Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Reveal the real playbook behind scaling past that million dollars in revenue. We go beyond the highlight reel into the hard lessons, costly mistakes, key growth inflection points, and the human decisions that shape those numbers. And here's the twist. Every conversation becomes a chapter in the Victory book series so that the next generation of builders doesn't have to start from scratch. Today, I'm sitting down with Long Doan Long's the embodiment of the American dream, fleeing Vietnam on a fishing boat and surviving refugee camp Hell's island at the age 13.
Decades later, he's the founder and driving force behind realty group LPT Realty's largest Minnesota team.
Long launched the realty group in 2009, where he quickly became one of the Minnesota's top producing agents. Get this, closing over 1000 transactions in this first for years.
But it wasn't just about the numbers. It was about building a platform for others to succeed. He flipped the traditional real estate model upside down, created an agent first systems driven business where agents keep 100% of the commission, receive top tier support, and are empowered to operate like CEOs. With well over 35 years in the industry, Long has been a top 1% agent in the country, a highly coveted business coach and a national speaker. And he's also served on the board for MNAR Area, LGBTQ Real Estate Alliance, Spare Key, and many other organizations. Recognized as one of Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal's most admired CEOs, Long's leadership is rooted in emotional intelligence, collaboration over competition, and deep commitment to service and changing lives. Long, thank you so much for being here.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Thank you for having me, Travis.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: So what was the pivot into real estate in 2009? Was there a specific moment where you went this year? This is it. I'm going all in on this thing.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So you stated my background a little bit in your intro, Right. So refugee from Vietnam came to America. I saw the great opportunity that America has to offer someone who works hard and, you know, and take advantage of those opportunities. So my 35 years total in the industry, my first 15 years was actually on the mortgage side. My last real estate. So I transitioned from mortgage to real estate in 2007. 8 and 9.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Wow. So what fantastic timing to pivot.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. So as a business owner, I'm big on looking at the leading and lagging indicator because, as you know, the leading indicator is the sign you look at to predict what's going to happen next, which is the lagging indicator. I think most business owners react too late. They're seeing the lagging indicator. Well by then it's already too late. Right. To make the adjustment. So I remember on the mortgage side all the different type of programs I legally have to offer which, which I thought was always crazy and risky. You know, we had investors who can buy homes, rental property at 0% down at 500 score with no reserves in the bank and not enough income to cover one month of payment if the renter doesn't pay. And those are all crazy type of loans that were being offered. So when the market started to adjust in 070809 I'm thinking all those stuff over there has got to come out on this side. I'm going to shift from mortgage over to real estate. So I went from real estate, started realty group and started to get into foreclosure listing. I started to go to sign up and work with Freddie Fannie hut all the major bank to say hey, when this thing's going to the dam is going to break, I want to be the person to help you list these properties.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: So you started having those conversations in 2007 and eight before all this, the markets really started to roil.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: That's correct.
Wow, that makes sense to me now
[00:03:52] Speaker B: why you were able to close a thousand deals in the first four years.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: There you go. So I was able to position myself that when these transactions needed to be disposed of, I was the guy they would contact and you know, and I built process system in place to make sure that I can accommodate a type of volume.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: So did you now how long were you doing that before you started building a team behind you? Because there's a real as a mortgage broker you were kind of a low loan shark and then you're going into real estate. I assuming you started on your own. But how quickly did you realize you needed help?
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Yeah, so I learned quickly that I should open my own brokerage because my brokerage contract is with the Freddie Fannie HUD and a large bank. Right. So I was with another brokerage until I was able to get my own brokerage open up.
And once I did that, you know, I was able to control a lot of different things. But I also knew very quickly that as business owners, you know, I learned that systems run business people run systems. So I knew that to scale and to do that type of volume, even though I didn't have as much experience on the real estate side I did have on the mortgage side, I built out process system to accommodate the volume. And I went to meet with those people to say I got System process in place to accommodate. So they were sending other agents two transactions, three transactions a month. Because those agents can only accommodate two to three transaction closing a month. I could do 20, 30 to each of those clients. That's how I was able to close more transactions.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Wow. Wow.
So what, like, was it your experience in the mortgage industry and seeing like the commissions going out that, that when you went into it, you realized there could be a better system for agents?
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. You know, we all learn, right? The growth mindset versus the fixed mindset. You know, we learn from previous experience and mistakes or whatever it was. So I learned right away that, you know, you take advantage of the opportunity you have. I move over. I learned that what worked, some of the stuff worked for me and my previous business and experience translate over. I also learned that I need to create some new process system to accommodate the new business model and the new time.
So I also learn a lot from people. One thing that people don't realize is that it's always good to have a cultural mentor because you can learn from not just what they can tell you what's successful, but what they can tell you what failed so that you're not wasting time and resources to try the same thing. That's not going to work. So I right away seek out those individuals and the reason I'm here, where I'm at, is they were able to share with me, you know, unselfishly all the way that they fail so I can learn from them.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: You know, I used to live in LA and Santa Monica is becoming pretty big tech hub and they used to do these firesides with startups. And I went in one night and there was a.
It was the. I forget his name, but it was the guy who was the founder of Intuit and QuickBooks, and he was worth seven and a half billion dollars. And somebody asked him what was the biggest mistake he'd made in his career and he said, biggest mistake I made in my career was not getting a mentor sooner. He's like, I. I just got my first business mentor two years ago. And he's like, if I would have had one at the start of my career, I would probably be worth 10 times more than I am right now. And everybody was like, this is a guy worth $8 billion going like, oh, I could have been worth more. But I tried to do it all on my own.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yep. Because, you know, growth cannot happen in isolation. Right. That means that you can't be by yourself and grow. You need to be part of community.
But to Learn from somebody who's already gone through it is immensely valuable because they can share their experience.
You know, history tend to repeat itself.
So when you learn from their history, you can avoid repeating itself because you don't have to go through the same history because you learn from their history before you start your making your own history, right? So that's uber important. And the amount of money or resources that you invest back to yourself through coaching and mentorship, you gain it back tenfold.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: That is such fantastic advice.
What so for you as becoming a CEO that first three or four years, what are two or three of the big sort of lessons that you learned as you stepped in from being solo into, like, being a leader?
[00:08:29] Speaker A: That's right. Well, we all have limited resources and time. I don't care if you're a billionaire or you're homeless. We all have the same amount of time, right? So what I learned very quickly from my own experience and other mentors and coaches is that how you leverage time.
Okay, so we only have certain amount of time during the day. And as a business owner, we have all these tasks we have to do to achieve whatever that goal is, whether that's closing three transactions a month or 300 transactions a month. If your goal to close 300 transactions a month, you will have different kind of tasks than you would if you only want to close three transactions a month. So now you prioritize those tasks out because you reverse engineer. As you know, as a business owner, this is. I want to throw 300 transactions. Well, how do you close 300 transactions? You reverse engineer back all the steps you got to do to close 300 transactions. Then you realize there's no way I can do all those. Right? So you start prioritizing all those tasks. And then you start. I came up with the automate delegate eliminate.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:09:31] Speaker A: That was something I learned right off the bat, is that I have all these tasks that I need to do to achieve my goal. So from there, what is the best use of my time? Okay, so I'm going to focus mostly on that. The rest of it, I'm going to automate as much as I can, because why do the same thing over and over again unless it's automated? I delegate as much as I can to people who are better than me at certain tasks and the better use of my time to do something else. And I eliminate some of the stuff I should not even be touching or doing. Because the transition as an entrepreneur is you're the one doing all the tasks and you think you're a Perfectionist. You don't think someone else can do as good a job as you. So you hoard those tasks. You don't give up.
Well, if you keep doing those tasks, you cannot do those other things, which are income producing activities. So I have two buckets, the income producing activity bucket and the supportive bucket. Right. The one that keep the business going.
So I should be focused on the income producing activity and I should delegate, automate, and eliminate the rest over to the other bucket, which means without working anymore, I can double, triple, or quadruple my production. Because some of us when we, you know, journal or look at our calendar and, you know, see the tasks and the job that we've done in our job, if you go, you will see that 20% of the time you spend usually probably produce 80% of the revenue. And the other 80% of time you spend is for supportive tasks only produce a 20% of revenue. If that.
Now, if you're able to ship off that 80%, you just quadruple your revenue production, business time. Right. And you do just those. And that's what I had to learn very quickly.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Wow.
So what are some key mistakes you've made along the way?
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Yep, again, hoard what I should be doing instead of giving to somebody. And I had to shift from a fixed mindset to. To a growth mindset very quickly because most business owner or athletes or American as a whole, our culture is win. Right. We want to win. We're very competitive. Win, win, win. So when you want to win, it's a fixed mindset because you didn't win, you failed, you lost. Okay. Versus the growth mindset. It's not result oriented, it's process oriented. So I had to shift from that mindset to process oriented, which mean if I gave a task to my assistant and he or she fail at it, I feel like I failed too. I should take that back.
So I had to shift through. It's okay. They fail. Let them learn from that so they can do better next time and better next time and better next time. So that was the hardest mistake I had, was sometimes I pull that back or not let them do that task anymore because they failed the first time or the second time or the third time. Okay. And then I also have to not lower my expectation, but understand that if, if they can do 80% of the job of what I expect them to do, because I can do 100% of my satisfaction level, if I can be satisfied with 80% of that, that's still better.
Don't expect them to do Just as good of you, if not better than you. Sometimes they can depend on certain tasks, but some of those, it's still okay.
Can you accept the fact that they can only do 80% of what you want them to do and still grow? So those are some of the mistake I made early on that I could probably grow faster, so. Which lead to fail it off.
So my biggest thing is I should have failed more and faster.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: That's interesting, right? And, you know, that's. It's interesting you say that about getting to the 80% mark. Because, remember, my first book took me a couple of years and a lot, you know, probably eight or nine months of that was me kind of going over and fussing with it, fussing with it and fussing with it. My second book took me 19. 19 months.
And that one I had a publishing deal for. And so they had their own editing team. But I really wanted to, like, this is a. Publish is a big deal. So I'm like, I had hired my own editors.
You know, I spent all this money. I didn't need to. And I think we had like, 30 people go through the book, like, for editing, like, fix it, all right? And then they published the book. And I got the book, and in the first five pages, I got three typos.
And I was like, how.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: How does it.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: And. And what that did is it broke my. Like, oh, I gotta be perfect. And I was like, you know what? It's good enough. Like, let's move. Let's start marketing this now and use it. And that. That actually really changed how quickly I'm able to do stuff now, because I'll. With my own books. That's a question I ask. I'll. I'll get to a point and go, am I just tweaking or is it good enough? And I say, it's good enough. Then I'm like, okay, I gotta.
That's interesting. With business as well, if you can get somebody to 80%, like, that's good enough.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: It's.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Let's go.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: But that all come back to Travis about your mindset. What you're all talking about the mindset. Because our mind's very powerful, right? Whatever we believe in, we act and we react and all of emotion comes out because it starts up here. But what people don't realize is that the mindset is a setting of the mind, which means we can actually control it. So we can dial it up or dial it down.
And what people don't realize that. And that's what I had to learn, right? I either dial down my expectation or dial up whatever I want to do, but I get to reset. And if it doesn't work, I'll reset it again and reset again versus feeling like I fail, I fail, I fail. I see it as a reset and I reset whatever I need to do to make the changes, which is most of the time, it's the process itself. You fix the process, the result eventually will change.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: So how do you.
Because to me, in my work with a lot of American, the whole sort of like binary thinking with Americans is very big. Right. I win or I lose, I accomplish it or I'm a fail. And if I, if I failed at the task, then I am a failure.
So how do you help people get out of that type of mindset to adopt a growth mindset where they realize like, oh, failure is just part of the process.
Let me use that to adjust.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah. If you think about, obviously because I'm originally from the east, right.
The Asian culture and the Eastern culture, I get the advantage of, I get to have the advantages together and I learn from whatever not. But the American, because of the win, win, win culture, I feel like I say we because I'm now American.
We always have to feel like we're moving forward. It's lit versus thinking in the Eastern world. It's. Everything is like, you know, together. Right. Like, you know, it's inside this global thing that it doesn't have to be left. Right. It can be, you know, holistic think in the whole big picture of things. Right. It can be over there, it can be over here, but it's still inside the whole holistic thing versus a linear thing. So.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: So that, so I never, I never really thought about that. But yeah, that is very much a Western thing that linear thinking. Start, end, just straight.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Yep.
Wow.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Got me thinking of so many, so many things. So in your organization, what do you do to identify and then, you know, support the people that you can tell are going to be good leaders?
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Yeah, again, because I don't think linearly, so I don't see ranking.
Okay. I think holistically.
So I don't care if this person is a vice president or a janitor. They're in my holistic picture.
See what I'm saying? So I'm not threatened. Matter of fact, I go find people who are better than me.
My job is to. I participate in team sport. You know, I play softball, I play soccer, whatever. And I always tell people if I'm the worst player on the team, they that's a good team. I don't need to be the best player.
I'm the best player on the team. It's not a good team. Right.
So the same thing in my business. I've been fortunate enough to surround myself by the way, it did happen right away. I learned from all the people that fail as well as I go through that. Right. But I start identifying the right profile, the right people, the people who are better than me.
So what people don't realize is they always think again linearly. Like, hey, I'm really good at this. I need to duplicate myself with that. In your mindset, you got to go finders like you so you can do double the amount of work. I think holistically, I go find somebody who's different than me.
Right. Because I'm weak at something, I need someone better than me than that. So that's how I've been able to do. And again, system run business, people run system.
So holistically, I look at the whole system, how to grow my business, and I go find the people to plug in.
So in the beginning, it's me, all entrepreneur. When you start growing and scaling, you're the janitor, you're the accounting person, you're the marketing person. Right. You're the salesperson, you're the CEO.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: But it stands for the Chief Everything Officer.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Exactly. It.
So if you do an organizational chart and let's call it 20 position in there, you win 20 hats. So once across the system, you start replacing those 20 hats with other people that are better than you in some of those position. And that's probably the hardest transition for entrepreneur to go from the production people into the business owner mindset.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, my own business for the longest time, I was a. I was a freelancer, I was a freelance writer. And the book publishing was very much kind of the side hustle. People just kind of found me for that.
And when I finally had the realization, I looked, remember, I hit a year and I looked back at the year and was like, wow, that. That was the first time in 15 years I didn't write anything for money. It was all just my consulting business. And I had a couple of weeks where that really messed with my identity because I had been that thing for so long. And then it was just like, oh, wow. Yeah. Now it's. Now I'm this thing over here. And there's. There's a different skill set involved.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: And there's, there's. There's been some good mistakes along the way. So. So you do a lot of business coaching. Do you primarily just coach in the real estate industry, or do you just, like, are you a CEO coach, or like anybody that's got a business, you'll work with them.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: That's right. So I do coach CEOs, because I treat even real estate agents. So most of my clients are in a real estate space because I'm also in the real estate space. But at the end of the day, I let them know you are the CEO of your company. You can be a solo agent, you can be a team leader, you can be a broker, you know, multiple offices. But I consult and coach, mostly business owner. Right. And the word you use actually don't realize that you said it, but the identity piece.
So for me, yes, I do coach them how to build in system, process, to scale. But before I go into it, I actually talk about their identity first. What I mean by that is I have to work on their mindset first. Because, Travis, I can lay out 100% foolproof how to grow your business double, triple, quadruple by next year. But if you don't have the right mindset, you'll never execute it because it's not easy. You got to put in the stuff. So before I go into it, I usually start with their why and their identity. The reason? Because I learned that myself, you know, a little bit. My story. I left Vietnam. I was 13 years old. Took me three tries. Half the people don't make it, half the people die. Right? I finally made it to refugee camp. My first night. This is my identity type. I share this with people because I want them to find theirs. Because everyone have their own your why, who you are, and your identity is mentally created back.
Usually they say between the age of 8 and 15, period of time in your life, or certainly outside of that timeline. But most of the time for me, I was 13 years old, first night at the refugee camp when I realized I made it.
And all of a sudden, you probably know my story. The first time I, you know, emotionally cry all night because all of a sudden I realized that I made it. And it hit me and I wait, wait a minute. Is that a good thing or bad thing?
I made it because half the people die. And I'm here now that I made it. It's unlucky for me because now I know that I was told if I made it. Go figure it out for yourself. Which is, as you know, Hell's island, the most heavily populated place on Earth. At the time, I was one of 40,000 people the size of a football field. And I know nobody, right? I'm like, what am I supposed to do here? I'm supposed to figure it out for myself and then help take care of my family. Back in Vietnam, when I was 13 years old, that seemed unlucky to me that I won. I got to that position, right? But my mindset struggled. That whole day. I start crying, I look across the ocean. I'm like, everyone I know, their whole life I know up to now, probably never see anybody again, which is true. I got luckily, happy ending. I got to see both my parents and my younger brother. But I never saw my grandma again, grandpa again. They died.
Actually, since I left, I plan on going back this October, first time in 45 years. I'm very excited about that. It's going to be an amazing journey. But with that being said, I struggle. I struggle. I cry, cry, cry, and the sun's going to come up. And I remember going, all right, I got to make a decision here. And I remember at that point, I did not realize how important mindset is until years later when I learned more about mindset. That at that moment, the decision I made determined the trajectory of my life. I could have decided I'm unlucky, right? That I'm here and I'm the victim. I'm 13 years old, refugee boy, by myself. What am I supposed to do? But I decided at that point that I'm lucky and I'm a victor.
I'm lucky to be here. So I remember telling myself, put your figure it out and let's go. And that's the decision I made that day, right? So for me, I struggle, I cry. So my identity, Travis, is I share with people all the time that I'm here to help you because I never want you to feel the way I felt that night. Hopeless.
And that's my identity. And I am here to help you find yours so that every time you feel like. I don't feel like making that call, I don't feel like doing these five things on my list. You have to know why you do what you're doing, because when you get lost, you want to find that North Star, right? Or that moon or whatever, so you can steer your way back.
And most of us don't know identity and why we're doing what.
That's uber important. But I do work with mostly CEOs, and that's a first thing I spent right off the bat, because without that, the rest doesn't work.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: That's interesting.
We're taught so much about goal setting in this country. You have big goals. Do this and do that. But very few people address the. The actual why behind that.
I was in Hollywood for 15 years.
You see these people that are like, I want to. I want to get to the A list. Right?
But the why behind they want to get there is a lot of them. You know, they feel broken, and they're like, well, when I'm famous, then people will love me. And then they get there and they're like, I still hate myself. And then you see, like, you know, they have alcohol problems, drug problems, their careers implode, and you're like, how did you blow that up?
Jim Carrey actually said that, right. Once. He had a quote where he said, I hope my dream is that everybody can become rich and famous and get everything that they ever dreamed of so that they can find out that that's not the answer.
And. And. And I was. So. Yeah, that's the identity is. Anyway, where I'm going with that is, like, this is impacting me because I'm going. I don't know. In all the goals I've set down, if I ever, like, sat down and said, why am I going after this particular.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: They say that once you figure that out, Travis, you will exponentially grow even more. Right. You. You're kind of being restricted.
But back to our culture here in America.
Well, because, like, you have a sport team, you go with whatever it might be, right.
What happened is people set goal, but they don't figure out what they can do to achieve the goal. So if you look at the biggest one is like, right. People always want to say, I want to get healthier. Usually that's the biggest goal. Right. So then that's like the biggest time people go sign up for gym membership. Right. But the stat is 92% of people actually fail.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And don't they fail, like, within the first four weeks?
[00:26:01] Speaker A: That's right. They never dealt with the reason why they want to reach that goal.
There's a whole reason behind it, and it's in here somewhere. So when I work with CEO, as soon as I get to unlock that, I might even need to coach anymore. Matter of fact, my goal is I should be coaching you until you don't need me. That's my goal. Right. And that's funny. You call me when you need me. But I'm not going to keep charging you, because once I. Once I help you unlock that, you may not. You won't need me because you'll go figure all this other stuff out by yourself. Because you unlock that, that's that's really
[00:26:31] Speaker B: amusing because I, in my work with people, I always tell them I'm very process oriented. And you know, having 19 books, you don't do that without a framework.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: And so when I'm working with people, can we do it all for them? Yes. But I like to show people, how do you go from idea to being published? Because once you've done it one time you'll go, oh, it's not that difficult. And so I always say I'm like, I'm probably a bad consultant because my whole business model is based around if I do my job correctly, you won't need me anymore.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: That's right. And which is totally very similar to real estate. Right. I coach a lot of real estate people and I tell them that our industry is hard because your job is to go interview for a buyer or seller to want to work with you. And then when they say yes to you, you do your best to work yourself out of the job by finding them the home and sell their house so you can go do interview again. Same with you, right? You go find someone who can help
[00:27:22] Speaker B: write a book, you're always starting over.
So what was it like? What was the experience that led you to understanding all of this stuff about identity and mindset, especially coming from the background that you did, you know, that's a pretty big leap in that. So was it a mentor, come across some books or was this just something that was sort of natural for you?
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Yep. I can tell you right now, you and I, or whoever else people think we're smart or whatever, all we do is we just learn and copy other people. Right.
So, and then we put into our own way of thinking and our thought process. So for me, yes, I was reading books about mindset and just come come up about the why, you know, so I researched a little bit about the why and I realized that, you know, most people don't know why they are the way they are. I'm not saying there's a different why. Right. The Simon Simek why, why this, why that. For me, my why is more like why are you the way you are? And it's different for everybody. Your why is going to be different than mine. Right. And so whatever our motivation is, so that why is the way you are, why you are the way you are, then you'll understand.
Because once you understand, then you can now either change or adjust.
Right.
So for me, yeah, just through reading, to listening to people, to talk to a mentor and something just like I was about 35, actually. Before all this hit me, I'm like, yeah, what is my why? So I went through that whole journey. And they also tell you, most people always think they know their why. And I usually go through the journey with them process. I always tell them, you will know your why because it'll hit you. You get very emotional, you'll probably cry out loud in front of people.
And I'll tell you this quick story. I was on a plane, I sat with somebody. I got upgraded because I travel a lot. I was sitting first class. Of course, you get to sit with cool people in first class. And this guy's a CEO and he's going to some board meeting and we start chatting about it, you know, sharing CEO stories. And then the topic why come up and he was telling about. I said, what's your why? He thought he knew. He told me. And I'm like, that's not a why. That's not a why.
And then we kept digging because it's like the onion you have to peel, right? I say, that's a reason or an excuse. It's not your true why. So we did.
It was a three hour flight and about half an hour into it, he's like, damn long. He actually saved the F word. But on the show, I say, damn, say dang long. You made me cry.
His why at that moment.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Ow.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: So it's very powerful. I highly encourage people to go through that journey. It could be a coach, a mentor, a consultant, or someone you trust because you need someone to ask you those questions. You can probably do it yourself, but it's a lot easier, right? Someone. Because you might not be going down the right path. Right. I had another one, someone on the phone. I was coaching, consulting via phone, you know, and all of a sudden it hits her, she's just bawling on the phone.
It is the most powerful journey you can go. And you know, you reached it because you emotionally feel, wow.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: So in your work with business, as a business coach, then where do you have a process that you follow with someone that you take everyone through and if so, like, kind of, where do you start and what's your goal of, like, where you want them to get to? To where you feel like, okay, you don't need me anymore.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: So, yeah. So first of all, consultation call, because I want to make sure I'm the right coach for you. I tell them all the time, if that's what you're looking for. I'm not that person. Right. If you need some basic stuff, how to do this you can google it. ChatGPT. To be honest with you, you don't need me for that. But if you need me to help you grow as a person first.
Because before you grow your business, you gotta grow as a person, okay. Because wherever you are, if you're not growing, you can't take your business to the next level.
So I gonna help you grow your business by helping you grow mentally and mindset wise. Right? So my process is I have a consultant call first. Okay. That's what you're looking for. I can do that. And then I will tell them my job is to work you out of a job. My job as fast as possible. That might be 12 months, six months, nine months usually. That's how long I. That's it. After that is consultant call. You need me schedule one hour.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Peeling the onion sometimes can take a long time, especially with westerners.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: Right. So once I get that, that, then we go to the next stage. It's the next stage. You need my help with your business. Really? If that's the case, let's break down how your business work. Because I've grown and scaled many businesses so I can do that. But many times they're like, I got it.
I'm gonna go figure it out myself. I said, good, now call me back if you need consultant to help. Right? So my process is I always start with their mindset first to figure them out, right. And see if I. If I can help them.
Because once they get that part, the next part, easy. Because like I said, Travis, I can give them a playbook. Once you tell me about your business, where you want to go, I'll just reverse it to your back and I'll tell you, these are the things you got to do to get there.
You probably not do it. 92% of people don't do it.
You know, you want to be the 8% or 92%? The 8%. Well, then the 8% is I got to work on this first.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: So are there, are there books that you recommend that people start with to kind of start breaking them down?
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Yeah, there's so many out there. You know, you can Google chatgpt nowadays.
I actually. Personal story. I hate, I hate to read.
I want to like, move fast, right? So. So I don't read books all the time.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: But you're a podcast and audiobook guy.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: That's right. So. So my goal is to not be better than Travis, but to be better than law.
So my goal is just to be a better version of myself every day. So I have a process I go through at the end of every night before I go to bed. Could they say there's three ways we learn? Okay. The easiest way to learn is by imitation.
If Travis knows how to write a book, I'm going to imitate Travis. I'm going to get him to help me. That's why you hire a cultural consultant, right? You imitate them, pay them for the experience that you went through. Imitate. The fastest way to learn, the hardest way to learn is by experience.
You go through yourself first, you make the mistake, and then you learn.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: But the most painful way to learn, too.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: That's right. But the most noble way to learn is by reflection.
Okay? You copy somebody, you figure something wrong, you reflect on it. And how does that help you?
So for me, at the end of every night before I go to bed, I reflect on my day. And for me, it's pretty easy. If it's not on my calendar, didn't happen. If it's not my calendar, I'm already meeting you right now. So I'll go through my calendar today. I'll look and go all the things I did, and I'm going to reflect on it. I had a group coach today.
I'm meeting with you today. I'm going to go shoot. When Travis asked me that question, I probably could have said it differently this way.
That agent asked me that question. I probably could have gone deeper. I reflect on my day, and then I also go, did I grow today?
Did I learn something myself?
And I have to be honest with myself. I didn't learn something. I read 10 minutes, so I used to have three books by my bedside. I read 10 minutes every day. That's all I can handle. 10 minutes, right.
But then I started to do that, and then I started adding in Blinkish. It's an app that I can read. It's like back in college day, right?
[00:34:41] Speaker B: You can just do the summary, get the Cliff Notes.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: There you go. So I do that, and if I really like it, I get the book and I deep dive a little bit more into it. So I went from hating reading to about 20 some books a year, right? Wow. Just ten minutes a day. Ten minutes a day. Ten minutes a Day. So that's my reflection time, and that's how I was growing.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: So you asked for a book. It's too many. I can EQ 2.0. That's probably my biggest one to go to. The Art of War, you know, for me, it's like everything's a battle battlefield, right?
In that sense, you know, think Rich, Rogue, Rich. I just read all different book. Anything to do with business, with people, and. Because that's what we do, right? We're always dealing with people. We're never by ourselves, you know?
Yeah.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: Yep. Psychology is a big one. This has been a fantastic conversation. You've dropped some amazing nuggets. If someone's listening to this, especially if they're in the real estate industry and they're like, oh, my gosh, I need your processes. I need your coaching. How do they find you?
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Yeah, you can just Google. Long gone. You know, in Minnesota, I'll probably pop up pretty easy. Reach out to me. You know, I'm always here to help. That's my passion. I tell people all the time, I have a quick story for you before we end. It was during COVID right? Mindset's the biggest thing. Everyone's like, oh, my God, the world's gonna end. What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen? And I remember getting on social media and said, hey, if you wanna reach out to me, just reach out to me, okay? I'm here to help. And somebody I don't know, reach out to me. We scheduled a Zoom, which back then was totally new to most people. Like, what's a zoom thing? Right? And there was a man who was talking to me, and I shared some stuff with them to help them with mindset and how to do business. Right? And his wife knows how Zoom work. Hear her in the background. Go ask him what's in it for him. Why is he telling you all this stuff?
Okay. And I told him, hey, I can hear you.
And at that moment, I remember, as a reminder to me, I actually told him my passion to help other people. Because I never want anyone to feel the way I felt. That one night, I felt, right, helpless, hopeless. Because that is my passion. Because you allow me to help you. You don't realize it. Selfishly, you fed my soul.
You let me do what I love to do. Just like you. You love writing books. If someone let you help write a book, you probably love enjoying it.
Yes. It's also what you do for a living.
So how can you beat that? Right?
So for me, at the end of the day, you know, just. Just know that I'm here to help. Reach out to me. You can Google me. I'm on social media. I'm on all this stuff. I'm sure I'll send you info if you want to post, but just Google Long Dome in Minnesota.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: So last question for you then is with. Especially with the realty group and your coaching. Like, what are you excited about for this next five years ahead of us.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Yeah, everything's changing fast. The AI is going to change every industry, including real estate. But at the end of day, it's still a very complex and complicated journey. It's one of the largest financial transaction people lifetime. So they still need a leader or someone to lead them through the journey. It can't be all AI and it can't be all online. The Zillow can't solve all the problem. The Redfin can solve all the problem. It's that agent locally, most likely that's someone you like and trust. So you just got to shift the way you do business a little bit. What used to work for you five years ago probably doesn't work anymore. But still it's. They need you and you need to understand that and learn to be better because you have a fiduciary duties to help them. And that's what I would say. So get a coach, get a mentor, get whatever you need to do to better serve them.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: Love it Long. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to be here with us.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
