Most mortgage brokers think scaling a team is about hiring more people.
It’s not.
Scaling is actually about how fast those people can get smart. If you have ten people and only you know how the CRM works, you don’t have a team. You have ten expensive shadows.
If you’re the person at the top, it is very easy to just “preach down” at your people. You stand at the front of the room (or the top of the Zoom call) and tell them what to do. You give them the new scripts. You show them the new CRM flow. You tell them to “get their poop in a group” and get to work.
But here is the problem: Everybody learns at a different speed.
One person picks up the script in an hour. Another person is still clicking the wrong button in the CRM three weeks later. What happens? You end up teaching the same thing over and over again to different people at different times. It’s a waste of your life.
Hope is not a strategy for growth. You need a system that makes learning “viral” inside your own office.
I call it the Tag, You’re It method.
The Video That Started It All
Before we dive into the “how,” watch this quick breakdown of why this method is changing the way we scale our current team.
Stop Preaching, Start Tagging
When I recently started with a new team, we had a lot going on. New teammates. New CRM processes. New sales flows. New scripts. It was a lot of “new” all at once.
In that environment, information usually dies in a manual or a training video that nobody watches. I knew we had to do something different.
Instead of me being the “Sage on the Stage,” we turned learning into a game.
Here is how it works: Each day, someone has to share a Golden Nugget.
A Golden Nugget is just one tiny thing you learned today that makes the job easier. It could be a keyboard shortcut. it could be a way to word a text message to a Realtor. It could be a button in the CRM that saves you three clicks.
Once you share your nugget, you tag the next person.
“Hey, my nugget for the day is this: If you click this specific link in the CRM, it pops up in a separate window so you don’t lose your place. It saved me a ton of time. Joe Sanchez, you’re it! Give us yours.”
Now Joe is on the hook.
Why This Works (The “Blue-Collar Psychology”)
Most training fails because there is no skin in the game. When you use “Tag, You’re It,” three things happen immediately:
1. Positive Peer Pressure
Nobody wants to look like an idiot. If Joe knows he’s going to get tagged, he starts looking for something smart to say. He’s not just “working” anymore; he’s hunting for efficiency. He wants to bring a “Golden Nugget” that actually helps the team so he looks like a pro.
2. The Osmosis Effect
If you have remote employees or people in different branches, you have a major problem: they aren’t sitting in the same cubicles. They can’t overhear the “pro” at the next desk. This method creates digital osmosis. It puts everyone in the same “ecosystem” of learning, no matter where they are.
3. Internal Virality
This is the same thing that happens on social media. When something is helpful or funny, it spreads. When a team member shares a tip that actually saves everyone 10 minutes a day, it goes “viral” inside your company. Suddenly, the whole team is faster, and you didn’t have to say a word.
The “Nugget” Framework: Start, Stop, Continue
If you want to try this for 30 days, keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate it with fancy software. You can do this in Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, or even a group text.
The goal isn’t to write a book. It’s to share one “quick hitter” that changes how someone sells today.
What to look for:
- Start: “I started doing [X] and got a call back in 5 minutes.”
- Stop: “Stop clicking [X], it bugs out the lead. Do [Y] instead.”
- Continue: “This script is still killing it with Realtors, here is the exact wording.”
As a leader, your job is to pull back. Allow the team to teach the team. You will scale ten times faster when you have a team where everybody is a coach but also coachable.
The Problem With “Traditional” Training
Most brokers are stuck in the “Old Way.”
The Old Way:
- Leader creates a 40-page manual.
- New hire reads the manual (maybe).
- New hire forgets 90% of it.
- Leader gets frustrated that “nobody listens.”
The Tag, You’re It Way:
- Team members find real-world solutions.
- Solutions are shared in real-time.
- The “Manual” is created dynamically every day by the people actually doing the work.
What would happen if your team was 1% better every single day because of a shared nugget? In a year, you wouldn’t even recognize your business.
BONUS PRO TIP: The “Low-Stakes” Personal Brand Builder
I’m going to give you one more reason to start this today.
In today’s world, your personal brand is everything. You need to be on camera. You need to be on social media. You need to be the “face” of your business.
But most of your team members are terrified of the camera. They hate the way they sound. They hate the way they look. If you tell them to “go post a video on LinkedIn,” they will freeze up.
Use “Tag, You’re It” as a training ground.
Instead of having them type their Golden Nugget in Slack, tell them they have to record a 60-second video of themselves explaining it.
This does two things:
- Increases Skill Set: They get comfortable being on camera in a “non-threatening” group. They are just talking to their friends and teammates. There’s no “public” to judge them yet.
- Improves Delivery: They learn how to get to the point. They learn tactical empathy. They learn how to speak with authority.
By the time you ask them to record a video for a client or a Realtor, they’ve already done it 20 times inside the internal group. The fear is gone. You aren’t just teaching them CRM clicks; you are building their personal brand and their confidence.
Let’s Fix It Fast: Your Next Step
Stop being the only person who knows how to run your business.
Go into your team chat right now. Share one thing you learned today. One tiny win. One “Golden Nugget.”
Then, type the magic words: “Tag, [Name], you’re it!”
Watch what happens. Watch who steps up. Watch how fast the bugs get worked out of your process when you aren’t the only one looking for them.
Tag, you’re it.
What is a best practice that you would share with us if you’re trying to grow a team across multiple locations? How do you move fast without breaking things?
Give it back to us in the comments or send me a message. Let’s get to work.