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Guest Bio: Green Bay Greg leads Dallaire Realty, an independent brokerage in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that he founded in 2011 after getting licensed in 2006. His team of 14 agents and three full-time support staff has averaged 400 to 500 units sold per year over the last decade, with over half of that business coming from past clients and referrals.

Episode Summary: Green Bay Greg joins Tim Donovan to break down how his small but highly productive team built a business that runs circles around industry averages without chasing headcount. He gets candid about time management struggles, his personal accountability philosophy he calls the grenade rule, and why he still believes in phone calls and human follow-up over AI and social media for converting leads.

What's Covered:

• Greg explains his team structure of 14 agents and 3 full time support staff averaging 400 to 500 units sold per year for the last decade, built by saying no far more often than yes to new agents
• He traces his path from playing online Texas Hold'em and partying early in his career to getting serious about real estate after meeting his wife and having a daughter, crediting a tech and computer background passed down from his father
• Greg describes investing heavily in relationship building over the years including a five figure vineyard event for over 500 people, and explains that 51 percent of his business still comes from past client sphere despite his reputation as a technology focused team
• He details his lead generation history starting with an expensive early Boomtown subscription in 2014 that changed his business, plus current diversified sources including Zillow, PPC, organic content, and Facebook, while openly discussing quitting social media using a device called Brick for his own mental health
• Greg lays out his follow up philosophy of calling inbound leads without aggressive ten day pounding campaigns, relying on remarketing and retargeting, and stresses that every call needs a clearly defined next step to increase appointment to closing conversion
• He shares his self accountability rule he calls jumping on the grenade, meaning immediately handling any client issue before it festers, and closes with his magic wand answer of wanting a steady flow of high quality non referral seller leads plus a tactical tip to get organized in a CRM and mine personal contacts for a database

Timestamps:

00:00:47 - Greg's origin story getting licensed in 2006 and playing online poker before taking real estate seriously

00:03:10 - Team structure breakdown, 14 agents, 3 staff, and refusing to be a body count business

00:05:20 - The Seth Godin tribe philosophy and hosting a five figure vineyard event for 500 people

00:08:30 - A day in Greg's life including accountability meetings with Tandan and staying hands on with systems

00:12:37 - Time management honesty, working on heaters, and the grenade rule for accountability

00:15:53 - Boomtown history, becoming a peer coach, and diversified current lead sources

00:20:19 - Quitting social media with the Brick device and discussing mental health in real estate

00:21:51 - Follow up philosophy, avoiding aggressive pounding, and using behavioral retargeting data

00:26:17 - Why accountability and clearly defined next steps drive conversion, citing the 5.6 percent stat

00:30:14 - The magic wand answer, wanting a steady flow of high quality seller leads and yearly market reviews

00:32:16 - Tactical advice for agents wanting to grow, get organized with a CRM and mine your contacts

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Guest Bio: Herman Antonov leads The Antonov Group, an 18-agent real estate team based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. He got his start over a decade ago writing SEO blogs about owner financing and bad-credit home buying before becoming licensed, and today his team closes roughly 200 to 220 transactions a year while he focuses primarily on lead generation.

Episode Summary: Herman Antonov joins Tim Donovan to trace his unusual path into real estate through blogging and Google AdSense, then breaks down how his team generates leads today through multilingual social media campaigns and down payment assistance offers. The conversation covers his follow-up philosophy, tactical advice for brand-new agents and agents looking to scale, and his take on how AI and industry consolidation will reshape real estate over the next five years.

What's Covered:

• Herman explains how he stumbled into real estate around 2010 through WordPress blogs targeting searches like rent-to-own and owner financing after the 2008 crash, eventually getting licensed at his mother's suggestion to serve the leads he was already attracting.
• He details his current team structure of 18 agents producing 12 to 20 deals each for a total of about 200 to 220 transactions annually, and how he has scaled back his own production to focus on lead generation.
• Herman describes a multilingual Instagram and Facebook ad strategy built around Minnesota's 32,000 dollar first-generation homebuyer down payment assistance program, noting that a Ukrainian-language video hit 130,000 views while an identical English version barely moved.
• He shares his follow-up philosophy of getting leads offline as fast as possible, using localized storytelling emails as a drip campaign, and acknowledges that leads still fall through the cracks despite these systems.
• For agents starting from scratch in a new city, Herman recommends joining the brokerage with the most listings, partnering with listing agents to host open houses, and generating free leads through Instagram walkthroughs and Facebook Marketplace posts.
• He outlines his biggest wish for the business, solving appointment setting at scale, contrasting agents given raw lead lists versus agents handed pre-booked appointments, and describes using ChatGPT and ElevenLabs to mass-produce faceless video walkthroughs for Instagram.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro and welcoming Herman Antonov

00:30 - How Herman got into real estate through Craigslist and blogging

02:38 - Team size and annual transaction volume today

04:58 - Instagram lead generation strategy overview

05:29 - Ukrainian-language video hits 130,000 views

08:08 - Down payment assistance ad targeting first-generation buyers

09:17 - Follow-up philosophy and drip email strategy

11:08 - Building a business from scratch in a new city

14:06 - Tactical advice: get a showing partner and specialize

17:00 - Magic wand problem: fixing appointment setting

20:06 - Using ChatGPT and ElevenLabs for AI video walkthroughs

23:18 - Predictions for the industry five years out

26:20 - Where to follow Herman and his team

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Guest Bio: Casey McCoy is a real estate team leader with Keller Williams based in Evansville, Indiana, running a five-agent team that has grown roughly 50 percent year over year for the past three years. He got his start in real estate after a rough experience buying his first house at age 20, which led him to get licensed in 2010, and he has since built a business rooted in investment income, relationship-first client acquisition, and early adoption of AI tools.

Episode Summary: Casey McCoy joins Under Contract to share the winding, almost accidental path that led him from a foreclosure-threatened house hack at 20 years old into building a thriving real estate team in Evansville, Indiana. He dives into the mentorship moment that reshaped his entire business model, his relationship-first approach to lead generation and follow-up, and how he is already using AI tools like Claude to build custom real estate technology on the cheap.

What's Covered:

• Casey recounts buying his first house at 20 with three lined-up roommates, only to end up in foreclosure and upside down on the mortgage after a botched roof repair and a market crash, which unexpectedly pushed him into getting his real estate license
• He credits mentor Mike McCarthy with two pivotal lessons that changed his business: hiring help early by asking 'why are you stealing someone else's joy' and building investment income so he never has to pressure a client to transact
• Casey explains his go-to strategy for starting over in a new city with no database, which centers on visiting locally owned coffee shops to get introductions to well-connected community members, plus working expired listings for faster results
• He details his personal lead sources, including ditching business cards entirely to control follow-up timing, a Zillow partnership that converts about one in five leads into referrals, and strategic Thursday open houses paired with 100-door neighborhood knocks
• Casey identifies follow-up in the middle of his funnel as his single biggest current business problem despite explosive top-of-funnel growth, and shares client feedback showing people actually want to be followed up with rather than feeling bothered
• He shares his history experimenting with AI-driven real estate technology, from a $25,000 nine-month platform build in 2014 to recreating similar functionality in a weekend for about $50 using Claude, plus his vision for a client-facing AI assistant trained on his own conversations and local market knowledge

Timestamps:

00:00:39 - How Casey got into real estate after running out of college money

00:03:37 - The roof repair that never happened and led to foreclosure

00:06:03 - Getting licensed with his last $500

00:08:06 - Mentor Mike McCarthy and the turning point conversation

00:10:50 - Why are you stealing someone else's joy, the hiring lesson

00:12:46 - What Casey would do first starting over in a new city

00:17:09 - Why Casey stopped using business cards

00:19:08 - Zillow partnership and referral conversion rates

00:22:14 - Casey's follow-up philosophy and building relationships over transactions

00:26:51 - The one problem Casey would fix with a magic wand: follow-up

00:31:53 - Casey's early AI platform build in 2014 versus rebuilding it in a weekend with Claude

00:36:03 - Using AI-powered seller updates to guide price reduction conversations

00:38:04 - Casey's vision for a personal AI assistant trained on his own client conversations