In this episode, we have Joel Perso talk with us about being a leader. He is the CEO of VRX Media group and Co-Founder of Anchor Point Realty. He is an experienced operations executive focused on translating vision into execution, scalable systems, and leading fast-growing companies' leaders. Joel believes that organizations will behave according to their design, that culture is what we do, not what we say, communication is the heart of leadership, and humility is the most important quality in business and life. Stay tuned to this episode as he shares his insights about getting into the leadership role. Start of Joel's Real Estate Career [1:50] Joel got into real estate in 2012 as a transaction coordinator. He was the non-salesperson on a sales team and naturally started absorbing operational, financial marketing. He slowly ended up becoming a key player in the team. Joel quickly became the top of the operational chain. Every time they grew, there was a new set of things, and Joel had to learn a new set of mistakes. Leadership Problems [8:07] All your problems are leadership problems. If you have people who don't understand the vision or build processes, that is on you as the leader for not communicating it. So everything in your world is your responsibility. The bigger a company gets, the more problems become leadership problems. [9:53] You solve many management problems that you hear people complain about when you have the right people. When you get the right people on the bus and have them in the right seats, it changes everything. They're going to help you build the processes, and they're going to identify the bottlenecks and the problems. So when you hire smart people and listen to them, it makes everything so much easier. Allow Good Things to Break [12:37] Don't beat yourself up. There are certain things you don't even have a level of awareness about until it breaks. But you want to create that culture of revealing the cracks so they can be fixed. Look at those cracks as a good thing. Leaders in an organization sometimes make the organization feel bad about things breaking. What you want to instill into the culture is you want things that break to be a good thing because that allows for improvement in the process. So as a leader, you have to convey to the rest of the organization if good things are breaking, then there is growth. Growth and Mistakes [14:10] If you're selling real estate or anything else and just making some money, you don't have time yet to build out everything you want to do. You don't need everything to be done immediately. As more things break, you start to get better at spotting the ones that will break and get ahead of them. One of the fun parts of growth is having more capacity. You start growing the capacity to get ahead of problems. The A-Players [18:32] A-players can give the given function done 90% of the time. They can get the desired outcome for that function 90% of the time in a given pay range. But understand that the team that got you to a million might not be the team that can get you to three. And the team that got you to three probably is not going to be the team that can get you to 10. It usually doesn't affect the CEO in the visionary because they're the ones with the grand aspirations. If you have a growth-oriented CEO, you could grow from a founder's position. But most of the time, those people are growth-oriented, and they're always pushing and growing. But they're doing a good job at surrounding themselves with people who will push them to grow even more. Be Aware of the Problems [24:49] The only way you have problems is if you're taking action. If you don't have problems, you are not doing enough for the organization. Because if you were, you would know exactly what your problems are. When we know the problem, we know we have the right strategy because strategies solve the right problem. So leaders can't help people if they're not aware of the problem. Accept your Weaknesses [28:30] You have to get into the function that you're the best in the world at. You have to be okay with your weaknesses and get excited about them because that's where you have to find the complementary pieces to support whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. Include your Team in the Conversation [30:16] Always include your team in the conversation to whatever degree. Everybody doesn't necessarily get a say, but everybody has to have a voice. People need to feel heard, and they need to voice their concerns, or they're not going to be bought into the vision. They're not going to be on board with the decisions if you're making decisions they disagree with. So every time you include them, include them in the conversation. Having honest conversations with your people where you're listening to them is one of the best ways to spot problems that need to be addressed. Core Values and Decision Making [33:52] Core values should behave within the organization. If your team understands, embodies, and shares similar values that the organization has, they will be making decisions in alignment with what is true. [34:49] If you don't have decision-making filters in your organization, people don't know how to make decisions. They don't know how they should behave and what happens is that they depend upon you. If you continue to be a resource for the people in your entity, you are making them dependent upon you. You become the bottleneck where they will never grow. If you are their resource, they will never become the people you need. In that function, you become the bottleneck for the organization to grow. Vision Drive Everything [37:21] The team has to understand what the vision is. And consistency is what builds trust. If you make decisions and move to grow the entity, you may hear something great. It should align with the vision, or they will not know what is going on. It must be an alignment to the vision and what you are trying to accomplish and not break who you are at the core. It must align with what you stand for in pursuit of the bigger picture and the bigger goal. Accountability [41:17] If you're not pouring into your leadership development, you're putting a ceiling on your potential. It's one of those things that you're a never-ending student of leadership. You need to have a culture of accountability. If you want higher accountability, you have to understand what accountability is. [43:43] Self-accountability is the agreement versus expectations. That not only holds your team accountable but holding yourself accountable. Accountable means everything's clear for the team member, and they need to know just as much as you need to know what the finished product looks like. One of the most important agreements to have with a team member is what success looks like in their position. If you ever find yourself spending time arguing about whether or not it happened, you're off course. It should be immediately apparent if the goal is not met, if the performance isn't there, because you should have everything set up, to begin with. Learn more about Joel Perso: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelperso Website: http://vrxmedia.com/
