NextHome Prolific’s Kenny Pleasant on building differently in a split-obsessed industry

HousingWire

What does it take to build a real estate business by doing things differently? On this episode of the Real Trending podcast, Kenny Pleasant of Seattle-based NextHome Prolific shares how he went from laid-off iron worker to real estate entrepreneur and why he built a boutique brokerage focused on personal development, collaboration, and meaningful training.  Kenny discusses why he favors training over higher splits, how finding an off-market land niche helped him stand out, and why agents should get serious about negotiation and investing. He also shares practical advice for choosing a focused lead source, adapting to a changing industry, and turning commission income into long-term wealth.  From learning through books, courses, and mentorship to helping agents build confidence through one-on-one coaching, Kenny’s story is a reminder that growth often starts with the skills and strengths you already have. He shares why more conversations, a trusted mentor, and a clear niche can matter more than a big brand or the latest tools.  elated to this episode:  Tracey Velt’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/traceyvelt/  Kenny Pleasant's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennypleasant/  NextHome Prolific https://www.nhprolific.com/  Want more from Tracey? Don’t forget to subscribe to Real Estate Daily.  The RealTrending podcast features conversations with the brightest minds in real estate. Every Monday, brokerage leaders, top agents, team leaders, and industry experts join us to share their secrets to success, trends, and the lessons they’ve learned. Hosted by Tracey Velt and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio.

Transcript

00:00A lot of agents in today's market are struggling with, you know, what, how do I manage this with

00:05high interest rates? Well, today's guest, Kenny Pleasant, he's the broker owner of Next Home

00:11Prolific in Seattle, has been through it all. And he really took his time building his brokerage

00:18of 12 agents very thoughtfully. And he's sharing his story, and it's a fascinating one. So I'm sure

00:27you will appreciate the insights that he shares today. So listen up.

00:42So Kenny, you reached out to me after listening to one of the podcasts, Eddie Garcia, Realty of America.

00:49And we've got some questions to ask. So first, why don't you tell me a little bit about

00:54your Next Home Prolific?

00:57Okay, so we're a small brokerage based out of Seattle, I was at Keller Williams prior to and

01:05there was just some things that I did not like in terms of how things were run and decided to

01:16branch out and open my own brokerage. It was never an endeavor that I had or even planned to but

01:21I,

01:21I felt like it was something missing in the market for, I would, people of color or from

01:28less fortunate backgrounds that needed to start from ground zero without a network, without

01:35a sphere. And so I opened it based on group economics and sort of collaboration.

01:46Okay, great. Now, how many agents do you have now?

01:49Right now we have 12 agents.

01:52Okay, great. So you're with Next Home, which was obviously acquired by eXp. And you talked to me a

01:59little bit about the kind of RevShare cloud based model. And that while it works, obviously,

02:07a lot of those companies are growing very quickly, including eXp. You also have a different view of

02:15what works for your brokerage specifically. So talk to me a little bit about that. And

02:21what about that model doesn't work for you?

02:26So, again, I don't think there's anything wrong with it for the agents that

02:32look for that. But I rather attract an agent that is looking to make money versus save money.

02:39And it comes down to how you see yourself in the market. I don't know that many agents have

02:47the time or the capacity to spend on recruiting in going after the downline when you're producing.

02:56And there are so many other ways to make money in real estate than using your business as that,

03:07right? Separate the two. Make money in real estate and then use those checks to invest and find other

03:14ways to make money versus blending the two when it doesn't seem to equate to the top producers in

03:24our market anyway. Okay. So tell me a little bit about, so you have 12 agents and you said that

03:31you

03:31kind of started this brokerage out of what you felt like was missing in the market right now.

03:37Um, and part of that was maybe not a huge network, um, to start, you know, you're starting at ground

03:44zero. What, um, what are you providing or what are, what are the agents that you're looking for,

03:51um, have that you kind of really built your brokerage around?

03:58Um, so personal development, uh, grit, really being consistent and following up and the,

04:06the personal development is not just like a bypass statement. It's that everything is based on that

04:12every day I'm getting better. I'm training, I'm reading, I'm finding new ways to compete in this

04:18market, which historically has always been very, very competitive. Now you have other factors that

04:26are making it even more tough with AI and the cloud based brokerages and a hundred percent brokerages.

04:33So, um, the competing in a space where, um, the competing in a space where you're not

04:41just relying on who, you know, or relying on what you knew at, um, at a previous period in your

04:50life,

04:50but learning more learning AI and learning to adapt those technologies and skills into that transfer

04:57into closed sales. Yeah. And I think it would be interesting because, um, you know, I had,

05:03read that you went from being a laid off iron worker to really being a top producing agent. Um,

05:11so your experience really seems like it, it, um, kind of translates into the type of agent you're

05:18looking for as well. So tell me how, what you learned in your previous position that you're now taking

05:25with you, um, or you took with you on your journey through real estate.

05:31Um, so I, at some point read over 300 books and that's from never having read a book before I

05:39started real estate. And inside of all of that, I would say it boiled down to a few things. And

05:45that

05:45was just knowledge of self. A lot of the things that I thought I was missing or I was seeking,

05:50I already had within me. I just needed to, a way, uh, to the language and how to identify them

05:58and then how to harness them into the right, uh, pathway. Right. So the other thing was,

06:05it was profound. It was 2011, I think, or 2010. And I came across something that said,

06:12if you want to be successful, do the opposite of everyone else. And it stuck with me. And I thought

06:17it to be really, really peculiar because everyone seemed to be doing the same thing. And we had the

06:25same trainings, the same sort of person who was at the top that we looked up to and said, do

06:30what he

06:31does. And, um, I took that and implemented that. And something I embodied to this day is if you want

06:37to be successful, do the opposite of everyone else. And at that time, I literally changed my business

06:43overnight by looking for different ways to be different. And I think those two things, knowledge

06:49of self and, uh, being different in a market that looks so much alike. Um, yeah. So you're,

06:56you focus your brokerage a lot on, um, you know, helping the agents with personal development and

07:03professional development. Um, how does all of that, that you've learned through all of the books that

07:08you've read and really that idea of what success means translates into the education that you provide,

07:15um, the agents? Yeah. So there's, uh, you know, if you boil down, boil it down to about five or

07:24six

07:25skill sets, right. And being able to take those skill sets and apply them directly to sales. So what I

07:33do

07:33is one-on-one, where are you at and what is it that you need help with? If it's negotiation,

07:39is it tonality? Is it body language? Is it persistence? Is it confidence? Whatever it is.

07:46And you take that and really, really focus on that one thing, because a lot of times the things that

07:52are holding us back, it's not where we just suck as a person overall. It may be one or two

07:57things that

07:57you can improve where that can have a profound, um, significant difference in your

08:03your production and life. Yeah, absolutely. And it helps. I mean, you, how do you, how do you,

08:10I mean, what are your, what are your growth plans? Like how can you scale that? Because it's very

08:15one-on-one, um, you know, do you plan to keep as a smaller boutique brokerage or are you planning

08:21on growing that and really evolving that whole, um, professional development? I'm glad you asked

08:27because a lot of people may look at it and say, Oh, only 12 agents. Um, I have, again, I

08:34did not plan

08:35on starting a brokerage. It was sort of a, Hey, this market needs this and I want to go and

08:40do it and

08:41did it along. And anybody that runs a business in any sector can understand it's not easy doing it

08:47alone. So the first five years is five years this year. I spent building foundations, building

08:54structures, and I really wanted to have something to offer. I felt like I've had a lot of conversations.

09:00I've turned down a lot of people. I did not accept new agents for a long time. Um, because I,

09:07I knew

09:08what was missing in my journey and I did not want to bring someone in knowing that I did not

09:14have the

09:14time, the resources in this, you know, I guess, patience to give it to them. So to make it long

09:22story

09:22short, I spent, I spent the first five years building the foundations, building the systems,

09:27and most of all, most of all the training so that I can now have something to offer is the

09:34reason why

09:34I'm on a podcast. The reason I started, you know, doing more social media is because now I have what

09:40an agent will need in this day and age to be successful. I love that. And I think that's a

09:45big

09:46thing that a lot of brokers don't do. They just go right to the, I got to grow as big

09:50as I can,

09:50as fast as I can. Um, and of course there's merit to that as well, obviously, but, um, you know,

09:58I've always felt like there's, there's a niche for the boutique brokerage and then there's a niche for

10:03the large brokerage. It's kind of the middle brokerages that get a little bit lost in the

10:08shuffle. Um, and so, you know, by defining everything early, um, you know, you've kind of

10:16defined your path way and made it clear. And I like that you're really being particular about the

10:22agents that you bring on as well. Um, which I think is really important in today's, um, you know,

10:29real estate market too. Um, and when you say you've done, you kind of went to do something different.

10:37Um, I know one of the things you have a significant portion of your business is off market land and

10:42infill that never reaches the MLS. So how did you build that niche?

10:48So that was a lot of my story all the way from a kid has been unfortunate circumstances

10:58at the time, seemingly unfortunate that turned out to be a blessing or, um, something that was,

11:06you know, meant to be, uh, there's a phrase, nothing happens to you. Everything happens for you. And it

11:11was because I wanted to build, I wanted to sell million dollar houses in Bellevue where it's

11:17predominantly white. I think there's maybe two or three, um, agents of color in my, um, office at the

11:25time. And, um, I needed a way to get there. And that didn't happen from going and competing with

11:35big spears, established agents. And, um, so I decided that I would begin to go get really good

11:44at finding the land. And then for the land, then I would list back the house, which would be in

11:50the

11:50millions, hopefully most of the time. And so it was, you know, it was my back. I had no choices.

11:57It was lack of options that led me to that path and turn around. It ended up to be the,

12:03one of the

12:03best business models in the industry where you sell the land once and then you sell the finished

12:10product afterwards. So I, you know, I'm so blessed for not having options at the time where I took what

12:16I could and kind of made, made a way out of it. Yeah, absolutely. And so you're still selling today,

12:23right? You're, you're not a managing broker, you're selling broker as well. Um, and is that still

12:29your niche and how have you developed that? Yes, I'm still selling, but not like full,

12:35you know, steam ahead like I was before, um, and doing personal investments and working with some

12:43of my, uh, smaller builders that need things. So, but I, I, I really scaled back for the purpose of

12:50building the brokerage. And so when you got into that, um, you know, what does that tell you about

12:56the opportunities that agents have to really build something for themselves? Um, you know,

13:03I think a lot of them think I have to do residential, I have to sell this house. Um, but

13:08there's so much

13:09more to real estate than just that. So talk to me a little bit about, um, what type of opportunities

13:15you see out there or want to make sure your agents are taking advantage of.

13:21Obviously the land for list back is one, uh, business model. I talk about that. I wrote a

13:28book, um, earlier this year, it was released in July. And I talk about that a lot is finding your

13:34niche, right? Finding and be very hyper-focused on that. And a lot of people, a lot of agents are

13:40scared of that because they feel like they are, you know, partitioning out other, uh, deal sources

13:48or, you know, they're, they feel like they're missing out if they hyper-focus on one niche,

13:53but, um, you have a lot of, uh, commercial opportunities. You have relocation, you have,

14:00uh, you know, the fix and flip, uh, um, clients. There's so many different ways to generate the

14:08business other than the buyers and sellers, which, you know, is that's, if someone wants that niche,

14:13I think is great. Obviously it's proven and it's a great one as well, but

14:17I believe someone should pick a really hyper-focused niche and stick to that.

14:24And, you know, obviously interest rates are pretty high right now. And how, you know,

14:30how are your agents coping with that? What are you teaching them? How are you teaching them to,

14:35um, you know, kind of ignore the market and just keep moving?

14:41Yeah, there's always opportunity in, um, in what, like I mentioned before and what seemingly,

14:50um, unfavorable circumstances, but I just finished a, um, a nine unit townhome project in Queen Anne,

15:00and we got, I believe eight of those units sold with a 1.99 interest rate through buy downs and

15:08other

15:08incentives. So it, there's, there's clever ways to do it. We also have the covenant program in

15:13Washington. We have down payment assistant programs and different ways to offer something different

15:20to buyers that, you know, feel like they're paying too much or, um, the interest rates are too high.

15:26Yeah, absolutely. I think that the education on, on just the buy downs and, um, you know,

15:32how to sell in a high interest rate market is so important. Um, so you argued that small is actually

15:40an advantage because you could be involved, um, actively involved in the transactions. And

15:45why does that matter to agents and consumers? Well, if anyone, there's,

15:54I don't know if it's just me, but when I get on the phone, I don't want to talk to

15:59the operator.

16:01I don't want to talk to AI. I want to get, even though AI can help me most of the

16:05time, even though,

16:06you know, an assistant may be able to help me when I want to talk to the principal,

16:11everyone wants to be able to talk to someone and actually, you know, a lot of times it's not even

16:16the information it's, they want to validate what they may already know. And I knew that was

16:22important for me when I'm nervous and I'm freaking out and I think everything's falling apart. I want

16:27to be able to talk to someone that I trust and kind of, you know, walk me off the ledge

16:31or,

16:31you know, validate what I feel is the right step. So I think that's important to be able to pick

16:38up

16:38the phone and call someone that you feel has the experience currently is in the trenches with you.

16:44Yeah, absolutely. I definitely would prefer to not chat with an AI bot or, but it seems like that's

16:53what everything's moving to nowadays for sure. So you've said most agents receive almost no meaningful

16:59negotiation training. So where's the industry falling short and what mistakes do you see agents

17:06making? So I've used it as my advantage for a long time when, when a seller is negotiating or a

17:17buyer,

17:18I can rest assured that there's a high probability that my counterpart has no negotiation training.

17:25Um, and it, there may be a tendency to think you do because of your success that you've sold a

17:35lot

17:35of houses or, you know, you're really smart, you really articulate, everybody likes you. But if you

17:40ask the fundamental question of have you had actual negotiation training, it's almost, you know, if we're

17:48being honest, most people don't, it's not offered in most brokerages. And we know most college grads never

17:54read a book after they graduate. 80%, I believe is a stat. Um, so when I'm sitting on the other

18:01side

18:02of it, I can tell my client, don't worry, they're going to fold. They don't know what they're doing.

18:07Just trust me because I've taken the time to be educated on negotiation.

18:14Um, where did you get your best, um, best education? Is it from books or did you have someone

18:20who is a mentor or trained you on negotiating or is it just through practice?

18:25Um, all of the above. So typically when, as I mentioned, I, I didn't mention, I don't have,

18:32I dropped out of high school. So my education came from consuming and picking up the information

18:38wherever I could. And it turned my entire life into a learning process of picking up things. If I watch

18:45a movie and there's a, a line that I think is applicable to life, even though it may be entertaining,

18:51it may help me. So I've read numerous books, taking live trainings and had had a mentor. So whenever

18:59there is a topic of when I was learning body language, when I was learning, uh, negotiations,

19:06learning about neurology, there's a three part. I like to read one or two books, take an online course

19:12and some sort of live, uh, seminar in-person training. And I've done several of those with,

19:18for the, uh, topic of negotiation specifically. Okay. And you do that with your agents as well,

19:24I assume. Yes. So a lot of times it's me regurgitating it or showing them the, you know,

19:31giving them access to the training that I pay for, um, through the portals or modules or whatever,

19:36but yeah, they have access to that. Okay. Um, so, so, um, I guess I was going to say, um,

19:47what do agents misunderstand about the difference between earning a good income and actually building

19:53wealth? Um, yeah, great question. I didn't start, I've started flipping 2013, but I didn't own a rental

20:05property until 2018. Um, uh, because we have the same fear as, you know, any person that, you know,

20:15has a good job, stable income that wants to go and diversify and invest. So it was all about fear.

20:23I was just afraid to go and put, even though I've helped hundreds of other people and done this over

20:28and over with every component of the transaction. I had a part in, I somehow was gun shy. I'm going

20:36to do it for myself. Um, I think I have specifically a program in the system also, uh, talk about

20:43in my

20:44book, agent to investor and commission allocation. How do you take a certain portion of commission

20:49and put that towards investing in real estate? Um, most of my investments have been in the Midwest

20:56where you can buy, uh, really cheap property and, um, have some great rental income.

21:04I think it's a fear of a lot of people to get involved in that, or it's like, oh, I

21:09don't want

21:09the extra work involved in a rental property or, um, but I think it's really important. I know,

21:16like, um, I don't know if you're a member of the national association of real estate brokers.

21:20Um, their whole program is about building wealth, um, through real estate. And, and so I interviewed

21:28the, um, president a while. It's been a couple of months now. Um, and they have a whole program

21:34on that. And I think it's so vital for real estate agents to, to really focus on that, um, rather

21:41than

21:41just paycheck to paycheck, which is so easy to do, you know, transaction to transaction. Um,

21:48so I'm going to go into, actually, before I go into the lightning round, um, I kind of want to

21:54sum up

21:54just what advice do you have for real estate agents today? Um, who, you know, maybe have the

22:04same circumstances as you did and are not sure how to start. Um, so I think it goes back to

22:14what I said,

22:14a lot of what I thought I was looking for, or I needed a lot of the raw skills I

22:19had were within

22:20me. Um, and it boils down to gaining confidence and getting around the, uh, the right circle.

22:29So I would say two way to start off is find a mentor, whether, whether that's a virtual or in

22:37-person,

22:38ask the right questions and then get really good at having conversations. That's what it is. It's not,

22:44not more tools, not better technology, not a big brand. You just need to have more conversations,

22:51get really comfortable with having those conversations and then find one lead source

22:56and stick to it. Yeah, that's great. And, you know, like you said, find a niche, um, which

23:02kind of translates into your lead source as well. So, all right. So I have a lightning round. This is

23:07the first thing that comes to your head, better recruiting tool, higher splits or better training.

23:16Better training. I knew you were going to say that. Um, most, most overrated brokerage metric.

23:24Agent count. Okay. Uh, one skill, every agent should master.

23:30Negotiation. Absolutely. And what is the biggest mistake agents make in negotiation?

23:38Splitting the difference and worried about their own income. Okay. That that's definitely a big

23:46one. Um, so finish this sentence, the brokerage of the future will

23:52look profoundly different than anything that we can imagine. I agree with that. So, uh, Kenny,

23:58thank you so much for joining the real trending podcast. I appreciate, um, you sharing your story

24:04and I wish you the best of luck. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks.

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