6 Reasons Why Most Agents Will Fail in Real Estate in 2025 & Beyond

Lars Hedenberg breaks down six reasons real estate agents fail: no multi-year vision, unmeasurable goals, poor time management, weak lead generation and conversion systems, and not thinking like a business owner. He walks through frameworks like PLAN S and four business pillars to fix each one.
Having helped over 2,000 agents scale their businesses since 2013 and having served over 5,000 families in my real estate sales journey, I have seen the good, bad and ugly in terms of what works and what doesn't work. In today's video, I'm going to share the six reasons why most agents will fail in real estate not only in 2025, but beyond. So make sure you stick around for number six. That's where it all comes together. My name is Lars Hedenberg. I'm the founder of Real Estate B School and the creator of the Million Dollar agent met a 90 day program where we implement all the lead gen systems, all the lead conversion systems, all the sales frameworks for agents to get away from paid leads, to get away from cold calling, to get away from begging for referrals. Before I get into the six reasons, please make sure you subscribe to the channel, hit that like button, turn the notifications on so you get videos as soon as they come out. Reason number one, why agents will fail this year and in the future. No clear vision for their business. So most agents, I would argue 99% of agents aren't thinking about their business three or five years from now. Not like I did everything right in my journey, but very early on in my journey I made the decision that I was going to write down very specifically where I wanted my business to be. Not only from a unit standpoint, but how much money was I taking home, how many weeks did I take off, you know, what my debt situation looked like, what my days look like if I was working with just buyers or more listings where leverage was going to exist in my business. I did that for not only three years out, I did it for five years and I also did it for 10 years. So this was late 2009. This was the year I did 58 transactions, my second full year in the business. I wrote down very specifically what 2012 that was year three, what 2014 was, year five and then 2020 or 19. I forget how the numbers worked out, but I had a three year vision, a five year vision and a ten year vision. So I was pre deciding what I wanted my business to look like and how my business was going to serve me. A typical real estate agent is never going to be able to get out of the grind of real estate because they're not thinking about their business like a true business. And the first thing you need to do is declare in advance the vision for your business. Reason number two, why most agents will fail is that they don't have Any goals. And if they do have goals, they're not actually broken down in a way that they can be measured. When I got into real estate early on, I hired a coach. The coach coach helped me break down how to get to 50 transactions per year. It's not enough just to declare it, but you actually have to write down what are the activities I need to do to get to 50 transactions per year. My first full year in real estate, that first year I hired a coach, I sold 44 homes, we broke down. I didn't hit 50, but we broke down exactly to sell 44 homes. Or essentially four closings per month. Mind you, this was my first full year in real estate and I out produced every agent in my office. Some of the agents were 15, 20 years in the business. And I don't say that from an ego standpoint. I simply decided that I was going to sell 50 homes in that year. And I just broke down that goal into the things I needed to do to achieve it. And it's only four numbers. It's meaningful conversations. It's appointments set, appointments met and new client sign. Those are the four leading indicators that I focused on. Most agents, not only do they not have a goal, but if they do have a goal, they're not breaking it down into the numbers that can be actually measured. And then it's as simple as just committing to doing the things necessary, those leading indicators so that you're going to leave no chance to achieving your goals. Reason number three is agents don't have a time management system in place. So once you declare a vision and you have specific goals around production and those leading indicators, you have to have a time management system in place. But how do you actually block out time for the things that matter even more than selling homes, family time, or date nights, or going to church, or you know, having lunch with friends, the things that truly enrich our lives, those are the first things to go. If you don't have a time management system in place and for the time that you do commit to your business, how do you time block in a way where you're working on the most dollar productive activities? The times of day where you have the most amount of focus and energy, that's the key to making an unreasonable amount of money in a reasonable amount of time. Here's the cool thing. There's only five things that make you the kind of money that I know you want to make in real estate. And there's a simple acronym for it. It's P L A N S Prospecting or what we call new business development. Lead follow up appointments with new buyers and sellers, negotiating deals or getting homes under contract and then systems building the systems out in the business that provide massive leverage so you can make that unreasonable amount of money in a reasonable amount of time. And if you time block your calendar according to these five things that make you a lot of money, you will find your hourly wage in your business. Go through the roof. I was able to go from less than $50 per hour my first full year in real est to 150 to 250 to 500 to 1000 to 2000 to $4000 per hour the year I only worked 42 days in my business and I nearly took home a seven figure income, I was able to earn that $4,000 per hour worked. That's what's possible when you have a time management system in place. Reason number four, agents don't have lead generation systems installed in their business. Most agents are either paying for leads or they're cold calling or they're door knocking or they're paying for expensive referral fees, closings. Maybe they're holding open houses but nobody shows up or they're posting on social media and nothing happens. There's no engagement. We have 12 proven lead generation levers that we teach folks that come into Million Dollar Agent method which is a 13 week implementation program. If you want more information on it, go to milliondollaragentmethod.com the backdrop of this though, even if you never become a private client of ours, you have to build out lead generation systems. We call them lead generation levers, each of which need to be good for one to two plus transactions. That's how I viewed my business differently. If I was going to implement a lead gen system or what we call a lead gen lever, in my mind, it had to be good for 50 transactions per year. So the year I sold 453 homes, I worked 42 days. I had way more leads than the team could possibly handle. But only six legion levers installed my business on average. Each of those legion levers do the math real quick. 450 divided by 6 is 80, 75, 75 or 80 deals per legion level. That's what's possible when you have a time management system in place. They won't have a chance of selling multiple homes on a single legion lever. So focus on systems in your business and the most important systems are the lead generation systems. Reason number five is most agents don't have lead conversion systems installed in their business. So it's one thing to generate a lead, it's an entirely different thing to convert that lead into a face to face consultation. There are a lot of moving parts here. Whether it's your new lead sequence or the email and text and video sequences that go out when a new buyer lead or new seller lead, or even if a referral comes in, how do you treat that referral? Essentially to pre sell them on your services. So when they're ready to sit down with you for a consultation, they already know who you are, they like you and they see you as an authority. That's the biggest difference in the way we help agents build out their systems is that there's this never ending virtuous cycle of ready, willing and able buyers and sellers that are raising their hands and they're ready to meet with you versus you having to struggle to find your next buyer and seller. These lead conversion systems do all of that heavy lifting for you. Whether you're with your family or you're sleeping or you're with a client. These leads are getting nurtured so that they're pre sold on working with you and they're willing to pay your commissions, they're willing to pay your transaction fees, and they're going to be a raving lunatic fan of your services because everything you've done from the moment they came into your world, to the moment you meet with them, to the moment you get them under contract till they close. And beyond is scripted in such a way where it's only value add and you're differentiating yourself from the pack of real estate agents out there that honestly have no idea that this is the real game of business. Reason number six, why most agents will fail in real estate, not only in 2025, but beyond, is that they're not thinking like business owners. So they don't have a vision, they don't have any plans, they don't have any goals, they have no time management systems, or they're not even thinking about lead conversion systems or lead generation systems. They're haphazardly going about their day, worried about either the deal that's blowing up in front of or where that next deal is coming from. If you really want to scale your business and do it predictably, sustainably, where you're making a lot of money in a little amount of time or a reasonable amount of time, and have a limited amount of stress, so you can do it predictably and you could do it for the long term and amass a significant amount of wealth, it requires you to Think strategically and a business is simply a system of systems. So in Million Dollar Agent method, and this is true, if you never become a private client of ours, you still have to think about the business in terms of the key pillars. There are key pillars that allow our members to scale from maybe five or 10 transactions a year to two a month to four a month or six or eight homes per month and beyond. It requires that you think about the business like a business. Those four pillars are number one, leverage lead generation, number two, the appointment setting process, number three, your sales frameworks, and number four, leverage client care. And of course, if you come into our world, our Million Dollar Agent method is only a 90 day program. We'll build out all of these systems with you. You own them fore referral fees, no paid leads, no begging for business anymore. And by the end of the 90 days, you're going to add an additional two to three plus closings per month and you will scale the business from there. And that's how a business owner thinks about growing their business. It's not finding that next deal or like, where am I going to pay for my next lead, it's how do I become a marketer in my business, how do I build the systems for sales where people are happy to work with me and pay my commissions and my transaction fees. It's a completely different mindset, the technician mindset, where you're just grinding on the deals and you're never lifting your head up to see what's possible versus this business owner mindset or the visionary mindset to really declare what the future is going to look like and to get to work, to build out that future system by system. And that's the journey of the business owner. So if you know you need help implementing systems in your business, maybe you've been at this for four or five years or maybe 10, 12, 15 years. The traditional methods that are being taught in our industry do not work. And what I mean by that is that they're not helping agents get to that 2, 3, 4, 5 deals per month where you could bank an extra 15, 20 or $25,000 cash per month can go into savings or investment or giving. That's the kind of freedom that I'm talking about. So go to milliondollaragentmethod.com it's just a conversation to see where you're at in your business business, what's possible, where you want to go, what are the obstacles and challenges you're experiencing and why you haven't been able to get there. On your own. And if there's an opportunity to work together and it makes sense for both of us, we will definitely talk about it. So go to milliondollaragentmethod. Com. We'll see you there, and we'll see you on the next video.










