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[Music] In today's world, we only watch the endings. A flashy success story or the brutal collapse. But we don't hear about the full journey that it took to get there. The late nights, tough calls, moments of doubt. On In Between Sips, we
John Crow shares the transformative journey of acquiring and revitalizing Century 21 Northwest's headquarters, blending business growth with community service.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
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Key Takeaways
- Owning business assets can be a game changer compared to renting.
- Community service and engagement strengthen a company's local identity and reputation.
- Transforming a neglected property requires vision, patience, and negotiation skills.
- A vertically integrated business model can provide comprehensive services and competitive advantage.
- Celebrating traditions and hosting community events fosters goodwill and brand recognition.
What the video covers
- The video explores the untold journey behind business successes, focusing on John Crow's leadership at Century 21 Northwest.
- John Crow describes acquiring a long-vacant building and transforming it into a thriving real estate hub.
- Century 21 Northwest integrates residential, commercial, property management, and repair services under one roof.
- The company actively serves the community, hosting events like Rotary meetings, weddings, and a live nativity with camels.
- John emphasizes the importance of owning assets rather than renting for long-term business growth.
- The renovation of the building was completed in two months, significantly impacting the company's identity and operations.
- Century 21 Northwest now supports around 200 residential agents and manages over 600 residential properties.
- Community engagement and festive events help the business maintain a strong local presence and goodwill.
- The video highlights the value of perseverance, negotiation, and vision in business leadership.
- John Crow shares insights on balancing business success with meaningful community involvement.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
dive deep into the raw, unfiltered stories of what these business owners and leaders have been through and who they became along the way. So, pull up a chair, pour a cup, and join us. We're just getting started 'cause we all know the
Speaker A
best conversations happen in between sips. Cheers, John. Hey, cheers. Thanks for coming on. A little herbal tea action here. Now, I know you as Uncle John, soothsayer, wise mentor, business leader aficionado, extraordinaire behind the hot mic.
Speaker A
But, and I know you as the guy that helped me 10x my business. Yeah. Thank you for that. Let's do another cheers.
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Yeah. But, thanks for coming on. I know it's been fun lately with Century 21 Northwest. You're the CEO, right? I am. It's a family of companies. The real estate side is one of the things we do. We've got residential agents, we've got commercial agents, we got property management, and then, you know, we're vertically integrated, so we've got a repair and fix-it company and a flip company, and, wow. So, we got a little something.
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If it has to do with real estate, we're involved in it. Nice. And I know we also serve in Rotary. You can say that name as much as you want and there won't be any happy fines for saying your
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company name. I like what you said there, that we serve in Rotary.
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And that's really just kind of the theme. We serve the community. Yeah. And we've been so blessed that, you know, when we bought our headquarters, it was way too much for what we needed. And I just felt like
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that was an opportunity that we could really engage in the community. And so yeah, the entire facility converts to a church on Sundays. The warehouse facility, which is our training facility, converts to a Rotary meeting on, you know, Thursday, once a week. It's used for weddings and funerals and community events and it's just a real blessing. But this is the thing, when you do good like that, as we're all called to do, yeah, it all comes out. That's the great plan. And then it's really fun to see that played out here on a daily, weekly basis. Yeah.
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Well, when you first took over as CEO for Century 21 Northwest at the old location, right, that had been longstanding there. And when you came across this building, it doesn't look like it does now. Like, what? Walk me
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through what that process is like. Yeah. Well, finding the space is always a force multiplier for an organization because it really becomes part of your identity. It becomes part of your ability to reach out and, you know,
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we knew that we had been throwing money in the trash can every month in the form of rent and there became a place where it's like we need to resign the lease. Yeah.
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We need a little bit more space. Yeah. And we'd really like to leverage the business into owning an asset at some point. Yeah. And so I just began kind of combing the streets around town. And I, one of those moments,
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that the light changed and I was stopped there at the light and I looked over at a building that I'd probably driven past a thousand times. Yeah. And I saw a sign that was kicked over into the ground.
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Yeah. Because the building had literally been on the market for that long. Oh my gosh. And I was like, "Look at that big place. What is that?" And so I pulled into the driveway. I made
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a quick left, pulled in the driveway and I walked over to the sign and it was literally covered in mud and dust. And I used my foot and I scraped, I scraped, yes. This tree like out of a movie. I
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scraped off the dust from it and there was a phone number and I called the number and I said, "Hey, I'm standing out in front of this building.
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Are you guys, is it still on the market?" And he goes, "Yeah." And I said, "Great.
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I'd love to do a tour." And he goes, "Ah, there's a rock by the front door.
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If you flip the rock over, there's a key. There's a key there. Just help yourself." Two-story building, right?
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Two-story building, right? So I went in, let myself in, and I was walking through this, you know, it was really just a mess. It had been used, it had been vacant for several years. It had had squatters in it at one time. Before
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that, it was like for 15 or 20 years, it was an engineering deck for like cable guys. And they were all, you could tell they were all smokers. Had wallpaper that was, you know, yellowed by the smoke. And so I'm looking at this
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building and I'm like, well, first of all, it's enormous. It's way too big for what we need. Yeah. But it also, it's going to take so much work. But I walked into one part of the office. I
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remember looking up through missing drop ceiling tiles that, you know, it had a drop ceiling at about seven feet.
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Really claustrophobic. And I looked up through the ceiling tiles and I was like it went up into this great big cavernous space. Yeah. And I was like, "Oh wow. We could make a huge difference in this building by just removing some of
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that drop ceiling." Yeah. And long story short, I negotiated that building acquisition for three months. Everybody that I talked to said, "You'll never buy it at the price that you are trying to buy it at." Yeah. But for me, it was a
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non-emotional transaction because I wanted, I needed to be somewhere close to what we were already paying for rent.
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Yep. So, it was just simple math and I started below that and I chipped away at it and chipped away at it and finally, by grace, the seller got tired of me and agreed to sell it to
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me for what we needed. And what an amazing story too. We were able to fully renovate the building in about two months' time and move in and it's just been an absolute game changer in every way for us. Yeah. Yeah. That's
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incredible. It's taking something, you know, in Glendale. I'm, you know, born and raised in Glendale, as you know, and being able to see something that had been there for longstanding and vacant and get turned into this massive
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hub to serve. And I mean, all your agents are here. You guys have what, 150 agents now? 120. We're pushing right at 200. 200 agents. 200 residential agents.
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A few on the commercial side. And then residential property management. You guys are running what, 5,600 properties? A little over 600 on the residential side, a couple dozen on the commercial side.
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Commercial, too. Yeah. Yeah, man. What an amazing hub. It's wonderful. And everybody knows it. It's a kind of center point in town. Yep. We decorate it, you know, we go over the top at Christmas time to make sure that
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it stands out as a landmark. We try to overdecorate it for, you know, Fourth of July and really just be that business in town that everybody knows and thinks about. And we even had a camel
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here, right? You had the live nativity. We did. We did. We had, I remember that.
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My daughters remember that. We had two game-changing Christmas events here that I thought just really set the season apart, but also just kind of ingratiated us to the community. The first one was the one you're talking
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about. We did a live nativity and we had camels here. We had sheep and the three wise men and we just did it. It was kind of almost like a community play. Yeah. We had the
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warehouse space, but we wanted to celebrate Christmas in a big way. Yep. And so we brought all that in and then made it free to the community. I think we did three separate showings of it. And I think we put in about 300 people
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per showing over the course of one weekend. And yeah. Yeah, that's still being talked about. But the
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I think the thing that we're most proud about that we
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warehouse space, but we wanted to celebrate Christmas in a big way. Yep. And so we brought all that in and then made it free to the community. I think we did three separate showings of it. Um and I think we put in about 300 people
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per showing uh over the course of one weekend. And um yeah. Yeah. that that's still being talked about. But the Yeah.
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I think the thing that we're most proud about that we did also over a Christmas time was uh our drive-thru Christmas display. Yeah. And um that was in an absolute difficult time. Um I had just lost a dear friend of mine for 25 years
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to COVID. Um and you know, it was right in the middle of that and everyone in the world was telling us everything you couldn't do. Yeah. Right. Um, but I've always been a big Christmas guy and I I
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wanted to come up with something that we could do. Yeah. Some way that we could share our faith, share our hope. Yep.
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Which is really what Christmas is all about. Just getting that hope out there. Yeah. To the community. And uh so, you know, it was it was one of those team events. All the agents came together.
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Yep. We put together these vignettes that kind of symbolize all the great things of the commercialized portions of Christmas that everybody loves and can identify with.
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um snowmen and Santa Claus and carolers and all of those things. Um Christmas trees and presents and then we had a light tunnel that you went through and you came through on the other side and we again did the live nativity and so
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which you recruited my wife and I to do Joseph and Mary. You guys were the best Joseph and Mary anyone's ever had. It was the best night seeing all the cars come through and man there was like live
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animals next to us. thousands of cars insane. And it it just proved um how much a community needs business leaders to to be Yep. to to offer that.
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And especially during that time, the entire city needed um some hope. They needed something to celebrate. And uh that's what they got. And they came out in droves. Do you remember that we had Oh, yeah. cars parked three miles away.
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Yep. On the road trying to get in, trying to make a left parking lot. Yeah.
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half an hour before we opened it. I think we opened it at 5:30 and people and they were lined up at 5 and they didn't stop until we shut it down at 10:00. Yeah. It was just absolutely extraordinary. Well, I think those are
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things that you don't see on, you know, the stat sheet, if you will, of like, hey, we grew a business. Here's our metrics, right? But the community and serving and like these are things that uh businesses need to lead in. leaders
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like you need to lead in for the community and um you know they don't always show up kind of on this stat sheet of things but they make all the difference in the world and you know you always say you taught me business is
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relationships right like and at a time when people needed relationship most I mean that three mile line you know you can say what you want about that time but that three-mile line was indicative of what was needed and that's the
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saddest thing really um what what I do with this organization is nothing knew um this has been the way community businesses have been run. They sponsor baseball teams. They sponsor the Girl Scouts, right? This is the way communities were run for generations.
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Yeah. It's just at some point when when the when the um corporate dollars started pouring into small communities.
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Yeah. And you went from having a local Ace Hardware that everybody knew the guy that ran it and he he bought pizza for the little Pop Warner football team after every game. Yeah. Right. To now you have these mega massive
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corporations. Um like a Home Depot where it's a local it's a local guy that's the GM but he really doesn't have say in how he engages with the community. And I think that corporations miss out by not letting their local people be more
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entrepreneurial and more engaging. And for sure who misses out the most is is is the uh local community. Yeah. And so again, we didn't invent it. We just went back to it. And I just encourage everybody Yeah. that if you've got that
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opportunity to engage that way with your community, it will be so rewarding for you professionally um and personally.
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Yeah. And like I said, there is a return on the investment. It comes back.
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Everybody knows us. Everybody thinks of us in the city if they have real estate needs. Yeah. Part of because part of uh because of the fact that we engage so heavily with them all year long. Yeah.
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Yeah. That's incredible. when and you know prior to century 21 CEO like when you talk about these big corporations uh these principles for you never changed because even in your past experience when you were working for major companies I mean that's what you tried
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to bring in and instill right that's exactly right I've I've always tried to be me I don't know that today I would fit in at a big corporation I just I can't think that way I can't be like
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that anymore um when when the issue is of the day is communicated to you from some human resources department 3,000 miles away. And this is what this is how we need you to focus on business. I just can't live that way, right? I need to I
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need to understand the business metrics involved, the people, the relationships and and be able to capitalize on the opportunities. And I just don't think corporations are wired that way at their in their DNA. Was it Was it wired that
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way back in budget, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So uh I got my start with budget renar as a manager trainee right out of college and in those days first of all many of them were franchise organizations. Yeah and so they had a
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local executive that owned it and operated it and that was certainly the case in in Arizona. So we were we were a huge franchise. I think we had about 5,000 cars. Yeah. Um but we were owned by one guy that paid franchise rights,
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royalty rights back up to the mothership. And so we got to do whatever we wanted to do and and just have fun with it and and as long as we were profitable, it it really didn't matter.
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So that's kind of helped me get a start, you know, other than the way I grew up on a farm. But um yeah, that kind of helped me get my start in thinking like an entrepreneur and thinking about
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there's more to this than just the making money part and if we engage all of that, the money comes. Yeah. Um but it wasn't too long after that. Um we put the pos the company in a position to get acquired by other organizations
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just like it works. Y and um we were acquired and we took that company public. Yeah. And then that new entity acquired the entire corporation. Wow.
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And so I got to see it firsthand and and you know I climbed through the ranks while all that was going on. But at some point, and it wasn't very long after all of those acquisitions took place, that I
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realized that we were now completely disconnected from who we originally said we were, who I wanted to be as an entrepreneur. Yeah. And um yeah, we were we were again beholden to decision makers who had no understanding of our
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local market. Yep. that were operating thousands of miles away and uh could had no interest in who our people were and what their needs were or or even our customers. Yeah. So, uh I quickly needed to find something new to do and that's
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exactly what I did. What What was next then? Yeah. So, next for me was uh it was still in the car business, but it was it was kind of wild. We we had gotten to the place with budget renar
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where um the new entity had overexpanded and they had you know stripped out a lot of the cash the operating cash that we were working on. And so now the new thing for them was, hey, uh, you business operators, you need to look
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within your business market and see if there are non-core assets that we shouldn't be operating or that we can liquidate to to provide more cash flow for operations and streamline things.
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And so for me, one of those operations were we had we had airport rental car facilities in the mountains of Colorado.
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I'd been promoted and I was running a multi-state territory based in Colorado and we had operations in Aspen and Veil and it was really fun to go up there and we had ski passes and really great connections all up there but it was a
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difficult thing for us to operate and it was very very seasonal and so I had remembered um a gentleman that was based in Beverly Hills that was a Beverly Hills original uh Beverly Hill budget oper operator and he was he was had this
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fabulous location right in the intersection of Santa Monica and Wilshire in the heart of Beverly Hills and it was literally surrounded by all these highrises and here's this guy that's got this little luxury rental car comp uh company and from what I had
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always heard the legend was uh that he literally minted money uh operating out of there and so he was he was doing luxury cars Um he his peak business was in the summertime and so I picked up the phone
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and I called him and I said, "Hey Jerry, it's John Crowe. I'm the general manager in Colorado. I've got these two uh organiz I got these two operations in Aspen and Vale. I did a little research and we peak these operations peak on the
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opposite end of when you peak. So we're busy in the winter, you're busy in the summer. It's the same exact customers.
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they're all high-end customers that are wanting high-end product and I think it would be a really great fit to your organization. Can I fly you out to to see it? And uh so I to I did that on my
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own. Yeah. I was like 29 years old. And uh he comes out and I had basically put together a deal to sell him these these entities before I I didn't even know I needed to talk to the attorney
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corporate. I was just running rogue, you know, doing what doing what entrepreneurs do. And anyway, so we wound up putting together a deal with him to acquire those operations. Yeah.
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And what became really uh obvious in that was that he was a level of marketing genius that I had never seen.
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Yeah. He was unencumbered by any corporate politics, by any like, you know, stratospheric thinking like we have these departments that we have to go through and we have to clear everything. All just get it done. What's the ROI? what is the coolest thing we
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could do and how would that impact our customers and and and the way people see us? Let's do that. Yeah. And so he was very nimble and he very creative guy and he had a really interesting way of
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getting his word out. And what was really fascinating about him was the rest of the industry thought of rental cars still do by the way. Yeah. As a commodity which is there are lots of them everywhere and so whoever has the
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cheapest price wins. Yep. He absolutely did not think about that at all. It was in fact you couldn't even get him to talk that way. He didn't even realize that the rest of the industry thought that way and that he was different. He
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he intuitively said, "No, I'm not. I'm going to provide a really incredible product that's different than any other product that you can get." Yeah. And I'm going to provide an incredible service that goes with it. Yeah. And I'm going
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to charge based on what I need to make money. Yeah. To do that. Huh. And it was revolutionary. Yeah. For me to see that.
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Of course, I later saw that in many business models. Yeah. Like Starbucks is a perfect example. Um smaller different product. But who would have ever thought that kids and grown-ups would walk into a a place and pay $7 for hot water?
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Yeah. Right. Yeah. Mind-blowing, right? But this guy thought that way. Wow. And so, um, we it was but the the other thing was that he is as brilliant as he was as a marketing person, he had literal no
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ability to operate anything. Yeah. He just didn't have the skill set or the attention span or the attention to to detail to run an organization. So, um, it was it became pretty apparent that the two of us could could do something
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together partnership and so we yeah, we put together an equity deal for me to acquire part of the company and come run and I I uh run the organization. I couldn't get away from the corporate world fast enough. So, that's what I
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did. Any moments that you're just like blown away at what you're involved in like people you're helping or just because that model it flipped it on its head to such a luxury, right? So, I'm a farm boy from Collison. Yeah. Okay. I
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grew up driving tractors, going to school dirty. Yeah. Right. Simple people. I remember the first time my dad took me to a fancy dinner because he wanted us to have be able to experience cloth napkins. Okay. Oh wow. We went to
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the Raada in fish fry Ryan. That was our level of hey this is this is a cut above. Right. And so that's my background. Yeah. and I arrive in Beverly Hills and about 50% of our clientele are the the studio industry,
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all of the A-list celebrities, all of the uh athletes that fly into town. Y about 25% of our business was Saudi Arabian clientele. Wow. And it was this absolutely insane non-ending um supply of who is that? What are they doing?
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What just happened? Yeah, it was out ofbody experience after out-of body experience the entire time I was was out there. Some of it not so great, right?
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Like there's tremendous vanity in it and the entire thing was based on vanity and and um and so, you know, there was lots of times where I just had to get away from it. Yeah. Um and ultimately I
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realized I couldn't I couldn't make that my whole career, but I I gave it I gave it a good try for five years. But yeah, the stories are unending. I remember one time, yeah, I remember one time that uh
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I walked into our main store in Beverly Hills and uh I'm standing there talking to one of the the service a or customer service reps and I see her like have this paranoid look like she's looking over my shoulder like what is going on?
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And I I'm thinking like there's a crash happening outside or something horrific. We're about to get robbed. And so I look over my shoulder and there is a woman in a fulllength mink coat. Full length head to toe. It's summertime. Fulllength mink
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coat. She's fully naked underneath. No. And she has a parrot on her shoulder. No. Yeah. And so she comes in and she's obviously distraught. She's her hair, you know, lipstick going up like a joker. She's hair's all a mess, right?
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But there's a parrot on her shoulder. There's a parrot on her shoulder. So, we bring her in, we take her in the back office, and we're like, "What what is going on here?" Yeah. And she gives us this story. She um she was married to a
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very, very prominent actor. If I told you the name, you would Yeah. I can't tell you the name, but a very very prominent A-list celebrity. And they were basically had just had a blowout fight and they were going to become
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divorced. And um she needed to get a car cuz she had just walked out with nothing but her mink coat and her parrot. Right.
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And so that's what was important to her was that Yeah. You always ask yourself like if the fire comes, what will I run back into in for, right? That her f that was that was what she did. Her mink coat
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and her parrot. Parrot. So So um I get this guy that works for me. He is a car cleaner. Yeah. He's like, you know, $8 an hour or whatever guy that that cleans cars for a living. Yeah. Super good guy.
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And I chose him because I trusted him. Yeah. He He was just one of those guys that always delivered. Yeah. So, I bring him in the office and I say, "Hey, can you take this lady home? She'll give you
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the directions back. We just need to get her home." Yeah. Because I had calmed her down and I'm like, "No, you need to go back. You can't just rent a car from us. You don't even have any money. Like,
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get yourself together. Let's get you back. Talk to your husband. Yeah, there's ways to do this. Gave her gave her our card if there was anything we can do to help. Yeah. So, um the service agent puts her in the car, drives her
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home, and uh he comes back and he's back in like I don't know, maybe like an hour and a half and she just lives. I mean, it's kind of right around the corner.
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So I'm like, where have you been? Like, how did it go? Like, I'm now I'm fascinated, right? Like, you got to know what's the rest of this story. And he says, "Oh, it went great." I go, "Well, what do you
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mean it went great? Like, you've been gone an hour and a half and it's like a five minute five minute drive to take her home." And he says, "Uh, no. Um, what happened was I shared my faith with
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her on the way home and she kept wanting to know more and more and more." And so, we finally uh prayed and she accepted the faith. And then she said that she was going to go back inside and um um
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have the same conversation with her husband. And so I said, "Do you want me to wait outside?" And she said, "No, no, no. I'll call you." And I gave her my number. But um anyway, um she she left
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happy and I think everything's okay. Oh my gosh. What just happened? The 180. What just happened? Oh my gosh. Yeah.
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So, uh Holy cow. And I and Ryan, I could I could sit here for the rest of today and all through the week and tell you stories that were like that. Yeah. That were just amazing opportunities to just
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dig into the reality of I mean, here's here's a woman that comes from a family that they're fabulously wealthy. Yeah.
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They have access to everything that you can possibly get access to. Yeah. I mean, planes, whatever it is, whatever you want, blink of an eye, you've got it.
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And they're broken. Yeah. And they're miserable and they're empty. And then here's a guy that's working in Beverly Hills that probably works little lives probably literally two hours away. Yeah.
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Because that's how you know far away you can afford to live. Has nothing. But he has everything. Yeah. and he's able to to share that. Yeah. It's like David and Goliath somehow, but like Yeah. It's just it's just next level. Wow. Yeah.
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Yeah. That's crazy. So, what do you do with that, right? Yeah. So, that's just an example of some of the crazy things that have happened in business and some of the crazy things that will happen in everybody's life. Yeah. If you're open
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to it. Yeah. Absolutely. Wow. And then you have that background then coming to Arizona. I mean, you're born and raised here. Yeah. Coming back from a California job like that. Yeah. My wife refused to raise kids in California,
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which she refused in the most delicate way that you could possibly refuse. My wife's amazing. She's a saint, right?
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She's a saint. And but she's just like, "This is not the place for us to raise kids." And so we worked uh on getting her reestablished here in town. And I was at a place where I couldn't or at
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least I believed at the time that I couldn't leave that Yeah. thing that I had started. I needed to put it in a in a safer place. Yeah. And um I uh we set her up here and I commuted back and
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forth for about five years. And then it finally I was able to sell the company to one of our competitors or pre-position it so that we could be acquired by one of our competitors, a merger. and um I could come back and
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take a year to just figure out what I wanted to do next. And that's that's what I did. And um in that downtime, I decided that I had seen the top of the mountain. I had seen the the wealthiest
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of the wealthy, the most powerful of the powerful, the most parody of the parody, the funniest of the most outrageous, right?
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And it was unimpressive. Yeah, it was vanity. It was literally all vanity. It was for nothing. And um I wanted the next phase of my career to be different.
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Yeah. We I was able to take some chips off the table. So I had a little bit of money to kind of figure out what could be next. Yeah. And uh at the time I thought I wanted to do I had gotten into
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really into fitness. Yeah. I'm running 30 miles a day and I'm doing all this stuff. And so I'm I'm like, well, maybe there I always listened to what people would say, which is find something you're passionate about and do that. I'm
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like, okay, after all my life's experience, I don't buy that anymore. But at the time, that's what I was trying to do. And what I mean by don't buy that anymore is I think you should be passionate at everything you do.
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Yeah. And m make as many doors open up by being excellent in whatever is put before you and let things come to you. Yeah. I I don't I think that that whole follow your passion thing is a really big excuse for
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lots of people to do nothing. So that's all I mean it's a huge glass floor if you think about it. I mean it's like whatever you're strong in, right? That's what we heard uh as I heard a quote from
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Charlie Kirk is like whatever your strengths are like your passion will follow. Like nobody's really passionate about things they suck at. Right. Right.
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Like Right. So like yeah if you're good if you're really good at relationships then wherever you're at you're going to you're going to wind up the cream rises.
Speaker A
You're going to wind up in a position and then doors are going to open and just keep being awesome. And if you keep being awesome long enough, then you will find where that places that you're going to be. But I just hate seeing especially
Speaker A
young men Yeah. you know, throw their young years away just going through the motions because they can't find their correct. Yeah. And they can't get past.
Speaker A
Yeah. That's a diversion. But yeah. No. Yeah. Um Yeah. So the next the next play was I wanted to do something that was good and meaningful and uh would make a difference, a permanent difference in people's lives. And it was at the time I
Speaker A
was really connected to the nutrition and fitness industry. And so I I started a company that um that was um entirely based on helping people that were kind of on that edge. It wasn't it wasn't a fitness place in the way you would
Speaker A
normally think about it. We had a nutrition nutritionist, a diabetic counselor. We were plugged into the medical community. We were literally in a medical space and we were working with uh primary care physicians as our major source of referral. Yeah. And um you
Speaker A
know we it was it was great. We we actually were able to engage in people's lives, make big differences, see big changes in lives. Yeah. And um and and it was fulfilling to that extent. Yeah.
Speaker A
However, um, for me it was a, you know, my I remember my partner saying at the time, it's like pushing in a thumbtack with a sledgehammer. It was like there was way too much horsepower at the table. Yeah.
Speaker A
To be consumed with just one location. Yeah. And we opened it uh right as the economy was about to crash. Yeah. And it was the business was doing fine, but it was it was going to take us a really
Speaker A
long time to get to scale and to be able to do this across the country in multiple locations. Yeah. And I just didn't have the I just didn't have the patience to really wait for that. Yeah.
Speaker A
So, one of my uh clients y um one of the patients that had come to the organization I got to be friends with and he had a small Century 21 franchise.
Speaker A
Yep. And I started talking to him about because I've always been involved in real estate. One every every one of these conversations there was a real estate component whether it was leases or you know government contracts with large municipalities or you know
Speaker A
whatever it was there was always um a real estate component. So I was talking to him about it and um I had done some flips and uh you buying a property, fixing up and selling it and I asked him
Speaker A
hey you know would you like to work together on flips? He says, he says to me, this is in uh 2010, this is a really smart guy, by the way.
Speaker A
Yeah. Who I still love and admire and consider a mentor. But he couldn't have been more wrong about the answer he was going to give me, but it worked out okay. He says it's a really bad time to
Speaker A
do flips right now. It was literally probably the best time ever to do flips, but the market was crashed. The market had absolutely bottomed out, but nobody knew that, you know, in fairness to him.
Speaker A
Yeah. and he says, "It's not a good time to do flips, but I've been wanting to get this little special project of mine off the ground in real estate for 20 years, and I just don't have the horsepower to do it. But you do could if
Speaker A
you could come in, you could take this thing over and you could make it all my my real estate dreams come true by getting this thing off the ground." Yep.
Speaker A
And uh so I said, "What the heck? I really like this guy. He's like this grandfatherly figure. I call him the general to this day because he just he reminds me of a general. He was in the military and he just conducts himself in
Speaker A
a way that you instantly respect, right? Yep. And so I'm like, for you, sir? Yes.
Speaker A
Let's go do it. So I come into the organization and um I start working on his project, Century 21, right?
Speaker A
Northwest. Century 21 Northwest. Yeah. And I'm just he he's paying me a little salary. Didn't mean anything to me at the time, but he's paying me a little salary and I'm helping him get this project going. And um we're six months
Speaker A
into it and he walks into my office one day and he literally throws his keys across the desk and he says, "I'm in your way." I was like, "What?" How big was the organization at the time? It was
Speaker A
relatively small. I mean, it was at the bottom of the market, so we had a few agents, maybe a couple dozen, and a couple hundred property management uh agreements, and that was really it. We had a we were leveraged. It was like I
Speaker A
don't know if it was a gift or a curse giving me, right? Throwing the keys your way. Yeah. So, uh, so, um, we work a deal for me to buy the company and for him to retire. Wow. And, um, it was,
Speaker A
like I said, he's still I consider him a very good friend to this day. And it was tremendous for him to be able to move into retirement, and it's been really great for me and the organization to to,
Speaker A
you know, be able to do that. And, um, it's it's how we got to where we're at.
Speaker A
Hit the horsepower and that was it. That was it. I never looked back. And you know, a lot of people were looking at me at the time and they're like, "Let me get this straight. The market has literally just crashed." Yeah. And
Speaker A
you're going into real estate. Yeah. And I was like, "Yes." Yeah. And it's true.
Speaker A
You know, the the greatest times of despair in any industry are the are the greatest times of opportunity. Yeah. And so, you know, I was looking at his little tiny property management company and I'm like, "Let me get this straight.
Speaker A
right now we can buy houses for $50,000 and rent them the next day for a,000 bucks. Wow. How many of these things can we get? And I was calling my friends from Beverly Hills and I was like telling them and they're like, "What if
Speaker A
the price drops more?" I'm like, "Idiot. It doesn't matter if the price drops more. You're still if the price drops more, we'll buy more. This is fantastic." And uh and we did. We bought hundreds of them and it was really great. So 200
Speaker A
went to like 400 real 800. Jeez. Yeah, it was it was really wild. And um you know, we bought and sold portfolios at that time and we did flips on scale at that time. So, we really just kind of
Speaker A
started getting into everything you can think of about Yeah. But in the meantime, I'm learning all about residential real estate and a little bit about more about the commercial brokerage side. Yep. Of real estate. And um that was what like 12 years
Speaker A
ago. 15 years ago. About 15 years ago. Yeah. And now it's just full pedal on the metal in the commercial and residential, right? It's like you're here, you're settled in, scaling up. Yeah. Now, uh we've sort of perfected the model on how we train
Speaker A
people and how we, you know, recruit and hire people. And um we learned a long long time ago that we don't care at all about your level of production. Yeah. Um that'll come. There's a certain very very small sliver of people that are
Speaker A
really good at this. Yeah. And it doesn't matter how much you train them or how much you teach them. There's just this intuitive like you're born with it thing that a very small percentage of people have and those people are going
Speaker A
to be good at it. But you don't know if those people that are good about it are going to be good people. Yeah. And so my only um thing that I teach around here with our recruiters is that I don't care if
Speaker A
they sell one house or 100 houses. I don't care if they sell 10 buildings or, you know, 50 buildings in a year. All I care about is do they share our values?
Speaker A
Yeah. And by that, you know, I mean, do they are they willing to value that relationship above theirel themselves?
Speaker A
Are they willing to put the needs of that client, regardless of what the commission is, regardless of what the um issues surrounding the transaction are, are they willing to put the needs of that that client above their own? And if
Speaker A
they will, then we'll work with them and we'll maximize them and we'll help them and coach them up and we'll make the most out of them and and so that's really what we've become is just a tremendous training organization. Um,
Speaker A
but a but an organization that steeps everything it does in in it in values.
Speaker A
Well, I think that's interesting because in like a brokerage model, you kind of flipped it on its head because most of the time, correct me if I'm wrong, but brokerages are contractors that kind of just show up, they pay their dues or
Speaker A
their fees or whatever, right? But they're still kind of on their own, their own brand. And what I'm hearing though is you kind of not flipped it on its head entirely, but you did in that you gave agents a place to not just call
Speaker A
home, but also to be connected in a in a company culture that's built on serving and growing. That's interesting because that's not the model. And and once again, I didn't come up with that idea.
Speaker A
I learned from one of my mentors earlier I just mentioned. Yeah. Um, my mentor in Beverly Hills didn't see his business the way everybody else saw it. Yep. He saw it the way he needed to see it to be
Speaker A
profitable, to be successful. Yeah. And so I came into this organization and I saw it the same. I I looked at it the same way. I want what we do to matter. I want to be a good steward of of the
Speaker A
people that work here and the clients that we serve. Yeah. And I'm inflexible. totally inflexible to anything but that.
Speaker A
Yeah. And so, yes, if you went around to a hundred brokerages today and you told them my model, they'd laugh in your face. They'd say you can't make any money doing that, they'd say that's not how it's done today. Yeah. And uh you
Speaker A
know um all I can say to that is that it's worked. Yeah. And at the end of the day, I not only go home satisfied with the with the business results, but more importantly, I go home satisfied that
Speaker A
we're doing the right thing. Yeah. I think it's interesting when you say going home. Um, so much focus is always on the business or the leader or the principles of the company, things like that. But, um, if I mean, you've been
Speaker A
owning businesses, running businesses long enough, like the entire personal side of, okay, I'm still leading my family. I'm still right. And it's like all the incredible situations you're walking through there like most recently, right, with Seth, right? Sure.
Speaker A
It's like amidst all the things on the company end, I think leaders, business owners have to really um I don't like to use that word work balance, right?
Speaker A
Because it's like you're all in everywhere, right? But it's how do you prioritize? How do you walk? How do you enjoy and be present? Yes. For those moments. Well, unfortunately for me, you learn the absolute hard way, right?
Speaker A
That's how I learned the hard way. Now you I watch you. You're intentional. You were born that way. And you've done such an amazing job with your kids. I um grew up on a dairy farm. Yeah. And I modeled
Speaker A
my dad and my grandfather who worked until the work was done. Yeah. And on a dairy farm, the work's never done. Yeah.
Speaker A
So they never stopped working. Yeah. And you know, one small difference on the dairy farm that I didn't intuitively pick up on is that your kids get to come with you. So that's a difference maker.
Speaker A
Even though you're working, yeah, you can still engage with your family. I didn't understand that. I wasn't working in the dairy. And I just knew that my primary goal I believed was in providing for them. Yeah. And so the heart wasn't
Speaker A
in the wrong place. Yeah. It's just the matter of going there was in the wrong place. And so, how did I ever allow myself to be in a place where five nights a week I was in another state
Speaker A
jumping on airplanes, traveling across the country, doing all kinds of crazy things? And um all the while convincing myself that I was doing it for them. I hated it. I was miserable. It was really hard. It was really exhausting. And come
Speaker A
to find out, you know, I was depriving them, too. Now, I have an incredible wife and she's a saint. She's a saint.
Speaker A
And I was born I I was I was blessed with three of the most fascinating, wonderful people for children that you could possibly ever imagine. And I take no pride in the way they turned out because um even though I believe in a system,
Speaker A
even though I believe in a in a in a in a group of rules and how you rear young children and bring them up, um I still think that the kids get a say, right, in what they become. Yeah. And I've just
Speaker A
been blessed that they all became incredible people. Now, um I got myself into a position intentionally where at one point I said I will never miss another event. I will not miss a daddy a daddyaughter dance. Y I will not
Speaker A
miss a parent teacher conference. I will not miss a sporting event. Hard stop. It will not happen. I don't care what the work circumstances are. And I set my kids down and I told them nothing matters more to me than you. And and
Speaker A
therefore that's the case. And so that's the other part of being an entrepreneur is I work non-stop. I still do. I work seven days a week. But I can completely control the hours that I work. You know, I can completely, you know, stop things
Speaker A
and make time for those things that truly truly matter in life, which are is your family. Yeah. And so, um, yeah, with the the Seth thing, um, both of the kids, we we just wanted all three kids to be, um, in sports. Yeah. And we
Speaker A
stumbled on literally just by knowing um, just happen stance um, into swimming and we were attracted to it because it was outside. It was like lots of activity. Yep. It was great exercise and there was a community feel to it. Yeah.
Speaker A
Um my niece was was coaching and so we just put all the all three kids at the exact same time into swimming. Yeah. The two older ones were accomplished swimmers. They were good athletes but they were high school good quality you
Speaker A
know you know nothing no fault of theirs. They were very very good. Yeah. Um, but the very first time that we put Seth into a swimming pool, it was evident that there was something different there. Yeah. Much the same way
Speaker A
that sometime some parents talk about um they put their child in front of a piano and he could just play a symphony. Seth was like that. He and um he was just special in the water. And so a lot of
Speaker A
our time became um revolved around, you know, helping Seth figure out what that was going to look like for him. And um you know, the greatest thing about that is that Seth didn't really want to be a swimmer, right? Really? Yeah. He is uh I
Speaker A
think he's I think this year he um when he finished his high school senior season, he was the fastest high school swimmer in the United States of America.
Speaker A
Wow. And he took a different path. He he uh somewhere around his freshman year decided that he didn't want to do club sports anymore. Yeah. And he would only swim for his high school coaches. And that is usually like a death sentence
Speaker A
for any athlete in any any level. Oh yeah. you're you're going to now pigeon hole yourself just because of how competitive it is. Well, everything is year round. Like you have to have your specialty. It's year round. Like when I
Speaker A
was in it, I was doing baseball and volleyball and other things, right? Yeah. And it was just like rotating which is better. Well, I don't Yeah, I was never that great of an athlete. No, that's that is you are you are seriously one of the
Speaker A
best all-around athletes that I've ever ever been around. And if you had if you had some of the uh half of the uh opportunity that these kids have now, it's just amazing where you wouldn't be sitting here with me. But but anyway, uh
Speaker A
you know, Seth um he didn't want to take that path. Yeah. And so it was really hard as a dad. Yeah. You know something that he doesn't know, right? A lot of times parents are like they see a kid
Speaker A
and it's a good the kid's good at whatever sport they're as a gymnast whatever and they're like if he if he tries hard Yeah. he could be he could make it to the Olympics he could make it to the pros he could do whatever in my
Speaker A
sit situation that was true. Yeah. Like literally this kid was the kind of kid that should be in the Olympics someday and it was obvious to everyone that was around him and it didn't and Seth knew. Yeah. but
Speaker A
it didn't matter to him because that's not what he wanted to do with his life.
Speaker A
So, what's that tug and pull that you have as a parent with a kid that's like that? Like on the one hand, you're like, you've been gifted. How do I encourage you to honor that gift? Because you're never given a gift by accident, right?
Speaker A
Yeah. And at the same time, how do I let you be what you want to be? Yeah. And so, I I he taught me a lot. Yeah. And uh you know, my wife is always intuitive on what he really needed. And we just kept
Speaker A
presenting the option. It's like teaching kids how to eat. If you if you put the vegetables in front of them and you say, "You're going to sit there until you eat your green beans." They're not ever going to eat those green beans
Speaker A
and they're going to be scarred. Yeah. For the rest of their life, that's the one food that they won't ever eat.
Speaker A
Right. And so that was kind of how we had to manage Seth with his athletics was to continue to put him in front of opportunity. Yeah. And just encourage him um to make whatever he could make out of it. Now, we were also blessed
Speaker A
that some other guys, the high school coaches that he swam for came alongside him and fully understood him and just wanted what was best for him. Yeah. And uh turned, you know, helped him turn that switch on to Yeah. I really want I
Speaker A
really want this. So, you know, suddenly uh I'll tell you a quick story about how that went. Yeah. Um Seth his junior year, he didn't want to go on and swim in college. And so, every time we go to
Speaker A
a swim meet, um they would say, "Oh, where's he going to swim in college?" And we're like, "He's not going to swim in college." Yeah. And uh he meanwhile, he's getting first. And he's was destroying people. And so, we we go we
Speaker A
go to the state championship meet. He has a breakout meet and he really does well and he wins the state in both of his events and sets a state record in the relays and it's he's getting all kinds of press and people are all over
Speaker A
him and u I'm just looking at it I'm like I'm okay with it. I'm resigned that he's not going to go on that he's just going to do this in in high school and I'm just okay with him being him. But
Speaker A
the next day um we sit down for lunch. I took I took him to play golf with two of his buddies and we're just going to have a quick round of golf and uh I um I'm sitting there and he looks over at me
Speaker A
and he goes, "Dad, I think I want to take some trips." I go, "You want to take some trips? Where where are we going?" He goes, "No, I mean to see some schools." I was like, "Are you saying
Speaker A
that you want to swim in college?" Yeah. And he says, "Yeah." I'm like, "Where the heck did this come from?" But that's awesome. Seth, you know how it works.
Speaker A
Since swimming is a little different. Um it's a very competitive and yeah and there's not a lot of budgets for it. So I'm like what we'll do is we'll tomorrow we'll talk about some schools that you might be interested in and then we'll
Speaker A
reach out to those coaches and see if there's a place for you on the team.
Speaker A
Yeah. And he's like great. And we get up from the meal and we're on our way to the first tea box and his phone tings and it's the head coach of Alabama and then ASU and then Navy and then Duke and
Speaker A
then North Carolina and then Florida and then every hole it was a new coach that was like they heard it, right? Well, what happened was we found out later his times posted from the from the day before. In high school, the only time
Speaker A
that posts is your champ state championship. They don't count those times otherwise. And so his times posted and all the coaches saw it and they just started reaching out going nuclear. Wow.
Speaker A
And uh so we get invited to to go to Alabama. I'm a huge football guy. Yeah.
Speaker A
And uh he he wants to take the trip and we go to Alabama and they are putting on the show. Man, had you been there before? I'd never been there, but I loved what Sabin had done with the
Speaker A
football program. I just loved everything about it. And I get there and it's beyond my wildest dreams. It's utopia. I mean, it's literally they've spent good all of the money at this place and all of the facilities are over
Speaker A
the top. They've got all the swim team has massage therapists and nutritionists that follow you around and they've got tutors that help you and they've got they're all in first class facilities and they're they're their weight room is
Speaker A
better than any NFL locker room foot uh weight room that I've ever been in.
Speaker A
Yeah. It's just for the swim team. Yeah. Yeah, this is for the swim team. And uh they take us out on the field because they know I like football and they take us up to Sabin's office and they're
Speaker A
really putting on the show. And so I'm like, where do we sign this? You're all in. I'm all in. I'm buying the sweatshirts. You got your BE brisket.
Speaker A
Yeah, I I Yeah, I am all 100% in. And once again, I learned like Seth was not in. Yeah. So he the next, you know, that night Seth goes to a to a game um with the basketball team and um the next
Speaker A
morning was a hustle bustle to get out of there and we leave and um he uh he decided that he didn't want to go and they off they made him a deal that is unheard of in swimming. Yeah.
Speaker A
And I'm like how could you what is going on in your head? And Seth is a really quiet guy. He's an understated guy and it's easy as a parent to cast your own weaknesses and your own character flaws
Speaker A
over the top of somebody who's quiet. Yeah. And so this is again one of the most profound things I learned that Seth taught me. He he decides that he wants to go to ASU. ASU won the national championship y in swimming. And um his
Speaker A
coaches like their coach and it's local, right? And so, um, Bob Bowman brings him out and interviews him. Bob Bowman's Michael Phelps's coach and he brings him out and he interviews him and I'm like, "Okay." But yeah, the facilities are
Speaker A
like squeaky rusty doors and it's like no indoor facilities and the weight room's like, you know, Eye of the Tiger, the Rocky movie, and you're just like, you know, Bob's a nice guy and he's super accomplished and it's an honor
Speaker A
being in the room with Michael, the greatest swimmers ever coach, and he's saying nice things about your son, but I'm like, give me a break. Like, why would you why would you? It reminded me of the the I think it was a Jack in a
Speaker A
Box commercial where it was like the the good hamburger and the bad hamburger B.
Speaker A
Like who would ever choose Hamburger B? So So Seth chooses ASU. Yeah. And uh I get that they just won a national championship and they have the best swimmers on planet Earth, but I'm like, is he taking the shortcut in life here?
Speaker A
Yeah. And um so long story short, I ask him about that. You know, Seth, are you are you chickening out because you're afraid to go away from home? Are you intimidated by being in a facility that's like that where they want to
Speaker A
build a program around you where you can't just be invisible amongst all of the other talent? And he says, "You couldn't couldn't be further from the truth." He said, "ASU is the most overwhelmingly I am out of my league
Speaker A
with those guys." He said, "The pressure and the anxiety just thinking about going and swimming with people that are on that level, it's it's the biggest challenge I think I would have ever faced." And I said, "So, why in the heck
Speaker A
would you want to do that?" And he goes, "Because I want to see how good I can get." Yeah. Wow. Yeah, because he knew he'd probably dominate pretty well at Alabama, right? Like he'd he'd hold his own over there. High school were good
Speaker A
enough to make him one of the top swimmers in the school. He wanted that challenge. And in ASU, he's swimming with six or seven Olympians and he's just going to be another face in the in the pan. Uh unless they can really do
Speaker A
something with him. And and that's his point. He's like, I want to see what I can do. I wonder where he gets that from. That drive, huh? I don't know.
Speaker A
Probably his mom. Probably his uncle Ryan. No, no, no. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Wow. But you think you know. Yeah. You think you know. Yeah. And uh it's it's great when you learn a lesson from your kids. Yeah. And uh that was a profound
Speaker A
lesson I learned from him. Wow. That's awesome. Well, I uh man, I know you're super busy. I I love our chats. I've enjoyed them all. I've uh benefited so greatly from all the wisdom and and all that. I just, you know, it's it's nice
Speaker A
uh to be able to to share it here and to to dig in here and, you know, business and personal life is always intertwined and so you always share it is you can't just be business and then check out and
Speaker A
go. So, it's all intertwined. Your character is your character through and through business and personal. I think it's what people need to hear in this. I hate that. I hate that that expression that's common in the American vernacular
Speaker A
that business is business. Yeah. Keep business separate from personal. Yeah. It's a it's a copout. Yeah. And it's and what I think what I see it played out more often than anything is that it's an excuse to to not have integrity. Yeah.
Speaker A
It's like I can I I I can like you. I can be kind to you as a personal level, but on the business level, I can take advantage of you and get one up on you, right? It's incorrect. Yeah. There is no
Speaker A
deal in business that matters more than the relationship of the people that you're doing it with. I love it. Well, looks like we're out of herbal tea. By the way, I got to ask why herbal tea.
Speaker A
That's what you chose. Don't get me wrong. Because I don't do caffeine. I already talk fast enough. Okay. I'm off the caffeine. I'm never going back. It's the greatest thing I ever did for myself. I waited until I was 30 to drink
Speaker A
coffee. And then once I drank the juice, I was hooked on it until like last year.
Speaker A
So, I gave up I gave up caffeine and now I'm staying with you. Well, I like it.
Speaker A
Thank you. Appreciate you coming on. Love you. [Music] [Applause] [Music]
Topics:John CrowCentury 21 Northwestreal estate businessbusiness leadershipcommunity engagementproperty managementbusiness transformationentrepreneurshipbusiness growthlive nativity event
