Seth Dailey, CRS, is a successful REALTOR and entrepreneurial leader with two decades of professional experience in a variety of arenas. He began his career in financial consulting as a CPA, where he provided strategic insight to business owners and individuals. Today, Seth leads the Baltimore-based brokerage, Keller Williams Gateway, with 175 agents and The Dailey Group, a highly successful real estate team he founded in 2005 with his wife, Alyce.
Seth oversees The Dailey Group's operations, manages the listing and selling process, structures complicated transactions and negotiates on behalf of our clients to ensure that their interests are well-represented. So often, real estate transactions fall apart for lack of communication and outside-the-box problem solving... and they shouldn’t have to! Seth works hard to make sure they don’t.
Podcast Highlights:
- Change culture by shifting the frequency and the nature of conversations you have with your team
- Figure out what will make your life worth living
- Mindset is a key factor in achieving your goals
Contact Seth:
[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:06
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone, this is Umar Hameed, your host and welcome to the No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how to make you better, stronger, faster, get ready for another episode.
Umar Hameed 0:32
Today I'm sitting down with Seth Dailey, the operating partner for the Dailey Group and Keller Williams Gateway. Welcome to the program.
Seth Dailey 0:39
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Umar Hameed 0:40
So Seth, how did you get into real estate? How long have you been in this career?
Seth Dailey 0:44
So about 13 years been in the real estate industry, my wife and I moved out here in 2005, from Chicago, to where we now live in Baltimore, and she got a real estate relatively soon after I moved out here, she was an HR in Chicago, I was a CPA. So I came out of public accounting. And when she went into real estate, it was actually one of those conversations of we both knew we wanted Well, I knew I wanted to be in sales even more than she did. She got into real estate, so I was kind of like, well, you're gonna have the fish, all of the, the the steak and so so I went into mortgages. So for about three years, I was on the mortgage side, thousand five to 2008. And so if we were helping a buyer, it would be very likely that she would help them find the house and, and I would turn around how to get the mortgage. And then in around 2008, as the economy was shifting, we realized that it's like, we were in the middle of the ocean in two little lifeboats. And we're both paddling. And we're like, Well, why don't we in two boats, well, one of them might get a leak, and it's like, well, better just get in one boat, you can paddle twice as far twice as fast. And so I joined her on the real estate side, we continue to, to build a team. And and the team has just evolved from there. And now at this point, we have a team as well as a brokerage.
Umar Hameed 1:52
So tell me about the team, how many people in your team?
Seth Dailey 1:54
That is a constantly moving target, approximately right now there's about five administrative, so five operations members, and then five sales team members. And then and then Alison, myself, were more removed from production inside of the team, currently, so So five and five right now, but it's a team of about 12.
Umar Hameed 2:14
Kind of volume. are you guys doing?
Seth Dailey 2:15
Sure. So that team will probably do around 150 hundred 75 units this year?
Umar Hameed 2:21
Nice.
Seth Dailey 2:22
So yeah.
Umar Hameed 2:23
So what made you become practice owner? Like at Keller Williams Gateway?
Seth Dailey 2:28
Sure.
Umar Hameed 2:29
And what's the correct term?
Seth Dailey 2:30
Sure. So, so Keller Williams brokerages they call market center, that's with with language for almost everything. And so the the primary owner, I mean, there's, there's an ownership group, and yet the primary owners called an operating partner. So that's my title or an operating principle. And so, I mean, that's, that's my role inside of the office. And that's effectively holding the leadership team in the office accountable, bringing capital and vision to the to the enterprise.
Umar Hameed 2:59
So talk to me about that. So Keller Williams has a culture of what they want. But also, when you have an office here in White Marsh, it has, I suspect, would have a different feel, than let's say the Keller Williams in San Diego, like they've got the, would they be a different feeling?
Seth Dailey 3:18
Sure, sure. I'm so I'm sure like every organization, they're going to take on the flavor of their leadership team to a degree right. And in some ways that that's, that's gonna, it all cascades down from leadership. So absolutely, like my approach towards real estate, my approach towards my view of Keller Williams, like that's going to cascade into this office. Absolutely. I'm, you know, you and I know some of the same trainers in the industry. And so there's no doubt about it, like, like, who I've learned from is going to be infused in this office. And yet, we didn't join a company that has an amazing track record. And so, you know, that's the track record, we want to promote here. It's like, if you buy an Apple product, you want to run an apple operating system on it, it's going to work better anyway. And it's and that's true.
Umar Hameed 4:00
When you have a culture that you want to strengthen then you have new agents coming in. How do you instill, because it's easy to give them a pamphlet, but how do you instill that culture in their hearts and minds so they operate with that spirit in mind?
Seth Dailey 4:14
That is a that's a question that hits hits heavy because all my brain starts to go there all the places that I'm not doing that to the level that I want, right? I'm reminded of this idea of anytime we want to change a culture it's it's shifting the frequency of the conversation and the nature of the conversation. I'll say I feel at times more effective on that inside of of the team, right, like changing a culture inside of team of 12.
Umar Hameed 4:41
Yes.
Seth Dailey 4:41
It's certainly easier than changing a culture inside of a brokerage of 170 in some ways, somewhere in that line. There's there's a there's almost a shift where a team you feel like you're attracting people to a team and and a brokerage at that size. You They can feel a bit more like clients.
Umar Hameed 5:02
Yes.
Seth Dailey 5:03
Right. I mean, at the end of the day, like, who are our clients? Well, they're the agents in this office that you and I are sitting in right now. And I don't know exactly where that line shifts. And I know that a breakthrough for me as a leader is, is how to lead larger, larger groups and cast more and more of a vision. For me, it started what's true in both the team and inside of the brokerage is this idea that what we're about is empowering people to, to live a successful life as they can. And so so it's taking some of the, let's say, the Keller Williams stuff, right? So when Keller Williams says that they want to help people have careers worth having in businesses worth owning, and lives worth living, then we're kind of at an A local office level, it's like we're playing in between the space of the notes, right? If we think about music, like,
Umar Hameed 5:51
Yes.
Seth Dailey 5:51
we're in the space in between there so what does it actually look like to have a career worth having, here in the Baltimore suburbs, right? with, with what our cost of living is? And what our transaction price points are, etc? Like, what does that look like? And, and given the makeup of this market, like what is a life worth living, and so really going into those conversations, my life has has consistently been about empowering people. Like, if Alice was to choose a life word, her life, where would be connection, my life word would be empowering. And so between the two of us like what we're doing in the world is empowering connection. what that looks like in the office is making our office almost, it's taking some pages out of the playbook of our team. So our team for four decades now has been doing client events. Well, a couple years ago, we started pick that up at the office level. So we do like a Thanksgiving pie event. I mean, that's, that's something that we brought from our team into the office and the other people in the office have done it. Absolutely. And yet our goal was like, how can we take something that's worked well for us at a team level, and empower it so that any agent in the office, even if they just have three or four clients that they want to invite to it that they can, it's all about helping people build community with their own sphere, their own database? It's actually one of the reasons why, you know, I'm next door neighbors with one of the agents in this office that you and I both know well, and, and it's, it is possible to have a great friendly relationship and a great cooperative relationship. Because at the end of the day, we have different databases, we have different spheres of influence, they're...
Umar Hameed 7:17
Going back to the pie reference, the pie is bigger than any one of us.
Seth Dailey 7:20
There we go.
Umar Hameed 7:21
One of the most brilliant people I've heard of is stainless was Calvert, he started the NSA, the National Speakers Association, he started at when there wasn't anything as a professional speaker. So his goal was what we need to do is to we we need to make the pie bigger. So whatever knowledge he had, he freely shared it with anybody. This is how you do this. This is how you get a contract, right? borrow my contract.
Seth Dailey 7:45
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 7:45
And he started this organization. And the cool part about it is this, the guy has been dead and buried probably for 25 years,
Seth Dailey 7:52
Okay.
Umar Hameed 7:52
but you go into any NSA chapter around the world, and you've got a million dollar speaker, and somebody that's just starting out, and the million dollar person will open up their playbook and share it with them. So that's creating a culture that transcends the leader is already dead, but it's still living, and it's just very much how do we empower people to become awesomer? And those guys rocket.
Seth Dailey 8:14
That sounds fantastic. Wow, I need to look into that.
Umar Hameed 8:18
So Seth, tell me you know, this many agents here. And you probably had a lot more through the years.
Seth Dailey 8:23
Sure.
Umar Hameed 8:25
Perhaps don't name the agent, but think of an agent that came in that had such great promise and you're looking on saying, you know, this person could be a rock star and they're still struggling? How did you help them kind of figure out what the roadblock was? and overcome that? Like, do you have one of those kind of real practical You know, it took a while but we figured out what had them stuck?
Seth Dailey 8:48
Yeah, it's it's I can think of a couple agents on the common theme right? Is it his mindset? Right? I mean, that that's that's where it goes to and and you know, you said something earlier about the size of the pie it's amazing when we just if we simply think about scarcity versus an abundance...
Umar Hameed 9:05
Yes.
Seth Dailey 9:05
...mindset and that shows up everywhere. It shows up for agents in the the feeling about scarcity of what they're what work they have to do so they don't hire a team because they're stuck in a scarcity mindset, they they think of employees as a cost rather than an investment it they their their approach to bringing on buyers agents, it can be mired in the scarcity. Also a watch limiting beliefs show up for people again and again. And and it's amazing kind of the stories that we tell ourselves like I was I was in a conversation today with with a couple agents at a different office. And yet, it's a common theme and it's like, it's like if I asked you if we've ever tried to lose weight some
Umar Hameed 9:52
Yes.
Seth Dailey 9:52
Well, sure. I've tried to lose weight. Right and and did you did you succeed or did you fail? I I failed. Okay. And was it the You didn't know enough? Well, no, I, I knew plenty. It wasn't a knowledge issue like, and we're so quick to think that we just need more knowledge. And...
Umar Hameed 10:07
Yes.
Seth Dailey 10:08
...the answer when reality we probably have all the knowledge we need, it's an execution thing. And in our industry, I certainly observe that it's like, people belonging to a gym.
Umar Hameed 10:19
Yes.
Seth Dailey 10:20
And thinking that if they would just go to a different gym with the new weight equipment, or maybe with the old school way equipment or
Umar Hameed 10:25
The new trainer.
Seth Dailey 10:26
[garbled], or the new trainer..
Umar Hameed 10:26
No, me. It's the trainer
Seth Dailey 10:28
That's right, right. And they just think that if I've just if I've just go to the new gym, then I get different results. And And meanwhile, it's it's always it pulls back to the fundamentals. So so it's the rewiring of like living with empathy, yes, like roles. So how do you how do you transform that? Well, it's one it's been in relationship and not with an agent like that to say, like, let's actually unpack what you're doing and pull, pull all the stories aside and just get back to what's the real issue. And the real issue is usually gonna come down to a couple simple fundamentals. But it might have been covered over by years and years and years of like, flawed thinking, that just gets into this really gunked up space in their head.
Umar Hameed 11:05
And that's exactly how beliefs work. You could have somebody in a loving relationship with their father or their five years old. They've got a million examples of their father doing amazing things. And this one thing they do wrong, and they father flips out. And in that moment, they get a belief that I'm worthless. Hmm. which actually is total bullshit.
Seth Dailey 11:26
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 11:26
but the way beliefs work is like, Okay, if that's a belief that I've got now not only look for evidence, oh, he spoke to my brother before he spoke to me, that must mean, and all of a sudden, we start building this guck around it, because it's bullshit. And the only way we can make it real or realer is to collect evidence to make it so scary. We don't go anywhere near it, and we just operate with it. And unpacking it. When you finally get down to the last thread. And you look, there's nothing there. Yeah. And the question is, how do you get to that epiphany? Do you do it on your deathbed? When you're like, 95? Or do you have this conversation with someone that cares that you realize, Oh, my God, all this time, I thought it was other people. But it's me, holding myself back
Seth Dailey 12:12
Was, I was teaching a course on negotiation last week, and and even in there, right? Like, like, anytime you can help people separate out what actually happened with the story, like, what did we make it mean? If we just we go through like, just kind of asking ourselves, what did I just make that mean? Write about about everything that happened? Like, you know, what? You hear? So something happened? Somebody hung up on me, or somebody said this, or somebody did that? And and what did I tell myself was true, based on that, and because it's whatever's there, that's the programming. And we're, we, the problem is that our our programming happens so quickly, between when something actually happens, and when we make up a story about only and it's, it's the speed at which that occurs that the we think it's the same thing. And it's like, it's, I think back to the movie The Matrix, right?
Umar Hameed 12:58
Yes.
Seth Dailey 12:58
We're like, in slow motion, kind of dodging the bullets. And it's like, if we could take our lives. And when it when an interaction occurs with a co worker, or a client or whatever it might be, we could like slow it down, kind of like the matrix and see the difference between the client just said x, and I made it mean x and y, and z, and...
Umar Hameed 13:19
And it. Resonated with the other bullshit I carry within myself, made it more real.
Seth Dailey 13:24
We're sure like my reticular activator. Anytime somebody says x, I really key into that. Yeah, yeah.
Umar Hameed 13:30
And what's amazing is I'm not sure if you've ever been in a near traffic accident. But if you have you, there's something called time distortion, where time slows down. So I'll tell you this one story.
Seth Dailey 13:43
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 13:44
I was going to pick my mother up at work. And it just snowing it's like in, in Canada, snows there a lot. And there was this spin in the road. And just as I hit the first part of the s, the radio went out of tune. So I took I was a young driver, like 18 or 17. And I took my hand off the wheel to hit the radio, and my hand yanked on the other side of the car went into out of control spin a lot. And for me, time slowed down. And I put one hand behind the seat. The other one I was just using my finger to stare and did this amazing thing. cart ended up going backwards a little bit but nobody got hurt. Then I just did a U turn went to pick her up and nobody had come down the street. And as we were driving back, my mother looks at the tarmac says oh my god look what somebody did. I went Yes, mom, somebody's like, totally insane. Point is, is I was in total control because the adrenaline and the fight or flight response and it just slowed down time to basically see what you needed to do.
Seth Dailey 14:41
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 14:41
And so we have that ability. And what you're doing in your training is getting people to mechanically unpack this slow this down and see that a happened and you made it mean this when that's your stop, not anybody else's. That's a gift giving people that ability.
Seth Dailey 14:59
Yeah, it's um, it's slowing down in our minds. I mean, I think a lot lately about, you know, and I got it from from Tony Robbins, but just it's this idea that it's it's what we focus on?
Umar Hameed 15:12
Yes.
Seth Dailey 15:12
And it's the language that we use. And then, of course, his third component is it's our, it's our physiology
Umar Hameed 15:19
Absolutely.
Seth Dailey 15:19
Like you could you could hear the exact same statement from somebody with your arms folded or sitting down, slumped in a chair versus standing up, and you'll you'll hear see it differently.
Umar Hameed 15:29
Absolutely.
Seth Dailey 15:30
And, you know, so it's amazing, I, I'm a pretty cerebral person. So I feel like for most of my life, I've been successful. Through I got places through my thinking,
Umar Hameed 15:41
Yes.
Seth Dailey 15:42
And and I realized, you know, over the years, like, I actually need to shift that to realizing like, all of my being means to be involved in a decision. And I mean, the, yeah, that our breakthrough is it is as close away as a quick shift in our thinking, and sometimes even just a shift in our physiology.
Seth Dailey 16:01
Absolutely.
Seth Dailey 16:02
And it can transform one conversation at a time.
Umar Hameed 16:05
Brilliant. And I think we can do that for the negative things in life. But we also need to do it for the positive things, when something amazing happens unpacking that, and going, Wow, that person really cares. Or, wow, they said this, and I could have gone down that path. But I chose to go down this path.
Seth Dailey 16:23
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 16:23
Because there's wisdom everywhere is just, you know, we've heard that old adage of, you know, there's the past is a future, but there's only one presence. And most of us, me included, do not live here. Most of the time, it was the time we're living somewhere else. And if we can actually be present for the person you're with, there's a ton of information coming over that you can use to to strengthen the relationship. The That's beautiful. I don't know if you've heard of a concept called appreciative inquiry. I don't know yet. But it sounds awesome.
Seth Dailey 16:52
Yeah, probably have a book somewhere in this office on the topic, but appreciative inquiry? Well, it's in some ways, it's as simple as it sounds, right? It's inquiry. So it's question,
Umar Hameed 16:52
Yes.
Seth Dailey 16:54
That are appreciative. Right?
Umar Hameed 17:03
The lens is. like, the [garbled]
Seth Dailey 17:05
Positive. And, and I recognize that I again, I told you I was I was coaching a team of agents earlier this morning. And when I started the meeting, I would normally my normal disposition would be going to me and say, well, so what's what's what's broken in the team? What What do we need to work on? And I mean, that's my normal lens looking for that's like a SWOT analysis. You want to fix it? Yes, or weakness, right? Like, like, let's zero in on it. And, and I started with the question like, what do you guys appreciate most about your team like, like, like, it's actually and it took them a little bit to get started on that, like, it was actually hard for them to engage in the appreciative side of the conversation. And that just shows you like how wired we are naturally to go to to fault or blame or finding something negative, it, it's a muscle, we actually need to work as humans as business people, as coaches as people, leading teams, like work the appreciative muscle inside of our world.
Umar Hameed 17:58
It's huge. Like tomorrow, I'm going to be doing a workshop and I'm asking people to tell their partner where they're awesome.
Seth Dailey 18:04
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 18:05
I'm going to ask after they've done that, how many people here felt really uncomfortable doing that? And about 80% of the hands will go up?
Seth Dailey 18:11
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 18:11
like telling people where I'm screwed up, that's much more comfortable than telling them where I'm awesome. So it's all that kind of internal baggage filters, how we see the world.
Seth Dailey 18:19
Sure.
Umar Hameed 18:19
The way we filter the world is the way we validate the world. So it becomes like this ever tightening circle of BS, like whatever, we think we're looking for evidence, and we get stronger and stronger, more rooted in it till we basically can't get out of that lens.
Seth Dailey 18:34
And, and yet, understanding that filters exist is like so much of, of the breakthrough. Absolutely. So once we understand they exist, one thought is we can change the filters.
Umar Hameed 18:46
So I'll give you a good example of that where we understand it deeply. You've got kids, right?
Seth Dailey 18:50
Hmm.
Umar Hameed 18:51
How old are you children?
Seth Dailey 18:52
So we just had a couple birthdays. So we got fifth, so four daughters?
Umar Hameed 18:56
Yes,
Seth Dailey 18:57
Fifteen, thirteen, nine and six.
Umar Hameed 19:00
So I bet you every single one of them on a particular issue, whether is boyfriends or going, staying up late, whatever the issue is, if I asked them, What would your dad think about this? I bet you with a high degree of accuracy that say my dad would say this. And my mother would say this, so they know which one to go to her?
Seth Dailey 19:18
Sure.
Umar Hameed 19:19
So a lot of times, we don't see our own filters, clearly. But we can see others filters, with quite a bit of accuracy.
Seth Dailey 19:27
Yeah. Yeah.
Umar Hameed 19:28
Which is kind of fascinating how we can do it for others so easily. And our own stuff. were blind to. And that's why God invented spouses because they tell us
Seth Dailey 19:37
Yeah, well, I'm super grateful for mine because that's true. And it's funny because we say that tongue in cheek, right because they do and yet you know whether somebody's in a committed relationship, or just has a coaching relationship religion with a business partner, the reality is, we are as humans like we need community yes in a powerful way. And sometimes It's just it's just actually asking people a question. There's, there's an author Brittany Brown, she would say a statement this way she'd say, send her husband, husband, she'd say, you know, hey, this just happened. And the story I made up about that puts our marriage at risk.
Umar Hameed 20:14
Wow.
Seth Dailey 20:15
And, and but so just think about how brilliant that is, right? She just acknowledges, hey, this happened, right? Like you're in now I'm giving examples from our team, right? You showed up late to a meeting or, or you said this or, or your posts on social media was like this. And, and the story I made up about that, which is great, because now it's owning,
Umar Hameed 20:34
Right.
Seth Dailey 20:34
It's like acknowledging that you've got a filter. And then just actually speaking into the conversation, I made it mean something else. And actually, just by saying that, you start to separate out for yourself, what actually happened versus the story. And when you can take ownership of that, like there's so much change that can occur. This for us is how we watched a culture transform within our team or even inside the brokerage, it transforms because people get responsible for their own filters and start to live in, in, in relationship with people in a different way. Right? It causes more authenticity.
Umar Hameed 21:10
Absolutely. And I've seen the other side of that coin. Where when Seth, when you did this, I thought it meant this. Did I get it? Right?
Seth Dailey 21:19
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 21:19
And sometimes for the other person. Instead of Seth, you did this. And you bastard. This means that
Seth Dailey 21:26
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 21:26
other people get defensive. When it's like, Seth, I saw you do this. And you can only talk about what you saw what you heard, or something physically touched. So there is no nebulous, and I thought this meant that you disrespected me, and then you go, "Yes, Umar I did," or, "No,
Seth Dailey 21:42
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 21:43
I did this because," and if we could have those kinds of conversations with ourselves on that side of the coin, or the other side of the coin, this the meaning this the story, I told myself, wouldn't it make the world a simpler place.
Seth Dailey 21:55
When and even even just that, that quote, you know, we judge others by their actions, and we judge ourselves by our intentions. And imagine if we would just flip it right, and we judge others buy their intentions, and only assume positive intent?
Umar Hameed 22:09
Yes.
Seth Dailey 22:10
Right. Just just only assume positive intent ever with something because how could you actually know any different, we make up all these these stories all the time?
Umar Hameed 22:20
I'm sure you've traveled a lot I have to and the one thing I've noticed is no matter where you go, people are nice. People want to help you people go out of their way to do amazing things. And if we can just realize that in our work setting,
Seth Dailey 22:35
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 22:36
in our families, that the intention is positive
Seth Dailey 22:39
I think that's a testament to you, because there's gonna be some people who travel and that's not their experience. Right? Because because they see what they're expecting to see. Right and and yet, I love that right. Like, like, there there are. There's enough goodness in the world that when you're on the lookout for it. It's amazing how it'll show up.
Umar Hameed 23:00
Brilliant. Seth, this was a delightful conversation. Thanks for sitting down with me.
Seth Dailey 23:04
Oh, thank you. I appreciate it.
Umar Hameed 23:11
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of neuro-linguistic programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.