Next Level Agents: The Kevin & Fred Show - Interviews with the best and brightest minds in the real estate industry

Profit - it’s the whole entire point that we run businesses. For such a critical, and even fundamental topic, agents will talk about everything else but whether or not they are making a profit, and there’s a reason.  Staying on top of your numbers requires a scary level of maturity. Whatever financial decision we make has an impact on the bottom line, and that level of responsibility is so uncomfo...

In real estate, being a broker is the ultimate dream we’re taught to aspire to, but for most people, it’s a nightmare. If you put the ego and bragging rights aside, you’ll find that most brokers aren’t happy.  They work 80+ hours a week, get very little time with their families, and at the end of the day, have very little to show for it financially. People often say a restaurant is one of the wors...

In a good market, the gap between great agents and average agents is virtually non-existent - it’s anyone’s game. When the market turns, the gap between the good and the great becomes so wide, it’s the difference between earning money and leaving the business entirely. Doubling your business in a down market is possible, but it’s not by chance.  You and your team have to be so different that selle...

What if your best income year came from working fewer hours, not more? Nolan Rucker just closed out 26.5 million in sales—his most profitable year ever—and he did it while taking more vacations, building serious leverage, and never showing half his listings in person. While the industry's hitting back-to-back 30-year lows in transaction volume, Nolan's proving that the old playbook is completely b...

You're working hard. Answering emails, jumping on calls, sitting in meetings, grinding through your to-do list. But at the end of the day, can you actually name what you accomplished that moved the needle? Here's the brutal truth most agents don't want to hear: staying busy is just structured procrastination. High performers don't do everything—they get ruthless about the right things. Every singl...

You just spent thousands on a conference ticket, flights, hotel, and meals. Four days away from your business. And when you get home, you've got a notebook full of notes you'll never implement and zero measurable ROI. If this sounds familiar, you're doing conferences wrong—and you're not alone. In this powerhouse panel discussion, Katie DeWitt, Brandon Snyder, and Carly Peterson break down exactly...

What separates top-producing real estate agents from those who struggle? It's not talent, market conditions, or even how hard you work. It's momentum. And most agents are accidentally killing their own without even realizing it. In this solo episode, host Kevin Kauffman breaks down the exact blueprint top producers use to create and protect unstoppable forward motion, especially heading into the s...

Tim Rist closed 170 units in a year, led a team of twelve, and was flying everyone to Maui to celebrate. Then 2020 hit, and he lost everything—his marriage, millions of dollars, and the entire empire he'd spent his twenties building. But this isn't a story about failure. It's about what happens when you realize the ladder you've been climbing is leaning against the wrong building, and you choose t...

Drowning in marketing to-do lists? Posting consistently but getting zero traction? You're not alone, and you're not broken. The problem isn't that you're not doing enough. It's that you're chasing tactics without strategy. In this episode, Kevin Kauffman sits down with Sarah Heeter, owner of Podfox Media and the producer behind Next Level Agents for seven years, to cut through the noise around onl...

Think growing a brokerage means chasing agents with better commission splits? Think again. Bruce Hardie grew a region from 3,000 agents to 10,000+ over 15 years. Today he operates three brokerages with 500 agents across Spokane, Yakima, and Bend—and he's not recruiting anyone. He's attracting them. In this conversation with Katie DeWitt, Bruce breaks down the counterintuitive strategies that built...

You're stuck. Revenue is flat. Growth feels impossible. So what do you do? You add more—more lead sources, more tools, more processes, more hustle. But what if "more" is exactly what's killing your momentum? In this solo episode, Kevin breaks down a framework from his business partner Chris Juarez that flips the entire growth conversation on its head: addition by subtraction. It's counterintuitive...

Think you need to be an extrovert to close $20 million a year? Think again. Darren Ricketts scored 4% on his behavioral assessment for "mega agent"—literally the worst possible job match. This year he'll close over $20 million in Eugene, Oregon, running a lean operation with one other agent and two admins. In this episode, Katie DeWitt sits down with Darren to unpack how he built a dominant real e...

You can scale to 53 agents across five states and still be trapped in a business you built with your own hands. David Queen learned this lesson the hard way, through weight gain, physical pain, and the sinking realization that he'd become a prisoner to his own success. This episode isn't about fitness tips or motivational fluff. It's about the uncomfortable truth most agents refuse to confront: yo...

What if the secret to selling luxury real estate to out-of-state buyers wasn't about being everywhere—but about being somewhere specific, with killer video content that does the traveling for you? Tristan O'Grady sells an average of $100 million annually in Hilton Head's luxury market, with an average sale price around $2 million. But here's what makes his story different: 80% of his buyers have n...

You crushed it as a solo agent. Closed deal after deal. Made more money than you ever imagined. So you started a team—and everything fell apart. Sound familiar? In this episode, Kevin sits down with Matt Smith, a team leader who sold 74 homes his first full year in real estate and now leads 40 agents closing 700 deals annually across three Missouri locations. But the journey from top producer to s...

Your communication skills are either making you money or costing you deals. There's no in-between. In this episode, we sit down with powerhouse Ari Jakobov, who's closed $100 million in sales in just four years by mastering the one skill most agents ignore: strategic communication. Ari breaks down the exact frameworks, tonality shifts, and questioning strategies that have helped him build a team o...

What does it take to move an entire brokerage—160 agents strong—to a completely new platform in just four weeks? Trust. Conviction. And a willingness to make fact-based decisions that put your people first, even when it's uncomfortable. LeAnne Weathers did exactly that. She evaluated the opportunities her agents were missing, made a decision based on data instead of ego, and executed with total co...

Curtis Johnson has been running a real estate team for 26 years. He's sold 200+ homes annually for 23 consecutive years straight. Hit 100 million in production this year. And he's got a message that might make you uncomfortable: You're not struggling because the market is hard. You're struggling because you're distracted. Most agents are trying to do everything. Open houses one day. Expired calls...

When interest rates jumped in 2022, Adam Rutledge discovered something brutal: half his team weren't real estate agents, they were order takers riding a hot market. The moment conditions shifted, the pretenders disappeared and the real salespeople had to adapt. Adam runs Rutledge Property Group in Medford, Oregon, owns 84 rental properties, and is projecting 100 million in sales next year. But her...

In today’s episode, I’m joined by our longtime friend and collaborator, Brian Gubernick. We’ve known Brian since the early days of our real estate careers, and over the years, he’s worn many hats in the industry. He’s fired up by the concept of doing something, anything every single day to get better and it’s reflected in the kind of businesses he’s built and the contributions he’s made, including...

In today’s episode, we’re talking about our decision to join Place, the thought process behind this move, and the value proposition Place delivers to real estate teams. When you hear about Place and many top real estate teams joining it, you probably wonder why a team in a brokerage like eXp would want to bolt on this set of services to their organization. Place encompasses a lot and brings a ton...

In real estate, there’s 2 governing philosophies. Earn more by selling more or buy back time and treat it as a business. In simpler terms - microwave money vs. crockpot money. You’re either cheating by taking more listings or seeking ways to earn money without being at the kitchen table. If you’re the one actively doing the work everyday, you’ll never get to buy your time back and pursue other opp...

Most agents throw money, time, and energy at problems without ever stopping to define what the actual problem is. The result? You end up solving symptoms instead of root causes—and the same issues keep showing up in different forms. In this solo episode, Kevin Kauffman breaks down Einstein's 55-minute rule and Kindlin's Law to show you why clarity is the most underrated multiplier in your business...

Feeling stuck isn't a sign you're failing. It's a signal that you're ready for the next level. But here's the hard truth: most agents stay stuck because they're waiting for motivation to strike instead of building momentum through action. In this solo episode, host Kevin Kauffman breaks down six practical, actionable steps to diagnose what's holding you back and start moving forward today. These a...

Feeling stuck, unmotivated, or like you're just going through the motions? This episode will challenge you to look at motivation from a completely different angle—and it might sting a little. Kevin Kauffman and Fred Weaver sit down with Ronnie Doss, author of Colossal Considerations, for a raw conversation about personal development, motivation, and why the work you do on yourself is never just ab...