Who’s In Charge?

Left Main REI
  • 5.0 (18)
  • Entrepreneurship

Ever wonder who’s behind the desk at the very top? What got them there? Who are they at home with their families? Hosted by Stephanie and Zach Betters—the duo behind multiple companies—this show is for real estate investors and business owners who are tired of the hustle and are ready to scale their companies and themselves as leaders. Stephanie and Zach combine their high-stakes medical backgrounds with growth-driven business strategy to break down the systems, leadership, and behind-the-scenes conversations at home that determine whether —the companies and the marriage behind them — thrives or falls apart. We talk about what it takes to run a successful company and learn about who the leaders are that are in charge of them. We talk about how to execute from idea to scale and all the lessons learned from building teams,systems, wealth, and partnerships. Stop chasing deals and start being a leader. It’s time to find out Who’s In Charge. Presented by Left Main REI Learn more at www.leftmainrei.co

  1. 4d ago

    Stop Creating Jobs, Start Building Businesses

    What does it look like when someone goes from fixing and flipping houses in post-crash Las Vegas to co-founding a $165 million venture-backed real estate technology company — twice? This week, Stephanie and Zach sit down with Josh Stech, co-founder of Sundae, for one of the most framework-rich, intellectually honest conversations the podcast has ever produced. Josh brings the kind of clarity that only comes from building at scale: a 4S decision-making framework that diagnoses why most teams talk past each other, a gut-level philosophy on co-founding versus solo founding, and a warning about AI-driven marketing shifts that every real estate operator needs to hear right now. But underneath all the frameworks is something more personal — a guy who knows himself well enough to admit he needs a co-founder the same way he needs a gym buddy, who invests in the entrepreneurs that spin out of his companies rather than trying to stop them, and who believes the most dangerous thing you can tell yourself is that you don't need anyone else. Josh and Stephanie also go deep on what it means to compete from a place of passion versus a place of strategy, why the customer is the only filter that matters for innovation, and how to lead a team through the AI wave without losing their agency in the process. This one is packed. Key Takeaways Most people don't build businesses — they create jobs for themselves. Josh's distinction is one of the sharpest in the episode: if your decision-making lens is "can I quickly turn this into active income for me," you're not thinking like a business builder. You're thinking like a self-employed person. The infrastructure, human capital, and discipline required to build at scale is a completely different game.The 4S Framework: Sense, Seek, Solve, Start. When a team feels like it's talking past itself, it's usually because people are on different S's. Some want to jump straight to solving before anyone has asked why the problem exists. Some get stuck in sensing and never move. Naming which S you're on is one of the fastest ways to get a room aligned.You can't sustainably beat someone who bleeds for the mission. Josh's take on passion versus strategy is unambiguous: even if you're smarter, better capitalized, and more operationally sophisticated, you cannot maintain a sustainable advantage over someone who actually cares about the problem. Passion is the only moat that compounds.Solo founders may just be avoiding the hard work of collaboration. This is the most provocative idea in the episode — that some people convince themselves they don't need a co-founder not because they're built for it, but because recruiting collaborators and capital is hard, and it's easier to tell yourself you work better alone.If you don't feel ahead on AI marketing, you're further behind than you think. Of the six Fs of real estate investing — find it, figure it, fund it, fix it, fill it, flip it — Josh believes the "find it" piece is about to be completely transformed by the shift from search to discovery. Operators who aren't actively ahead of this curve are already falling behind.Left Main is more than just a CRM, it's an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home

    1h 3m

  2. May 21

    More Problems, More Revenue, More Happy

    What does it actually look like when a company turns the corner — not from a highlight reel moment, but from the slow, unglamorous work of facing what you've been avoiding? In this solo episode, Stephanie and Zach pull back the curtain on what's working right now in both Better Path Homes and Left Main REI. No guests, no polish — just a raw, honest conversation about burnout disguised as boredom, the three hires that changed everything, and why doing 10x turned out to be dramatically easier than trying to double. Zach opens up about something most CEOs won't admit: he knew exactly what it would take to grow his sales team — and he simply didn't want to do it. Stephanie unpacks why that's more common than anyone talks about, and how the right operations support doesn't just fix a business problem, it gives a leader their identity back. Along the way they get into AI as a distraction versus a force multiplier, the gold rush mentality that's pulling entrepreneurs off their core mission, and the Left Main product releases that have been two years in the making. If you've ever felt like you were drifting from your own company — or secretly hoping the pain wouldn't get bad enough to force a change — this episode is going to hit different. Key Takeaways Knowing what to do and wanting to do it are two different problems. Zach's honest admission — that he knew how to grow the sales team and chose not to — is one of the most underdiagnosed growth killers in entrepreneurship. Pain is the motivator. Don't wait until it's catastrophic.Operations support isn't a luxury, it's the unlock. The shift at Better Path didn't come from a new strategy. It came from three key hires — a COO, a Revenue Operations lead, and a Sales Operations manager — that gave Zach the room to operate in his zone and show up with energy again. One operations hire is never enough.AI is the new logo design rabbit hole. Spending weeks building an AI tool instead of closing deals is the 2026 version of spending weeks on a business card instead of making calls. AI should make you more effective at the one thing you're already doing — not distract you into building a product you don't need.Completion is the revenue. Zach's 80% clean room analogy lands hard: in business, an uncompleted task doesn't pay. Focus isn't just about choosing the right thing — it's about committing to it all the way through, not until the next shiny object appears.Measure backwards before you spiral forward. Stephanie's moment of overwhelm — am I doing enough for the podcast, the companies, the kids, the marriage — is universal. The antidote isn't doing more. It's stopping to look at what actually got done and giving yourself credit for the distance traveled. Left Main is more than just a CRM, it's an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home

    58 min

  3. May 14

    No One Is Coming to Save You

    What happens when two people who started as business partners — and not even friends — end up building one of the most solid entrepreneurial marriages in real estate? This week, Stephanie and Zach welcome Matt Theriault of Epic Real Estate and his partner Mercedes Torres for a double date conversation that gets refreshingly honest about ego, adaptability, and what it actually means to be a team. Mercedes admits Matt couldn't stand her when they first met. Matt admits he's been married and divorced twice before. And together, they share the one distinction that changed everything: when you love someone, why would you ever want them to lose just so you can win? What unfolds is a masterclass in partnership under pressure. Matt and Mercedes open up about the five hardest years of their business lives — COVID wiped out their thriving live events company almost overnight, and they spent two years hoping it would come back before finally accepting it wouldn't. What pulled them through wasn't a strategy. It was the same thing that built their relationship in the first place: complementary strengths, zero tolerance for "I told you so," and the discipline to focus on one thing when everything felt like it was falling apart. From eight throw pillows arranged in exactly the right order to the real reason employees stay on a team for a decade — this episode is packed with the kind of wisdom that only comes from going through the fire together. Left Main is more than just a CRM, it's an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home Key Takeaways Stop trying to win the argument. Matt's reframe is simple and devastating: if you love someone, why would you want them to lose? The moment he heard that, he called Mercedes and squashed a days-long argument immediately. Needing to be right is a relationship liability — in marriage and on your team.Peers make the best partners. Matt and Mercedes saw each other as equals from day one — not romantically, but professionally. That peer-level respect meant their strengths and weaknesses were treated as assets, not ammunition. Whether you work together or not, how you position your partner in your mind shapes everything.Swim in your own lane — by design. Mercedes made a deliberate choice early: separate offices, separate drives to work, separate domains. Not because they didn't trust each other, but because she refused to get sick of her husband. Intentional boundaries aren't distance — they're protection for the relationship.No one is coming to save you. Matt's most honest moment: they had plenty of friends offering sympathy and pats on the back during the hard years. None of it improved the situation. At some point you stop waiting for the storm to pass and start building in the rain.Humility is a strength, not a weakness. Mercedes calls it out directly — vulnerability and humility get mistaken for weakness constantly. But the leaders whose teams stay for ten years, whose partners still choose them after 17, are the ones who can say "I don't know" and "you take this one" without it costing them their identity.Left Main is more than just a CRM, it's an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home

    1h 4m

  4. May 7

    Are you the same person at home and at work?

    Eric Brewer is a name that real estate investors recognize — but this episode isn't about the deals. It's about what happens behind the billboard. This week, Stephanie and Zach sit down with Eric and his wife Sonia for a rare, unfiltered look at the relationship that has quietly anchored one of the most recognized names in REI. It starts with a bar, a rejected tip, and a woman who had zero interest in skipping the line for anyone — and it evolves into one of the most honest conversations we've had on this show about what it actually takes to build a life and a business at the same time. What unfolds is a master class in the kind of personal development that doesn't come from a book. Eric opens up about the pivotal moment he realized his toxic habits would cost him everything he'd built at home — and the deliberate, unglamorous steps he took to change course. Sonia shares what it looked like to watch that transformation from the inside, and why she never loved the younger version of Eric as much as she loves who he is today. Together, they reveal the one piece of advice that every entrepreneur building something with a partner desperately needs to hear: the people at work should say the same things about you that the people at home do. If there's a gap, something's broken — and it's worth fixing. Left Main is more than just a CRM, it's an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home Key Takeaways Character alignment is the real work-life balance. Eric's core insight — that your colleagues and your family should describe you the same way — reframes balance from a scheduling problem into an identity problem. If you're exhausting your best self at the office, you're not leading at home. You're just occupying space.Fail forward, then fail forward again. Sonia's lived example is the proof: navigating airports alone with five kids felt impossible when she had two. The confidence to handle anything isn't given — it's built through every mess you survive. Don't wait to feel ready. Get the reps.The partner who holds the line is the greatest asset you have. Sonia didn't chase Eric out of his self-destructive phase — she communicated her non-negotiables clearly and let him decide. That boundary, held with love and patience, was the catalyst for his most important growth. Leaders in business know this instinctively: guardrails drive performance.Children are a forced personal development program. Eric and Sonia return to this theme repeatedly — each child, each stage, each chaotic Wednesday is a live training exercise in communication, patience, creativity under pressure, and leading without all the answers. The skills transfer directly to any transaction, negotiation, or team you'll ever manage.Over-communicate before you under-deliver. Both Eric and Sonia agree: the tendency to assume your partner knows what you need is the single most expensive habit in a marriage and a business. Speak it plainly. Ask for help directly. The alternative — hoping someone reads your mind — has a 0% success rate.Left Main is more than just a CRM, it’s an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home

    1h 8m

  5. Apr 30

    The Revenue Ceilings Nobody Talks About

    Most entrepreneurs hit a wall and assume something is broken. The revenue stops growing, the team feels chaotic, and no matter how hard they push, nothing moves. What Zach and Stephanie Betters know — after 12 years of building real estate investment and SaaS businesses — is that hitting a ceiling isn't a sign you're failing. It's a sign you've graduated. In Episode 10 of Who's In Charge?, Stephanie maps out the exact revenue ceilings every REI operator will face — $1M, $3M, $5M, $10M, and $15M — and more importantly, the specific milestone that unlocks each one: proof of concept, funnel mastery, people and redundancy, data depth, and strategic business development. This isn't theory. It's the hard-won framework from operators who have lived every stage. But the real thread running through this conversation is personal. Zach opens up about a difficult moment of self-reckoning — the realization that he skipped the manager stage entirely, coasting on Stephanie's operational strength until the cracks became impossible to ignore. It's a rare and honest admission that will resonate with any entrepreneur who has ever led with vision but struggled with execution. This episode is ultimately about who you have to become — not just what you have to do — to break through each ceiling. Because your business will only grow as fast as you do. Left Main is more than just a CRM, it's an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home Key Takeaways The ceiling defines the cure. Each revenue threshold — $1M, $3M, $5M, $10M, $15M — requires a completely different skill set to break through. Hustle gets you to the first million. Mastering your funnel gets you to three. People and redundancy get you to five. You can't skip the order.Two is one and one is none. Single points of failure in any department — especially sales — will cap your revenue ceiling and drag leadership back into gap-filling. Build redundancy before you need it, especially in sales, where team energy and competition are critical to consistent performance.You can't manage what you can't see. Funnel visibility isn't a luxury — it's the diagnostic tool that tells you which lever to pull. Without it, you'll optimize a $100 problem while ignoring a $30,000 one. A centralized system with real-time dashboards isn't optional at any stage.Most businesses die of indigestion, not starvation. At the $10M ceiling, the temptation is to expand into new markets and go wide. The actual move is to go deep — master your data, tighten your efficiencies, and say no to everything outside your core genius zone.Your business grows to the level of its leadership — and not a dollar more. At every ceiling, the person in charge must evolve. The producer becomes a manager. The manager becomes a leader. The leader becomes a strategist. Imposter syndrome at each stage isn't a red flag — it's confirmation you're in the right place. Left Main is more than just a CRM, it’s an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home

    59 min

  6. Apr 23

    Give Them The Pickle

    Are you stuck in an "industry echo chamber"? In this episode, Stephanie and Zachary Betters challenge leaders to break out of their vertical and look to the outside world for innovation. From the high-stakes world of 1950s open-heart surgery to the efficiency of a Chick-fil-A drive-thru, they discuss how asking specific questions can lead to $15 solutions for million-dollar problems. The duo explores the "Hospitality of the Drive-Thru," the car dealership's marketing and negotiation tactics, and the "Tamiflu Strategy"—a mindset shift focused on winning by just one day. Learn why the thing that angers you as a consumer is your greatest opportunity as a business owner and how a "shameless" pursuit of clarity can give you a massive competitive advantage. Key Takeaways Formulating the Specific Question: Why "What can I learn?" is too broad, but "How do I get bubbles out of the tubing?" leads to breakthrough innovation.The "One Day Better" Focus: How focusing on cutting just 24 hours out of your sales cycle can revolutionize your cash conversion.Hospitality vs. Service: Taking cues from Chick-fil-A to reduce perceived wait times and increase customer "delight."The Shameless Beginner: Why being the person willing to admit "I don't know what that word means" is a superpower in rooms full of ego.The Slider Adjustment: Realizing that massive success often comes from an "eighth of an inch" tweak in your process, not a total overhaul.Left Main is more than just a CRM, it’s an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home

    41 min

  7. Apr 16

    The Greatest Competitive Advantage

    Episode DescriptionIn this episode, Stephanie and Zachary Betters explore the concept of "living a hundred lives" and how a diverse background—from medicine to high-stakes entrepreneurship—is actually a massive competitive advantage. They debunk the myth that you need decades of industry-specific experience to be successful, arguing instead that the lessons learned in "previous lives" are exactly what make you an unstoppable leader. From the high-pressure hallways of a hospital to the relentless world of real estate and SaaS, Zach and Stephanie share personal stories about being "pimped" (medical questioning), handling life-altering detours, and finding the "extra gear" that keeps you in the game. They discuss why the very thing you think is holding you back—whether it’s a career shift or a personal setback—is often the reason you will ultimately win. Key Takeaways Empathy as a Business Tool: Why the ability to see the world through a patient’s eyes translates directly into building a customer-centric company.The Humility of the Beginner: How to be shameless in asking for clarity, admitting what you don't know, and getting to the right answer instead of needing to be "right."Detours as Foundations: Why a life-altering ATV accident and failing high school were the exact catalysts needed to build a medical career and, eventually, a business empire.Trained by  "Pimping: How the high-stakes interrogation of medical training taught the importance of having a culture of accuracy instead of protecting yourself from embarrassment. Radical Transparency: How honest communication at home and in the office builds a foundation of trust that allows a company to move fast and far.Left Main is more than just a CRM, it’s an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home

    59 min

  8. Apr 9

    From Kitchen Table Mailers to 250 Deals a Year

    Episode Summary: In this episode, Stephanie and Zachary Betters sit down with Hunter and Andrea Jarvis of Legacy Homebuyers. Hunter and Andrea share their 10-year journey from Hunter’s early days as a "problem child" in the corporate banking world to building one of the most respected real estate investment firms in Dallas, TX. They dive deep into the "messy middle" of leaving a W2, the importance of maintaining a "delusionally" positive mindset, and why keeping a sense of humor (and a good scare prank) is the secret to a lasting partnership. Key Timestamps: [14:11] The U of A Love Story: How a football player and a soccer player teamed up.[16:33] The "Creepy" Start: Handwriting mailers with photos of houses at the kitchen table.[20:00] The Bishop & The Stripper Pole: Hunter’s wild first real estate deal.[24:55] The Stoplight Analogy: Why you can't wait for every light to be green to start your business.[28:20] Identifying the Zone of Genius: Why Andrea decided not to be a lead manager.[33:33] The Leap of Faith: Transitioning from a Private Equity W2 to full-time entrepreneurship with two babies at home.[40:00] Handling the "Holiday Blues": Dealing with the seasonality of real estate.[45:36] Boundaries & Hiding Phones: How the Jarvises protect family time.[53:01] The Prank War: Why laughter and "scare pranks" are essential for entrepreneurial couples.[01:03:44] The 10-Year Zoom Out: Scaling from 30 deals to 250+ deals a year.Left Main is more than just a CRM, it’s an end-to-end Real Estate Investment operations solution to run your company as an actual business with sales systems embedded. Want to find out more, book a call today, leftmainrei.co or whosinchargepodcast.com/home

    56 min
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About

Ever wonder who’s behind the desk at the very top? What got them there? Who are they at home with their families? Hosted by Stephanie and Zach Betters—the duo behind multiple companies—this show is for real estate investors and business owners who are tired of the hustle and are ready to scale their companies and themselves as leaders. Stephanie and Zach combine their high-stakes medical backgrounds with growth-driven business strategy to break down the systems, leadership, and behind-the-scenes conversations at home that determine whether —the companies and the marriage behind them — thrives or falls apart. We talk about what it takes to run a successful company and learn about who the leaders are that are in charge of them. We talk about how to execute from idea to scale and all the lessons learned from building teams,systems, wealth, and partnerships. Stop chasing deals and start being a leader. It’s time to find out Who’s In Charge. Presented by Left Main REI Learn more at www.leftmainrei.co

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  • Creator
    Left Main REI
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    15
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Who’s In Charge. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Who’s In Charge?