Top Takeaways from the 2024 KW CEO Summit & Mega Agent Camp

“Others might not hit their goals and the reason they didn’t is because they didn’t do the work. Just do the work.”

– Gary Keller

Top Takeaways from the 2024 KW CEO Summit & Mega Agent Camp

 Last week, a co-worker asked me to describe the difference between the three flagship Keller Williams events: Family Reunion, Mega Agent Camp, and CEO Summit. Here’s the short version. 

Family Reunion is our primary convention at the beginning of the year. It has a handful of main-stage keynotes and presentations, but it mostly centers on breakouts. This past year, we had over 200 breakout sessions and panels! Family Reunion is like visiting an amazing food court. You may have to wander around some, but you’re highly likely to find exactly what you want. 

Mega Agent Camp is our midyear event and it is almost completely focused on the main stage. We curate a combination of panels (17 this year), in-depth interviews (6), presentations (3), video profiles (20), and guest speakers (2) around “mega” production in the current market. It’s more like going to a rotating sushi bar where a wide array of choices float by your table. Every few minutes you get something new. 

Finally, CEO Summit is our kickoff event for both. It’s usually a half day with a keynote from our team and then four amazing speakers. The content is designed for the “CEO” mindset and we have always included health as a core topic. 

As we are just coming off an amazing CEO Summit and Mega Agent Camp, I would be remiss if I didn’t share some of the value. Here are some of my favorite takeaways:

CEO Summit

1. “Tough times don’t last, tough people do.” – Robert Schuller.
   • We opened the event with a talk about the importance of toughness and how to become tougher with purpose in every area of your life. 
   • Our definition of toughness is being antifragile. Antifragile is anything or anyone that becomes more robust when exposed to stress, uncertainty, and risk. 
   • “Toughening” occurs in response to periodic exposure to progressively increasing cycles of stress alternating with regular periods of recovery. 
   • Gary pointed out that setting stretch goals in your work and life is the key to “toughness training.” You’re always pushing to be a little bit better. 
   • “If you don’t take regularly scheduled breaks, you’ll get an unscheduled one by default and that’s called a breakdown.”  – Jay Papasan*
2. “Technology is only new if you remember the way it was before.” –  Jason Dorsey
   • Jason dropped bombs on how different generations view the world. 
   • The strongest business embraces all generations and respects the values of each. 
3. “The reason why people don’t do something is almost always as strong as why they do.” –  Jason Dorsey
4. “The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers…. It’s not the number of contacts you have in your database but rather how many contacts have you in their database.” – Brittany Hodak 

Mega Agent Camp

1. “Win the morning, win the day!” – Jen Davis
   • Jen actually said this at last year’s Mega Camp and it stuck. This year, we kicked off Mega Agent Camp with a 20-minute deep-dive into how to launch your days with purpose. 
2. “It all started with a front-line obsession.” – Jose Medina on MOFIRs
   •  I loved Jose’s quote because almost every MOFIR comes from conversations at scale with customers. When those conversations reveal the service or offering that matters, you market it through everything you do. 
   • Our MOFIR panel was insanely good –  Jose, Stacy Esser, Tim Heyl, Ryan Young, and a video featuring Sarah Reynolds.
   • “When you make MOFIRs you are engaged in the market of the moment.” – Gary Keller
   • “How I Met Your MOFIR” by KellerINK is a great exploration into what we mean by MOFIR. The short version is MOFIR means “Making Offers For Immediate Response.”
3. “Wake up in the morning and think real estate. Who needs to buy and who needs to sell? You need to talk to enough people to understand enough about their lives so you know almost before they do when they need to buy or sell.”  – Jay Robinson
   • Jay talks to his people daily. He’s always playing matchmaker. Who needs to sell and who is ready to buy? 
   • He asks his sphere, “Are there any homes that you dream about living in? Can you give me a list?” That’s how he sources his buyers. 🤯
4. “The more you understand, the less you need to know how to talk.” – Gary Keller
   • Gary was stressing how knowing the answers – how buyers, sellers, financing, etc. really works – outweighs the exact words we use to convey it. Be the expert, don’t just talk like one. 
5. “Specialize before you generalize… Be people experts with a deep knowledge of real estate, not real estate experts.” – Phil M. Jones
   • Rory Vaden preached this as well. We need to know who our specific customer is and what problems we’re uniquely capable of solving. 
6.  “We’re never calling to make a sale, we’re calling to add value to someone’s experience.” – Richard Schulman
7.  Nick Waldner shared super actionable advice for getting more reviews. Take the friction out of the process. Google Business Reviews are, by far, the most valuable. They are also remarkably difficult for customers to do. He shared that he created a vanity URL that points directly to the review capture page. We created www.papasan.vip for our team’s reviews within 24 hours of the event. 
8. “You may buy at the top of the moment, but you’re never buying at the top of the market.” – Jason Abrams
   • Not the first time I’ve heard Jason make this observation on how real estate values have always historically gone up on a long enough timeline. It always lands. 

One question to ponder in your thinking time: What’s the ONE thing I will implement from this year’s Mega Agent Camp?

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan

Co-author of The ONE Thing & The Millionaire Real Estate Agent 

* Let it be known that I hate quoting myself. Several of you mentioned this one in particular. 🤷‍♂️