Welcome to the High Performance Agent Podcast. I'm your host, Tina Beliveau, and I'm an expert in real estate, marketing, social media, technology and systems. I'm here to teach you how to build a sustainable and consistent business that supports your dream life. Through my repeat referral and relationship driven systems, I've built a team that sold nearly 2000 homes over my 20 years in the industry.
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Welcome back to the High Performance Agent Podcast. I'm your host, Tina Beliveau, and I'm here today. Excited to interview someone that, quite frankly, I've had on a pedestal for a long time.
Her name is Sheena Sadam. I am here to just embarrass her a little bit. She is. Incredible. I started following her through a Facebook group that she founded in the what's, what do you call the, is it the 2010s? Is that what we say? In the 2010, 2019 range? Messy Middle Mastermind and I was, who is this woman?
And what is all this charity work she's doing? How is she raising so much money and donating it? And then, yeah. I've been following your journey Sheena, for a long time. We finally met in person a few months ago, which is wild. Thank you for making the time for I, I was basically your stalker and you made time for me, thanks.
It was my pleasure. Sheena, I should have maybe gotten an official bio from you, but she's, a top agent at kw. Just give us your stats, help people understand where you're coming from. Give us the rundown. Sure. Yeah, thank you. And oh my God, I feel the same way about you. That's funny.
And it is kind of ridiculous how we can live less than an hour from one another and have to go to a conference or wait 15, 10 years to see someone. Thank you for visiting and
I grew up in the military. I moved around a lot. I moved around the world. I probably moved 12 times by the time I got to high school.
Moved back to the United States, by the way, moving. That many times is great training to become a real estate agent. I bet. I was able to learn how to make friends quickly. I never, a lot of people, I never considered real estate. I didn't really know that was a job.
I worked in nonprofit for years and
I eventually, we got into Iraq and Afghanistan and I thought, coming from a military family, I wanna find a way to give back. I thought maybe I'll become an interrogator. I went to get my master's in national security policy. Took two years, $50,000 more in student loan debt.
The week I graduated, I had 50,000 more in student loan debt, and I lost my job at the nonprofit where I was working and I thought, I gotta get another job quickly. Trying to work in a job interrogation, or any kind of, you know, job where you need a security clearance is really, it can take a while to secure something like that.
I needed to move quickly. My husband suggested real estate, I got into real estate 15 years ago.
A few years in, I'll tell this story in brief, but we had this opportunity to help build a shower truck for the homeless in Baltimore. From there we learned about people drilling wells in Sub-Saharan Africa, all these other things.
We started to get involved. We were bringing the community in to do these things, and we just sort of became known as that organization that was giving back.
We have been the number one team in the region for our brokerage. We are the number three team in Washington, DC which is all awesome. I am very proud of our small team that works entirely by referral.
Never bought a lead, made a, or made a cold call, but I'm most proud of is at the end of this year, we'll have personally donated a million dollars to charity.
So incredible. So incredible. That's who y'all are listening to. It just helps to know the credibility level and also the heart of where someone's coming from.
There are many things that I admire about Sheena, and we don't have time for all of them in this episode, but what I asked her to talk about is her journey of how she's grown and changed as a leader from the very beginning through now, and there are some specific points that we wanna make sure we get to, but I just, I kind of wanna give the mic to you. I'll say this, I just wanna give a little bit of backstory.
I have had such an evolution as a leader. I cringe sometimes if I think back to where I was when I started and you just know what you know. I was very young. I was 22 when I was hiring people. It was crazy. I did the best that I could with what I had.
But there are things that I learned the hard way and would've been nice to skip over that. Part of how we're going to be talking in this episode is very, very frankly about things that you can hopefully hear and maybe not make the same mistakes or just have a different perspective.
Part of what we're going to talk about is depending on what culture you've been steeped in, and I mean the culture of your brokerage and your mentors, but also just the world at large, that really impacts how we show up, especially as women. That is something that was a huge awakening for me about five years ago. It was time for me to make some major changes.
That's kind of the context that I wanna have this conversation in. Sheena, I wanna give you the mic. Let's talk about the beginning.
Yeah. Thank you. And I think you said that so eloquently and with so much authenticity and I share much of that experience. I got in again, military background, and my dad is a teddy bear. It was actually my mom who was more rigid than my dad growing up. But there was definitely a culture of discipline, a bit of rigidness.
When I got into real estate 15 years ago, that was how they were teaching leadership. I think we still see it today, right? There's a lot of that. There's a lot of this masculinity, I guess. We can talk about that in different ways, but it was really about getting things, getting the systems right, and not so much the human factor back then.
There's still a lot of that that is left in real estate. The people that I have really looked up to and the kind of person that I wanna be, they are really focused on the human. They're putting people before profit. They’re becoming more empathetic over time.
You wanted me to start at the beginning. I didn't have any real official leadership experience growing up. I sort of defaulted to being the leader of any little group that I was a part of, but I was never trained in that. I didn't have a lot of education on that. I did the best that I could.
When I started, I wanted things to be done right, but I was also a people pleaser. Folks would join the team and I didn't really have any standards. I didn't have any systems. I just hoped that they would follow what I was doing and do it right. What I did was I kept people on longer than they should. I got really resentful and then eventually I would fire them.
Sometimes when people would ask me, what happened there? I would be pretty honest about it. I don't know if I really saw all of my DNA that was in there. That I maybe wasn't the leader that I needed to be.
That's interesting too because now I don't talk. When someone separates from our team, I don't go into detail with anyone about the reason for that. I keep it very high level. Now people sort of make up their own stories, which can also be a little bit challenging because oftentimes you're the villain in that story. But looking back, that's probably still the best way to be.
I've learned a lot. I think as I have learned to coach more, as I have learned to listen better, as I have learned to care more, I've also learned to care more about myself and where I came from and my own limitations. I guess all that to say, I give myself more grace as I've learned to give other people grace, and I think that's probably high level what my journey has been.
Oh man, you just got me in the heart with that because I think if I think about my early days, same thing. Didn't feel totally secure as a leader. I would hire people and not feel totally comfortable being, this is everything that I want, or holding them a little bit accountable or just really redirecting, right? Because holding people accountable, just that phrase, I don't know why. It just makes me feel this way.
Yeah, it's the last thing I wanna do. It was just the same loop, right? Where I wouldn't communicate enough because it felt really uncomfortable, and then it would build to something untenable, and then the resentment would be really big. Then it's either a terrible conversation or maybe a firing.
Part of what was going on too was the level of frustration I would have with people when they were making mistakes or not meeting my standards. I was just as hard on myself. My early leadership was a mirror for how toxic my head was in a way. There was also a lot of great stuff too. But some of the stuff that I needed to work through as an entrepreneur, there it is coming right to the surface. Can't hide from it.
Yeah, it's funny. I think it's almost this frustration of we're trying our best and it's not working. That can be really frustrating and a little bit tough on the ego. You said something—the word accountability—I think we don't that word. I think the language we use is really important.
I don't believe that we can motivate anyone. I think that we can inspire people, but I think motivation really comes from the inside. It took me a long time to learn that about people. Their behaviors—they may say one thing—but if their behaviors keep showing up not doing the things they said they were going to do, those commitments, they're trying to tell me something. A loving person would not ignore that. They wouldn't keep pushing them.
A loving leader with radical candor would be undermining that person's ability to live their best life if you keep pushing. I think our job is to really understand what is at the core of that procrastination. The procrastination is telling us something. Try to help them uncover that, even if it means they shouldn't be in real estate anymore.
Going back to the language, accountability is one of those words that I've started to use like... accountable to their own goals. I don't use the word manage or leverage. I don't use leverage for people. I just try to say people.
I think changing the words... I think people think this is a little airy fairy, but the reality is it impacts the mindset and our own behaviors with the language we use. If we think of ourselves as a manager, we're going to manage people, and people will feel managed. I don't think anybody wants to feel managed.
In my course, in my journey of leadership, I have found that the people who align most with what we are doing here in our organization—which is trying to help people truly live their best lives—they value freedom very highly. If they feel like they're getting managed, they're probably not gonna show up as their best.
Yeah, it's funny. I just paused and took in everything you said and I was like—boop—I think about... and Sheena is with KW. I was with KW for a long time. There's an incredible team training. Is it still called Recruit Select? Has the name changed?
I think Career Visioning.
Oh, Career Visioning! Oh my God. It's definitely called Career Visioning. It used to be called Recruit Select before they changed the name. The point is: it's incredible training and it really impacted me. There's also a lot of short—everything in business and in life is a paradox.
What I took from those courses... the courses put language to things that I didn't know how to name, and they taught me important concepts, gave me permission to do things that I needed to do that I previously felt were too mean or too demanding or whatever. But there's also this danger with some of that shorthand of how that can show up.
Calling someone your leverage—literally calling a human being "oh my leverage," right? It can just happen because of circles that you're in or conversations that you hear, but I think about the... I guess I don't even like to say my assistant—but our team's client concierge, Melissa—has been with us five years and I value her so much.
She's a human being. I'm so conscious of not just treating her a thing that just does things for me or that I dump stuff on them, or, oh, let me give her my 80%. All of that has its place, but there's a level of consciousness that is crucial. Emotional intelligence. Maybe just learning the hard way.
When I think about all of my conversations with agents about team building, one of the biggest frustrations I hear is—not everyone hires agents—but a lot of people at some point in their career want an assistant, try an assistant. A lot of people... it doesn't go well. For all of the reasons we're describing.
Maybe you don't hire the right person. Maybe you're not the right person. Maybe there was no training. On and on and on. But if I think about a takeaway for anyone listening to this, it's specifically: if you have an assistant, it's a level of respect. It's partnership. They're just so important.
I think our language can reflect a lot of that, and that is something I try to be very conscious of. I'm wondering if you have thoughts you want to expand on with any of that.
Yeah, I mean, I agree wholeheartedly. If you are hearing this and going, oh my God, what have I been doing? By the way, we've said multiple times now: give yourself grace. This is the best that some of us have learned so far.
One thing that I've learned through my own coaching and understanding and trying to give other people grace and forgiveness is my own self—and being vulnerable enough to apologize. If I was hearing this conversation 10 years ago and realizing, oh my God, that's me, I would probably call my administrative assistant right after this and say, I just want to apologize to you, and explain maybe a few ways that I was going to change the language that I use.
I'll be honest with you, I think that it would be a surprise to that person in most cases. I doubt that they're holding that against you, and I think it can start to transform a relationship to be that kind of honest, to have that kind of apology.
There's no need to feel any guilt or shame about it. Just move forward and be better and think about maybe two or three ways that you could change, and that could lead to another conversation opening up.
Again, that communication. If you're not already... actually, this book by Kim Scott—Radical Candor—has some wonderful questions in here that allow a leader to talk to someone like their executive assistant to sort of do an accountability check on themselves at the end of the week.
What do you think that I could have done better? How could I have communicated that better to you? Are there some things that I do that maybe you think could be improved so that we can improve this whole organization?
Yeah, it's the beginning of something.
Oh, that's amazing. Okay. First book recommendation—probably not the only one on this episode. I know you came here with some things on your mind. Is there anything past the first chapter, maybe a turning point in your leadership journey? When was the next level and what did that look like?
Yeah, I'm not sure about the... I guess I could use this as the next level. One of the things that I talk about a lot is the time that I spent serving the homeless in Baltimore. By the way, I'll just say that I know people don't like using the word homeless anymore, but I have been working with people who are living on the streets for many years. I've never heard anyone say or describe themselves as “experiencing homelessness.” They say “homeless”—every single person. I just want to clarify—that's why I'm saying it. If you want to say it, that's fine.
I went to a women's empowerment event. I met a woman that I had gone to high school with. She and her husband had been serving the homeless food, clothing, and other essentials in Baltimore for five years. They realized that it was impossible to get a clean, safe shower. They were at that time huddling people into dilapidated schools. Women were getting accosted. There were no razors, no soap.
We wanted to offer some dignity with this. They decided they were going to build a shower truck for the homeless. SPG, over three and a half years, became one of the largest investors in the shower truck. It came to fruition. It was a beautiful thing—it really was community built and then community supported.
I would find my past clients down there. I would be there inviting people, handing them their blessing bags that had razors in it, soap, washcloth, and their towel. Then they go into the shower. I remember this one time that changed a lot for me. I was probably... maybe seven or eight years into leadership of my team. We had a very high-performing team. I think around that year we closed 300 deals. It looked great from the outside and was 100% referral. This was pretty rare stuff.
On the outside it looked really great, but I had a long way to go in my journey. I heard—one of the guests—we call them our guests—was screaming at one of the volunteers. I came to check in on them, and he's yelling all these expletives. I said, “She's just trying to help you get in here.” And he said, “Well, you know what? F you. If you weren't here, somebody else would be.”
My normal default reaction at that time would've been to give it right back. I looked up at the shower truck with my logo on it—the logo of our real estate team—and I went, actually... I thought in my head, actually no. If we weren't here, I don't know if this would be here.
Then by some miracle, something came across my brain that said: that person has probably been sleeping on concrete for the last few weeks. I slept in a really nice bed last night. He may not have eaten for the last three days. Who knows when the last time was that he took a shower? Who knows what else happened in his life to get him to this point?
I know that my life was probably a lot more comfortable than that. What ended up coming out of my mouth was, “I am so sorry for whatever's happening here. I would love to escort you to your shower.” And he allowed me. I took him to the shower, and he came out a brand-new person. So happy. So grateful.
For me, I took that into almost every interaction with a human after that and just slowed down, listened. I looked for the story underneath. What are they trying to tell me? What have they not understood about why their behaviors are the way that they are right now?
Helping them to kind of uncover those things gets us out of sticky spots and allows for some more honesty, authenticity, and gets them to a better spot in their lives.
Wow, that's an incredible story. It gives me a chill. It even makes me think about this parenting philosophy that I've been reading about—and what you hear in probably anything you read about parenting. A lot of the behaviors of young toddlers, my kids, what is the unmet need underneath that versus reacting to the thing that's happening on the surface?
With my kids, it's a little more natural to access that perspective. I think it's just really powerful what you said, period. I think as a leader, there—for me—is this fine balance of separating myself from things so that they're not personal, and going into that space, and then also keeping my humanity at the same time.
You mentioned being vulnerable several minutes ago, and I don't know if you dealt with this, but I suspect you might have. In the first 70% of my leadership journey, I felt like it was my role to be someone that people looked up to and could rely on and had credibility.
What that translated to was feeling like I needed not to seem like I'm better than, but just that I shouldn't show much weakness—except acceptable little bits. Because I didn't want... I don't know... just keeping it together, seeming professional. I have a whole thing with that.
What I found was that the more impenetrable I was trying to be—to be someone that people felt they could trust and rely on and wasn't bringing their own stuff into the equation all the time—it made me seem very unreachable and unrelatable in certain ways.
It's marrying that vulnerability but also not making it about you when you're leading, and being there for people and relating but not personalizing everything. I just think it's an interesting balance. Have you dealt with that in your own mind?
A hundred percent—the way you're describing it. I shared that experience. It's funny because again, you've just validated this whole thing of when we try to do better for others, we hopefully do better by ourselves.
To me, I'm thinking—gosh, we keep dehumanizing people by not allowing them to be vulnerable. But actually, you sort of dehumanized yourself by not allowing yourself access to the full range of human emotions or to be able to share those. Yeah, I experienced that.
It's funny you talk about parenting because there is a book—it was actually not a great book—but the one lesson in there was amazing. It was something about unconditional love. There's unconditional love for children. There are different variations on the book.
Have you—I can tell you more—have you heard of that book Unconditional Love?
No.
Okay. I think that's what it's called. This is awful. The author ended up being this really terrible guy, but still, the underarching lesson in there... he told this story that I thought was so incredible and so great for leadership.
He said, “When I was a teenager, I crashed my car and I was so scared.” He was okay physically, but he was so scared of how his father was going to react. He was ready for him to be angry and yell at him—which a lot of parents, that's how we've been taught, that's how we might react.
The first thing his father did when he saw him was he embraced him, and he hugged him, and he cried with him. The son was sort of shaking—oh my God, okay, this is the reaction. They didn't have a conversation about that car crash until days later—how can we learn from this and do differently?
He talks about, with your children, separating your own emotions—what your ego needs—from what needs to happen right now.
Let's say—and this is way easier said than done, I have three kids of my own—your child does something like, I don't know, throws a book. Okay. They're probably not throwing a book. I wish my kids threw books at each other. They don’t throw books—they’re...
Mine do.
Not just books?
My kids definitely throw books at me when they're upset, so that's a great example. I've got board books coming at my head at bedtime, so yeah.
Oh my gosh, that's so funny. Okay, let's go with book.
Let's say my son Amir takes a book and he throws it at my daughter, Isel. My first reaction is, go to your room. Either like, get—go away—I don't want to see you. Or yell at them. I could yell at them and say, go in the corner.
What has he learned from that? Nothing, except that I'm going to get angry and I'm going to take out my emotion on him. It feels good for me. I satisfy my ego. But what have I done—human—to kind of... I have this moment, right, where he's done something. What should he expect from an employer when he does something wrong? He's going to get a slap on the wrist. He's going to get ignored.
What a terrible way to lead. I don't want to say it's a terrible way to parent, but I think there is a better way.
I used to do that all the time, and I still fall into that. None of us are perfect. I think a little bit more before that, and I think, okay, that shouldn't have happened. We have that conversation—try to learn more about what that was about.
Sometimes we do need a little bit of separation from each other, but I think the conversation about what happened—the discipline conversation—we don't talk about that until our emotions have settled a little bit and we're able to talk without being filled with that emotion. I think we learn a little better from that.
Yeah. I think it's such a traditional way to raise kids—to punish—and even just feel like... I think for me, when I feel the desire to do things like that, sometimes there's this insecurity that I'm not instilling boundaries or I'm not showing them what's right and wrong.
When in reality, they're learning everything from how I behave. They're watching and listening to everything. That's really the example. It is tempting to be like, don't do that. I feel that.
I know you came to this episode with a couple of things on your mind. I know you made a little list. What haven’t we touched on that you want to make sure we get to on this leadership topic?
Yeah, thank you. I'll give you my four books and then there were some other things.
That book—not a new book—Radical Candor by Kim Scott. If you're a people pleaser or you're a high D—kind of two ends of the spectrum—this is a beautiful way to balance it all. This is one of those books I had to read several times. I probably should read it again to really understand. It's got a lot of great information in it. It also has a lot of great scripts in it, so highly recommend.
This is the best coaching book I have ever read in my entire life.
Tell us the name—we've got listeners, she's doing show-and-tell on video.
Yes, sorry. This one is The Heart of Laser-Focused Coaching: A Revolutionary Approach to Masterful Coaching by Marion Franklin. I think she's actually a psychologist. You can see I’ve dog-eared almost every page. That's what I do when a page is good—and it's like every page.
This one I’ve had to read so many times. This is one of the most extraordinary books to really bring out your empathy, realize how to really understand a person, help them get through their struggles. I think if you are going to lead even one person, if you have that desire—read that book. It's a great one.
Clint Pulver wrote a book called I Love It Here. It's really about—well, he says—"how great leaders create organizations their people never want to leave." It's about having fun. It's about creating a culture that is loving. He says "I love it here," right?
It kind of helps you... a lot of times, I think you said it—you’re afraid if you maybe love people too much, you provide too much support, you're going to get railroaded. He's got a lot of information about how to protect yourself while still creating a loving environment.
What I have learned is, you create the standards. You hold people to them. Don't be so obsessed with the systems. Don’t be like, it has to be done this way. If you get the same results from them doing it another way... I think that was something that came out of the desire to be so rigid—failing.
Listen to your people. If you've created a system and five out of six of your agents aren't following it, the best thing to do is not to continue to push that system. It's to figure out why this isn't working. Together, you can probably come up with a better system that's going to get you exactly what you want.
Yeah, and I feel having—I just want to get into that for one second—because I feel I did rely on systems and standards, and those things are both great. I'm a fan of both.
But there's something to be said for harnessing what people are naturally good at and what works for them and figuring out how to work with that. I think the bigger your team gets, that can get maybe out of control if everything is all over the place.
But if someone is really talented at lead generating a specific way or gets a certain result and it looks different, and it’s adding value to the team and they love what they’re doing—why in the world would I want to stand in the way of that?
Exactly. I think they can't live their most authentic lives if we're forcing them to do things our way. If you get the same results—two examples. One, I think that was a great one about prospecting. I tell people who come on my team, I don’t care how you prospect. I don’t care if you want to go to the bar three nights a week and hang out.
I don’t care if you want to go on Tinder—whatever those apps are. If that's how you want to find business, I'm not going to stop you. I don't have anybody doing that right now, but I've had people joke about that. If you like to go to the bookstore and find clients that way—whatever it is—that’s what I want you to do. Live your best life.
I think that's one thing. Another thing: we agents—I'm generalizing, but I think this is 100%—we hate data entry.
Yes. Hate it.
Hate it. Hate it. Yes. Yes. Across the board. Our staff is like, “They need to enter this. It needs to be entered. I don’t have the information.”
I get it. “We don’t have that. How are we supposed to help you if you don’t help us?”
We had to create a system. One of the things that we did—we have this thing called an Airtable. It’s sort of like a snapshot of where an agent’s business is. They’re supposed to update it with contact information for a client and where things stand—where they are in the process.
Of course, they were not keeping this up to date because they have lots of other important things to do. Our staff is getting really frustrated. It's hard—we're 100% virtual. Our entire staff is Army spouses stationed throughout the country, and they’ve never been real estate agents before.
Explaining to them—we have agents who are driving across three jurisdictions, maybe seven hours, and then they come home and they have to do... and no, the last thing... I don’t want to excuse the fact that what you need isn’t there.
What we did—every week, each agent has a call with my executive assistant. It can be five minutes, it can be 30 minutes, where they sit there in front of the Airtable and they update it together. They’re supposed to have it updated by then, that’s the deadline. Some of them just do it right there. I don’t care when they do it, as long as it gets done.
That has helped. Another thing we did—I realized that the way we get our business, which is probably for a lot of people listening, it's all referral, sphere-based. It comes from here and here and here and it becomes a little messy. It's not like when you buy leads and it goes straight to someone’s phone and that’s somehow entered into the system.
What happened—maybe 10 years ago—we had an agent who I had sent her a lead by text. She just didn’t follow up. It was because she was doing 10 other things. She probably opened it, it fell away.
Now, every single lead or client I give to an agent, I BCC my assistant on it. They know to follow up within 48 hours to make sure that that client was touched. Now we’re all protected. It allows the staff member to do the work of entering that. We know the agent is probably not going to do it.
Yeah, those are huge. I have executed very similar things in my team. I think unless you’ve been an agent, you don’t know how hard it is to drive around all day and come home to an exploding inbox and triage the really important stuff. Data entry is always going to fall to the bottom of the list.
I think that’s huge for any team owner or ops person that ever listens to this. It’s treating people the way I would want to be treated. If I was an agent on a team, and my consequence for not entering data was being punished with not getting more leads—that could be a good system for accountability.
Versus just working with—one of the... to me, because I've been back in production this spring while one of our key team members has been on maternity leave—I’ve been back in that lived experience of being out. I just can't manage all my inboxes the way that I have when I’m not actively in production.
It's very hard. What can we do to make it easier where everybody wins?
Not coming at it from a punitive or judgmental place, because most of the things we do—there is a good reason. Good people, who have good intentions and want to follow up with leads and want to do a great job and want to contribute to the team—if it's not happening, it's probably a limitation.
It’s not exactly a system, it’s almost more of an adaptation.
Love that. Yep, I agree. You know what would be a good conversation—I know we probably don’t necessarily have time for it now—but the diplomacy of the leader between agents and the staff is such an interesting dynamic that I...
Yeah. Do you want to say something—let’s say something about that. What do you have to say as at least a kernel?
Yeah. One of the things I have had in the past is—and I think that I probably did this in the beginning as an agent too, to an extent—I was pretty kind to my executive assistant. I mean, she's now our Director of Operations, so I guess I wasn't too terrible. She's been here for over 10 years. I love her.
We've had top-producing agents on our team, people selling $20 million in homes, and they take their mess and throw it on the desk of the staff and basically say, “Clean it up.” Sorry, this is the messiest contract in the whole world. But maybe there's no sorry—it’s just, “Take care of it, I can’t handle that right now.”
We’ve had some of that and learned that that is not within culture. Even if that person is producing—Gary Vee talks about this—don’t hold onto people who aren’t kind and who aren’t nice. No matter how great a producer they are, eventually it’s going to destroy the whole team.
What we did—now we have, as part of our services to our agents, and it’s a benefit to our hourly staff—is the staff will write your offers for you. That may not matter in other markets if y’all are listening to this, but here, we have 10 different versions of the contract across three different states.
The shortest one is about 20 pages. The longest that we use the most is 75 pages long. It takes a lot off of these agents’ plates. We know it’s going to be done right. They still have to check it and review it before it goes for DocuSign, but that way, the agent isn’t handing a messy contract either to our staff.
That’s one little system we implemented.
Yeah, I think it's an incredible service, first of all. I think coming back to the way team agents can maybe treat team admin is—I think the beauty of being an agent on a team is you never feel the pain of team ownership, the risk, the headaches, all the leadership responsibilities.
But then there can also be a blind spot of just how crucial the admin side is, and how important it is for them to feel that they are just as important as the sales.
I think any hierarchy where it starts to feel like the salespeople are more important is so backwards. It can end up being really toxic too. It's crazy.
I think just watching for that and also just gently educating people: this isn't just the team admin—this person is the most important person in the team. In a way—not to exaggerate—but if you asked any of the agents on my team how they feel about our core admin, it would be the same feedback: “We don't know what we would do without her.”
Absolutely. You know, it's funny, I'll just add this in. My Director of Operations—one of the things we're working on is recruiting. I asked her to go to as many trainings as she can, see what we can learn, implement more systems. She went to one recently, and a gentleman was teaching and it was a great class.
But he started out the conversation essentially... he was upset that people had sent their staff people and the agents hadn’t come themselves. I said to my Director of Operations—because I think she kind of listened and went, “Oh, maybe I shouldn't be here. Maybe I had done something wrong. Maybe the leadership had done something, maybe we shouldn't have...”
And I said, “I think maybe that person has never experienced someone like you—who I can completely trust to go to a high-level conversation like this, bring back what's important, and have a discussion over it.”
Right there, I think, is a great example. If we’re admonishing people for sending their staff—I have great staff, and I don’t have all the time in the world. It is important that we're all on the same page. Her going is just as great as me going. That’s her job.
Yeah. If not more important, right? For the buy-in and for the people who need to do these things that you come back from the training and want them to do. That's a whole other dynamic—coming home from a conference with 25 ideas and they're like, “No. Stop. Please stop.”
Yes. Okay, there’s one final thing I want to touch on—this topic of female representation in real estate space. As thought leaders. As speakers at conferences. Just the female perspective on leading and growing and building.
I know you and I have super strong convictions about that. With limited time—where would you want... what kernel of wisdom would you want to give anyone who's listening to this who's maybe been steeped in very male spaces—even those that appear to be 50% female?
I just Googled again recently—it is still 65% women with real estate licenses. We just don't see that representation in brokerage ownership, in who's speaking at conferences, a lot of other things. It’s there. It’s just nowhere near in proportion.
What I have come to recognize is that I was steeped in a lot of male perspective of how to do everything—and how unconsciously out of alignment that was for me.
What do you want to say about that?
Yeah. Oh, I love this. And I know you and I could talk about this for weeks. I hope other listeners—if you haven’t been thinking about this—I would say go into every conference, every meeting with a higher... not level of judgment, right? Because then we’re not open, we’re not curious. But a higher level of consciousness about who you’re listening to and what their experience may be.
Right? It’s one thing for... I have seen—I’m sure like many of you—I have seen men who—I won’t name any names—go on stages and sexualize women. Maybe say the room looks really sexy. I have experienced that, and I just don’t think that there’s... and I’m pretty easygoing, but I don’t think there’s a place for that in a professional environment.
I have seen men go into women’s spaces, women’s conferences, women’s classrooms, where it’s really supposed to be focused on women, and men insist on taking the stage. Nobody calls them out for it. If we are going to make these spaces for women—which there are different experiences—we're not trying to be exclusive.
I know the first thing that a lot of people will say is, “Well, what if this were the other way around?” I think the thing is—think about the Supreme Court justice, right? We haven’t had a female Supreme Court justice for hundreds of years—or a Black female—for hundreds of years. We didn’t have one until we did.
There was something systematic there—about, they’re just not even considered. It wasn’t necessarily, “I can’t have,” it was, “We wouldn’t even consider.” This is what the person looks like who makes a good Supreme Court justice. That’s also, I think, a lot of times how people think: this is what it looks like to have an expert on stage.
This is what I imagine in my mind.
The top-producing agent at my brokerage, who produces more than all but five real estate teams in the entire country—it’s a woman. It’s a woman. If she is going to be on a stage, most of the time, she built her own stage. She has built it.
One of the things is: pay attention to who is on those stages and be careful about the lessons that you accept.
One thing that’s interesting—being a mom or a dad—in most cases, being a mom means a little bit more of the workload. It means that you probably gave birth yourself. That is a very different experience than becoming a father.
All these social norms about what your body should look like, how quickly you should jump back, how quickly you should jump back into your business... it’s just a very different experience.
I had something else I kind of wanted to share there with the parent... oh—during COVID. I got on this call with a bunch of leaders—real estate leaders—mostly men. Before we got onto the Zoom call, where that top leader was going to speak, the men were saying, “I’m ready to fire my staff. They’re just not...”
This was during COVID, when the daycares were shut down, the schools were shut down, and a lot of these men were saying, “I’m going to fire them. Their production—the staff’s production—has gone way down. They’re just not answering emails at the same...”
I thought—I could see who was talking—and either their kids were adults or had grown already or they had stay-at-home moms at home. I thought, they have no idea.
At first, I was really upset. Then I went, I can help them. I have all-women staff, and they’re going through the same thing. I’ve always been virtual. I’ve had that experience of being able to grow an organization where it is women at home with their kids.
I ended up having a Zoom meeting with these men, and to their credit, they came. That was really wonderful. But it started out with one of them saying, “I mean, I get on the Zoom call with my executive assistant and I’m like, have you even showered?”
I thought... and I said to him, “Do you want her to do the work or do you want her to shower?” Because really, that might be the only option that day.
Just really pay attention to who's doing the talking and what their life story is—to see if that really makes sense for your life. We're not all necessarily trying to build the same thing, either.
I guess I had a lot more to talk about on there, but...
My hair wants to stand on end hearing that. There are two things that come to mind—two little anecdotes.
First of all, I feel like that same male perspective—I had that to some degree before having my own children. That’s one of my—I look back and die inside—thinking about when I employed moms and didn’t yet have my own kids. I just didn’t understand it.
To some degree, you don’t understand until you go through it. Then, hopefully, you learn and take notes and be better and maybe share the word—which is kind of what I’m trying to do here.
Also, you and I are people who... I didn’t come from any special anything growing up. I didn’t have access to a great network or... there are a lot of built-in networks in Baltimore that have to do with where you went to school and who you know and all of that.
My family was very outsider in a lot of ways. Everything that I have done—I didn’t do it myself because a lot of people helped me—but I put myself in spaces because I put myself there. Then I’ve tried to be the change.
What I’m trying to impart is: if there is an opportunity for you to center women instead of men in something you’re planning, or where you're having speakers—just be aware.
Just last week I saw on Instagram, there was some conference in Baltimore—I don’t know what it was—but someone was doing a video of walking in and there were pictures of everybody who was speaking. It was all men. It was eight men and then one woman at the end. I was just like, dang—there it is again.
Instead of me just complaining or calling someone out, I’m just like, okay—I need to counteract that in everything I do. Because it’s very important to me.
Be the change. You don’t need to have a special status or be the top producer or be at what Sheena’s level is. You can start wherever you are to be the change of positivity and empathy and really thinking about people before you act—thinking about their circumstances and what’s that unmet need underneath the behavior, whatever we might be seeing on the surface.
Because there’s always way more.
Absolutely. You’ve created this platform right here—to give voices, to give your own perspective, to give a platform to different voices, feminine voices. I think one thing to know: that is probably going to continue happening.
Even we as women will often choose—without knowing it, without thinking about it—choose these men because they’ve reached a certain status. Here is the reality: we have so much to offer, whether we are a brand-new agent—we did something before—maybe we’re an amazing listener.
Do you know how many people in this business could learn from an amazing listener, even if they just started in this business?
We all—each of us—have at least one superpower. Build a stage where you can tell your story, even if it’s five people watching to start. Five people in the audience. Build your own stage if they won’t give it to you.
Amen to that. I think that’s the perfect little wisdom bomb to drop at the end of this.
Is there anything you want to say to wrap it up?
Thank you. I think that’s it. Well—I'll give you my last book.
Well—I’ll give you my last book. John Lewis. This is like my Bible. It’s one of the most beautiful books from an unparalleled leader in the civil rights movement. He just kept going. He continued his leadership to make this country better.
What it taught me, most of all, was to have patience. If you ever come to Washington, DC, the best museum—in my opinion—is the African American Museum.
I did not know until I read this that that took 100 years to come alive. Legislation had passed saying, “Yes, we’re going to build this museum,” but there was no funding. They fought for 100 years to make that museum happen.
It’s a pretty incredible story and just reminds you—wherever you are—you will find your way out of it, and it’s going to be better. Just keep going.
Wow. Thank you so much. For anyone that missed the names of these books, they’re all going to go in the show notes, as well as Sheena’s contact information.
Any referrals you have in the DC area—she is your girl. We’ll leave it there. Thank you so much for your time, Sheena, and I’ll be back soon with another episode.
Thank you, everybody!
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the High Performance Agent Podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next one. Check the show notes for links to all of my resources, including my course, High Performance Agent Academy. And please come say hi on Instagram—you can find me @tinabeliveau
Talk to you soon.
