Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with RE/MAX CEO Adam Contos

I recently interviewed Adam Contos on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam Mendler: Our guest today is the CEO of one of the biggest and best known companies in the world of residential real estate. Adam Contos is the chief executive officer of REMAX, which is represented by over 135,000 agents across more than 110 countries and territories. Adam, thank you for joining us.

Adam Contos: I am happy to be here, Adam, thanks for having me.

Adam Mendler: Your path to the C suite has been anything but traditional. You dropped out of college twice. You worked in law enforcement for a decade before joining REMAX and you even joined REMAX in a pretty unconventional way. What are the best lessons from the early years of your journey that have been most instrumental to your success?

Adam Contos: I love this question because you know, really, a lot of people, they think that they should take a swipe at the ball, and that they're gonna hit it and it's gonna go out of the park, that very first try. But the reality is, you know, life is a series of experiences, it's a series of trials, and wins and losses. And those losses, if you keep trying, they turn into learning. So that's kind of how I look at it; life is just a big educational experience. And that's kind of how I viewed it. I tried college a couple times but it didn't work for me. But I eventually went back and got my MBA and got a 4.0. So I mean it is about you deciding what you're going to do at the right moment, and giving it everything you got and figuring out where that can take you.

Adam Mendler: Clearly your path to the C suite, your path to becoming the CEO of a public company, one of the most prominent companies in your space, a company that's known by anyone who walks down the street and sees a REMAX sign, has had lots of twists and turns. And I would imagine that when you were dropping out of college, you weren't thinking that you would be the CEO of REMAX one day. And when you were working as a law enforcement agent, you probably weren't thinking that you'd be the CEO of REMAX. How did this happened? How did you get to where you are?

Adam Contos: Well, you're you're absolutely right on those assumptions, I didn't think I would be the CEO of REMAX. But I always loved leadership, I knew I would be the leader of some organization someplace, and I would do my very best to get there. So I've always looked for leadership opportunities, leadership learnings from other leaders and from other people that exhibit leadership capability or they demonstrate the need for that. So ultimately, I fell in love with trying to be the very best leader that I could. And that became a massive tailwind to growth in either law enforcement where I was there for 11 years, I started a couple companies while I was a police officer, one of which was a security consulting firm. And I ended up seeing a market need in real estate to help real estate agents be more safe doing their jobs, because they end up in unknown places with unknown people; places that a police officer would normally take a gun and a partner. So I look for opportunities and leadership opportunities, both entrepreneurial as well as personal. And those really kind of start stacking up on top of each other and allow you to stand higher than you were before and grow yourself both personally and in business. So if you keep a good North Star, have great values and honesty and trustworthiness and integrity and work ethic and things like that. And you go out and you learn things, and then you give that back. You just have to give back. Really great things happen for you and it might not be instant. Everybody wants instantaneous results. And those don't happen. It's like an exercise program. It takes you months or years to find a body that you want in an exercise and diet program. Same thing in business. So you know, I'm 49 years old, I've been a professional, or, you know, all but 18 years of that, and it's taken me that long in order to get someplace. But ultimately it's a quest, it's my lifelong journey that I really enjoy. And you know, that's what everybody has to make it. They can't look at it and go, I want to go do that next year. That's not the way it works. You’ve got to keep trying. And 14 of those 49 years were spent climbing the corporate ladder within REMAX; getting promoted every few years and ultimately becoming the CEO of the company.

Adam Mendler: What advice do you have for listeners on how to best climb the corporate ladder, and ultimately get promoted? Whether it's getting promoted to manager, a VP, or ultimately, the CEO of a sizable company?

Adam Contos: Well, everybody truly looks at it, you know that adage of climbing the corporate ladder really is looked at, like, I'm going to try and climb my way out of something. But ultimately, what you're doing is you're helping others climb the corporate ladder, you're helping others improve themselves. And that's how you get better. You don't get better by just taking information in and trying to be better yourself, you get better by what one of my early mentors, Dave Liniger, who's the co-founder of REMAX, said, and that is, go out and be a sponge. I go, oh, does that mean I need to go learn things? He goes, no, a sponge does not take and keep; a sponge takes and gives. So he goes, be a sponge, Adam, go out and learn as much as you can. Learn all the different aspects and angles of those things that you need to get better yourself, but give those back freely in a way that is distilled to those around you that can be reverse engineered into creating success for others. And that's truly what a leader does as a leader. He helps others create success for themselves. And that's how that leader inspires people to go do amazing things. Because as a leader, you don't need to be going to and doing the amazing things. You need to inspire people to go do amazing things. And that rising tide raises all ships. But obviously in the process of you learning, deconstructing and redistributing those things you do get better. So it's been a combination of learning and giving. I spent probably two hours this morning reading already and exercising and working on different skills that I have. I don't turn on the TV, I don't watch the news. I don't read the newspapers or online or any of that stuff. And I try to limit my social media consumption. I do spend time on social media giving value. But I don't waste my time doing things that are time takers. I use my time to magnify what I can give back. So it's a combination of those things. But it's a lifelong journey of giving.

Adam Mendler: Adam, you shared so much wisdom there that is extremely applicable to listeners, no matter where they are, on their journey, no matter what stage they're in, in their career. And focusing on giving, focusing on trying to help and empower others is imperative to becoming a successful leader. And I love that that's such a core element of your leadership philosophy. In your view, what are the defining qualities of a great leader? And how can anyone become a better leader?

Adam Contos: Well, I've got a sign over my left shoulder that I know you can see right now, Adam, but it says “Stay hungry, stay Humble.” And I think those are the foundational aspects of leadership. And I got into some of that with the “be a sponge” part. But the reality is that humility is just as important. So you have to be transparent. You have to be transparent to other people, you know? Are your feelings on your sleeve, but you have to have this incredible amount of emotional intelligence tied into emotional maturity. And that's what those two things are. Emotional intelligence is your humility. It's your emotions, recognizing and interacting with the emotions of others, where most people in society get tied up in their own emotions, and they don't realize the impact that they're having on the emotions of others. It's just a fact, most people operate from a position of fear, which is your default emotion. Rule leaders instantly understand that they have to control their emotions in order to help other people with theirs. So that humility, and that hunger, stay hungry, stay humble, both tie into that little ecosystem of building your leadership in order to be better every day. So if you take a step back on any situation, you go, oh my gosh, what's going on here? And typically, it's emotionally charged. I mean, we're in a very polarizing environment in society right now where either you're with somebody or you're against them. There's no understanding. It's just, you're either with me or you're against me. And that's not emotionally intelligent, I hate to tell you. But uh, you know, anybody who's listening to this and they get upset at somebody because of their feelings, you're emotionally unintelligent, I'm sorry. But that's just a fact of life. You need to seek to understand and appreciate that people have feelings about things. And usually those feelings, if they're polarizing, or if they're sharp in some response manner, it's fear. What's the fear response? Fight, flight or freeze. You're typically seeing the fight response to current people, the worst thing you can do is meet a fight with a fight. What do you mean by a fight? With me to fight with understanding of love. So you get fear in one emotion, the other emotion that people operate from is love. And that's what the extraordinarily emotionally intelligent leaders recognize that they have to deploy love, what is love, love is unconditional giving, an unconditional giving. So when you see somebody who's upset, you need to love their passion, or whatever they are passionate about, even if you disagree with them. It's okay to understand that they are emotionally passionate about that and just go, I love your passion for this novel. Thank you for sharing that with me. And I was wondering, can I come alongside you and help you with this? I'm not a judge. I'm a witness here. And I'm here to get- so that's truly what it boils down to is that hunger and humility and stay hungry, stay humble. If you work off of those things, as a foundation, leadership starts developing in your interactions and in your relationships.

Adam Mendler: Adam, I couldn't agree with you more. And to build on what you just said. A talk that I give to audiences that I speak to is Lessons from America's top leaders. And I incorporate lessons that I've learned from a number of leaders who I've interviewed, including leaders who have interviewed on this podcast, 30 Minute Mentors. And the two themes that you really highlighted there, in your response to what you believe are the defining qualities of a great leader, humility and hunger, are two themes that I talked about when I think about what I draw from the great leaders who I've interviewed. And what do I mean by that? On the topic of humility, if anyone's listened to this podcast, they know that fortunately 30 Minute Mentors has been able to attract the most successful CEOs, founders, celebrities, athletes, military leaders, people who are truly leaders, to listen to, but I can tell you that every person who I've interviewed has come into the interview, on the air, off the air with a level of humility, that is inspiring to me. No one is too big. No one is too important. Everyone who has been on this show, and every great leader who I've had the fortune of connecting with has, in some shape, form or fashion, demonstrated a true level of humility. I'll give one example, which is retired general Reynold Hoover, who was a guest on this podcast. And Reynold Hoover loves telling the story about when he was working in the White House and as an advisor to President Bush, and he was a general at the time, he was also the Easter Bunny. And not too many people would think of a general as an Easter Bunny. But it just goes to show that no matter who you are, no matter what position you're in, you need to be able to poke some fun at yourself, you need to have some fun. And I can think of example, after example, with so many of my guests on the topic of hunger, a constant theme of this show and a constant theme that I hear from every great leader who I've interviewed and, Adam, you already touched on this, is the desire to continually learn, to continually grow. Lifelong learners are the people who become great leaders because no matter how much you know, you don't know enough and you're always open to learning more. Marrying humility and hunger is elemental to becoming an exceptional leader and I really appreciate how you framed it.

Adam Contos: You bet. It's fascinating because when you combine those two things together, what do you get? You get a beginner. I mean it. Let me explain this because everybody asks me, hey, Adam, you made it to CEO of a public company. Isn't that awesome? I'm like, yeah, it is. And they go, that's great. You made it. And they want to, you know, you put air quotes around, “make it.” But the reality is, we never truly “make it” in life. You know, when we've made it, we made it. When we're standing at the pearly gates, that's when we've made it. But life is a journey. Leadership is a journey, and true leaders realize that they've just begun. So that's an interesting way of seeking that. You look at a martial arts master, and you go, what's it like being a master? Well, I understand how to learn. And that's what they do is they seek knowledge. Same thing with a great leader in any organization, a general, you know, president or leader of a country or leader of a, you know, just a business someplace- whatever it might be. If you take that mindset, I got my classroom, my classroom is around me. And now I need to go learn some more, in order to be better at this every day, because anybody who, you know, puts their feet up and decides they are done learning are done leading. And that is truly one of the things that I mean, listening to you talk about these leaders you've had on your podcast and listening to it. And it's a fantastic podcast. That's what I'm learning from these people is, don't stop learning. Because when you stop learning, you stop leading.

Adam Mendler: I love it, Adam, and I asked you how anyone could become a better leader. Clearly, a dedication to lifelong learning, consuming content in the way that you best consume it. If you're someone who learns by listening to podcasts, listen to podcasts. If you're someone who learns by reading books, read books, if you're someone who learns, as I do, by talking to great leaders, like the great leader who I have the privilege of talking to right now, go out and talk to great leaders. Adam, what are some other ways, in your view, that listeners can become better leaders?

Adam Contos: I always say that great leaders ask great questions. And I mean, reading, studying, listening to whatever is fantastic. But the reality is, you also have to become a great interviewer. As a leader, you need to be able to draw out ideas and intentions and draw out knowledge from other people through your verbal skills. So something that you need to practice with everybody is tell me more. Or what do you think about or what are your greatest challenges with things of that nature? In order to truly start to understand what's going on- and don't listen to their answer necessarily. Don't listen to their answer. Listen to their words, because their words tell you deeper what's in their answer. And it's a fascinating way of looking at it, but if you start asking, if you ask 10 people in your industry, what's your biggest challenge today? And they're all going to tell you something different. But they may use the same words. And those words that they use will tell you truly what their challenges are. How do you speak with them? Use their words, because it's been said best. When we speak to somebody in their language, we touch their mind. When we speak to them, in their words, we touch their heart. So that's really, as a leader, what you should be thinking about is what great questions can you ask people? And how can you speak to them, utilizing their challenges and their words, in order to bring that relationship that you have with them closer, and help them understand you and you understand them better?

Adam Mendler: Adam, you're putting me on the spot. So I'm gonna have to make sure that the questions I asked you for the rest of this episode are really good questions. So I'm going to try, what are your best tips for any listeners interested in succeeding in the world of real estate and for any listeners interested in succeeding in the world of sales?

Adam Contos: Well, I think we've learned, you know, if you take a look back at 2020, and you look at the challenges that were faced with the Coronavirus coming into business, what that did was that that shined the light on truly the fundamental needs of real estate sales as well as business sales. Real Estate stopped for a couple of months and in some places it shut down. But really what happened was the rest of the year it exploded. We closed out 2020, the real estate industry closed out 2020, as one of its best years ever. Now, I mean, you have to factor out due to that whole thing. But if you also look at sales in general and the adaptations that happened in sales in general, why did sales explode or why did sales really kind of window in some markets and not necessarily because of the product? Really, what it boils down to in a lot of these were the relationships there. So if you look at truly fundamentally what drives business, especially human to human business, where there are interpersonal challenges, and there's a personalization of product and in the real estate industry, every house is different. Their reality is, no matter where you go in the world, and I've been all over the world and studied real estate in Asia and Europe and things like that- no matter where you go, it's different. It is truly different. It's personalized. We all have our own desires for the, you know, the structure. We want to put our heads on a pillow every single night, that we want to raise our families, and that we want to feel safe, and we want to have our pets and things like that. So what should you do? You should understand that this is not a mechanical interaction or mechanical process. People are not leads, they're humans. And you need to treat them that way. You need to treat them like you're sitting down across the dinner table with them. Like you're giving them a hug, like you care about their feelings, and you should care about their feelings because if you don't, then don't talk to them. You should care about whoever's feelings you're talking to. So that's the number one thing that we found in 2020 that really refines through sales leadership. And sales isn't just selling it's leading. Sales is leading; leading somebody through a process that solves their challenges and makes their life better. So if you approach it that way, and say how can I help you? What does it come down to? How do you increase sales is ultimately what you asked about. Well, the bottom line is, you go and build more relationships and better relationships with more people. You don't call them up and go, Hey, are you interested in buying this product? You call him go, hey, Adam, how are you doing? How's things for you? How are you feeling? All right, you know, last year was a little challenging. Anything I can do to help you? That's how you approach real estate. That's how you approach sales. That's how you approach leadership. It's the same thing.

Adam Mendler: And I couldn't agree with you more. And given the industry that you're in, which is so competitive and extremely commoditized, I would imagine that a lot of your focus is around marketing and differentiation. What advice do you have for listeners who are grappling with those same issues?

Adam Contos: That's a great question because ultimately, differentiation is in the mind of the purchaser. And if you don't understand the differentiation that people are looking for, you're not going to understand what their desires are for that purchase. So ultimately, it boils down to what I'm talking about. If you're in a commoditized market, I mean, let's say you're selling barrels of oil. That's different than selling a house, that's different than selling a car that's different than selling a widget that makes somebody's life or business easier. So you've got a couple different approaches here. And truthfully, I don't necessarily think that real estate is a commodity at all. It is not because every house on this planet is different. Every apartment on this planet is different: the view, the smells, the looks, really ultimately the neighbors, the neighborhoods; everything is different. So there's ultimately no commodity and housing but we try to rationalize our way to get there to say, oh, anybody can do this. The reality is not everybody can do it. That's like saying knee surgery is a commodity, but every knee is different. Every surgeon has to understand that every person and now their physical aspects of coming into the surgery, recovering from the knee surgery, whatever it might be, are different. Everything matters including your bedside manner, your leadership, your follow up, your instruction, your expectations, your clarity, your transparency, all of those things matter to both sides of the transaction. So if you approach every transaction like it is not buying a barrel of oil, I think you come out on top. You come out on top because the consumer understands that you care and their experience is going to be more personalized. And that experience becomes more touching to their heart than people rationalizing their way through it and settling for what they get. And that's what you do when you purchase a commodity as you settle for what you get because you're saying- the results are based on the marketplace. Even in real estate, where you see the markets go up and down- the bottom line, every house smells different, looks different, feels different. You walk in- most people, when they walk into a house, they know they want to buy it when they're walking in, as soon as they step foot in the front door. We see it time and time again. They look around they go, this is the one and all the others they go, hmm, I think I could do something. Yes, but you're settling. And that's that's what I have to say in life. A true professional will not ask you to settle. A true professional will make you say, that's the one I love. That's the one I want. And salespeople- I don't care what business you're in, that's what you're shooting for is people to go this is it. Not, I can settle for it.

Adam Mendler: That’s applicable regardless of what industry you're in. And, Adam, earlier on in our conversation, we were talking a little bit about your background in law enforcement. I'm not sure if listeners are aware of the fact that you actually ran a SWAT team. What are the best lessons you learned from your years running a SWAT team?

Adam Contos: It's interesting when you run a SWAT team as I was and I grew up on a SWAT team. So I spent about 10 years on the SWAT team itself. I left the agency as the SWAT tactical commander, which basically meant I was in charge of all the operations. I would have a captain. I was a lieutenant, I would have a captain in the, you know, the chief or the sheriff or whoever in the command post. But ultimately, the operation was mine to make all the decisions on. So really, it's a fascinating world because it's a chess game that involves life and death. And ultimately, what you're trying to do is you're trying to save lives. When the SWAT team shows up, they're there to see how many lives they can save because before you show up, though, all the lives that are present are at risk. That's why we called the SWAT team. And when the SWAT team shows up, there's nobody coming to save the SWAT team. So you're the final option in this situation, and you need to make it work. It's a very dynamic environment, though. You make a move and the rest of the people on scene make a move. Or maybe you make a move and their move is not to make a move. Maybe it's a barricaded gunman and you surround the house, and they do nothing. But when you approach the house, maybe they start shooting. Who knows that was their move, you have to react to that. Or worst case scenario, somebody gets shot. But the reality is nobody can throw a flag or call a timeout or blow whistle. Okay, so we got shot, hang on, let's let's change this is dynamic- it keeps going. You as the leader need to have trained your team well, where there's their reactionary options where you go, okay, if somebody gets hit, here's what we do. Or if the house gets set on fire, or maybe the person inside, maybe the barricaded gunman says I'm done and they put their hands up and they walk out the front door. How do you deal with that? So it's functionally a situation where you need to be adaptive. But you need to be crystal clear and have complete alignment, communication, and expectations of everybody on the team. And everybody needs to understand that they have to depend on each other in order to accomplish those things. It is truly the epitome of what teamwork has to be about because you're relying on it, and your brothers or sisters out there, for your life. And you know that those people there are lying upon everybody for their life. So it's a very fluid environment, it’s water flowing, it is a storm changing it and the sun may come out and everything turns out great, or it might get worse. But ultimately, you need to be willing to adapt. And you need to be willing to control your emotions. If you see somebody who's very close to you get injured or shot or killed or something right in front of you, you still have to work, you’ve still got to do your thing. So you need to control your emotions, you need to take leadership, and you need to act. And it's that execution of those actions or desire not to take action, which is also an action that moves those situations around in life and in business and in SWAT and whatever it might be. So that's what it boils down to your ability to create this alignment, communication, and expectations of everybody on the team, and then train like crazy for those. Always be learning, always be getting better, always be understanding. And yes, bad things will happen. But if you don't learn from those bad things, they get worse. If you learn from those bad things you can make them better or you can avoid them next time. So that's human nature. It's human nature. And that's why you see incredibly emotionally intelligent and incredibly emotionally mature people on a SWAT team. That's what it boils down to. So that's what it is. It's a people game. It's a chess game.

Adam Mendler: What was really interesting about the insights you just shared, is that whether you're building a SWAT team, whether you're building a team in the world of real estate, the world of sales, or just about any other world, the key elements to building a winning organizational culture are right there. Building trust, surrounding yourself with the right people, a culture that emphasizes giving, and leadership that is fueled by a philosophy centered around empowering others. So I think that that's applicable to anyone and everyone, whether we spend a day of our lives in law enforcement, or whether we spend our lives running from law enforcement. I think that's great advice.

Adam Contos: Interesting way of putting it, Adam.

Adam Mendler: Adam, thank you so much for joining us, and thanks for all the great advice. Hey, I'm

Adam Contos: Hey, I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me on your podcast, it's been an honor.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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