our careers as well. So. Yeah. And we can relate to each other. So previous career, like we couldn’t relate in that. And there was more disagreements because it was almost implying my job was more important or implying his business was more important. And there was that struggle of balance there. Now it’s the same. Like we understand we’re equally as important. It’s the same thing. So I think there’s less conflict in that regard. Someone’s doing a deal at five o’clock while the kids are yelling, wanting food on the table.

[12:45] And, you know, we get it. We can empathize and give them their space to do what they need to do. Yeah, totally. I get that. That, that makes a lot of sense. I know that when I started and we had more time to communicate, I mean, that’s just the struggle of communicating with each other is like, it’s real. We, you know, I, I, I think Erica knew everything, like knew all the deals, all the people I was working with, like every little step of the way that she was like kind of caught up with. But now it’s like, I don’t know how, like, I don’t know how far back to like try to catch you up and like may help you understand like what I’m going through right now. But like the kids screaming and I just, I was like, I need to step away or something.

[13:25] Like it’s, it’s, it’s a lot. And I can see how being kind of more tied in with that would make sense. Totally. We, we haven’t done well with this recently, but one thing that really helped us, and I don’t know if this is more of a, like, if you are in kind of different worlds, is we tried to have like a, a meeting every Sunday where we just kind of went to over the week schedule and like, it’s like I, half the time I have no idea what’s happening.

[13:55] It’s hard to keep up with all that stuff, all the activities. Even if I get a calendar invite, I’m going to stuck on my radar. So, um, yeah, no, that’s, that’s been one thing that’s been helpful when we do it and, you know, planning ahead. Like, like if we try to get date nights and trying to, um, you know, have the, the vacations on the radar to, um, that, that kind of stuff is, can be helpful. So something that I need to get back into the habit of for sure. So that’s one thing we do and you touched on date nights. So we, one non-negotiable we have is every Saturday night, we always do a date night no matter what. So that’s one thing that, you know, keeps us grounded and we’re lucky. We have some family in town that can always babysit.

[14:40] So, um, we’re able to do that, step away for a night and, you know, take that time away from the kids, which is important as well. Yeah. So we’ve been doing that since 2020 in the COVID times because all the restaurants closed down and we were like going nuts. So then we would put the kids to bed and have a date night at home. We’d have like a paint night, play cards, Scrabble, whatever. And then once everything opened back up, we’re like, this is great. Like, let’s keep doing it. So, yeah. That makes sense. That’s awesome. Yeah. And I think, uh, man, a weekly would be really nice. Cause I feel like that the routine of it makes it like, I don’t know, it sticks in my brain better at least. So that, yeah, a hundred percent need to get into that.

[15:23] Um, now you all have reached a really awesome level of production. A lot of agents would love to be there. Uh, what is, what do you think is like the single most like operational discipline that you would point to as like one of the biggest reasons, uh, for your growth and success? Um, and, and where do you see agents trying to do that, that they don’t quite get right? Yeah. So, I mean, obviously prospecting is huge in real estate as an agent. I mean, you, you have to prospect to generate business and there’s so many different ways you can prospect. So I think it’s important to pick one way of prospecting that works for you and just be totally consistent with it on a, on a regular daily basis, nonstop forever.

[16:06] So one thing that we’ve really chose to do that on is social media, like doing posts pretty much daily. And, uh, we get a lot of, um, you know, a lot of leads from our social media. So we, we decided early on that social media is going to be our one main, I mean, we do a lot of things, but social media is our one main thing. And we’re going to do that regularly, consistently on a daily basis, no matter what, no matter if leads are coming in, if they’re not coming in, if we’re getting likes, views, whatever, if we’re not getting likes, views, no matter what, we’re focusing on this and that’s what we’re doing. And we haven’t stopped. And I think that’s very important because it’s, it’s easy for agents or new agents to just keep throwing stuff under the bag and be like, you know what?

[16:50] I try this. I’m not seeing results. I’m going to move on. Whereas if you actually see it through to the end and keep doing it regularly, that’s when you actually start to build momentum and results. Yeah. I think that’s the biggest part. And that’s something we talk with new agents about all the time is consistency. And like we’ve spoken with tons of different agents. And even when we go to like EXP con and we see like the top producing, top selling agents around the world, they all have different prospecting models. Like I don’t necessarily think one is better than the other. I think it’s a matter of what can you as an agent commit to for the next five to 10 years consistently and tangibly.

[17:31] And that’s it. Right? Like, so for those people that do open houses, great. If they’re going to do two open houses, three open houses every week for the next five years, their business will grow. Right? They’ll get better at it. If social media, you know, hosting events, attending events, cold calling, door knocking, like the list goes on. For us, it was a matter of, for me, for sure, figuring out what I can actually commit to and then committing to it. So my first year was kind of like, tried the door knocking, did the events, tried some calls, you know, like cold calling and spear calling and just calling, social media. And then I realized, okay, what am I actually going to commit to where I like to say like for the rest of my life so that I can grow my business?

[18:15] I think that’s the biggest thing that contributed to our growth. And also the biggest reason why struggling agents, I would say are struggling is because they try it. They don’t see results in three months, four months, maybe even 10 months. They don’t see enough of the results. So they give up. Yeah, that’s really good. Consistency is really, really, really key. And there is just a grind phase. I mean, when I think people are maybe almost at a disadvantage if they started, you know, at the height of the market when interest rates were really low. You know, if they were, if they started at 2020, 2021, that would have been a lot easier to, to get some success, get some fast traction. I started in 2014 and, and it was a grind.

[19:00] I mean, it was just slow, slow market. You know, listings were on forever. It felt like compared to now. Right. But, you know, I, I just, I had to, you know, grind through and have that like long-term mindset and, and just not expect, you know, instant results. But that, that consistency thing is so key. One of the things I tell my team and other new agents is that if you are, if, if, if you’re thinking about how you’re going to be consistent, like do, do picture what it looks like if you do get good at it, which you will, if you get, stay consistent. Right. And, and is that what you want to be doing? Right. Like, is that, is that how you want your leads to be coming in? Like if you’re buying leads, do you want to be focused on that and just be like, you know, answering a hundred phone calls to get one, uh, that deal that’s going to work or, or whatever your strategy is.

[19:50] And I think that’s important to, to really also factor in when you’re deciding how you’re going to be, um, successful long-term. Um, I don’t know if I said, I love that mindset too, of like, I use that in a lot of things, like basically work backwards. Like, you know, where do you want to, even, even with like buyers we have, I’ll use that same approach. Like, you know, is this the house, like think about, you know, 10 years from now, is this the house you see yourself living in, growing a family, whatever it is, but that similar concept that you described, even with, you know, marketing and consistency and prospecting. And you’re right. Like, like, you know, what is it 10 years from now that you can still see yourself doing, you know, it’s, and it can be different for everyone.

[20:32] So it’s a, yeah, it’s a great perspective for sure. Cause like, I mean the, the social media thing, for example, that’s a job like that, that takes, maybe you’re, maybe you’re in a rhythm with it that it’s not that as difficult, but it is, I mean, it, you have to, for sure. Yeah. Um, so, so there’s, you know, I, I get the privilege of talking to people across the country, all across countries. Um, and everybody kind of has a bit of a different, uh, take on the market. When I talk to certain markets, um, I’ve gotten some pretty, uh, doom and gloom kind of, uh, perspectives. I’m curious what you all are seeing about, uh, your market, uh, in particular. And if you have seen any opportunities, um, within, uh, you know, this for here is shifting.

[21:21] So if it’s shifting for you, um, you know, what is, what does it look like? And where are the opportunities? Yeah, for sure. It’s shifted. Calvary is a very interesting, unique market in Canada. It’s been one of the fastest growing cities the last, you know, four or five years. It’s been an anomaly in the real estate market. Also last four or five years, it’s been one that’s continued to excel where other markets have been declining. Um, so it’s a very interesting place to be. Um, one of those reasons why it’s different is because it’s, it’s a, it, I mean, it’s traditionally a very oil based economy. So we are traditionally up and down with the oil when, when, um, you know, there’s oil crisis, crisis and whatnot, it really affected the market.

[22:08] So around, uh, 2014, um, that happened in Calvary and there’s a whole bunch of corporate oil offices downtown. They kind of all left and then, you know, that affected everything in the economy. Prices dropped. So basically Calgary has almost been rebuilding ever since, whereas other big cities like Toronto, Vancouver, they’re just being consistently growing no matter what, because they’re not so dependent on oil, on oil. So as a result right now, Calgary is like the fourth biggest city in Canada and it’s, uh, the most affordable by, by far. Like we’re the average price of a home here is like half, literally half the price of Toronto, Vancouver. And we also have like, you know, the mountain, the Rocky mountains are an hour away.

[22:51] Like there’s, you know, we have less tax in a lot of those provinces. We only have GST. They also have PST. So they have like 6% more tax. Um, so yeah, it’s just the more affordable it’s, you know, we have some of the most sunshine out of any city. Um, so it was really drawing a lot of people in migration over the last few years to this city, which is really fueling the real estate market. So it’s, um, it’s really cool to be a part of. You have anything to add? Yeah. The only other thing I’ll add is our market, Calgary, it’s extremely segmented. So some folks will ask us, how is the market in Calgary? And we’re like, well, it’s not a simple answer. Like I can report on it, right? Like sales are down because we have grown so much.

[23:33] And just on the interprovincial migration and the students that were coming in over the last several years, the government put a stop to that. So we’re seeing less immigration into, into Calgary, but nonetheless, like sales are down about 16% and inventory is up about 11% higher than what we would typically see this time of year. So that brings us into a balanced market. We’re a little over three months of supply. So overall, I could tell anyone, Calgary, we’re in balanced market conditions, but it’s not that simple, right? Because if we look in the condo market, there’s tons of pre-construction. Some of them are just being built for rentals, which will rival those folks who might think about buying.

[24:14] Now they’re going to rent, right? And then there’s more pre-construction that’s for sale. So the inventory in the condo market is extremely high and months of supply are five months. So condo market is technically buyer’s conditions as well as for townhouses. Detached homes and semi-detached and depending on where in the city it is, like we’re seeing sellers conditions, multiple offers while others in let’s say newer communities continue to sit. So the market is very, very interesting to see the least and very much segmented depending on where in the city it is and what’s the price point, what’s the property type. Does that segmentation make you target different parts of the market then? Have you shifted your strategy for prospecting, et cetera, to account for some of that variance across the market?

[25:11] I think for us, we really have a lot of listings now. We’re working with way more listings now than probably ever. So I think in terms of the segmentation, it really affects how we market our listings depending on where the property is. Because depending on the price point, the neighborhood, the area, we may, you know, some still may sell in a week or two, whereas others, you know, are sitting longer. So we really have to be creative. Like, for example, we have this one listing. It’s actually, so in terms of investing, which I know this podcast is about, it’s a flip that we’re solid partners in. So it’s a luxury flip, totally down to the studs, reno, beautiful property. It’s like 3,200 square feet, five bedrooms, gym, main floor office, triple garage, the whole thing.

[26:02] So this one, you know, it has been sitting on the market a little bit longer than we wanted to. So we’ve done some really cool things. Like, for example, last week we did an event open house where we brought in exotic cars. We brought in local vendors where we had like, you know, jewelry displays. We had a tattoo girl there giving people tattoos. Permanent jewelry, like catered food, like a whole big event just to get people through the house. So really cool event. But yeah, things like that, like creative stuff to really, you know, push marketing on some of those areas and segments that maybe aren’t doing as well as others is how we’ve, that’s kind of how we’ve had to shift. Yeah. And in the past, we have actually pivoted our social media strategy based on the audience we want to talk to.

[26:52] So if we want more buyers, we pivot our content to speak towards the buyers. But we are now more focused on sellers because ultimately sellers, they go hand in hand, right? If someone’s going to be buying, they may as well be buying your listing than buying someone else’s listing. So we don’t do that as much, but we definitely have. Yeah. And that’s, that sounds like a really interesting open house. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that kind of event. Have you all done much? You said your, your partners in the flip of this, have you all done much of flips or any kind of rental investing? So we’ve kind of done it all. Like we have pretty diverse portfolio, I’d say, like we have rental properties.

[27:40] We have a, we have a few like full duplexes with four doors each. We have like, you know, a single apartment. We have a share of a commercial deal in Airdrie, one of those cities that maybe you can pronounce better now. Yeah. But yeah, and then a few flips. So we just kind of started getting into flips this year, I guess. So we have that one we did and we have a, another one that’s under construction. It’ll be done about two months and it’s about actually a few blocks away from where we live, which is awesome. So yeah, we definitely try to get into whatever we can to, you know, diversify cashflow and opportunities and that sort of thing. Sure. Have you noticed any benefits from doing like renovations, for example, for your clients that you work with?

[28:32] Like, you know, being able to suggest contractors or anything like that? For sure. Like, you know, having a really good, contractors are tough, right? Like we’ve had it bite us in the ass, excuse my language, a few times, you know, with referrals where you think someone’s really good and then they all of a sudden turn out to be not so good. So you really do have to have strong relationships with people you trust to be able to refer them to clients. So yeah, now we built that up as a result of this for sure. And yeah, it also helps just even understanding the construction of houses. Like when you’re actually involved in a reno, seeing it built or even new construction, whatever. But when you’re involved to the point where you’re seeing it being built on a regular basis, you can better understand the product and better, you know, better relay that information to your clients.

[29:23] So lots of benefits for sure. Yeah. And even understanding timelines. We’ll have clients talking to us about wanting to do a renovation and, you know, how long they think it’s going to take, or they spoke to their neighbor and their neighbor knows someone who told them that the job they want to do is going to be complete in three months. And we have the experience today, right? We can give them a more realistic idea so that they’re not disappointed. So there’s definitely a lot that we learn from being involved. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And I was just thinking about like relating back to your car experience. Like I’ve kind of often related it to if you went to a used car salesman, like if you got, if you want to be really loyal to a used car salesman, one that was a mechanic, right?

[30:09] That really understood how the car functions and would have maybe some historical knowledge of like the different car brands, manufacturers, the models, the, you know, the years that they had problems and, and, you know, maybe like, you know, oh, that, that year has terrible transmission. I would say away. Like that kind of thing, that parallel, like it kind of is with, if you are getting involved with the renovations or the construction of homes, you can really start seeing some of those things or, or in this circumstance of the possibilities, like, you know, you can see what it looks like to have a wall removed. You can see what it looks like to, you know, just have a fresh paint, a coat, coat of paint.

[30:48] Like that’s like, makes a huge difference. And then before you really live through like something that’s so drab and disgusting to like the after, right. It’s, it’s hard to fully grasp. And we know that most of our clients have no idea with, about that stuff. So. Yeah. 100%. I mean, not only that, but even like dealing with approvals with the city, like how long things take when you have to get, you know, permits and, you know, approvals or zoning changes or whatever it may be, like, you know, what does that process actually look like with the city and how long does that take and what are the chances it will get approved or you have problems with it or whatnot. So, um, yeah, no, for sure. Now you, you all, it’s just the two of you, right?

[31:30] Do you, have you, have you hired anybody? Have you thought about bringing anybody else on the team? Uh, we’ve definitely thought about it a lot. We continue to think about it. Um, we brought people like on our downline, like with obviously EXP, these brokerages, you know, that’s a part of it too. Um, but yeah, in terms of a team, yeah, we constantly talk about it where I think it’d be nice to, it’s definitely a goal in our future to build that up. Yeah. We have like spoken with tons of new agents and thought about the idea, but at this point, I will say we know what we want and the majority of the new agents and folks that are looking to join won’t necessarily be bringing what we want. So I think it’s about positioning ourselves in a way or working towards positioning ourselves in a way better so that we can actually hire what we’re looking to hire.

[32:29] Um, yeah, there are a lot of agents in our market and there’s definitely a lot of options, but the last thing we want to do is bring someone onto our team and then they leave or for any, right. For whatever reason, um, shortly after. Yeah, totally. And then there’s also the, you know, that’s, that’s an extra responsibility is an extra thing to, to do. And, um, like, would you say that, that there’s any, uh, like, is there, there’s positives to just being lean and, and, and the, both the two of you, right. I mean, can you speak to that? Yeah, for sure. I mean, we have obviously full control over our business. We can, and we can get paid for every single deal without, you know, giving our business away.

[33:13] Also like a brokerage like eXp and other brokerages are great because you can be collaborative with even other agents. You don’t even need a team. Like for example, like when we have an open house, we can’t do one. We like posting the broker’s group chat, you know, can anyone do an open house and we can usually find just another agent to do it. Um, or even if we’re like out of town and we need someone to help with one of our buyers or whatever, we can like, you know, pay them a fee. We can usually just find someone in the network that can pick up some of that for us. So there’s, and then also like for admin stuff, like even with all the AI nowadays, you can get AI to do a lot of your admin work as well.

[33:54] So there’s, yeah, there’s ways to still grow and diversify your business without necessarily needing a team. Sure. Yeah. And I mean, the nice thing about just keeping it the two of us is we know what every, what level of service and expertise every client is going to get. So that’s something that I’ve struggled with when we have interviewed or thought about hiring is like, I probably wouldn’t even hand them over any of my clients, which I don’t want to say, right. It’s just, I would just, I would just take care of it. Um, and then that gets to another point where, okay, well, what are we looking to do? Are we going to be prospecting for them? Are we going to be mentoring them? What, what would they write?

[34:37] So it kind of opens up a whole new conversation. So for now it works. I mean, having us both licensed agents, um, we can do double and, uh, yeah. AI has definitely helped make tasks easier. So for now it’s working. And I found that too, like when I was a business owner with my shop, like when you’re a business owner, you’re invested in your business like no one else is. And, and you want to see the most successful business. And when you hire people on or people work for you, they never have that same care and attention as you do, which is, is natural. I mean, it’s obvious they won’t because it’s not their business, but that can be frustrating at times because, you know, you want them to care and to do things, you know, at the utmost.

[35:23] And a lot of times they just simply won’t because they just don’t have that same, you know, care as you do. So, but, um, yeah, at the end of the day, it’s, you can only scale so much as the two of us. So we definitely will need to grow. Yeah. Uh, well, yeah. And I mean, you know, like, it’s kind of what, what is the goal, um, to, you know, I think that like, it’s, if, if you want, if you’re looking at the end in mind, right. If you, if you, do you want to be when this massive team is successful, be doing the things that would require a massive team to be successful day to day, you know, it’s, it’s the same kind of question. And, and really like, uh, as we talk about in this show all the time, you know, if you’re investing in other things, if you’re, if you’re bringing up, bringing up that passive income, like, you know, there’s other streams of income too, that it doesn’t have to always all just be massive, um, sales amounts right now.

[36:17] We don’t, I also subscribe to the, you’re either. You’re growing or dying, um, in business. So I think there’s definitely truth to that as well, but, um, it’s, it’s just good to step back and be intentional about decisions. And it sounds like you all are definitely doing it without jumping right into, you know, hiring people or whatever, uh, which is awesome. Yeah. A hundred percent. Uh, I, we’ve had a lot of golden nuggets already, but I do want to ask what golden nuggets you have prepared for our, uh, audience.

[36:48] You got some prepared. Do I? Yeah. Uh, golden nuggets. I mean, one of them was definitely the consistency, consistency aspect, which we already talked about. I just think that’s so important in not only business, but everything you do. I know that like, again, back to like holistic approach, um, what you guys talk about, like, whether you want to, you know, be healthier, workouts, eat better, um, achieve more in your work, um, have more success. All of that just boils down to doing the small, simple, boring stuff every day on a day-to-day basis. And that’s just, I think just super important for everyone to understand and to, and to execute. Yeah. So even more on that one is goal setting, like take some time to just set some goals.

[37:38] And then once you have those goals set, goals set, that’s how you work backwards into what Daniel is saying. Those boring, repetitive tasks that you’re doing every single day to reach those goals. So you have that goal in mind and you’re consistent with it. The other golden nugget had to do with investing. I know that that’s a big part of your podcast. And I think for us, the struggle with investing was starting, right? Like, like anything, trying something new, changing your kids to a new school, moving into a new house, thinking about a new community. Change is hard for anyone, changing your diet, whatever it might be. So for us investing, it was like, we always knew we wanted to invest, but it was a matter of, oh, it’s a lot of money.

[38:21] We either use our hard earned cash, which is what we had to do for our first fourplex purchase, or we use debt. And in that case, it was our cash. So it was, I don’t know, let’s call it a hard pill to swallow, where we know that cash is going to be locked up relatively long term. So I think a golden nugget on the investment side is it’s never easy. You just got to do it. Rip off that bandaid. Once you do it the first time, you’ll realize it really wasn’t that hard. After all. And that’s what we realized. And another part on investing is debt is not bad, right? Like that debt that you’re taking to purchase that investment. Also, the payments you’re making monthly toward that debt are an expense, right?

[39:06] That you have that works against or for you towards that investment as well. And I think that’s something a lot of people are scared of is taking on too much debt or having debt. But when it comes to investing, sometimes you need that debt to really take off. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the ways of talking about leverage that clicked for me too was if you look at buying $100,000 portfolio of stocks, right? You put in $100,000. If that goes up 20%, that would be $20,000, right? And that would be at 20%. So then if you buy $100,000 of real estate, you’d be probably putting down like $20,000, right? And if it goes up $20,000 in value, that’s kind of 100% instead of just 20%. So it can be definitely, it’s an advantage of real estate investing for sure.

[40:07] It also, I feel like it locks in today’s value of the dollar or value. Yeah. I mean, it locks it in and we have seen inflation. It’s something that I know the US is very tuned in with. I don’t know how bad it is for you all. But that is definitely something that happens. And we look back at what houses were 30, 40 years ago and we forget that they were stressed out about how expensive that was at the time. And they were squabbling over probably $200 in a home inspection. And it’s laughable now, right? Their payment’s laughable now. Well, if you don’t lock it in now, if you never lock in that payment, it’s just going to keep going up and you’re going to miss out on it. So locking that in definitely helps.

[40:59] And you’re absolutely right. It can be hard to start, but it’s definitely the best time to plant a tree and buy a house was what, 20 years ago? Next time is now. And you’ll- Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about that a lot on both sides. It’s either the one side where like, oh, damn, there’s that property from three years ago that was a great property and I should have bought. And like, look where I would be now if I bought that. Or vice versa. We did buy a property three years ago and I’m so happy I did because, you know, look where the market’s at now. So for sure, like you can’t like, you know, worry so much about where you are. You have to like think about, you know, where you’re going to be.

[41:42] Yeah. And historically, it’s been a great place to park money to own. And if you do the flips and if you do the burrs, you can potentially even kind of get that property for free, which is a fun little trick. What about a favorite book? One that you think is fundamental that everybody should be reading or just one that you currently really enjoy? So for me, The Slight Edge by John Olson. Again, a book about consistency is really what it’s about doing the small, simple things on a regular basis. And he has one of my favorite metaphors in that book where he talks about, you know, a father giving, you know, money to an offer to two of his sons. He said, I can either give you a million dollars now or I can give you one penny that will basically have compounding interest on a daily basis.

[42:38] So of course, most people would take the million bucks now, right? They want, you know, it’s an easy million bucks. Take it and move on. But the other son takes the penny. And if you actually like compound it up, the penny doubles every day. I think it was by like day 25, he was at like $160,000. He’s probably like thinking like, oh shit, like, you know, I should have taken a million. But then, you know, five days later by day 30, he’s at like $10 million just by compounding interest on that penny. So just a great little thought experiment on how one little small thing done regularly on a consistent basis can really just compound your life drastically over time. So it’s a great book. Love it.

[43:21] I want to say I listen to tons of podcasts right now. So if you haven’t listened to Emma Greedy, I definitely recommend her podcast. There is a classic book that I read. I haven’t read it, I feel like for years, but it’s one of the classic ones that stands out. The monk who sold his Ferrari. So yeah. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for those. If people are interested in following you on social media, since you’re active there, where can they follow you? So we have, we got lots of stuff, but my Instagram is DK underscore boutique real estate. Hers is Tally underscore boutique real estate. We have a YouTube channel, which is at Cowell Calgary realtors. Uh, we also have Twitter, which is, or sorry, TikTok, which is, what is it?

[44:16] Cowell Calgary. Again, Cowell Calgary realtors. Um, yes, those are our main platforms I’d say that we’re on. Awesome. We’ll have those in the show notes. Uh, guys, thank you so much for being on the show. If, uh, you have gotten, uh, awesome knowledge from this and from other guests, definitely subscribe to the podcast, wherever you listen to it. Um, check out rei agent.com. You can get a blog, uh, for all of these episodes as well. Um, subscribe to our newsletter. You can get a weekly digest of the guests for that week. Um, that’s another way to ingest the awesome tidbits that we get on this episode. Then also check out our CRM, um, on that website as well. We, uh, have, uh, introductory, uh, promo.

[45:03] Uh, you can get 30 days free. Uh, don’t have to enter your credit card or anything. Definitely. It’s a, it’s a smart platform that will enable you and to, to connect with your clients in a real way, an authentic way, which I think is often missing from automated, um, AI kind of things. It does have some of those features, but the goal is really to connect with. Your sphere so that they, uh, know, like, and trust you. And that’s what people, that’s how people want to do business with people is that they know, like, and trust them. Um, but again, Daniel and Tali, thank you so much for being on the show. Yeah. Thank you very much for having us. Thanks for listening to the REI agent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[45:44] Visit rei agent.com for more content until next time. Keep building the life you want. All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.