Erin Krueger - Why Culture Wins
Erin Krueger is one of the most influential real estate leaders in the country—a powerhouse agent, team builder, and now first-time author with over $2 billion in career transactions. Starting as a solo agent with a background in advertising and marketing, Erin quickly rose to become Tennessee’s #1 Realtor and later ranked #14 nationwide. She went on to build one of the top real estate teams in America, earning recognition from The Wall Street Journal and RealTrends as the #1 team in Tennessee and #3 nationally.
With nearly two decades of experience, thousands of homes sold, and $225M in sales in 2024 alone, Erin is known for her innovative strategies, hands-on leadership, and commitment to excellence. Beyond real estate, she mentors entrepreneurs, helping them turn vision into action and build businesses that thrive. In this episode, Erin shares the lessons, systems, and mindset behind her extraordinary success—as well as insights from her new book designed to help leaders overcome challenges, build high-performing teams, and create a culture of success across any industry.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Learn how Erin Krueger left her corporate job and built a top-producing real estate career from scratch.
- Discover how she scaled multiple verticals—investor, developer, relocation, and luxury—to create a diversified, resilient business.
- Understand her culture-first hiring system that attracts long-term, high-performing agents.
- See how Erin leveraged targeted ads and funnels to unlock a steady stream of high-end relocation clients.
- Gain insight into her leadership approach, promoting agents into division leaders and cultivating ownership mindset.
- Explore how Erin uses real estate investing to build financial freedom—and teaches her team to do the same.
The key moments in this episode are:
0:00 - From Corporate To Real Estate
2:01 - Why Culture Beats Pure Performance
5:20 - Early Wins, Recession, And Diversifying
8:20 - Building Verticals And Delegating
11:10 - Click Funnels To Luxury Pipeline
15:45 - Culture-Fit Hiring That Lasts
20:45 - Training, Role Play, And Conversion
24:10 - Investing For Optionality And Wealth
28:10 - Empowering Agents To Build Portfolios
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Full transcript here:
Erin Krueger
It's beginning with finding the right people to handle what you've already mastered. And then you can then go and spend time and building these other verticals. And that's what I did. And now I'm I'm proud to say that we represent properties that are from 400,000 up to 30 million. I primarily handle 3 million and above in the Nashville market. And, you know, we do a ton of like farm and estates to penthouses downtown. We have developments. And I am the proud team lead, leading 12 real estate ninjas, all female team here in Nashville. And we outproduce teams that have 35 agents.
Mike Swenson
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. I'm your host, Mike Swentzon. If you want to get started on your real estate journey, check out our website freedom throughrealestate.com. We have all of our content that we put on there really to inspire you based on the stories we have on our podcast, the blogs you can read to help you figure out what's going to be a good fit for you in this entrepreneurial playground that we have that is real estate. And so today, super excited to share with you. We've got Aaron Krueger here. Aaron is a top agent in the Nashville area, runs one of the top teams, and also invests in real estate, which we'll dig into as well. And also is an author of a book, Capture the Culture, which just released here this year. And so, Aaron, we're so excited to have you on the show and to be able to share your story and your journey in real estate.
Erin Krueger
Thanks, Mike. I appreciate you having me on.
Mike Swenson
So why don't you just start, take us back a little bit before you got into real estate and then take it from there?
Erin Krueger
I like many people never thought I was going to be a real estate agent. They kind of found me. Um I was in corporate and I was in marketing and advertising. And one day my boss um wanted me to plagiarize a competitor's commercial. And I just wasn't okay with it. And he wasn't taking no for an answer. He was throwing more and more bonuses and um things my way. And I just kind of had to choose a road that I was gonna go down, and it was not gonna be the unethical one. And I just said, You'll have my resignation by the end of the day. And um, I walked down the hallway and he said, What are you gonna do? And I don't know what came over me, but I said, I'm gonna go into real estate. And uh, you know, it has been probably the best decision of my entire life. Um, what I love so much about real estate is that it is what you put into it, right? It's there's no cap on what you can do, the people that you can meet, the specialties that you can learn and become an expert in. Um, and that one thing that I absolutely love about it is that no day is the same. Um, and so as somebody who does have an entrepreneurial heart, um, I think as entrepreneurs, we get bored when we do the same thing. I mean, I I also um, you know, during the recession, uh, I went, you know, I was still a real I was a real estate agent and you know, I put myself through to get my MBA, you know, and I didn't do that to get, you know, a raise for my boss. I was my own boss, right? But knowledge is power and I wanted to be better and I wanted to learn more. And I just think that like, you know, everything that you kind of take on is just like an opportunity to be wiser, even if you fail, fail forward. And I think that's a lot of what this career has given me. Um, and so I wrote a book over the past year called Capture the Culture. And, you know, I have an amazing team, but it that wasn't the road that I was down. I never wanted to even have a team when I was in real estate. I was a solo agent and wanting to do my things my way. But sometimes when you're successful and you want to be able to do good work, you want to keep up with everything, you need help. And it's like, how do you find these people? Right? How do you keep these people happy? Um, and how do these people stay so motivated that they perform like it you would? And so I really wrote this book to help a lot of team leaders that are struggling. I know that I speak to a lot of team leaders and I coach a lot of people, and it's just like they can't retain them. Like it's the value component, um, it's the educational component. And I think if if it doesn't matter if you're in real estate team lead, if you are a team lead of a pharmaceutical sales team, whatever it is, culture is your number one asset in everything that you do. And so I think a lot of people put so much pressure on performance, performance, performance, numbers, numbers, numbers, and they forget about making sure the culture is right. Because if the culture is right, you're gonna be so much happier. Your clients are going to feel it, and their performance is going to 10x.
Mike Swenson
It's fun to hear you talk about just as an entrepreneur in real estate, there's so many things that you can do. And I know for me, I was actually an entrepreneurship major in college, and it took me 10 years to start my own thing or to get into you know real estate. And now you look back and it's like there's so many things that you can do inside of real estate. And I love how you can bet on yourself. I love how you don't have to worry. Um, depending on your role, a lot of times you have freedom where you don't have to put in, you know, time off requests and things like that, or you know, being able to pick up your kids after school and and have that adjustment. Now, at the same time, you also can work 24-7. And so there's the flip side of that. Instead of working nine to five, you decided to quit and you know become an entrepreneur and work 24-7. But there's so many fun things that you can do inside of real estate. So we just talk a little bit as we get started here about the early years for you, your journey of okay, now you're in real estate after you, you know, resigned abruptly. And and now, okay, shoot, what do I do? And and how do I get started and how do I get some momentum in this business?
Erin Krueger
Right. So the first phone call I made was to the woman who sold me my townhouse. I was in my 20s when all of this happened. Um, and I called her and I said, Susan, I need a mentor. Uh, will you mentor me? Right. And she said, of course. And I I worked under her for six months and she she was amazing. Um, she just taught me so much. Um, she has since retired, obviously. This because I've now been in the business for 20 years, and she refers all her business to me now, right? Her succession plan was to give everything to me, even though I was only with her for six months. Um, and she just really took taught me the ropes. And then I went out on my own. My first deal in Nashville was 800,000. That was considered luxury back then. Uh, my next transaction was 80,000. Uh, and then the recession hit. Um, and so it was a a really rude awakening. Um, and so, you know, and now, you know, I've kind of decided to just be a very strategic agent. And I wanted to be able to be very diversified. Um, I didn't want to lock into one generalization. I wanted to be able to offer a lot. So I want to be able to be that agent for your first home, your investment home, um, your dream home. Um, if you have a commercial building, like we want to be able to take care of you. You, we want you to come to us so we can get you with the right person. We want to be that real estate advisor. So I really wanted to have this advisory set up. And I just put all these different verticals and I, and I'm a big person on to be speaking affirmations and putting it out there. Um, it makes it real when you kind of say it to your team members. I remember walking into one of my team meetings and we were really heavy on the investor side. And I kind of saw the writing on the wall, right? We had all of our eggs in a in the basket of the investors, and sometimes that stuff is gonna dry up, right? And you don't want to be certainly in COVID, they canceled 80 contracts, you know, in one day. It's a lot of commission, it's a lot of dollars. And so you just don't want to do that. And so I saw the writing on the wall. And I wanted to have, you know, a builder and developer division. I wanted to have a relocation division, I wouldn't have a luxury division, but I really didn't have, you know, all of those contacts. So, like it's like, where do you begin? It's beginning with finding the right people to handle what you've already mastered, and then you can then go and spend time and building these other verticals. And that's what I did. And now I'm I'm proud to say that we represent properties that are from 400,000 up to 30 million. I primarily handle 3 million and above in the Nashville market. And, you know, we do a ton of like farm and estates to penthouses downtown. Um, we have developments. Um, and I and the proud team lead, um, leading 12 real estate ninjas, all female team here in Nashville. And we outproduce teams that have 35 agents.
Mike Swenson
Now you did talk about leading with great people as well, but for somebody that's looking to grow a business or grow a real estate team, you need those key people in those key spots for you to because everything, while real estate's still real estate, there's a certain level of skill to some of these different verticals. And so, how did you work on kind of balancing, not getting spread too thin and not chasing a ton of shiny pennies at once?
Erin Krueger
Yeah, great question. So, really, you know, we mastered the investment division, right? And there were agents that worked under me. So I really believe in bringing up team members, right? You're not just an agent, you're gonna run a division kind of deal. There's like a promotion thing where people feel ownership and they feel pride in that ownership. And so that's what I did. I promoted those that were working with me in the investors thing where I knew they were already going to continue to run the ship that the way that I had already set up systems and processes. So that was handling on its own. That allowed me to free up time to have meetings with developers. And I didn't go after the big guys at first, right? I went for the the developer that was starting out with a two build and a four build and stuff like that. And and now I've got the big, you know, 500 unit builds and stuff like that. So it doesn't happen overnight, but it starts with doing a really good job with somebody who's also hungry and starting out, and then you get their business and they're growing, and you're part of that. And then they tell their friends that are in the same investment, you know, mastermind group, and then you pick them up. And and I started that way with little guys, and now I have big guys, and some of those little guys are big guys now. Um, and so you you kind of learn the ropes, but there was a pivotal moment for me in my business where during COVID, I saw that so many people were coming to our website. And I went back to my website guy and I said, listen, years ago, I went to a 10x conference in Miami and I heard about click funnels and I bought the package, but we didn't execute well. We didn't, we didn't implement it well. But I really feel that like all these people from California and Chicago are coming to my website. You know, Nashville's a hot button. And so, how can we capitalize on them? I think click funnels are the the way to do it, but I need to execute the right way. And with my website um guy partner, we kind of restructured ads. We ran 20 different ads, saw what worked, whittled it down to five. And the the theme was the same. The question, the ad was the same. The pictures were different, right? We wanted to see what evoked a click, what evoked conversion, if you will. And it was why are all the Californians moving to Nashville? They would click it, top 10 reasons why. Here it is. Everything from, you know, no state income tax, low property tax to Nashville Hot Chicken, Southern Hospitality, you name it. It's all down there. Click here for your free relocation guide. They would click it and my agents, it's first to grab the lead. My agents would be on it, they would be converting them. And these leads were not$500,000 leads, these were$2 million,$3 million,$5 million leads. Now we had the luxury buyers that were coming in. We were putting money behind it in these different areas of the country. And we continued to do this. We're still doing it to this day. And because we spent so much and we have been so consistent up and down California, up and down different areas of the country, um, I will be coming up organically now. Um, you know, as that source because of my spend on Meta and Google over the years. That single that choice of diving into my data and knowing my numbers was a complete game changer for my relocation division. So, you know, you got the investor division, you've got the develop developer-builder division, you got the relocation division, right? So now through the relocation division, now we have all these high-end buyers. Well, when you start closing out a lot of these high-end buyers, you're now invited to the table for high-end listings.
Erin Krueger
Right.
Erin Krueger
And I always say, put me in, coach. I just need an opportunity. I'm never gonna be the smartest person in the room, but I will outwork anybody. And and so that's what ended up happening. I ended up bringing the fact that I can reach the high-end buyer. I use that as my advantage. And I was not only invited into these rooms for these listings, sometimes I was not I was not competing against anybody. I love to compete. I loved when I'm up against other people, keeps you fresh, keeps you, you know, up on everything. But, you know, I was brought into huge opportunities and I was constantly hitting records and breaking things, you know, all of these things. And we became, you know, one of the premier um teams for luxury. And so that built my luxury business. And so I think like, you know, thinking about where you want to be, how what these verticals look like, who are the people that you want to have on your team? How do they respond? What do the systems and processes look? I mean, that's the mindset of an entrepreneur, right? A growth mindset. Um, you know, I'm I don't know what it is, but I'm just not one of those people that like likes to rest. I love what I do. Like I mean, I love to go on vacation and travel with my husband. And I don't get me wrong on that type of stuff. When I'm off, I'm off. But I also love what I do. Like I think about like a new marketing. I have a marketing manager, she's in charge of that. But of course, like I'll see something on TikTok or I'll see something on Instagram, I'll send it to her. Like, this is so cool. What do you think? You know, and then she's on it and going off on a tangent to, you know, do something. It's like we get excited about it. And I think our passion and our enthusiasm for what we do, whether it's helping somebody relocate, working with a developer on a new project, or somebody in the ultra-high wealth, people want to be surrounded by people that are positive and passionate about what they're doing. And you know, every single day I'm very thankful and very grateful that I'm able to do what I do, and I think that comes off, and people want to be surrounded by that.
Mike Swenson
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Erin Krueger
Yeah, I think that's a really important thing. So I'm really focused on what I call culture fit hiring. And for me, it's not about having a lot of Aaron Krugers. I don't want that. I think that I would go personally crazy if I had all that. But what I'm looking for are people that have like the right kind of hustle, right? That have a positive attitude, who want to treat my clients how I would want to be treated as well. Like I have a certain way that I do things. And I think that, you know, clients as more successful as I get, and my time gets very limited on other projects. I need to make sure that my team members are able to handle clients that I worked with five years ago the same way. Like the worst thing that we could do is say, they're not good at as good as Aaron, right? I need them to call me and be like, George is amazing. I love her, you know? And they might love her more, and that's okay. I'm totally cool with it, right? Um, that's what a team is. And um, I think for me, I take a long time to hire. I just do it. I just I just don't really care like how long, like if you want to be a part of this team, we do a lot of cool things together. We share our share our wins, we we share our lessons learned, like we grow. We're like committed to that. I want somebody who's coachable and has a growth mindset. Like those are really important things to me. Um, but I think that I have the the the fail-proof interview system. And I really talk about that in my book, Capture the Culture, because I used to make a lot of mistakes. Like I would be like, You have a pulse mic? Welcome to the Aaron Kruger team, right? Now I can't do that. I can't do that anymore. Time is valuable. I really have to be careful on who I hire. I have to be very slow to hire, quick to fire. And so we do a series of tests. And so it all starts with the application, right? My director of ops puts out the um the job description out there, and there's a test in the job description. You know, it says send in your resume to my director of ops and also attach the results of your disc profile. There's no hyperlink in there that tells you where to go for your disk profile. We do not want you calling us or emailing us asking where to get the disc profile. It's called problem solving and use Google, right? So right there. Are they gonna be the type of person that's always coming to you for 50 million questions, right? Or are they gonna be a problem solver and just figure it out? So that's the first test. The second test is they go in front of Sarah, who's my director of ops, and she, you know, will go through all of the applications and say we get for a buyer agent position, we might get 25, 30 applications. She'll whittle it down to probably 12, 10 or 12 people to interview after she looks at their disc profile and everything. And then she'll see, like, you know, who's coachable, like who's open to feedback? Like, what are these people like, are they gonna get along with everybody on our team? I mean, I have people from 23 to 62 on my team, but when they get together, it's pure magic, you know? And so I just want to make sure that there's not gonna be a negative Nelly or a negative Nathan in the bunch. Like it's all about positive positivity and a really good attitude. And then Sarah narrow narrows it down and she'll put three people in front of me. And we have a typical interview. I ask a lot of questions. And in the book, I give you those questions, and there's some psychology behind it. But then I I end with this question. Goals are really important to me. So tonight, Mike, send me an email and let me know what goals would be so important for you to hit if you were asked to be on this team and you're sitting across from me a year later. What goals would you be so proud of? Okay. Mike, did you notice that I said, send me an email tonight? Okay, a lot of people won't because their listening skills aren't sharp. And I really feel that the number one skill in real estate that you need to have is listening. Because if you're not listening to me, you probably are not going to be listening to my client. And you might miss that vital piece of information. And people need to feel heard. And so I wait to see if they send me the email tonight. So even if they're lovely and I think they're amazing, and they send it two or three days later, they're off the list. That has really been a foolproof method for me to be able to see if people really truly care. Because if they really, really want the job, they're going to be listening. They're going to be ready. They're going to rise to the challenge. They're going to go ahead and do the work. And I really don't care what's on their goal list, right? Like, yes, I'm reading it, but it's more about the action of doing it. Right. Some people write a thesis. Some people will have bullet points, right? I don't care about any of that stuff. I just want to know that you heard me and you did the work. Right. Then I take those people, and if none of them do it, we start over again, right? But if I really like some people, I'll put them in front of the team. And I'll put if it's a buyer agent position, I put them in front of all the agents and I have them interview them. And I say, interview them as much as they're interviewing you. And I say, ask them about how it's to work for Aaron. The good, bad, and ugly. Because if we choose you, we invest in you. And we want you to be super successful. And my the role of my team with my agents is there's no peanut gallery conversations after the interview. You are to text Sarah, my director of ops, and myself, yes or no, and why. And it has to be 100% buy-in. And the reason why I have 100% buy-in, as I have gotten older in my career, I've learned that I can't be saddled up with the new agent every day, like some of my senior agents were. Now it's time for my agents to rise up as mentors and teachers and coaches, right? It's all about the promotion, right? Everybody, nobody's a junior agent forever. And if you are, you get rid of them on your team, right? Everybody needs to do progress. Everybody's getting better every single day. And it's now time for them to step up and teach the younger generation that we're bringing up because they've already been given the tools, right? So I think it's all about empowerment and being part of something bigger than each other. Um, and that's really our secret to success. And that that allows us to hire on culture fit hiring. And that might take a two-month process to find the right person. And it's worth it because they stay.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And I think that the key is you you're you've already built something that people want to be a part of. And it's not like you said earlier where it's, hey, do you have a pulse? Um, because that is how a lot of agents and brokers treat recruiting, but you are building a team and it's a starting roster spot, not just I'm on the roster. And so you're choosing great people that are gonna have a key role than just shotgun approach.
Erin Krueger
So yeah. And I think a lot of people also think to themselves, you know, oh, I'm gonna get on the Aaron Krueger team and we get leads every day. I mean, tons of leads in every day, and I'm gonna get leads right off the bat. No, you're not. And I don't care if you've been in the business for 10 years, 15 years, or 10 minutes off the real estate school boat, right? Like you have to learn how to script, you have to be committed to following our processes and systems. And there are some people, it takes them 30 days and they're already on leads. There are some people it takes six months to be on leads. And, you know, and I'm giving constructive feedback and we have a couple meetings throughout the week. And it's so funny, Mike. I will all of a sudden in the middle of um, in the middle of a meeting, I'll go ring ring, Mike. And you can just see the blood rush from their face because now you're gonna role play with the boss. And right there in front of the entire team, we shift to role playing. And I'm the buyer and they have to convert me from either a sign call or an open house situation or something like that. And my thought with that is if I if they can do that flawlessly with me and all of these team members watching them, when it's just them and the client, they're gonna be unbeatable. They're gonna be a master converter. And Lisa on my team says this to this day that she used to dread that ring ring, but now she can walk into any listing, any buyer console and own it and own any objection thrown her way, and that the confidence has allowed her to be a very successful agent.
Mike Swenson
You certainly don't want to be practicing with live ammo because um that's when it really matters, right? So it's better to practice in front of you than to screw it up an appointment and blow a listing or blow a buyer.
Erin Krueger
Absolutely. Absolutely. We're here to make them successful. We're not here to, you know, throw throw them to the wolves. We want to make sure that when they're ready to go, that they're fully committed and they're also fully equipped.
Mike Swenson
Now you talked about you've built a great business, you're building a great team. So you also have another avenue, which is investing with uh all the experience that you have. You talked about, you know, wanting to put more eggs into the investing basket. So talk about that and your journey on the investing side of it.
Erin Krueger
Yeah, as I mentioned before, you know, there's no cap to real estate and what you can do. And I'm a really big person, obviously, into goals. And so I've always had the goal of, you know, it would be great if I could somehow create enough income where I made more income with my real estate investments than my actual commissions, right? What that allows us as real estate professionals is the like freedom, right? The ability to be able to say, you know what? I don't need that listing in a soft market that probably isn't going to sell because the sellers aren't motivated and they're not taking care of their home, right? It's the power of being able to say no and being okay with it. And um, so years and years and years ago, when I started to make some serious money in real estate, I just was like, okay, let's be smart about it. I grew up on a on a farm and I always saw my dad buying, you know, real estate. Um, and I was like, you know, I think that there is a pathway for, you know, not always relying on ordinary income, right? Our commission. Um, and so I just decided to invest in units and doors, as I like to say, you know, so doors. So whether that's in smaller apartment buildings, so I own a couple of apartment buildings, I own some duplexes, some single family homes. I've got some um short-term rental properties that you and I were kind of talking about before we even went on air. And and what I focused on was more of like the destination. So, like some are at the ocean and the beach, some are in the mountains, um, you know, one is in the lake house, you know, like that kind of thing. And so just different properties like that. So I really like to be diversified when it comes to that. And, you know, I have quite a few doors now. And, you know, every year, gosh, probably over the last 10 years, you know, I've really focused on buying anywhere from three to 10 properties a year. And it has just been something that has been really, really life-changing for me. Um, and also really helped um, you know, my team members too, because a lot of these women come in and in real estate, you we don't have retirement plans, right? We're we're working for ourselves and even the agents that are on my team, they're micro businesses within my business. And so they really have to like look at like how they can harness real estate as a powerful investment, um, you know, for them. And so I've really focused on even helping and mentoring my team members on how to create wealth through owning real estate. And it's really been a beautiful thing. I mean, I had a team member who was brokenhearted after a divorce, confidence completely crushed. She was with me, she's with me for 10 years. And, you know, now she's a killer buyer's agent and just a boss lady, has tons of investments, you know, cash paid her daughter's wedding when the husband was acting up, uh the ex-husband was acting up, you know, and it's just like there's the freedom of being able to stand on your own two feet and just be like, you know what, I've got this. And I think that's a really powerful thing that real estate allows us to do. Um, and it's something that I'm I'm very thankful for.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, my thought always was, you know, when I was running our team and hiring agents is, you know, if an agent were to leave our team, are they in a better spot than they were when they joined? And if that agent isn't going to leave our team until the day they die or until the day they retire, then we are responsible for what is that retirement plan or what is that that future plan for them. And so that's where I started putting more eggs into the investment basket because it's the joke where agents are like, oh, I'm gonna work until the day I die. And that's funny. Many people will do that because they like to, but I think many people are doing that because they have to, because they don't have another plan. And so being able to put some eggs into the investment basket allows you to have the choice of if I work till the day I die, it's because I want to, not because I have to.
Erin Krueger
Absolutely. There's a lot of power in that and a lot of freedom in that.
Mike Swenson
Aaron, thank you so much for for coming on and sharing your story. We we covered quite a bit. Obviously, there's a lot of great stuff in your book, which you alluded to, you know, quite a few things throughout the interview. But for people that want to reach out to you, learn more about you, learn more about the book, how can they do so?
Erin Krueger
Yeah. So you guys can follow me at the Aaron Kruger team on Instagram. Um, but I think some team leads that are maybe listening might get some um some free, useful quizzes and tools at CaptureHyphen the hyphenculture.com. Um, there are so many quizzes there, including surveys that you can even give your own team to kind of figure out where the culture currently is in your business, because sometimes there's team leads that think it's a great culture. But if you ask their team members, they're like, eh, not so much. Um, so sometimes we have to know where we need to, like where we are to figure out where we need to be and create a plan. So there's a lot of free tools that can be downloaded there um that can help a lot of team leaders. But if anybody has anybody in Nashville that is looking to move, we'd be glad to help them.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Um, excited to see what you've built. And obviously it's it's been a long time, so it's not just a year or two here that you've been at this. Um, but yeah, you've you've certainly built a business to be proud of, um, a culture to be proud of. Um, and so excited to see uh where you guys continue to grow in the future.
