How Verl Workman’s coached team agents average 33 deals a year on 61 points a day

Verl Workman00:00

I did 30, 37 transactions my first quarter. I was off to the races. We created a great little business. Within six months, I was leading the people that trained me. Greatness is predictable, just like average is. You’re gonna turn on your Vulcan and you’re gonna prospect, you’re gonna do the things other people aren’t willing to do.

Loida Velasquez00:20

What’s going on everyone? Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Vulcan7 Podcast. We have an awesome guest today, but before we get onto it, if you haven’t caught up on our previous episodes, make sure to do so. You can listen to them on your favorite streaming platforms or watch them here on YouTube.

00:38Now, with that being said, if you are a team leader, if you’re trying to leverage, if you’re trying to grow and succeed in this market right now, where we’re seeing a lot of agents that are just struggling, well, you’re definitely gonna wanna make sure you have a pen and paper ready, because today’s guest is Verl Workman from Workman Success.

00:57So welcome, Verl.

Verl Workman00:59

Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Loida Velasquez01:01

Absolutely. So for everyone that’s watching that maybe is not too familiar with you, can you just go ahead and give us a little bit about your background and everything that you guys are doing?

Verl Workman01:10

Yeah, you bet. So real quick, I’m Verl from Salt Lake City, Utah.

01:14Most important thing in my life is I’m married to my childhood sweetheart. I met her when I was 15 and she was 12. We’ve been married 39 years August 7th. So that’s coming up. We have six kids and 11 grandkids, and all three of my married kids work for me at Workman Success Systems.

01:31So my daughter, Brianna, is the president and co-founder, and I’ve got a son that runs sales and marketing, and another son that’s a business consultant. And so 10 years ago, when we started this company, we wanted to build a business that our family would wanna be part of, and so far so good.

01:46We’re 10 years in and we’ve got about 100 coaches. We specialize in high-performing teams. We work with lots of brokers and owners who are trying to figure out team models. Companies license our team content worldwide, and we’re really good at it. So if you wish you had something to hire, develop, run and train teams, that’s what Workman is all about.

02:08We’re also heavily invested in AI and creating AI systems that create greater leverage in people’s businesses. We’ve invested probably close to seven figures in building AI tools and resources for teams and for coaching clients and for coaches. So we just have fun. Mostly, if it’s not fun, I’m not going.

Loida Velasquez02:27

Yes, no, I love that. And you know what? A question I love to ask all my guests is what did you do before real estate? I don’t know if maybe you’ve done this, but was it a different career, or what kind of made you get into this industry?

Verl Workman02:39

Yeah, great question. So I sold satellite dishes and hot tubs.

02:45Come on, you’ve never had anybody do that before.

Loida Velasquez02:48

No, not yet, no.

Verl Workman02:49

So when I was 22, I opened my first retail store selling satellite dishes. I borrowed $6,000 at 21% from the Associates Financial Group, ’cause they’re the only ones that gave me money, and I bought two big 10-foot satellite dishes and rented space and started selling satellites.

03:04And it was a great eight-year run. We became the largest satellite dealer in North America for a specific brand. And I would put these big, ugly 10-foot dishes in people’s backyards. They’d get all their sports channels. And then I kept getting objections. People would be like, “Oh, I don’t want the ugly dish.

03:21Why can’t we get something the whole family would enjoy, like a hot tub?” And so finally I said, “Well, why do you have to choose? Let’s do both. Let’s put in a hot tub. I’ll run a line out there for your satellite.” So we started selling hot tubs and satellite dishes and home theaters, and it was a great business, and we were very successful until we weren’t.

03:37And during my going-out-of-business sale after eight years, I sold seven $10,000 home theaters to a guy named Mike Holmes of Holmes Homes. And I closed my business, and I’m in my late 20s, and I get a call from his son one day that says, “My dad’s never met anybody like you. He wrote you a check for $70,000 knowing you were closing your business in four days, and you delivered everything.

04:04Will you come meet with us?” And I sat down with him and he says, “What do you think about being in real estate?” I’m like, “I don’t have big hair or a big car. I don’t think that’s an option for me.” And I ended up getting into real estate. I think I did 30, 37 transactions my first quarter. I wrote a book called The Critical Path to 100 New Home Sales, and I was off to the races.

04:24We created a great little business. Within six months, I was leading the people that trained me.

Loida Velasquez04:30

Wow. That’s such an amazing story. You can’t see it, but I got chills as you’re explaining and sharing this, because it sounds like it was almost like a handshake. You met someone, they saw your work ethic, and they were like, “You know what?

04:43I need this person to join me and my team.” And you delivered, and now look where you’re at.

Verl Workman04:49

You know what, there’s a lot more to the story. But what really happened is I had closed my stores, and I was selling hot tubs for somebody else, and they weren’t paying me. And on a Sunday, my wife and I had moved out of our big house into a little house with a carport with our three young kids, and we didn’t have any money.

05:05Like, I lost everything and I’m starting over, and my wife is unbelievable. She’s like, “We’re gonna figure it out.” And I get a call from this guy and he says, “Bro, will you come over to my house on a Sunday?” And I went over to his house and he said, “How you doing?” And I says, “Well, I’m struggling, and here’s what’s going on.”

05:21He goes, “Well, I just felt like I needed to call you, and I’d like to help you out.” And he wrote me a check for $10,000.

05:28And he said, “I don’t know if you’re ever gonna pay me back, but I hope you’ll pay it forward.”

05:33And I got in my car and I was emotional, and I called my wife and said, “Honey,

05:36this guy just gave us $10,000.” And she says, “Why? What does he want?” I said, “He doesn’t want anything.” And then 30 days later, his son called me and said, “My dad wants to meet with you in the office. Will you meet with us?” I was like, “That worked out really good last time.” And that’s when I went in.

05:50And so first he served without any strings attached, and then he said, “You know, I see more in you than you see in yourself. Will you let me teach you real estate?” He actually put me on salary and paid for my real estate school while I was going to school to come and work for him.

06:06Like, he’s an angel in my life that

06:08completely changed the trajectory of my life. I always wanted to be a motivational speaker. I saw Zig Ziglar when I was in high school. There was no career path for a motivational speaker. And so I’m selling houses, and the guy that owned the computer store next to my satellite dish store came to me one day and he says, “We’re gonna…

06:23Let’s teach realtors that they need laptops.” I’m like, “Why?” I was making more money than I’d ever made, and we ended up starting a company called Automation Quest that became one of the largest technology training companies in real estate, and I ended up selling that in the late ’90s to Homes.com. And that’s what put me on the map as a speaker, because we raised $70 million in venture capital.

06:45They put me on all the big stages. I was teaching people they need a laptop. I used to start seminars with, “How many of you have a computer? How many of you are thinking of getting one?” Right?

06:55Right? And that’s how we got going. So that’s kind of my career path. And now I love what I do.

07:01Speaking, to me, is… My dad was a teacher. I always wanted to be a teacher. Now I get to be a teacher, but I do big groups. And I get to speak and train, and I get to change people’s lives, and it’s really fun and rewarding. So it’s not really fair that I get paid for doing what I do.

07:17When I look back, and I look at the people, every time there’s been adversity in my life, in every business I’ve been a part of, I’ve always come out at a different level and been stronger and had new ideas, and I’ve always had other people that have surrounded me and buoyed me up in times that have been difficult.

07:35And so I just wanna be that for others.

Loida Velasquez07:38

Yeah. And that’s exactly what you’re doing now with Workman Success Systems. So can you tell us a little bit more about the agents that you are coaching and the teams, and how you’re helping them leverage what they have? Because we are seeing a lot of agents and even team leaders that are struggling, and they’re like, “I need to get rid of my agents because no one’s producing.

07:57It’s costing me money.” So what is the approach that you guys take to make sure that these team leads are succeeding?

Verl Workman08:04

Okay, so this is a detailed conversation, and so I’ll try and give it to you in the Reader’s Digest version. But the first thing is this: as team leaders, we’re good at selling real estate, but nobody’s teaching us how to be leaders.

08:17And if your agents aren’t making money, it’s not because they’re lazy, it’s because you don’t know how to lead them. And if you’re not willing to look in the mirror and show up for them as a leader and really help and develop them and pour into them, then you’re gonna continue to have those same problems.

08:29So we focus a lot of our efforts on developing leaders. How do you become a leader that people will actually follow? The next thing is setting proper expectations. If you hire agents and tell them you’re gonna give them leads, you’ll always have entitled agents, and they are never gonna produce unless you feed them.

08:43It’s like telling your children they’re never gonna have to go to college and they’re never gonna have to get jobs. Mommy will take care of you. Like, what kind of kids would you have? We tell our kids, “You gotta mow lawns, you gotta knock doors. You gotta get out there and work,” right? But then we hire buyer’s agents and tell them we’re gonna give them leads?

08:59Like, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. What I tell them is, “I’m gonna come in, I’m gonna teach you how to hunt. You’re gonna turn on your Vulcan and you’re gonna prospect, you’re gonna call around open houses, and you’re gonna do the things other people aren’t willing to do.

09:10And if you do those activities, then you’ll qualify for lead distribution from the team.” And so we build cultures on teams that are based on productivity, not entitlement. And so we show up every day, we do a daily huddle. We have a thing called 61 Points of Rhythm, where you have to get 61 points a day doing dollar-productive activities, and we track it.

09:28We do a thing called the Top 50, where you have to work your top 50, and it’s a very specific program. You can’t be on my team unless you sign the 10 things to be on my team, which is a specific level of accountability. And also, we say the minimum level of production is 24 transactions.

09:46Like, I want you to be on my team, but I don’t want you to be on my team unless you wanna make 100 grand on a 40% split or a 50% split max. And so if you can’t make 100 grand on a 50% split, I’m not doing it right as a leader, so how do I show up differently? And so all of our coaches are first clients that get really good at this, and then they get nominated as coaches.

10:05Then they go through intense training, and then they serve others and help. So as leaders, what I teach is that we serve. We don’t hire people to serve us. We hire people, and we pour into them, and we help them be successful in their lives. And by doing that, we get everything we want, and that’s our methodology.

Loida Velasquez10:24

Yes. So when you do have agents and team leaders come to you because maybe they’ve already gotten to a point that they know that they can do things on their own and they need to change, what are some of the things that you see they’re doing wrong, like the first things that need to be changed and tweaked?

Verl Workman10:41

Oh, I’m gonna say compensation is probably the first thing. They hire the wrong people. So most team leaders do what we call opportunity hires. Like, “I need someone, so I’m gonna hire my friend.” And then the friend comes in, they don’t have any skills. They have a license, but they can’t sell.

10:56Like, there’s lots of issues. So we first do an evaluation of where they are and who they have and what they have on the team. We look at their profiles, and we look at their production. And then we say, “Okay, so if I were to start over, I would grandfather everybody in on the program they’re on, as long as they sign the 10 things to be on my team and they start doing what we ask them to do.”

11:15And they self-eliminate usually right there. And so people will self-eliminate. The next thing is, team leaders create compensation that disincentivizes the behavior that we want from the team leader. So let me give you an example. If I’m a team leader and I’m in a competitive market, and I’m hiring agents, and I have to pay them a 70% split, when a $2 million buyer comes in, what’s the likelihood I’m gonna give that buyer to an agent on my team for a 70% split?

11:45Zero. And so we’ve actually hired someone to work with buyers, but I’m not willing to give them the leads because I have compensation that disincentivizes that. So if I put them on a 40/60 split for the first two deals they do in a month, and then 45/55 for deals three and four, and then 50/50 on five plus, and it resets every month.

12:04If I’m making 60% on every deal, I’m giving them all the buyer leads, and then I’m gonna teach them how to be really good at working with the buyers. And then in the 20 hours that I’m not spending on the buyers, I’m gonna spend four or five of those hours just prospecting for listings. And so I know numbers.

12:19So my numbers are, for every listing I generate, we should close 1.5 buy-side transactions. Every listing we create generates six to eight leads a month. Every 25 leads we generate, we add a buyer’s agent. Everything we do is methodical and systems. And so we just plug people into great systems, and they get predictable results.

12:36Greatness is predictable, just like average is.

12:41I can look at what you’re doing today, and I can tell you why you get an average result. So it’s not about how good you are as a person or how quality of an individual you are, it’s the things you focus on. And so our big thing, I wanna help people just understand that the difference between average and exceptional is the exceptional are average people that focus on different activities.

13:00They just do different things than you’re working on. So if you’re stuck, or you’re tired of getting what you’re getting, well, stop doing that. Let’s do something different. ‘Cause everything you know got you right where you are, and if you keep doing more of that, you’re gonna stay right where you are with a higher level of frustration.

13:14What I wanna do is let’s break a few things, and let’s come back at a different stratosphere. And my favorite thing is to take a single mom that has been making 100 or $150,000 a year for 12 years in real estate and help them build a team and go from 150 to 300 to 600 to 1.2 million to 3.4 million, and then be out of production if they choose to be out of production and start building wealth.

13:40We change people’s lives like that, and I have story after story after story like that where now their kids are in real estate, and they’re making money, and it’s such a fun journey when you follow systems. I think most teams overcomplicate it. They put too much pressure on the team leader to produce everything, and I want you to lead people and teach them how to produce and create a safe place for them to be successful.

14:08Sorry, I’m talking a lot. You’re giving me…

Loida Velasquez14:10

No, no. This is great.

Verl Workman14:11

This is great. You’re teeing them up, and I’m just slapping the ball.

Loida Velasquez14:13

No, this is perfect. What do you think a lot of team leaders are just not leveraging right now?

Verl Workman14:19

Well, they don’t delegate, so they don’t leverage technology, for sure.

14:23I would say that most people have tools and resources that they’re already paying for, and yet they spend a lot of their time looking for the new shiny thing. And if we can just execute on the things that are being provided by their broker or the tools that they have… Adoption is a greater issue than making sure I go buy the new thing.

14:41I just say stop buying stuff and start using what you already own. This is a Vulcan7 thing. You have Vulcan7 people on here that have power tools at their fingertips for prospecting. Lead generation is not a problem. Picking up the phone is the problem.

14:55It’s that we aren’t willing to make calls, and we’re not willing to follow up with people.

14:58So we have to get over the fact that people reject us, and stop acting like they know you. Like, how could anybody reject you if they knew you? They’re rejecting the concept of you, and you’re trying to sell something. Stop selling and start serving. What if everybody you called that expired, you’re saying, “I’m not calling to sell you anything.

15:16Matter of fact, I don’t even know if I can help you. But if I could help you, what would it look like? Are you really wanting to sell your house? Why don’t you think it sold? Boy, I’m not saying I could do this, but it might be worth doing an evaluation. I’ve got a 15-step process that we use to evaluate why homes don’t sell, and I’ll give it to you for free, no cost or obligation, and we can just have a conversation about it.

15:36If there’s some things we can do together, great. And if not, I’ll at least leave your family with some opportunities or ideas that they could do differently if you decide to move.”

15:43Stop selling and start serving, and it changes the outcome of every call.

Loida Velasquez15:48

Yes. I feel like that should be on a shirt.

15:51Stop selling and start serving.

Verl Workman15:53

We tag it. It’s called SRO. Serve regardless of opportunity.

Loida Velasquez15:58

Yes, yes. No, that’s awesome. The market, depending on where agents are right now, I’m hearing homes are just taking forever to sell, “I don’t know what’s going on,” versus in other places they’re getting multiple offers.

16:11So for the agents that are in those markets where inventory is just taking a long time, what advice would you give them if maybe they’re feeling defeated, like nothing’s happening?

Verl Workman16:24

First of all, when people say things like, “Nothing’s happening,” I always ask the question, “Is that true? I mean, is that really, really true?

16:33Nothing’s happening?” Pull up your MLS. Show me the last 30 days. Pull up everything that listed, everything that sold. And they go, “Oh, well, 4,000 houses sold last month.” And I’ll say, “So it’s not that nothing’s happening. It’s just nothing’s happening for you.” And so it’s not the market, it’s you.

16:51So we can’t control what’s going on in the market, we can only control our behavior in the market. So that’s my first thing: recognize whose problem it is. It’s mine. I don’t blame Trump or the tariffs or the political climate or interest rates. People buy and sell real estate because of life events that occur.

17:07They get married, they get divorced, they get relocated, their kids move in, their kids move out, they go into assisted living. People move because of life events, and life events don’t stop occurring because of what’s happening in the political climate. And so when you understand that the river of real estate’s gonna continue to flow, what I like to say is, “Where are the transactions happening, and what do I need to adjust in my business to put myself in the middle of them?”

17:32‘Cause there’s always deals happening. You can do a seven-figure business in an REO market, and you can do a seven-figure business in a luxury market. It doesn’t matter. I’m coaching a team out of Toronto right now. They do 700 transactions a year, most in high-rise condos, and everything has stopped in high-rise condos.

17:51And we’ve taken the entire team, and we focused it on going after investors and helping them find and build wealth in the real estate market. The production’s continuing to grow, but what we’re focused on is very different, because their niche is gone. But they don’t have the luxury of stopping. We don’t get to stop.

18:09Right? ‘Cause we’re doing too many transactions. I’m gonna give you some data that’s really kind of interesting. So we track things like calls, conversations, appointments set, appointments met, things like that. And this is just data, so I’ll share with you some data. I don’t know if you’re into data.

Loida Velasquez18:26

Yeah. I love data.

18:27Yes, let’s do it.

Verl Workman18:28

Yes. Okay. So we do a thing called 61 Points a Day, and you get points for doing dollar-productive activities. We track calls, conversations, appointments set, appointments met, things like that. And so in 2021, it took 471 points to get a closing. In 2022, 541. In 2023, 698.

18:48So in 2021, as you’re coming out of COVID, all you had to do is show up, you’d sell houses. Well, if you’re doing the same thing in 2023, you’re selling a third less houses. In 2024, it went down to 649; the market started to stabilize. And in 2025, it’s worse. It’s 671. So it’s harder this year. You can’t keep doing the things you were doing in 2021 and wonder why you’re not selling as much, ’cause you have to have greater effort to get the same result.

19:15And when you understand that, then you can focus on, “Okay, so I just know I can’t do the same thing. I have to do a little bit more, so when am I gonna do that? What I used to do in an hour now is gonna take 90 minutes in my prospecting time.”

19:28See how it’s predictable, right? Here’s my average agent count.

19:34My average agent count… Or sorry, my average closings per agent, and these are people we coach. This is team members. In 2021, 47. In 2022, 41. 2023, 31 transactions a year. 2024, 34, and this year to date we’re at 33. Like, the production of the average team member’s gone down, but we’re still killing it compared to the market.

19:58Team leaders listening to this, how many of your team members are averaging 30 deals a year?

Loida Velasquez20:03

Like… I was about to say that, yeah.

Verl Workman20:05

Because are they on the right splits doing the right things? Are you teaching prospecting? Like, I love finding someone who really wants to help other people, but they’re struggling with their team.

20:17They’re just looking for help. Like, if you are the puppy on the leash that’s pulling the little boy through the park, I wanna coach that puppy. I don’t wanna coach someone that I have to motivate or put a carrot in front of their nose. If I have to talk you into doing the activities, then man, there’s other people out there that are probably a better fit.

20:35But if you’re hungry and humble and smart and teachable and you just want somebody to show you how to do it, then Workman’s really a great place to hang out, because we got it.

Loida Velasquez20:46

Yeah. And you know what? That’s gonna lead me to my next question. Can you share a little bit more about your program, for anyone that is listening that is ready to connect with you or maybe get connected with one of your coaches, and any events or things that you have going on?

Verl Workman21:00

Yeah. So I’ll just tell you that we’re a very soft-sell company. You go to our website, you say find my fit or sign up for a coaching consultation, or you can send me a direct message, send it to verl@workmansuccess.com and say, “I need help,” and I’ll have somebody reach out to you.

21:16We’re pretty easygoing, and we’ll do a consultation where we look at where you are and where you wanna go. We do tier-based pricing, meaning that when you’re at a certain level of production and complexity, then I have a coach that’s performing at a higher level, or coaching people at a higher level, that gets assigned to you.

21:32And so if you’re doing 2 million in gross and you’re not making any money, I’m gonna give you someone who can coach you beyond that and into profitability. If you’re a broker owner and you’re running a team, we have people that specialize in that. So it’s tier-based.

21:44It’s based on who you are and what you need. None of our coaches sell, so our coaches don’t sell their own coaching clients. They’re all making a million bucks in real estate. They’re successful people. And so we do the sales, and we assign them clients, and then we work with them for the long term.

22:00Most of our clients, if you’re with us two years, you’ll be with us a lifetime. We have very low turnover. People stay with us a long time. We’re probably the best kept secret in real estate, ’cause we’re not loud about who we are or what we do. I find value in every coach. I like Brian Buffini, and I like Tom Ferry, and I like Mike Ferry, and they each have very unique things that they focus on and do.

22:22And I love having people who have been coached come into coaching, because they have framework, and they have a coaching mentality and accountability. They just need team focus. And so I’m complementary, not competitive, to my competitors that are out there. I like them all, and I’ve learned from all of them.

Loida Velasquez22:39

That’s awesome. Yeah. And we’re gonna make sure to put your link in the description box below. And also tell us about your book, because you did tell me briefly, but for anyone that’s listening, they’re like, “You know what? I need to get this book.” Tell us a little bit more.

Verl Workman22:51

So I just wrote a book called Raving Referrals for Real Estate.

22:54My coauthor is Brandon Barnum, who is the CEO of hoa.com, and it’s a brand-new company. It’s a better way to HOA. The whole concept is building unity through communities. And in the book, we teach how to generate as many as 86 transactions a year working with a very small group of 50 people a day, one hour.

23:13And so it’s a very specific referral system. If you’re frustrated or tired as a realtor because you give referral business to your painters, plumbers, electricians, inspectors, mortgage people, you give all these referrals out and you never get any back, we teach you how to solve that problem. So we teach you how to activate it, and there’s a coaching program called Referral Champions around it.

23:33We’re in the process of hiring 500 instructors. They’ll train Referral Champions, arranging referrals in offices. A lot of mortgage people, inspectors are signing up for that, title reps. And so we have a whole business around it that is phenomenal. Go on Amazon. I’m gonna be in Phoenix next week cutting the e-book for it.

23:50It’s already a bestseller. It’s great, and there’s great stories of phenomenal people and how we use specific systems to create predictable referral businesses. We spend way too much money chasing strangers, when there’s so much money in our database. We just teach you how to activate it.

Loida Velasquez24:09

Awesome. Awesome. No, this is great. Again, we’re gonna put all of your links below. Verl, this has been amazing. I feel like we can keep talking for hours. We’re probably gonna have to do another episode.

Verl Workman24:18

Let’s do it.

24:19All right. On the next one, we’re gonna do stupid goals, ’cause I think SMART goals are dumb.

24:25That’s the cliffhanger. We’re gonna leave them with the cliffhanger.

Loida Velasquez24:27

Perfect. Yes. We’re gonna line that up. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Verl, once again for coming on here on Vulcan7. And for everyone that’s watching, we’ll see you on the next one.

Verl Workman24:35

My pleasure. Bye. We’ll see ya.