AGNT, Inc (AGNT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Anyway, but super excited and super stoked, I -- as many of you know, I'm Canadian by birth. I've got a lot of roots in Canada, live right up by the Canadian border. But not in Canada. So one of the things that we've been working on, especially in the last couple of months, but this has been going on, obviously, since we launched eXp, but I can give you a little bit of a history. I mean, this has been kind of a lot of type in the making. We've been building out a lot of infrastructure for Canada. And over the last few months, especially, we went into kind of overdrive figuring out all the various different pieces. Nathalie and Nadia, highly involved, been on staff for, I think, Nathalie has been on staff since 2019. Nadia has been on staff since March last year, came in as actually a managing broker for Ontario and then moved over to growth in December of last year. And between Nathalie and Nadia really have been a huge backbone of really integrating various growth and operational functions of the business over the last bit. Nathalie has taken on the title of VP of Operations. Nadia is now the VP of Growth for Canada. This has all been percolating up through the system over the last couple of weeks. I think we just made the title changes maybe 2 weeks ago, if that -- so it's been really exciting. And in all of this, I've been getting really involved with the Canada Agent Advisory Council. And so for those of you who aren't aware, we have a Canadian Agent Advisory Council. There's about 13 or so members that are part of it, some icons, some agents who are in production, some they're in growth, some that are at large, maybe coming from more of a staff-based perspective, but a really great cross-section of people. I've been working with our senior management team to actually identify individuals potentially to lead Canada. So we've got -- we've had an outside search firm, and we identified a number of candidates in that search firm. I interviewed a couple of the final candidates. And the reality is, I was not impressed, not because they weren't very high pedigreed individuals, but they were not eXp. And that, for me, was kind of the piece that became pretty obvious that we really need to start focusing on our internal organization because we are big enough that we have the talent inside the organization if we just allow that talent to be recognized and involved in the process. So, got involved with the Canadian Agent Advisory Council. They talked about 3 or 4 people that they thought internally could serve the role. A couple 3 of those got mixed for various reasons, but one candidate that came to the top of that group was John Tsai. I'm super excited to have John on here, along with Nathalie and Nadia to lead Canada in this next evolution of growth. So maybe I'll just open it up first. John, I know many of you know you because you've been a very visible leader, especially in Western Canada. You've grown a fairly large organization, I think, a little over 900 agents that are growing into eXp primarily in Canada. You've got this amazing background. But maybe let's learn a little bit more about John, and then we'll learn a little bit more about Nathalie and Nadia as well and just talk a little bit about the future of eXp in Canada. So John, what's -- share with the group, your background, what you've been up to? What got you excited about this? Obviously, it wasn't something you were seeking, but you've been pretty cool to kind of see this all come together.

Yes. It definitely was a surprise, Glenn. And first of all, just very honored to be on this call with you guys, Nadia, Nathalie, thank you for all your help so far. And of course, Glenn, you've given me a life that I would have never imagined with this platform that you've built. And I've been in real estate now 17 years, and it's been a grind to be honest. The first 13 years when I was just selling real estate having one income and now I'm able to have multiple streams of income doing nothing different. I mean I can't say enough about it and coming over here, being able to create that life for myself, my life is dramatically different. I get to work 4 hours a day, 4 days a week in my sales business and the rest of the time, I'm helping us grow. So this role kind of fills that time as well. So when the beginning of the year, Glenn, when you asked -- sorry, beginning of the year, I was already thinking about signing up for the CAAC. No matter how I can help, I was going to do it, right? So when you call it really surprised me and at the same time, I said, yes, then we'll figure everything out later. So it's truly an honor to be here, and I believe that there's a ton of opportunity in Canada for us to grow. And I'm here to do my very best every single day to help us move forward. And I can see us do great things together here with Nadia, Nathalie, Glenn, yourself and just with the rest of the staff here in Canada, I believe we can blow this up, and I'm super excited to have this opportunity.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Nathalie, you've been around since '20 -- or yes, since 2019, you've seen a lot eXp in general, with under 25,000 agents when you joined. We're now 87,000. In Canada, we're probably 1,000, 1,500 maybe agents in Canada when you joined. I don't know what the number was, now we're pushing 6,000.

Yes. It's been a ride. Again, I just want to jump on what John has said, Glenn, I don't know if I've ever think to you, but I want to thank you for changing my life as well. I have been in the -- or sorry, the real estate capacity for, call it, 14 years, but this is by far the most innovative, the most amazing brokerage that it's finding everyone screens from the rooftop, but it's really true what they say. eXp is the best brokerage and thank you to you, you're changing lives all over. I came to eXp a few years ago and yes, there wasn't that many agents and it was still very I don't know. A lot of people just didn't know about it here in Canada. So we were really able to speak to a lot of brokerages, team leaders, top producers all across the country and have literally grown the organization from, I think it was about 2,000 when I joined so, yes, now we're almost 6,000 and growing. We -- I mean, Nadia and I are on calls almost half our day. We're speaking to agents and getting them over. But once they see it, they can't unsee it. And I know we're going to continue to change a lot of lives going forward. It's so exciting.

Well, awesome. And Nadia, you're kind of a new kid on the block, having joined last year, jumped from C21 from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak, in this crazy fast-growing organization in a fast-growing province. I mean, Ontario has been on fire and you played a number of different roles, but tell us about you and what you're excited about?

Yes. So again, I'm very, very pleased with the group that I'm working with and will be working with. It's just the collaboration between -- I mean, John, welcome to the group, the collaboration between myself and Nathalie being in operations and then myself in role, is just so important. And I think with the both of us collaborating and now with John as well is that we will be able to take Canada to a completely new level. What a difference? I mean, working for a traditional brokerage and moving over to eXp, I have to say it's night and day. My only regret moving to eXp is the date that I moved to eXp. I should have done this a lot sooner. And had I known that, I mean, this is a person that was so embedded into C21 and I ran the show there. I was so involved with training brokers and recruiting and retention and growing that organization. And I just said to myself after I've learned about eXp is I should have done it sooner. But now that I'm here, I look forward to every single day building that collaboration amongst the operations of the eXp platform, our staff that keep us going every single day that are there to support the agents. And also having it more, if not at the top level of excellence for being an agent-centric brokerage. And that's what we are, and we always strive to do better. And with you implementing the systems of NPS and listening to our clients, which are our agents and listening to what they have to say and addressing every concern that our agents have and not just slipping it under the rug and not looking at it and not talking about it. I think that builds momentum. We're at a state right now or a stage right now where we have brokerages contacting us. You know you've done the right thing when people start to inquire. When you're chasing, you're building that momentum, but we're at a point where we have brokerages calling and saying, "I would like to sit down with you and I would like to discuss my next moves in how I can transition over to eXp. From my experience, when we have that, we're on the right track, and we've made it. And it's not us talking about that we've made it. It's our agents talking about it, and it's the public talking about it. So again, I thank you for having me with this company, and it's an absolute pleasure to work with everyone.

And this is just the tip of the spear. I mean this is -- when we think about -- this is some of the more agent-facing part of the organization in the industry at large. But we've got -- I don't know what the total staff count. We've got multiple managing brokers in multiple provinces. We've got other staff. We've got -- I'm not sure what the total number is, but I suspect it's in the hundreds of staff members to support Canada that are actually in Canada. And then we've got obviously a large infrastructure supporting from other parts of the world, obviously, the U.S. being the largest, but it's being -- it's really a full on enterprise in and of itself just in Canada and really putting the various pieces around it because one of the things that I recognized is that wherever a company starts a lot of times that it takes on the reputation, well, that's just an American company that moved to Canada. And part of this whole -- part of what we're doing is we really want to truly Canadianize the entire infrastructure in Canada. Obviously, I'll always be the founder and for a period of time, I'll be the CEO of the greater eXp realty community, but the more that we can really build out the Canadian infrastructure. So it is a company that's recognized in Canada standing on its own. That's the goal, and that's why I think it's such a great team that's being built in real time to really be at Canadianize agent-centric real estate brokerage that puts the agent at the forefront of every decision we make locally. So...

Absolutely. I think that's...

John, you've got to listen to a few more comments.

Yes. Just kind of further to that. I think, yes, we have made it. And what I hear all the time is that when you're up when you're doing well, we need to stay humble. And when you're down, you need to stay optimistic and hopeful. And right now, we're up. But I'm just going to keep my head down along with all of us, just keep working. And when agents come on, we want to be able to provide them with impeccable customer service and that experience that when they come over, they're like, wow, I've never experienced something like this before. And that's truly our goal here is to be agent-centric. And when we make it agent-centric and they have a great experience, they can serve their clients that much better. So that's my personal commitment is to keep my head down, do the best work. I can do every single day and make sure that I support everyone around me. So that's my thought further to that.

Awesome. So how agents, this is going out on social. I think it's going on Facebook, YouTube, obviously, internal as well inside of our internal workplace. But agents that are exploring eXp, maybe they've been talking to other agents, maybe they're just exploring, but what would be the best way that they reach out? I mean, how are they -- would -- do they just go to the join page? Do they send a note to you directly? Do they hit you up on social media, et cetera? How do they -- what's the best way for them to interface with the growth team here and maybe not you're heading up growth. So maybe that's a great way to -- a great place for you to opine on some of that.

So for myself, they can reach me on socials. I have my -- they can reach me on my cell number, e-mail, any platform that they are using, they can reach out to me. I would schedule a time with them and however time -- however much time that they need with me, I am more than happy to jump on a call, meet them and just go over what eXp has to offer. We have so many great tools, so many items and technology that would help them in their business to grow their business. So I would set up a time. And yes, any way that they would like to contact me, they're more than welcome to.

I think there's also no best way to do it. It's however they want to communicate is how we communicate with them, right? So there's lots of different avenues for sure, but we always get back to you right away.

Absolutely.

Awesome.

I kind of have a problem with staying away from my phone. So, we have LinkedIn line wherever you are -- you want to communicate, I am there within seconds and so reach out to me anywhere. I will be there.

Awesome. Well, great stuff, super excited, super stoked. We've got a lot of stuff going on in Canada. We've got -- we obviously bought -- for those of you in Canada a year ago, almost not quite a year ago when we bought Zoocasa, I've been expanding that across Canada, building out the lead-gen infrastructure for that. We've got a relationship that we struck up with a company called realty.com in the U.S., building out some lead gen sources. We're doing some cool things there that we're getting ready to roll out in Canada. Realty.ca, they actually have as well. It's a pretty cool platform. It's not yet live. So just if you can go there, you'll probably not see anything, but there's some things we're doing there. We've got some new IP, we're getting to roll out here for sure, by May. We teased it out in February, but we've got some cool ways for generating more inbound consumer leads for free for you as an individual agent way to actually create ways to generate more income in your business. So we've got a lot of stuff on the grow. I know, John, you've got an event coming up, I think on March 31, if I'm not mistaken.

Correct. It's called IGNITE 2023. We're going to have panels. We're going to have speakers on social media, longevity, lead generation, all the good stuff. It's really to kick start our 2023. So if you're in our area or outside of the area, come and join us, and we will pump you up.

Yes. And we have...

Awesome. And we're going to be more visible at industry events across Canada, so that this is the leadership team that you're going to see at events. So even if you're not even considering eXp, still come up, say hi to us. I'm going to be at industry events. I was just at the reality conference last -- what was that November in Toronto and just at an event last week in Burnaby, BC and might end up actually seeing you at your event there, John, not sure yet, but you'll see -- might make it out that direction. But going to lots of events, we're -- we do think that eXp, we've got the -- we've been doing this for 13.5 years. We've built an amazing infrastructure and it's a place where that we've proven that agents can come, build their businesses and not have any regrets of the choice of the brokerage that they choose. We're continuing to make them better each and every day. That's my focus. That's why I'm in the C9. It's all about building that and growing this -- we -- at some point, I truly believe it's not going to be too many years out that eXp will be the largest real estate brokerage and brand in Canada. We're the third largest brand in the U.S., the #1 brokerage by agent count and transaction count in the U.S. and only company to grow last year in the largest new brokerage categories. Everybody else shrunk because of the economy and it's a testament to creating an aligned compensation with our agents and those who are helping us grow. So, with that, thank you so much for jumping on and reach out to any of us, and we'll make sure that you're connected to the right resources and people as you're navigating your career in real estate.

Thanks, everyone.

So, thanks, everyone.

Thank you.

It's on March 31, IGNITE 2023, all agents welcome from all other brokerages. It's basically our contribution to the industry on that day. I hope to see a lot of you there. Thank you.

Do you have a website by chance for that?

Sorry?

Do you have a website for that? Or how...

Yes. ignite2023.com.

Okay, cool.

I need to ask my wife, I don't know.

It's not like a real estate agent to wait you something.

Yes.

And Glenn, on another note, we are going to be having our first Canadian eXp Conference in Vancouver as well, and that is in September. So from the 6th to the 9th, our first eXp Canadian Conference, and we're super excited about that.

More details will be coming.

Yes.

I'm excited about that. Can I post the link to IGNITE on the Facebook wall?

Yes.

You can add to a comment for sure.

Okay. Perfect.

Yes.

Cool. Good stuff. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, everyone, for watching.

Thank you Glenn.