Episode 163 – How to Create a Metaverse Workplace for Your Business – Tom Wheelwright & Jason Gesing​

Speaker 1: 

This is The Wealthability Show with Tom Wheelwright. Way more money, way less taxes. 

Speaker 2: 

A lot of discussion right now in the business world is about AI, blockchain, other technologies. One thing we haven't talked about yet on The Wealthability Show is the metaverse and how the metaverse might affect the workplace. Could we actually even have a metaverse workplace? We've talked about how we've got this challenge between coming back to the office after COVID and not doing the office, do we do virtual offices, et cetera? We have a guest with us today, Jason Gesing, who is very much involved in the idea of a metaverse workplace. I'm fascinated by this thought because, as you all know, I'm struggling with this not getting back to the office thing. Some of that's my baby boomerishness, and some of it's just that I like people. And so I'm really interested in this topic. I think it has the potential to be a big disruptor and actually a big solution for getting back to the office versus working from home. And so I'm very excited to have Jason with us today. Jason, welcome to The Wealthability Show. 

Speaker 3: 

Thank you, Tom. It's an honor to be with you. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. 

Speaker 2: 

If you would, give us a little bit your background, because a fascinating background. What I'm curious is, how'd you get into this whole idea of metaverse workplace? Not exactly what I expect from somebody with your background. 

Speaker 3: 

Yeah, not something I would expect with my own background either, Tom, to be honest with you. But I've been working in the metaverse now for more than 13 years, all of that really up until this year with eXp Realty, which became the fastest growing real estate brokerage in North America in history, I believe, for a period of time. Today that brokerage has close to 90,000 agents across 25 different countries. We launched 22 or 23 of those countries without ever getting on a plane. 

But the way I fell into this, I ended up in law school, and the law ended up not being a great fit for me. I think, like yourself, one of the problems was that I was constantly in isolation. I was spending 16 or 18 hours a day in a small room, and for the most part people didn't want to talk to me because I was billing them in six-minute increments. I understood that, but it also meant that I was working in isolation throughout the entire day. I'm like you, I need to be around people, I get my energy from being around people. But the truth was I was completely drained. My kids at the time were two years old and a newborn. They were going to bed at six o'clock at night. I was driving an hour and a half into the law firm and back and forth, so three hours total each day in Boston traffic. And by the time I got home, they were in bed and asleep. And so I would go days on end without seeing my kids. I never met my own dad, and so I instantly recognized that this wasn't going to be a sustainable thing for me. 

I wasn't happy in the law anyway. In Massachusetts, which is where I'm from and where I'm speaking to you from, once you're admitted to the bar, you can get your real estate broker credentials just by filling out a piece of paper. So I did that in 2002 when I was admitted. And as the years went by and I really needed some break from the law, I would occasionally go out and look at houses just out of plain interest or show friends and family, things like that. It really maintained my sanity because it allowed me to get out of the office and be around people. 

In the course of that, I think it was about 2007, 2008, there was a division of LendingTree that opened up called realestate.com. They were a company that first perfected the online lead generation coupled with the warm live telephone transfer. So that worked perfectly for me, and it gave me some experience in the business. I was going out and representing people and closing deals. The gentleman who was the regional manager for that organization is somebody I became fairly close with, and he was giving a presentation one day on a webinar on Facebook, and immediately preceding him was the founder of eXp, a gentleman by the name of Glenn Sanford, good friend, absolute mentor, and a wonderful human being. 

I was introduced to Glenn, and the next thing I know, I'm an avatar in eXp's first version of its metaverse, which at the time looked nothing like I showed you. If your guests will stick around at the end, we're happy to give them a little bit of a tour. I will tell you, Tom, I was not at the time somebody that was tech-adept at all. In fact, I was probably the last person to let go of my Blackberry. But the aha moment when I met Glenn, it was late 2009, and the global financial crisis was in full force, and sellers couldn't sell and buyers couldn't get financing, so transactions were down, which meant revenue was down to brokerages all over the place. We saw back then a consolidation of brokerages folding into one another, shutting down offices. It was at that point where Glenn recognized that if he wanted to stay in business he needed to radically change the way he approached the business, and he told the staff never to come in again. 

But the moment for me was when I was walking around for the first time in the metaverse and Glenn explained to me that real estate agents were paying for things like expanded office space or parking spots for executives or travel junkets to fancy exotic locations. They just didn't know it because it was all buried in their financial arrangement. And when you cut out all the fat and all the excess and the middle management, you can really transform what it means to be a service professional, what it means to earn more and be recognized for what it is you do and the value with which you do it. The light bulb went off for me. When I was a lawyer, I always thought that the clients were paying for those fancy lunches or the clients were paying for the mahogany table or interior staircases with the finest wood. And you could live with that. But it occurred to me in that moment that in fact it was the service professional that was paying for it too. They were making less than they should. They were spending less time with their family. 

I mean, if you look at the law today as a profession, there's probably more misery, depression, suicidal ideation, alcoholism, addiction. It's an industry with a lot of unhappy people. There's, I think, several reasons for that. One is there's nothing efficient about the billable hour. Why do in one hour what you can do in 15 when that's the measure by which you're being judged? Secondly, lawyers at large firms certainly take home on average somewhere between 20 and 25% of what they bill out. By cutting out the excess and the redundancy, we've been able to turn that around and give the lawyer 60% of what they bill out, and then we've got 5% of every billable hour earmarked to access to justice [inaudible 00:06:46], which is one of the support of attorneys general in states like Utah, Arizona. So we were able to fund legal access clinics, we're able to do pro-bono work with that money, and that's going to be a sizable sum. And so we're happy about that. 

And then there's an additional pool of money that results from the savings that we're able to then take and turn around to provide to our attorneys in the form of partnership bonuses on a monthly basis. And there's clear objective apolitical criteria. It's not this poorly illuminated path where they tell you, “Next year,” and then the next year comes and they tell you, “Wait one more year” or “Get to know this guy a little bit better” or “You didn't tie your shoes the right way.” I mean, there's always a reason to postpone the partnership. And so what we've really done, I think, is democratize the law firm a little bit. We've put the power back into the hands of the attorneys. We've saved the client's money. We've sort of re-instilled in attorneys, some of that idealism that brought them into the law in the first place. But it's just one example in one setting in one industry where the metaverse has been transformative. 

The reason I wrote the book, The Metaverse Workplace Revolution, is because I think it's a revolution that's been underway for some time now, and certainly by evidence of eXp's success, it's been underway for more than 10 years, but not a lot of people know about it. I think people hear about the metaverse and they think, “Well, it's a video game” or “I can live next to Snoop Dogg.” But for me, when I talk about the metaverse, I think the differentiator is it gives you this persistent presence or persistent sense of presence. You're in the same room with somebody, and when- 

Speaker 2: 

Let's start unpacking that, okay? 

Speaker 3: 

Yeah, I can go on, as you can see. 

Speaker 2: 

I love your enthusiasm, so this is great. But we're going to unpack this. We're going to break it down into pieces, if that's okay. 

Speaker 3: 

Please. 

Speaker 2: 

So just to be clear, so you were actually the CEO of eXp, right? 

Speaker 3: 

eXp Realty, yep. 

Speaker 2: 

And now you are actually back running actually in charge of a law firm, right? 

Speaker 3: 

That's correct. Yeah. It's come full circle. I want to alleviate the pain for lawyers, yes. 

Speaker 2: 

I love that. If you can only alleviate the pain for the rest of us who have to use lawyers, that would be really amazing. But that's a whole different topic. All right, so let's talk about the metaverse in the first place because I don't want to assume that our listeners even really understand metaverse. I mean, a lot of people have used VR, et cetera, and of course Facebook changed its name to Meta for the metaverse, but let's start with what it is and what it isn't. Just not the metaverse workplace, but just what is the metaverse and what isn't the metaverse workplace? What is it? 

Speaker 3: 

I think a lot of people will tell you that it can be interpreted as any sort of online digital presence or communication, digital interaction, you're doing it in the metaverse. However, when you and I stop talking on this video call, we've got the things we're going to talk about, then we're going to stop, and then we're going to go our separate ways. And if three hours from now you had a thought and you wanted to ask me about it, you're going to have to make a deliberate effort to reach out and try and we'll have to schedule some time. If we're in the metaverse, you may just bump into me in the office suite or in the hallway or out on the soccer field, and you have the opportunity to ask. So that persistence, I think is really important in building culture and community. 

Speaker 2: 

So the metaverse is actually… It's real estate, it's just virtual real estate. 

Speaker 3: 

It is, yeah. That's a great point. Let me answer your question a little bit better and try and paint a picture. So inside of our campus, the Omnuverse, because the firm is OMNUS Law, we've got soccer fields, we've got auditoriums that can hold thousands of people. We've got small meeting rooms, we've got boardrooms, we've got individual offices that are aligned next to each other. The places are designed in a way to really foster a sense of community and collaboration. It's very, very clean. And of course, it could be accessed from anywhere. 

Now, your physical existence in the metaverse, you enter the metaverse as an avatar, and that avatar today can look exactly like you do, pretty much for the most part, whether it's height or skin tone or religious preference, all sorts of ways to express yourself as your true self in the metaverse. 

Speaker 2: 

So let's start with getting into the metaverse. Let's say that I'm an employee, I'm logging in the morning. Am I just entering a username and password just like it would for anything else and logging into the metaverse? Do I have special equipment? I need? What's all entailed in just the fundamentals of using it? 

Speaker 3: 

Yeah, it's really become very simple and counterintuitive. So you would go into your computer, open it up, and you would either access your metaverse via the web, browser-based metaverse like something like Frame VR, which is an emerging platform that I think has a lot of potential. Or you may have to download a client in order to access your metaverse campus, which is what I do here, and that's done by Virbela. And so you download that. You do have your username and password, just like any other secure system. And then when you enter, you enter what we call the spawning point. If you look straight ahead, you're going to see a help desk. If you look to the left, you might see a body of water. If you look to the right, you might see an office for the attorney general, you might see a dance hall. I mean, you can create this space in any way that you want. Now, in terms of equipment- 

Speaker 2: 

So let's talk about that real quick, then we're going to come back to the equipment that you need. So any particular company's metaverse workplace would be independent of any other company's metaverse workplace, is that right? 

Speaker 3: 

That's correct, yeah. 

Speaker 2: 

Okay. So presumably then you actually have metaverse designers just like you would have an office designer or a web design? 

Speaker 3: 

That's correct. 

Speaker 2: 

Okay. 

Speaker 3: 

Yes, sir. 

Speaker 2: 

All right, so let's come back to the physical equipment that is required. 

Speaker 3: 

Yeah, the physical equipment required really is very simple. You need a decent computer that's not too old with a reasonable processing speed. And really you just need a headset for your audio. And arguably, you don't even need that, but if you want to really enjoy the experience, I think those are the two things that are required. Our platform has the capability certainly to use VR headsets and goggles, but it's not necessary. It adds an element of increased difficulty and actually I think at times can make people feel a little nauseous if they're not accustomed to it. But what you really need is very, very simple and easy and they are things that people generally have. 

Speaker 2: 

And then you travel around with a mouse, presumably? 

Speaker 3: 

Correct. Or your keyboard. In my metaverse I've got- 

Speaker 2: 

Or your keyboard, oh, okay. 

Speaker 3: 

If I want to walk, I just hit my W key. If I want to walk backwards, I hit S. If I want to run, I hit Shift W. I can do back flips in the metaverse. I can dance in the metaverse, Tom. I can do things in the metaverse that I never had a chance of doing in real life. 

Speaker 2: 

So can you do the same thing with the mouse? I'm thinking, is this purely keyboard driven or VR driven, or is there an in-between with a mouse driven? 

Speaker 3: 

Yeah, there's an in between, but I prefer the keyboard. 

Speaker 2: 

Okay. Okay, got it. Well, you've been working it for 13 years, so I- 

Speaker 3: 

I'll say- 

Speaker 2: 

I still don't use keyboard for Excel, so [inaudible 00:14:03]- 

Speaker 3: 

This is the expressway to travel in the metaverse, whether you're within an office suite or a completely different part of the campus, there's a menu and you can hit the Go To button, you can go to a person, or you can go to a destination and you'll automatically port there. So that's the express route, but I like taking the walk because, again, you never know who you're running to. 

Speaker 2: 

Interesting, interesting. I mean, I'm a baby boomer. My generation is the least tech-savvy of all generations, except maybe the generation right before us, which is currently who's in office. It's not until Gen X that you really have tech-savvy people. How tech-savvy do you really need to be to operate in the metaverse? 

Speaker 3: 

Functionally, you don't need to be tech-savvy at all, and I think that's a misconception. People think you need to have this tech background, this tech facility. You don't have to have that at all. What I think where you need to be savvy is just in how you think about it. You need to be open to change, and you need to be open to the possibility that things could be a whole lot better if you embrace change. I think that there are organizations that are going to do that, and there are organizations that won't, they'll just be fearful of the technology. But it's not scary, it's not intimidating, and it's really quite easy. 

Speaker 2: 

Sure. It's kind of harking back to the Luddites who were afraid of the weaving machines. There are always Luddites among us. But that said, before we get into how it actually works and really the feeling behind it, in the beginning… because we're still in the beginning. I realize you've been using it for 13 years, but the rest of the world is pretty much in the beginning stages of metaverse. Just like back in the '90s we were in the beginning of the worldwide web and web development, et cetera, when you first developed a website, it was thousands and thousands of dollars to develop a website. Now it's plug and play, right? You just click and drag to create your website. What's going on in the metaverse as far as, if you wanted to go in and say, “Hey, I'm going to build… ” First of all, I presume you'd choose one of these platforms you were talking about, and then you go, “Okay.” Is this a plug and play thing or do I need somebody who really understands the technology behind it to actually go in and design this? Or do I just need really an office designer? 

Speaker 3: 

I think it helps, Tom, to have somebody on staff who's got some tech proficiency. We've got a couple of folks, in particular we've got our CTO, incredibly talented gentleman, then we've got a woman who's very well-versed in the metaverse everything from changing the name above an office when somebody moves out of the company and somebody new moves in, to creating new rooms, to granting access permissions, to putting up holiday decorations at Christmastime, making sure it's snowing in the winter and not snowing in the summer. These things sound silly, but they're really not. I mean, they're really important. And the thought that goes behind the design, there's certain things I think you want to accomplish with that. You want to make sure that leadership is accessible, for instance. I think that's one of the opportunities that the metaverse affords that you don't really get in traditional organizations where there's multiple locations. I mean, on any given day an agent could log in and just walk into my office in the metaverse and ask me how I'm doing. And the same thing is true at OMNUS Law today. 

Speaker 2: 

I don't mean to get too much into the detail here, but when you're designing it, are there people who this is what they do for a living- 

Speaker 3: 

Indeed. 

Speaker 2: 

… they design metaverse workspaces? Or are you looking at a traditional office space designer? 

Speaker 3: 

No, this would be a metaverse designer, someone who can create the artwork to create the design that you want. Typically, those people are going to be with the hosts of the platform, so in my case Virbela or Frame VR or any other platform. 

Speaker 2: 

Got it. Okay. So let's talk about the feel here, because one of my struggles, of course, that we alluded to earlier with not going into the office is, while I can see you here, it's very two-dimensional, right? 

Speaker 3: 

Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 2: 

There's lots of studies that show that from a communication standpoint only about 35% to 40% of our communication is either audio or even tone, it's about 40%. Where you've got about 57%, if I remember my numbers right, that is body language. You really don't get the same body language over Zoom as an example. 

Speaker 3: 

Not over Zoom. Right. 

Speaker 2: 

I mean, you're going to see my expression and you're going to hear my tone, but you're not going to see my body language. You can't even see that I am constantly moving my hands. And so you miss so much of that, which is one of the things I miss with the office, is that you miss having that true interaction from a communication standpoint. How do you overcome that in the metaverse? 

Speaker 3: 

Well, I think, first of all, there are expressions of emotion in the metaverse. So if I'm in a class with 1,000 other people, I can literally put my hand up and if the speaker looks up, they're going to see that my hand is up. I can jump for joy. I can shake hands. I can do a back flip in celebration. So there are ways to express yourself. I think there are also a lot of downsides to having that visual or nonverbal language. I think it creates all sorts of unconscious biases. One of the things I talk about is accessibility within the platform and how it opens up opportunities for, say, military spouses who are relocating every three years. We had an employee at exp that moved from Northern Virginia to Alabama to North Korea to South Korea, and throughout that entire time she remained employed because she was able to access the office wherever she was. 

Same thing applies for people with disabilities. I mean, you can bring somebody in and interview them for a position with the very best intentions, but I think if you ask people who are disabled, they'd tell you that oftentimes those interviews are colored in part because there's a disability and it's unavoidable in terms of seeing it. Somehow it colors somebody's opinion, or there's the risk that it will. I think in many respects the metaverse is an equalizer in that way. 

But I can tell you this, Tom, I mean, it is life-like, it is real, it is belly to belly. I could probably ask you, what are the things that you like most about being with people? But we had two agents who met in the metaverse for the very first time, and I'm proud to say or happy to say that they got married in the metaverse at the height of COVID. They had a live ceremony going on at the same time. But in the metaverse, I walked the bride down the aisle, and it was a big deal. Because people, whether they were able to attend or not, health reasons or not, or distance, whatever it might be, more people were able to attend and join the celebration, and afterwards they all danced. It was a big deal. It was picked up by a lot of international and national morning news shows. The New York Times covered it, I think. So real relationships and bonds can form. 

Another example, we had somebody who joined and went through our onboarding process and within six months, he who lived in the Pacific Northwest was performing at the wedding of the daughter of our onboarding specialist in Nevada. So they're very real, and I think they're easy to strike up. It's easy to build relationships in the metaverse because you're there for a single purpose, a shared purpose, and that's a natural conversation starter. 

Speaker 2: 

You asked the question, what is it that I like about being there? One is I like the physical touch of shaking somebody's hand. The physical energy is different. I mean, you can somewhat feel energy in a computer simulation like we are right now, but it's different. If we were in the same room, we would feel energy differently. Energy has a different transmission. There's a reason that you don't get viruses over the computer, because that energy cannot travel through the computer. Do you see a time in the future, is it going to be like the show Upload where we actually are wearing bodysuits and we actually can feel each other? Or you think, “No, we're just not going to. We're going to have to actually do get-togethers separately in order to have that physical connection.”? 

Speaker 3: 

Yeah, I'm probably not the best guy to ask about the bodysuits, but certainly the metaverse will continue to evolve, and it may become tactile at some point in terms of sense. But I would say to you this, right now you have that physical interaction, you're able to shake hands, and you're there for a meeting. And because you're there for the meeting, there's somewhere else you can't be. You might be missing an appointment with a client. You might be missing a business opportunity. You might be missing a doctor's appointment. What if we could instead say, “The savings that you're going to realize from operating in the metaverse are so substantial that on a weekly, if not daily basis, if you wanted to, you could have live social events wherever you want.”? And that gives an opportunity for people to really get physical and shake hands and get to know each other and understand and trust each other enough to give each other a hug eventually and build culture in that way. You just approach it in a different way, but it's no less interpersonal, no less engaging. I think if you look at the eXp story, I mean, these are real estate agents, these are people that all they want to do is be around people. 

Speaker 2: 

They are really social people. 

Speaker 3: 

Really social people. And yet, eXp became the fastest growing brokerage in the industry, and it's because we had thousands of people in a metaverse platform every day taking classes, learning from each other, sharing with each other. 

Speaker 2: 

So in ways you're finding that there's actually more connection in the metaverse than there would be in a traditional office space, in part because you've got the entire company, not just one office? 

Speaker 3: 

You've got the entire world. I mean, today with 90,000 agents, eXp has people that are speaking French, who practice different religions, different socioeconomic backgrounds. There's a lot of value in that diversity, not to mention the professional backgrounds that are very varied in real estate. But you bring that all together in one location and it's a pretty powerful force in terms of trying to build the company that you want. 

Speaker 2: 

That's an interesting comment about the cost savings are sufficient that you ought to be able to actually physically bring people together even from around the country, presumably. I mean, even my CPA firm, we have people who live in Florida, we have people who live in Iowa. We're a small CPA firm, 15 people, and yet we have people living around the country. We do fly them in, but then we also maintain an office. And so we could actually eliminate that physical office and do a true virtual office, which is what you're talking about with the metaverse. 

Speaker 3: 

That's right. I would say that you're going to save on the brick and mortar certainly, but you're also going to save on redundancy of staffing. If you've got six offices physically, that means you're going to have an office manager in each of those offices, you're going to have an onboarding specialist in each of those offices, you're going to have a tech support person in each of those offices. Now, think about an organization that wants to scale globally or nationally. You've got to replicate those roles in each and every place. So if you look at businesses today, many of them, a full 50% or more of their expenses are tied to brick and mortar and redundant staffing. And if you can take that out, I mean, there's more than enough money to have parties as cohesive towards building culture as you would like. 

In fact, there was an agent who joined us in Dallas several years ago who had an office building that she owned. She spent time in here for about three months, the next thing you know she sold the office building. I want to be clear about something too, I'm not anti-office. I don't believe eXp is anti-office. I know OMNUS certainly isn't anti-office. But what I am opposed to is telling a service professional that they've got to subsidize decisions that are completely out of their control and make no sense. When you have people that are expanding their office footprint, even though nobody's going into the original footprint, somebody's paying for that, and it's the service professional. It doesn't make sense. 

So by taking this approach, you're putting enough money back into the hands of that person so that they can get an office if they want to, and it can be in the location they want for the duration of time that they want, branded in however they would like it, consistent with regulation. So it's not about not having an office, it's about creating the office environment that you want and still having the money to do the things you want to do. 

Speaker 2: 

Got it. I can see where it's a huge benefit from a headquarters situation where you really don't need a headquarters. 

Speaker 3: 

That's right. 

Speaker 2: 

The headquarters is basically the metaverse. I mean, people have some physical place, they have to sit, and not everybody wants to physically sit in their home because they don't have a physical space. They have little children running around or something like that. They actually want to go someplace else and they need to go someplace else. What I'm hearing you say is, “Yes, but if we can eliminate the redundancies that come from having a corporate office, then maybe people just go to someplace like a… And I'll use the traditional WeWork space, a shared office space. And that's where they're working from or they actually are able to dedicate an office in their home because there's more money for them to do something like that. 

Speaker 3: 

You make a great point about WeWork and co-working spaces. Right now we're in the process that OMNUS of developing a relationship with companies like Regis and others, so that all of a sudden now the value prop to the client isn't, “Hey, will you come into my office?” Now it's, “Which of my offices would you like to come into? Or would you like me to meet over here?” Because a company like Regis has thousands of locations across the globe. The other thing about those coworking environments, I mean, if we think about any industry that's competitive, any sales industry, if you go into an office with other salespeople, you're probably looking for the same leads they're looking for. You might even take steps that are out of culture in order to get those leads or get a competitive advantage. You go to a WeWork, you go to a Regis, you're surrounded by individual business owners who aren't in competition with you. And if anything, you're going to make greater relationships with people who have different things to tell you, different things to share with you, and you're probably going to generate some business. 

Speaker 2: 

Interesting. We'll start to wrap up in just a minute here, but you call the metaverse the great equalizer. Why? 

Speaker 3: 

In part it's because of what I said earlier about accessibility for people with disabilities or unconscious bias in hiring decisions and things like that. I think it creates an opportunity too for people who maybe haven't been part of conversations around sensitive subjects and subjects that maybe they wouldn't attend a discussion on in real life. There's a way to sort of expose yourself to different viewpoints, different perspectives without having to worry about what people might think. I think that's certainly the case. 

And then if we look at certain industries, and I guess housing is one of them, and if you look at the studies over the years, oftentimes there are communities who are underrepresented in housing because offices decide to locate their physical space in affluent locations or what it is. The metaverse allows a company to service all people equally without having a physical location in one place. 

The other thing, when I think about it, you have pockets of geography around this country that are surrounded by mountain ranges or bodies of water, they're small localities. And in those places, there's one or two heavy players that basically dictate the terms of business for everybody. It doesn't leave a lot of room for improvement or advancement for people in the industry. But you go in now without having to make the investment in physical space, because that's why there's limited choice, the demographics just don't make sense to go put a physical office in place. But now you can go in there and you can offer a true alternative to people. That's absolutely a game-changer, irrespective of whatever geographical boundaries may exist. 

Speaker 2: 

I love it. That's really interesting. So before we wrap up here and actually take a trip into the metaverse for those who are watching this, then could you give us just two or three steps, what are the first steps that a business owner would take to pursue opening up their office into a metaverse? 

Speaker 3: 

I think the first thing is you got to assess your business and see where the pain points are, and you have to ask yourself the question, “Is there a way to deploy the metaverse effectively that's going to alleviate those pain points?” I mean, if you're operating a restaurant, you're probably not going to work out of the metaverse. But I think if you can satisfy yourself of that answer, if the answer to that question is yes, then you take a look at your whole industry and you say, “Which of these pain points are shared among my competitors?” And if you really start to look at it, you can find some real opportunities to change the landscape and create a competitive advantage even if you're the smallest guy in the field. 

Speaker 2: 

Okay, so there's step number one, we got to assess the business. Step number two? 

Speaker 3: 

And so once you answer that question and you decide that there's a way to really create opportunity in the metaverse, you need to drive the behavior. At eXp, and this started with Glenn, he would say, “Don't call me if you need me. Come into my metaverse office.” And I think that for existing organizations is the big shift because you really have to get people to pivot. I think it's probably easier to start something new and start in the metaverse on day one and really drive that behavior. I think the transition's a little bit tougher, but at the same time, because of the economics, we've had independent owners, sole proprietors that come over, eliminate their costs, all of a sudden now go from an unprofitable situation to a profitable situation, and they're able to tap into markets that previously weren't available to them. 

Speaker 2: 

So just to give people perspective, what kind of cost are people looking at to develop a metaverse space for a small business? 

Speaker 3: 

Yeah, that's going to really depend on the vendor and the relationship you have with the vendor. I think custom design is going to be more expensive. 

Speaker 2: 

Let's assume you have no relationship because you're brand new to this because the first place we heard this was from Jason Gesing. Are we talking about two or $3,000, 20 to $30,000, $100,000? What are we talking about? 

Speaker 3: 

It's going to depend on the size of the organization, what their needs are, and the extent to which the platform has to be customized. I'd be doing a disservice if I tried to put a price here, because I think the important point- 

Speaker 2: 

A good attorney response, it depends. We're going to have to research. 

Speaker 3: 

No, it doesn't depend because the answer at the end of the day, Tom, is it costs a fraction of what you would expend on brick and mortar and heating bills and electric bills and insurance policies and slip and fall and maintenance people. I mean, you add that all up, there's no comparison. 

Speaker 2: 

I get that. I'm an accountant. 

Speaker 3: 

I wish I could answer. I wish I could ans,. 

Speaker 2: 

I understand. I'm always going to ask. Accountants, we always want to know what the bottom line is, at least some kind of range. But I guess that's something that people are going to have to research as to what kind of cost that is before they get into it. 

Speaker 3: 

I'll just say, it impacted the bottom line at eXp enough that we became the fastest growing brokerage, we've issued dividends for consecutive years I think. Profitability has not been elusive. It's a business model that's been able to adapt with the times. A lot of variable cost structure, you can pull back, you can push forward depending on the dynamics of the business. 

Speaker 2: 

I love it. So Jason Gesing the book is, again [inaudible 00:33:54]- 

Speaker 3: 

The Metaverse Workplace Revolution. 

Speaker 2: 

… Revolution. 

Speaker 3: 

Yes, sir. 

Speaker 2: 

I love the subtitle, A Path to Greater Profitability, a Stronger Culture and Industry Disruption, which clearly you did at eXp. Where can we go from more information about basically you and what you're doing? 

Speaker 3: 

Yeah, so I think the easiest place for folks is probably jasongesing.com, jason G-E-S-I-N-G.com. Or you can feel free to send me an email at Jasongesing@omnuslaw.com, O-M-N-U-S. I'd love to give you a tour, any of your listeners a tour. If you want to come in, you want to meet the [inaudible 00:34:32], you want to try it out, you want to speak to some people on our team and let them tell you how it's been and tell you where the pain points are and the obstacles and the things to watch out for, traps for the [inaudible 00:34:40], love to have you in. We'd just love to have you in and meet you. So reach out by all means, I'd enjoy that. 

Speaker 2: 

Thank you, Jason. I mean, this is such a real possible solution for those of us who are struggling with are we working virtually, are we working in the office. How are we doing that? This is a real potential solution. People have been struggling this with this for two years now. I really appreciate, Jason. Just remember, when we do look at new ideas and look at a new way to do it, the end result is always way more money and way less tax. We'll see you all next time, but stay tuned if you're on the YouTube channel and Jason will give you a tour of OMNUS' metaverse. Stay tuned. 

Speaker 1: 

You've been listening to The Wealthability Show with Tom Wheelwright. Way more money, way less taxes. To learn more, go to wealthability.com.