While taking responsibility for your company is important, having an “I’ll-do-it-myself” attitude on too many aspects of the business can be detrimental. Entrepreneur, brokerage owner, and property management investor Ieasha Larkpor learned this lesson in running her business, Thunder Team Realty in Oklahoma City. While she sold more than $130 million in commercial and residential real estate, her leadership style was stagnating her business.
“I believed I could do it all. But it turns out my problem was that I was doing it all,” said Ieasha. “I would bring people on to my team but do their jobs for them. I didn’t have any structure or processes in writing for them, which, turns out, was not for most of the team, and they’d leave — often taking a portion of my business with them.” Ieasha knew she couldn’t continue operating her business as she was and began looking for a solution. “I knew that there was someone who had been where I was before and knew how to grow a team in the right way,” said Ieasha. “Yes, it was humbling, but I had to do it. And when I found Workman Success Systems, it was exactly what I needed.”
One Step at a Time
Ieasha credits her Workman Success Systems Senior Coach, Josh May, as being instrumental in her success. She credits Josh for having them work through the Workman systems and processes at a “low crawl” so it wouldn’t be shocking to her team as key to the program. “We just went through the Workman processes, and we did it a little bit at a time,” said Ieasha. “I’d have my coaching calls with Josh, and we’d have a goal for each call. Once it got done, we’d move to a new goal.”
As Ieasha worked with Josh, she had a personal goal in mind that she was determined to reach. In one year, Ieasha wanted to have all of the systems she needed in place so she could focus on expanding her family. “My husband and I wanted to have another baby,” said Ieasha. “I knew with my last baby, I didn’t want to be overly involved in real estate while I was pregnant. I wanted to be able to relax. And to do this, I needed to be working on my business instead of working in my business.”
Technology and Team Building
One of the most significant changes Ieasha embraced through her Workman coaching was using the Sisu real estate operating system. This system helps tie in data from a brokerage’s CRM and other platforms to streamline processes and empower users. “I think Workman really wants to put their coaching clients in the forefront of the industry,” said Ieasha. “Introducing us to Sisu was a game changer. We trained in Sisu and transferred all our existing information over. I think if you really want something bad enough, you’re intentional about it and you give what you need to learn it. We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel; we’ve been using Sisu faithfully now for about two years and it’s been great.”
Reinvention of her daily meetings also has been tremendously impactful for Thunder Team Realty. In the past, Ieasha held daily meetings at 10 a.m. that could go as long as 90 minutes which accomplished little. With the WSS program, Josh worked with Ieasha to create useful daily huddles. “Our meetings became much shorter and a lot more team-focused,” explained Ieasha. “Over the months of working together, we just shrunk and shrunk them. The meetings now last for about seven minutes, we have an outline and go through the information everyone needs to know. It’s now intentional constant contact and our huddles are awesome.”
With her systems in place, core values defined, and her mission statement embraced, things are on track for Ieasha and Thunder Team Realty. “I now have a team that I trust, a team that was vetted through our new systems and processes. It’s been the best money I have spent in real estate. I’m actually sad I didn’t do it 10 years ago.”
Read Ieasha Larkpor’s client success story.
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