Daniel Dixon fell in love with real estate at the early age of 17. After witnessing the power of focused lead gen while working in-house at Trulia, he set out to build a real estate business he could scale.

Since then, he’s been leading the Denver-based Dixon Group with a focus on teaching his team, giving back to his community, and showing up fully in every part of life. By focusing on the right systems and processes, he’s taken his team from $145 million in volume in 2021 to over $180 million in 2022.

The Challenge

Working in vs. on the business

After beginning his career in lending, Daniel got his start in lead generation at Trulia where he sold internet lead gen to agents across the country. 

While at Trulia, he gained incredible knowledge, both through the best practices he shared and by simply asking questions about how to build a team and real estate business. After learning all he could, he made the leap and secured his real estate license.

But his goal wasn’t to be in production forever. 

While he loved the industry, Daniel knew that a lifestyle of working both in the business and on his business wasn’t what he wanted. “Outside of working 18 hours a day, I think it's impossible to do both at a high level. There’s not enough hours in a day to do all the things, and be dad and be husband and be friend and enjoy your life,” Daniel says.

From the beginning, he focused on growing his business by teaching others.

With a big vision and firsthand knowledge of the importance of lead gen, Daniel knew he would need the right systems to keep his team on track, one of which was Follow Up Boss.

“I love the real estate business. I enjoy the chaos of this industry, as silly as that sounds. But dealing with buyers and sellers really wore me down: taking calls late at night when I'm in bed with my wife or having to service my clients at a high level as I'm at my son's football game. Those things became a little difficult for me.”

The Solution

Better lead management processes

With a fast-growing real estate team, the right processes are critical. Daniel regularly monitors lead volume and agent performance, while trusting his team to get the job done. 

But the core element of his success? Trying and failing. 

“We've already built this massive company and a bunch of other companies, and it's almost solely attributed to failing constantly and knowing what your numbers are. What you measure, you move.”

Across his entire portfolio of companies, knowing the numbers behind the business gives Daniel and his team the space to try and fail, then make key adjustments to drive the success of the business.

Transparency and metrics

Each week, Daniel meets with his leaders to review Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at a macro-level to understand what’s happening in the business. “Everybody tracks these KPIs inside of our world — everyone’s looking at the same data,” he says. 

Regularly reviewing these metrics means Daniel and his team can make real-time changes as needed — “in the moment, almost,” he says. To stay focused and relevant, Daniel looks back at just the last seven days. 

“We don’t focus on closings or fundings. We focus on how many leads, how many pre-approvals are out, how many homes are under contract, and how many are staying sticky through the process with us,” he says.

Leaders meet individually with agents to review their performance and ensure they’re on track. 

For Daniel’s team, that transparency is a core value.

It’s important to him that his team have an understanding of the cost of business: the people, the payroll, the leads, and the reserves. He explains, “I think it creates more transparency in your business, so people know what they’re working so hard for.” 

Coaching and communication

For a team as robust as Daniel’s, training and coaching are key.

For the first 90 days, new agents work directly with a productivity coach. They learn habits, systems (like Follow Up Boss), and production skills to get them up and running. 

After 90 days, they join what Daniel affectionately calls “general population,” at which point agents work with Tom Ferry Coaching on core skills. Rather than focusing primarily on contracts or lending, new hires need to hone their communication skills first and foremost, Daniel says. “Scripts and dialogues are the most important thing for you to lean into, learn and know.”

Daniel recalls that one of his biggest mistakes as a new agent was simply trying to do too many things. 

“There's always that bright, shiny new object: the new CRM, the new lead source, whatever is coming out. At the end of the day, focus on what you do incredibly well, then double, triple, quadruple down on that. And then add another leg to the stool a little bit later.” 

Lead generation

Daniel is the first to admit he’s obsessed with leads. With his background in lead gen, it’s not surprising. The Dixon Group generates about 1,200 leads per month, with 65% of their business coming from internet leads. 

About 15-20% of their business is repeat business, and the rest comes from referrals.

The team now has upwards of 1,400 past clients, and are slowly making the pivot to seeking more repeat and referral business.  

Follow Up Boss automations are huge in helping keep it all streamlined.

“As much automation as we can have inside of our world is important to us,” says Daniel, pointing to Zapier as an example of lead form responses going straight to their system. “We have a lot of automation set up where we can have one human do one thing, and then technology will take care of the rest.” 

Lead routing and processes

When a lead comes into Follow Up Boss, it goes straight to agents on a first-to-claim basis. But agents need to be quick to claim, Daniel explains with a smile, because 30 or so other agents are likely eager to claim the lead too.

From there, the agent works the lead, making phone calls, sending texts, and offering social proof. “The idea is getting them on the phone as quickly as we can and then scheduling a face-to-face meeting to meet the client. That is oftentimes where lead conversion happens,” he explains.

Agents continue to follow up, educate potential clients about the process, and give them the information they need until they’re under contract. 

“One of the beauties of our team is our agents only do half the transaction,” says Daniel. The transaction team takes the client from contract to close, so agents can head right back out to connect with the next lead and create their next opportunity.

“Everyone's following the same process that's been tested, trusted, used, and perfected.” 

The Results

Growing a team and giving back

Daniel’s commitment to scaling hasn’t just grown his team. It’s led to impressive revenue for his business. The Dixon Group closed $145 million in volume last year, and they’re on track to close over $180 million this year. 

A thriving business would be enough for many owners, but Daniel is looking to do more. Two years ago, the team launched the JLK Foundation, which provides a helping hand to single parents.

This work is close to home for Daniel. “I grew up with a single mother of three kids. If she had a little bit of help, a little bit of a lifeline, it would've taken her stress level down,” he says. “We're really trying to impact our community and help the people inside of our community in ways that I wish I was helped when I was younger.”

And he’s not stopping there. He also wants to shape the future of the real estate industry with the Black Agents in Real Estate (BARE) Scholarship. Having often been the only person of color in rooms of real estate agents, Daniel knows firsthand how intimidating that experience can be.

“I want to inspire more people of color to get into this industry: mentor them, coach them, help them, share the knowledge that I've learned so quickly in this industry to be able to grow big businesses as well.”

Through the scholarship, Daniel hopes to influence communities and help build generational wealth for Black real estate agents. 

With all of this work underway, what’s next for the Dixon Group? 

First things first: continuing to grow the team. With a current roster of 38 agents, Daniel’s next big milestone is getting to 85 agents. This effort will also involve expanding into four additional locations in Dallas and Houston.

What he calls his “big, hairy, audacious goal,” though, is building a billion-dollar business. 

“I want to close a billion dollars in home sales in a fiscal year. We have the system, we have the tools, we have the leads, we have the processes, we have the backend, we have all the things that work and that are duplicatable in multiple markets.” 

As has always been the case for Daniel, his next task is finding drivers inside the markets who want to reach that billion-dollar mark together. We have no doubt he’ll accomplish it.

Bonus 💡 Hear Daniel Dixon's leadership mindset and strategy for his team