- [Narrator] How do you break out of your comfort zone
so you can take the right action?
The CEO of Kingston Lane and a sought-after keynote speaker,
Sharran Srivatsaa.
Sharran grew up on the streets of India
and was forced to move to America with no money
and no connections.
Fast-forward to today and Sharran has taken his company,
Teles Properties, to 3.4 billion dollars in five years.
- And from different, like, software company,
how did you went from software to real estate?
- Yeah, good question.
So, after we sold our software business,
I didn't know what to do,
so I took some time off.
I taught tennis around the world
and then I realized that
it's hard to get back in, so I went to business school,
I got my MBA,
and then I was an investment banker at Wall Street.
It's very easy once you get your MBA,
that was a good feeder program.
So I was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs
and at Credit Suisse for five years,
and my partner and I
who, as a mentor,
we had invested in a small real estate company
that was fledgling, struggling in Beverly Hills.
And we came in as a consultant,
and then we realized that that small business was,
the original founders were going in different directions.
So we just served as a consultant and I said,
"Wow, there's an amazing opportunity here."
The promise is that, exactly what, I said,
"I can scale this promise."
So I left Wall Street, I quit my job and I said,
"I'm gonna come and scale this business."
And that's how that transition happened.
- I see, I see.
And from there, what did you do to scale that from, like,
300 million to 3 billion in, like, five years?
- Five years, yeah.
- 'Cause real estate, it's a very competitive industry.
- Yup, yeah.
- There are a lot of competitors,
you're working with a lot of agents,
a lot of moving parts, right?
What are some of the things that you did to scale?
- So, we used a, I always tell people, "If we don't have--"
The one thing that I've learnt from you
is you're really great about saying,
"Hey, here's a framework to begin your thinking.
"Here's a model to think about."
Otherwise you're just saying,
"Hey, what's my idea today?" right?
So we came up with the 3 Prong Model to scale the business.
One was, "Hey, what is our singularity of focus?"
When we were a 300-million-dollar company,
we could've done a lot better financially.
So I looked at the partners and I said, "Hey, if we
"could be a 3.4-billion-dollar business,
"we all would make an amazing amount,
"we'd have amazing lives."
And so, everyone is laughing at me, they're like,
"How are we gonna do that?
"How are we gonna do 10X?"
And I said, "Well, it's actually really simple.
"We all know that if we get to this number,
"it's gonna be a great life."
And, generally, the real estate cycle goes in 7-year cycles.
Generally speaking.
- Right.
Every seven years, people buy and sell, yeah.
- And every seven years, markets go up and down too.
So I said, "Well, if it's 7-year cycles,
"we're just getting into the cycle right now.
"We need, probably, a year or two
"to either sell the business, transition the business, etc.
"So take away two years, we have five years."
I said, "Hey, guys, if we can hit 3.4 billion in five years,
"we're gonna have an amazing life."
They just started laughing at me.
So it was not,
it was not a mathematical plan to grow 10X in five years,
it was a dream and a necessity of sorts.
And so, that was the vision.
And the team got so behind that, Dan, they would say,
"Sharran, why are you taking that trip to San Diego?
"It doesn't help us 10X.
"Sharran, why are you doing this project?"
So now the entire company had this filter
of 10X and it makes you
very disciplined in what you're--
- So, there are projects you would say no to.
It's like, "That doesn't fit
"into our overall vision," right?
- Right.
- "How 'bout do this?"
You get busy, you get excited,
you get creative, right? - Sure, we're entrepreneurs.
You're like, you wanna do more.
- Yeah, new idea every day, but you're like, "No,
"we're not gonna do that because--"
and the whole team kinda holds each other accountable.
- Exactly,
and so, that's number two.
So, number one is singularity of focus.
Number two is our cadence of accountability.
We'd realize that we needed,
a topic that's near and dear to your and my heart is people,
hiring people. - The best people.
- How do you hire great people?
'Cause I said, "We're gonna do it organically
"without acquiring companies."
So we put together this team, 11 managers,
called "recruiters", who would recruit
sales people to grow our--
Like, we recruited, we had 612 sales people
to grow our business.
That's how we grew.
And the cadence of accountability was,
and, Dan, it was so simple.
Every morning at 9:45, we would do a call.
And the call was extremely simple,
"How many appointments did I have yesterday?
"How many am I committed to having today?"
So we would go in order.
Dan, "Zero, three."
Sharran, "Three, three."
Jenny, "Two, two."
- So like a morning huddle?
- Morning huddle. - That's what I do,
yeah it's cool.
- But if someone says, "Zero, zero,"
they never say "Zero, zero" the next day
because that accountability forces them to--
And I will tell you, Dan, that was the one thing
that changed the nature of our entire business
because you had, you'd socialize the accountability
and 11 managers would get on every morning
and they would say their numbers.
- There was a, "Man, zero."
- "Zero, zero, zero--"
- "What's going on, man?
"Like, zero five days straight, something is wrong!"
- And you don't even have to say that,
what they will say is "Zero, zero,
"but, Sharran, I'm on it, I have 14 calls today."
So they will self-correct.
And just that 15-minute exercise
changed the growth of our company.
So, the first one was singularity of focus,
second one is cadence of accountability,
and the third one is
I tell the team, "Good process drives good results."
It's very easy when your scaling to just hack it.
- What was driving the business?
Was it to recruit more agents, right?
That was mainly it, right? - Yup, that's it, yeah.
So we were recruiting agents,
we were recruiting great agents that fit the model,
fit the culture, so that they could go sell more.
- [Dan] Mm, got it.
- Yeah, and provide a platform for them,
which was the 52 days a year and to sell more.
And the last one was this
"Good process drives good results,"
'cause we said, "If we're making a promise
"on delivering this 52 days a year off,
"I still need to deliver that promise.
"So we need a process that we can depend on."
- Did you use any of the background,
the skills that you've accumulated through technology
with this business?
- Yeah, totally.
A lot of the efficiencies that we encountered--
- [Dan] Software.
- Software.
We always say there's three ways to get leverage, right?
One, you got people that can help you.
Two, you got workflows that can help you.
And three, you've got systems that can help you.
So we always said, "Hey, what are the people?
"What are the workflows?
"What are the systems?"
And, generally, when you have those three inline
and a person leaves, it's okay.
You can still backfill.
But most people, their infrastructure is their people
and it's hard to--
- No workflow, no systems.
- No workflow, no systems, so I always, whenever I,
like the CEOs that you mentor, CEOs that I mentor,
I can look at their business and say,
"Hey, what's your singularity of focus?
"All right, great, what's your cadence of accountability?
"Well, let's talk about process."
And, generally, with those
you can start to figure out where things are broken.
- Usually, one of those is not working,
two of those are not working.
- [Sharran] Yeah, generally, it's
two of those are not working.
- Makes sense.
And through this hyper-growth,
'cause I experience this as well, I want your take on it,
when you're growing a company so fast, things break.
You have to reinvent things all the time,
you have more people.
What was it like and what advice
would you have for entrepreneurs who are
scaling very, very quickly?
What are, kind of, the things they have to watch out for?
- Yeah.
This is more like personal and vulnerable.
I honestly thought you could scale your business 10X or 20X,
but the rest of your life will stay the same.
I don't think you can scale one part of your life.
So I thought, "Oh, my family, my health, my relationships,
"they're all here but I can scale my business 10X."
But no, absolutely not.
Everything has to level up and, Dan,
the first thing that happened was my health broke down.
It got so bad that I could not get out of a hospital bed.
I was running the company from a hospital bed
and nobody knew.
And that was a rude awakening for me that,
yes, you can grow 10X, but when you grow something,
when you scale something,
your entire life has to lift along with it.
Your relationship has to get better.
Like, my relationship with my wife
was very tough at that time
because she was like, "Hey, you're not showing up."
- "You're not here, you're not around."
- "You're not with the children," etc.
And I fixed that this time around
and brought her into the process,
but I honestly thought, "Oh, it's just business,
"I can scale it."
And when my health broke down, I really realized that--
- Relationship.
- So, I almost believed that,
so the reverse is also true.
If you just upgrade one area of your life and you're open,
other areas of your life will start to float up
because they have to level up with that.
And that was a big realization for me,
I never knew that before.
And now, for you and me to do more,
we probably have to be fitter, smarter, stronger,
have better capabilities.
I just thought I could work hard.
And I don't think the "work harder" is smart enough.
The second big lesson I learned was
being really honest with your true core skillset.
- Your strengths.
- I brought on a chief operating officer
way too late in the game.
Way too late, 'cause I thought, "Hey, it's my company,
"I run it, who can do it better?
"No one can do it as good as me,"
and I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that.
And the COO that I brought on, he said, "Sharran,"
like, I hired a professional COO, and he's so amazing.
He's the other side of my coin,
very similar to members of your team.
He's gonna be my partner for life, he's amazing.
And he said, "Sharran, I'm never gonna do it as good as you.
"But if I get 90% of the way, that's good.
"That means you are not involved at all."
And so, that made me really think about,
"Hey, how can I go hire some amazing key people?"
And treat them as partners.
Treat them as partners and say, "Hey, that's Evan's role.
"That's Desmond's role."
And, "Thank you, if Desmond says 'yes' and Evan says 'yes',
"it's good."
And that was a huge revelation for me,
'cause I thought that if I knew how to do something,
that gave me the credibility.
And I had to break that cycle.
- And sometimes, like, entrepreneurs, we,
a lot of entrepreneurs , we're control freaks, right?
They're like, "Oh, this is my baby.
"You don't know it.
"Let me do it."
- (laughs) Yeah, yeah.
- It happens a lot, it happens a lot.