Courtney Poulos - The Irreplaceable Agent
Meet Courtney Poulos — a 20+ year LA real estate powerhouse who got tired of waiting for the industry to fix itself, so she built the fix herself. After 14 years grinding it out as a licensed broker, she launched ACME in 2011 with one mission: build the brokerage she desperately wished existed when she was coming up as an agent. No absentee bosses. No cookie-cutter training. No corporate fluff. Just real expertise, real accountability, and real results — and somewhere along the way, she turned it into one of LA's most respected boutique brokerages.
These days, Courtney's running the show as founder and broker-owner of ACME | SERHANT. and a founding team member of SERHANT. CA — splitting her time between closing deals on the ground and rethinking the entire industry from the top down. She's shaping policy on her local MLS board, loudly pushing for mandatory agent apprenticeship reform, and just wrapped Harvard's Advanced Management Program for good measure. Translation: this is someone who's as comfortable in the trenches as she is in the boardroom — and she's bringing that rare mix of hustle and vision straight to your speakers.
In this episode, you will be able to learn:
- Your weakness can become your competitive advantage when you understand a client’s specific needs better than the competition.
- Relationships are a long-term investment in real estate, and consistent client care can create more value than postcards, paid leads, or social media alone.
- Real estate requires real training and expertise, and the industry needs to do more to establish trust and clearly differentiate experience levels.
- Finding your niche helps you attract the right clients and opportunities, as Courtney built ACME around renovation, resale, luxury, and creative marketing.
- You have to keep learning beyond the day-to-day business, because expanding your perspective can reveal new opportunities, improve your leadership, and sharpen your strategy.
- Understanding how clients perceive value is just as important as knowing what actually creates value, especially when competing for listings in a highly visible market.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:00 — One Client Becomes 85%
04:31 — Mentorship & Relationship Marketing
09:25 — Accepting the Transactional Reality
16:14 — Finding a Renovation & Resale Niche
18:42 — Creative Marketing & Constant Learning
27:56 — Why Acme Joined Serhant
31:57 — Losing a Listing on Visibility
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Full transcript here:
Courtney: 00:00
That one guy turned into about 85% of my business at one point. So, you know, the lesson there is that sometimes your weakness, like in that I didn't have a lot of clients to compete with, could actually be a strength because from the client experience point of view, he's getting a million different emails from a million different agents who don't really understand what it is he needs in terms of a spread. And so for me to be able to hone in on that, I think was a value add for him. And I knew that.
Mike Swenson: 00:30
Welcome to the Real Freedom Show. We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together.com. It's where we put all of our content, all of our wonderful interviews for you to be able to figure out what's going to be your path. There's so many cool things that you can do inside of real estate, and we love highlighting those people that are doing cool and fun things to hopefully inspire you and help you out in your journey. Today I'm super excited. We have an amazing guest. We have Courtney Polis here, team lead of Acme Surhant, also host of the Clean Close, and you've been in real estate 20 years in the Los Angeles market. Founded your brokerage Acme back in 2011 and now merged with Surhant. We can certainly chat about that too. Excited to hear you talk about your path and your journey and what you're doing today. So, Courtney, thank you so much for being on the show.
Courtney: 01:43
Thank you so much for having me. We have a nationwide community of people all battling the same issues. So this is a great opportunity to have a forum and a conversation. I really appreciate you inviting me on here.
Mike Swenson: 01:54
Get us started, kind of talk about the early beginnings for you, why real estate, how you got into real estate, and we'll take it from there.
Mike Swenson: 02:00
Courtney: 02:01
I used to be a I moved to LA in 1997 to be a singer and an actress. And I did that for nine years. Um, and you know, at a certain point, the market, real estate market was booming. And I had a friend who was looking for somebody to do first-time homebuyer lead scrubbing, which is essentially receptionist work, but you kind of pre-quall people on the phone, like, do you have a letter? Have you talked to anyone yet? And then I place them with an agent and make a little extra money if the agent sold them a house. And I was like, I'm not gonna get my real estate license. I'm not a used car salesman. I can't lie, my face betrays me, you know, like there's no way. Fast forward, I a few years later was working for the federal government in DC, a real job, as they say, after being self-employed for so many years, um, even though I had to have three jobs in order to pay the rent. Uh, it was really rough. And I'm like, God, this is what people are going through, you know, mandatory human resources meetings, fluorescent lights, alcoholism, just the brutality of enforced inefficiency. It was so bad. And I couldn't take it anymore. My boss came over and she said, Courtney, you need to slow down. You are working too efficiently. We need to build the government more hours. And I was like, We are the government. Like, that's my tax money. I couldn't. So I looked on Craigslist, I found a job for a real estate assistant, and I applied and I met a woman who would change my life. Her name is Polly Driscoll. She uh was like head to toe in Ralph Lauren. In DC, she was like a more fashionable lady, you know, and she's just she was just, you know, at the end of her career, but willing to share everything about the business with me. Thank goodness. And she's really the one who who changed my mind about it because a lot of people get their real estate license, either watching television shows about real estate, thinking it's just a bunch of phone calls, or, you know, I mean, there are some people who have had family members who are real estate agents, but most of the time it's people who have tried a million other careers and for some reason they think it doesn't cost a lot of money to get this license. Let me give this a shot. I can learn, you know, whatever. They think it's going to be like retail sales or something. Like it's just hosting open houses and saying, hi, my name is Courtney. How can I help you? You know, it's not, it's so much more than that.
Courtney: 04:31
So, long story short, of it is I took two years with Polly to learn how to do the job of being a real estate agent. And that was like listening to her console her clients who weren't getting the price they wanted. Uh, watching her jump hurdles when there were errors in escrow. How did she handle that? Watching her marketing, you know, her marketing technique. Like one time when uh she asked me to order $8,000, it was like six or eight thousand dollars worth of cookies for Valentine's Day that she was gonna send out to her clients, like one gigantic cookie per family. And I thought that was insane. Like to me, that was so much money. I couldn't believe she was doing that. I didn't get it. And on Valentine's Day, that's not like a realtor holiday, you know? So I had to like order them, box them, put her newsletter in, package it, postage. The whole thing costs like, you know, eight, eight grand, I think. And out of that mailer, she got like four listings, but more importantly, it was an investment in the goodwill of those relationships. And I started to learn about bigger money, like about how investing in your relationships in real estate really dominates anything that you could do with postcards or even Instagram leads or paid leads or anything like that. She was always in her clients' uh mental sphere, you know, and she did classic things like magnets with vendor lists or, you know, just quarterly newsletters, you know, and but she had a mix of personal updates and uh market updates and seasonal updates that really made her clients feel uh taken care of by her. So I learned the old school part of the business from her.
Courtney: 06:20
I think it's so important and it's a missing. It's a missing right now. And it's one of the reasons why our industry has been so permeable. I I think it's one of the reasons why we have gotten attacked, uh, you know, as a profession, why there are headlines of AI agents replacing real agents, and you know, is our job going to be, you know, secure in the new economies? And I I have to say it's because we haven't like other professions that make as much money as we do, and a lot of our agents make a lot of money, like millions of dollars a year in LA, you know. Why are we uh putting levels to this? Why is there not a bachelor and a PhD or some kind of designation that says this person's a junior agent, hasn't done that, you know, done that much, and you can choose this person, maybe negotiate a better rate, or you can get the broker level person like me, who's closed $2 billion in transactions and I charge more, you know, just like you would with a lawyer or something. So I don't know why our industry hasn't done that. Some people, like I was talking to Jason Haber from Compass about this, and he said, Well, you know, NAR and and the MLSs have been just a money-making subscription money-making machine. So they want as many licensees as possible because that's how they make their money. And, you know, when I looked at the got a little in there with the data with NAR, I'm like, oh my God, yeah, they have their own private investment front fund. Like, what? What are you doing with our money? Why do you guys have two billion dollars just sitting in a bank account in 2022? Does that not make us ripe for a lawsuit? Of course it does. So I do think some things are mismanaged at the NAR level. In fact, many, many things have been mismanaged at the NAR level, which have led to a lack of consumer confidence in our um in our job title. So for me, just taking it back to your original question, I started at a time when there was still some old school ethics and old school hierarchy. And I think we need to kind of bring that back in order to re-establish trust with the public about what exactly a real estate agent is, does, and what our value is.
Mike Swenson: 08:31
Yeah, and I think so many people join too because they think it's easy and they see the TV shows, right? Where they see people doing cool stuff and they're like, I want to do that too. Well, how do I get started? I get my license, right? And not realizing that, yeah, it takes years of training and learning and how to do it properly and and how to manage those relationships because yeah, it's it's sales, but it's relationships. And I remember before I was in real estate, I was worked for a nonprofit for 10 years, and my agent did such a good job staying in touch with me, finding ways to connect and pop buys and that sort of thing. And I absolutely loved it. And then when she found out I went into real estate, then all that stopped because she realized like it was. I mean, great person, absolutely loved her, but it's like all that stuff turned off, and it's like, well, I'm still here and I still want to talk to you, but now I can't give you any business, and so that stuff stops. So it's it's just finding ways to weave that relationship and not make it seem transactional.
Courtney: 09:25
Well, you're you're actually bringing up a really good point, okay. I think that one of the lessons I have learned from owning my own brokerage and um with regard to the transactional nature of our business is that it would do us actually good to recognize that those relationships are transactional, actually. Because I invested, you know, when I first started ACME, I started this business with my heart. You know, I started it coming from a place of I've been transformed by real estate. I never thought I could make this much money. I never thought I could build some kind of legacy money for my kids. I just didn't think it was accessible. You know, I if you read the headlines, you would think affordability is like like they're like people just can't buy a house. Like they're trying to program people to not even try not to want it. I totally disagree. I think it's one of the few places left in American society where you can earn $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 of appreciation, for example, without lifting a finger and turn that, you know, house by house into actual pass downable wealth, you know? It's a there's some kind of democratization of access, which I'm not mad about that. I I just I just think the consumer loses trust whenever people who are not qualified or trained are out in the field moving millions of dollars of people's assets without like the right training. But but aside from that, the fact that anybody can get a you know real estate license, I think is actually not bad. I think it it widens the talent pool. And I poured into people, I created um a training program, I I nurture people, I was always available for them. I shared my business with them, I invested my heart and my friendship in in them. And then, you know, they don't stay all the time, you know. And you go, oh, so all it took was compass to decide they need to satisfy their shareholders this quarter and they're gonna do a big recruitment effort and offer a slightly higher split. And and all of that relationship is just out the window. But the joke's on me. The joke is on me for believing that those friendships were actually non-transactional. They always were. So I think it's better for us to acknowledge, okay, the real estate agent's sending me a pie on Thanksgiving because she wants my business, and let's be real about that. Or I, as a real estate broker, am only as valuable as the agent sees me for whatever platform I'm giving them, access, I'm giving them leads, I'm giving them that whole I love you, you know, you're my friend. That's it's just nonsense. It's just not true. And once we get real about that, everything hurts a little less, like things become a little clearer, and you can actually maybe make different choices in how you lead, you know. And so that it in fact has been a big lesson that I've taken in moving acme from a brokerage to a team at Surhan. Surhan is like acme on steroids. I was always ahead of the curve, even in LA, where there's a lot of adventurous personalities and that kind of thing. Like I started a podcast studio, a videography studio in our front office, like eight years ago. You know, I had like acme studios. I wanted people to take advantage of the media. You know, I helped people build their Instagrams and create niches and like all the things, even though I wasn't doing it for myself. So I'm playing catch up now. Um, Ryan just does it on a scale that's like so much bigger. And it's but it's all the same kind of forward-thinking startup energy, you know, always open to suggestions, always tweaking the systems, like massive aggregation. He's just a great leader. And that is hard for me usually to say because I don't see that in everybody, and I'm a critic. But Ryan just, you know, he's available when you need him. And I'm so excited to see him expand into Texas. And I know there's more expansion coming. It's it's really uh it's an honor to be one of the founding teams in LA for Sir Han.
Mike Swenson: 13:32
So, out of curiosity, take us back before you started acme. So you were in DC. How did you get to California? And then how did kind of the the acme piece start for you before we jumped to the city?
Courtney: 13:41
Oh, so I was in California and then my future ex-husband was getting his PhD in DC. That's why we moved there. So I got that job at the federal subcontractor, which was the worst. Then I got worked with Polly. I started selling real estate in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
Mike Swenson: 13:53
Yep.
Courtney: 13:53
Then we moved back after he got his PhD, we moved back to LA and I had no business here. I had no business, and I was just five years of sales experience, but not in Los Angeles. And so there was a flipper at named Steve Jones, and my broker called me and said, Hey, Courtney, just want to let you know. I think this guy is breaking up with his agent. Go after the business. I thought he was just telling me, but in fact, he told every agent at our company that same story. But I took it as like an imperative like I've got to go. So I called and called and called and called this guy until he finally would take a meeting with me. I had an Excel spreadsheet of all the properties he purchased and all the properties that he sold and what the mark, what the margin was, like how much I thought he was making on each one, because you know, it was a different era, like a lot of bank-owned houses, and you know, the people were doing work without permits and making not a lot of money, but you could do 10 houses and make 50 to 100 on every house and be good, you know. And I said, Listen, man, I have no business here. I have zero clients. I can dedicate myself 100% to finding properties for you. And I get the math of this, I understand the flipper formula. I can do this. And he was like, Okay, I'll let you try on my partner's house. An FHA duplex in a somewhat transforming neighborhood next to a school. Um, very quirky place, no appliances, no staging. So I I bought used appliances so that it would qualify for FHA appraisal. Uh, I staged it myself and I made the marketing and I did all the things. And this guy dropped by and he was like, okay, I think I'm ready to give you one of my listings. That one guy turned into about 85% of my business at one point. So, you know, the the lesson there is that sometimes your weakness, like in that I didn't have a lot of clients to compete with, could actually be a strength because from the client experience point of view, he's getting a million different emails from a million different agents who don't really understand what it is he needs in terms of a spread. And so for me to be able to hone in on that, I think was a value add for him. And I knew that. So you do have to figure out what the client is experiencing to see where you can add the most value to carve out your niche.
Courtney: 16:14
And from that, acme became the renovation, resale, luxury at any price point kind of brokerage. And we're still known for that. That is what we do. If you go on our website, acme xsurhant.com, you'll see our listings have a certain aesthetic. Even though they're not done by the same people, it's the way that we present is our niche. So I took some of my PR and marketing background from University of Maryland and applied it, applied it to our overall like brand offering. And it's done very well. So we definitely feel like a home for the wayward renovation artist.
Mike Swenson: 16:52
And this is what I think is I can appreciate being in real estate longer is every every team brokerage, whatever it might be, like options. So for people out there wanting to be an agent, like everybody's kind of got their own flavor, and there really is truly finding the right fit for you. It's not a one size fits all, it's everybody kind of has their little thing that they're doing, people that they connect well with, the training types of things, and it's like you built something that was uniquely you, and people can be attracted to that, and you kind of find your tribe of people that it works with, and and it's not gonna work for everybody. And I think sometimes broker just try to be one size fits all, and yet you you attract the right people, it's a magnet, the right people are gonna come come to you and and repel the the wrong people.
Courtney: 17:36
Well, it just depends what kind of brokerage you're at. If your brokerage is structured on like downstream income, it's like a quantity game, not a quality game. Uh, you know, that's one of the things I really love about Sirhan is that you know in LA they won't take anybody who makes less than 10 million um in sales volume per year unless you're on a team, in which case you're being mentored and trained and all that stuff. But in other markets, they have different levels to it. But the um the objective is not to get as many warm bodies as possible in a chair, contrary to some other types of brands that are more about just aggregating humans, you know, and maybe you can do something with that too. I I think it's just a different approach. I'm not mad at any of it, but for me, you know, I the part I love, the like creative part of doing our job is finding better and more interesting ways of getting to our buyers. That's why I'm like, you know, I feel bad for these people who are super invested in pocket listings. I'm like, the whole fun is bringing it to market. What are you talking about? When do we get to record the video, you know, and and do the do the thing, you know. So just a few other little like milestone
Courtney: 18:42
things. In 2021, I started Acme Florida with Heather Unger in Orlando, and I am loving her video content. If you don't follow at Acme Florida on Instagram, you're missing out. It's so good and really fun and creative. And I love to see that being brought to the Orlando market. So there really wasn't anybody like us doing that kind of lifestyle editorial marketing in the Central Florida market. It was all very like kind of by the book traditional real estate marketing. So that's been a really exciting partnership, too, and successful. She's uh just announced number two uh in Orlando for sales volume. So she's killing it. I'm so proud of her for that. But also last Friday, I graduated from Harvard from the uh advanced management development program in real estate in the Graduate School of Design, which I'm very proud of. But the point is there's always so much more to learn. And I wanted to go to Harvard as a dream, as an unrequited dream of mine and my father's for me. Um, but also to kind of like see what the bigger picture is. Because as real estate agents and professionals, and even as team leads or brokers, like you get locked into the day-to-day of postcards and turning the doors and up forms updates and all of this stuff. And sometimes you forget, like, oh, there's there's more to the story. For example, one of my colleagues in the class was very much focused on like stakeholders in a community. We we deal with that so much in Los Angeles because a lot of our renovation artists are working in transforming areas that have a legacy of um like redlining, segregation, you know, and and and and there's an anti-gentrification kind of vibe, which we have to honor and respect. And and there's a nuance to like building consensus. There's something to that. So one of our one of our um colleagues, Maya Ford, she was just so about the voice of people um in everything from planning a development, which we sometimes are involved in. When we work with new construction people, we're like helping them plan the common spaces and that kind of thing, to you know, how to communicate to different populations who have been unheard. I loved that. I love that she brought that back up. We also learned about messaging, you know, real estate agents are notorious for throwing whatever at the wall and not really knowing what's gonna stick. And, you know, we're just kind of like, is it about interest rates? Date the rate, is it this thing? Is it, you know, HVAC tips for summer? Uh clarifying the messaging was one of the big uh big course features in the program. And like we had to do um uh an independent project where we really honed down into one core industry-related subject, and I had to make like a pitch presentation on it. So I had two things that came out of it, which are really useful. And if any of your listeners are interested in contributing their thoughts on either of these, I would be so open to it because I am actually gonna start navigating them both.
Courtney: 21:54
One is on a nationwide license for real estate agents, something like We have for mortgage lenders the NMLS. Um, I personally think it's time. As you mentioned, you're on a team that has a Florida and Utah component. I'm sorry, uh Minnesota component. And I also am licensed in Florida and California. I serve Southern California from Ventura all the way down to San Diego. My team does. So we have to belong to multiple MLSs. We have to, you know, it's it's it's expensive. If I wanted to expand my team to the entire state, it would be very, very expensive, let alone if I wanted to say, take it national. Like Ryan is literally creating a nationwide brokerage. So he has to get broker of record in every single state in order to have those. But what if somebody's, you know, by coastal or what if we're able to lead a team, a bigger team, but have people in every state. Why am I not allowed to collect commission if I'm bringing business and even if I'm have my teammate on the ground in Minnesota selling it? I should be able to do that.
Mike Swenson: 23:01
Yep.
Courtney: 23:02
And uh, I know there are some brokerages that kind of conceptually say like you can do that. Like I think EXP kind of like says you can do that, but it's certainly not common practice, and it definitely isn't without um a big expense right now. So my project was on the case for a nationwide real estate license. That's one of them.
Courtney: 23:21
And the other thing I I really got into, we had a big negotiation class, and it just so happens that as a woman, we find I find that interacting with men of different cultures, but also you know, different ages, different experience levels in our industry, like there is a lot of loaded tonality and interactivity. It's interesting. So have you ever used Crystal Nose? Do you know what that is?
Mike Swenson: 23:54
No.
Courtney: 23:55
Okay, your little nugget. Crystal Nose is a website crystal nose.com, like K-N-O-W-S. And what it is, is it's a site that allows you to put in the LinkedIn profile of somebody, perhaps an agent you're doing a deal with, or maybe a prospective client, and it will give you some idea of what their per like their um, you know, their personality characteristics like are they a driver, et cetera. You know, if you're familiar with those uh those types of personality tests.
Mike Swenson: 24:31
Yep.
Courtney: 24:32
So you can then load that into say a perplexity or a clot or whatever and say, okay, I'm negotiating this challenging deal. This agent's last message to me was XYZ. How should I respond and most effectively like get the outcome that I'm looking for? So I had, I swear to you, I had three different transactions with three men who I felt, at least from my point of view, were being condescending, patronizing, rude, and dismissive, okay, which is something women have to deal with. So, what what the Hillary Clinton model is, is like we have to man up, we have to be big and tough like they are, get our shoulder pads on and go out and fight like we're football players and talk to them and they're talking to us to be respected. But I actually think that there's something in the middle where we can use our feminine wiles, uh, just a softness or more emotional intelligence to uh de-escalate that and that and and actually like kind of make the person feel a little bit more like we're on the same team or something to get the desired outcome. It's just sales, but I but I have found it to be a fascinating thing. So the other thing I'm thinking about doing is writing a book on neo feminism and real estate negotiation because I think that women are very powerful in um in their ability to negotiate. We don't always use it to our, you know, we sometimes feel bullied by by these conversations, but I think it's an opportunity. And I like a return to feminism that is actually female. So I find myself being like a kind of female ambassador, like I'm an ambassador for the for the for the softer side of female business practice, you know, just re-invate. Like I don't, I like we can shave our armpits and wear high heels and be feminists too, you know. We do not have to be like, you know, taking on masculine qualities in order to to celebrate the unique traits that we have to offer to this practice. So these are my two pet projects. If anybody has any thoughts on it, I would love to hear them. Um my email is CourtneyP at surhant.com.
Mike Swenson: 26:52
Yeah, that's a that's exciting. I love it. Are you looking to get started or scale in real estate investing but don't know your next step? Are you overwhelmed thinking about finding deals, analyzing deals, doing due diligence, and managing properties on top of it? Go ahead and push the easy button and invest with us. Real estate investing is what we do full time. We've done dozens of deals with hundreds of doors. We have the knowledge and experience to handpick the best deals that most investors can't find. We've at large off-market deals all the time where you can hopefully find returns and economies of scale that you just can't find on your own. The best thing is it's 100% passive to you for less capital than you put down trying to acquire a property on your own. Don't let this year go by where you don't make the leap, add to your portfolio, or you just sit in analysis by paralysis. To find out more, visit freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest. You can book a call and learn more there. So get to scaling your portfolio now with us by your side. That's freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest. Um, real quick, you mentioned Sir Hant for people that are kind of curious, how does something like that come together? You know, you're running a great brokerage on your own, and he's, you know, well known. And so how do how does that formulate?
Courtney: 28:04
Great question. Um, I'm sure it's different for everybody. I just happen to have a friend who is mentored by Barbara Corcoran, actually. Um, and she, Tiffany McQuaid, she had a brokerage in Florida, um, Tampa. And she's about, I don't know, a year and a half ago or something like that, maybe two years ago, reached out to me and said, Courtney, I think you need to talk to these guys. And I'm like, really? I don't know. She said, It's like, I'm telling you, it's like you you're a single mom. She said this is how she felt. She felt like she was a single mom. And then, you know, mom has a new boyfriend and the kids like him, you know, type of thing. But it's kind of like, you know, it does feel like that when you're running a business, it's very lonely. And it does feel like if you don't have a partner to run the business, um, you know, you do kind of feel like you're all alone, like battling everything. And there's so much on the back end now that wasn't there when I started. Like we have to have a million different AI subscriptions and you know, fellow and Real Scout and Free Chat and this thing and leverage and all the things. It's very expensive. And when the market turns down, if agents aren't productive, it's coming out of my savings, you know. So just the profitability has been like crazy all over the place. So, anyway, she's like, You need to talk to them. So, when I had the first call, it wasn't with Ryan, it was um with Todd, Sheridan, and they weren't even open in California yet. I was just like, just noodling around, seeing what you guys are up to, whatever. And it was a nice conversation, and I realized there's a lot of brand synergy here. Like, there's they're doing things that we're doing too, you know, they're using tools that we're using too. And it just felt like, huh, this is the closest to a brand alignment I've ever seen. And I've been pitched by everybody, you know. This is that moment for mergers and acquisitions. Like, this is that moment where they know if it's 3x, like last three years haven't been the best three years. So this is like buying low, you know. Um, so I've looked at different people's platforms, I've looked at their offerings, and I've thought, you know, my agents just aren't gonna go for that. They're just not gonna go for it. Like it just is too traditional or not inventive enough. And then here comes this, you know, it's like just in your face um influence, and it's intoxicating. But besides that, Ryan's like a really nice person, which I wasn't totally expecting. I didn't know. So I met him um in Los Angeles, like a maybe I don't know, 10 months or something before they decided to actually do it. And um, I was impressed by his demeanor, humility. Uh, he's just a very serious guy, actually, even though he comes off as kind of goofy on on Instagram. He was um, he's an agent first, he gets it. It's not a stock market deal, it's one company, it's not a bunch of franchises. Um, he's very much vested in its success. And, you know, I felt like he had uh just a fresh and important point of view. So I was like, hmm, maybe this is something we should consider. And ultimately I had to make a choice. I felt, I feel like any boutique agent right now, if you're in one of these big metro markets, we have to make choices because things are changing on the back end so quickly, you know. The compass merger and acquisition and and the war for private listings, access, Zillow preview. Like there's a lot of back office changes happening while our agents are happily out there trying to still sell real estate. You don't even know what you're up against.
Courtney: 31:57
And there was this one listing in Highland Park. Highland Park is like the Brooklyn of Los Angeles. It's like it's been coming, you know, it's been it's been here for, I don't know, probably 10 years. It's been, you know, like hipster edgy, um, you know, invent like a lot of young entrepreneurs used to live in Silver Lake, moved over here to open their businesses because it was a little cheaper and more fun. There was this listing. I met these sellers. I so connected with them. This listing should have been mine. I knew the designers that did their house, I knew the materials, like they had leathered granite on their countertops. Not everybody knows about leathered granite. I know that sounds funny, but it's true. Um, that when I went to the backyard, they were like, Oh my God, you're the first agent that's actually asked to come out here and given us any suggestions for what to do with this. I'm like, listen, this is so right, you know. I'm established, I have a track record. This is exactly what I sell. It should have been my listing. So, like two days later, I get a call and they it almost sound like they were like choked up, you know. Hey, Courtney, we just want to let you know we really, really enjoy meeting with you. It was so hard to make this decision, but we ultimately decided to go with this agent from Compass who doesn't even sell in this neighborhood. Like it's like crazy to me and came out of nowhere anyway. I mean, I mean 21 years in the business, like I I just I couldn't believe it. I was shocked and hurt, you know. I'm like, really? And she's like, Yeah, just because of visibility. And I was like, So something in that listing presentation, or some I have to read the room and go, okay, this is something that people are really concerned about, or it's some sales pitch somebody's making effectively that visibility is paramount in choosing a listing agent, even though we all know all the listings go on the MLS, go on Red, go on Zillow, and that's where the buyers are usually found. You know, it's not even like it's not, I mean, on one hand it is, and on another hand, it isn't rocket science, but the perception is there. So if the perception is there, it's real for the sellers, that's how they're making their choices. I was like, I better get on the visibility track right now. And then I realized, you know, I sh it it's it is it's a great opportunity to showcase creativity, to have that endorsement of Ryan and and and the exposure channels that he's created are just like amazing. So if that's the seller's concern, then I want to meet them where they're at. So that is was actually the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I was like, okay, I'm doing this.
Mike Swenson: 34:44
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because you feel like you would love to like have a class where you educate your sellers on here's all the things that you the myths that you don't know, what matters, what doesn't matter. Because for a lot of people, yeah, it might be 10, 20 years since they've sold real estate before and their past property, and it's like their perception is their reality, and for them, like you said, what isn't an accurate perception is what helped them to make the choice that probably was the wrong choice, right? And so, yeah, you've you've kind of got to do that, and it's it's cool for you because I know building a brokerage, like that's your baby, that's your footprint, um, that's uniquely you, and to be willing and able to see the bigger picture, like that it is a fit to be able to merge in with somebody and and do that is is so amazing that your your personality can still stay where it is. So that's awesome. That congratulations for having that because I know for a lot of people it's hard to give that up and to see that it's kind of the one plus one equals three, and it sounds like that's kind of the the place that you're at.
Courtney: 35:51
So that it you know, you said it, you said it exactly right. I mean, look, it does come with change, change is hard, systems are new, things are different. Um, and so you know, I've lost a couple people actually, like surprising one that said, I'm not a Beverly Hills agent. I was like, FYI, you don't have to be a Beverly Hills agent, but if you get an opportunity to an opportunity, like for example, I have agents who are broker level agents, they are brokers, they've been in the business for a long time, but they got a $10 million listing opportunity, and you know, we had the support of Sir Hant to like you know lock it up. So, you know, that is something I can't offer. So maybe you're not a Beverly Hills agent, but if you want to grow in price point or volume, you have to know who's there to support you in this NFL of real estate that is Los Angeles. Like, how can you get there if you if if that's not your book of business? You know, so it it's not it's not without a little bit of uh a little bit of reshifting. And but this is just to wrap it back around to what we were talking about at the beginning.
Courtney: 37:04
The more reality check we give to ourselves uh regarding what is and what is not transactional, the more effective we can truly be as leaders and as and as agents too, to not BS ourselves that just because we've sent a few pies that that person's definitely gonna choose us and not to get our feelings hurt all the time whenever we lose lose clients or agents. You know, I am over the emotional part of it. I'm over it. It I if that was like a test, okay, good. I'm it's good. Now let's get back to business. How can we market these houses better, give the clients a better experience, attract higher quality talent, and ultimately have a little fun while we're doing it? Like that is that's simple. It's that's the goal.
Mike Swenson: 37:48
Awesome. Well, Courtney, thank you so much. We're we're kind of out of time here, but you know, really appreciate you sharing your story and your journey. And it's it's cool to see what you're able to build. And and sounds like you've got some some pretty sweet, exciting times ahead of you. Excited to see where it's gonna go. For people that want to learn more about you guys, how can they do so?
Courtney: 38:05
Yeah, you can visit our Instagram at Acme Xsurhant, or you can visit my personal one at the Clean Close, which is C-L-O-S-E. I have a YouTube channel, The Clean Clothes, which has a lot of fun podcasts on it. Um, and then of course our website, acme xsurhant.com. We are super down with referrals. We're willing to have some reciprocal relationships. So if you have a referral in Los Angeles, anywhere from Ventura all the way down to San Diego, we can help you and make it worth your while.
Mike Swenson: 38:39
Thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Best of luck to you in the future.
Courtney: 38:42
Thanks, bye.
