8 Reasons You Need a MENTOR to Succeed in Real Estate
20 Mar 2025 · 17 min
Lars Hedenborg argues real estate agents need mentorship to scale. He's coached 5,000+ families since 2013 and spent $1.2 million on his own coaching. A mentor saves years of trial-and-error, provides systems for lead generation, and helps you prioritize what actually moves the needle.
This is going to be about the eight reasons why you must seek a mentor if you want to grow your real estate business.
The real estate industry has failed to create a clear path to time and money freedom. Having helped over 5,000 families in my real estate career and coached thousands of agents to scale their businesses, I know.
What works and what doesn't.
And my goal on this podcast is to share all with you the good, bad and ugly of building a highly lucrative lifestyle business so you can focus on what truly matters in life. You won't find any hype or fluff on this show, just real world tactics and strategies that get results.
You just gotta do the work. Now I get on the one hand why this may seem a little self serving. I've been a real estate business coach helping real estate agents grow and scale their businesses since 2013. So as of the recording 12 years in doing this, thousands of agents have been through our world and adopted our lead generation lead conversion systems. Most recently last couple years we've been going real heavy on implementation with our 90 day program million dollar Agent Method. As I'm recording this, I have five coaches overall right now my journey for growth is probably never going to end. And so what I'm going to go through is not something I just think you should do. It's something I've experienced. I've spent over. I stopped counting. At a million dollars invested, I'm probably at 1.2, 1.3 or even a little bit more invested. It's been a 10x return.
Right.
So in terms of like the direct investment and the financial return, a 10x return across the boards, yeah. Have there been coaching programs or mentors where I didn't get a lot of value? For sure, but usually for the season I'm in, I usually find the right person to get me to that next level or that next season of growth. So let's dive into the eight reasons why really you should consider mentorship. And if it's us, that is great. If it's not us, that is great as well. But reason number one is accountability. Raise your hand if you are your own worst boss. We let ourselves off the hook for so many things that if you had a corporate job and you had a corporate job in sales and there was structure and you had a manager, you'd probably lose your job on day one. 99% of agents, if you follow them around for a single day and you monitor their activities, did you actually do the job of a real estate salesperson today, let alone business building, which is the System side of things, which is what we specialize in, but the accountability to do the things necessary to build out your business and grow your income. And accountability is a requirement. Take a time, maybe where you're focused on your physical body, what motivated you to work hard for three months or four months, it's typically someone, an accountability partner or you hired a coach that is going to meet you at the gym three times a week and they're going to track your macros and they're going to look at all the numbers and hold you accountable. And they're not going to, you know, you're not going to not show up for them and they're not going to let you not show up for them. So, so accountability is number one. So number two reason why you want to seek out mentorship is experience. You know, typically anyone that comes into our world, they're looking, they've taken their business to a certain level and they're looking to take their business to that next level. So let me give you a concrete example. The way we've laid it out is that it's a four stage journey. And what gets you to a hundred thousand GCI is different than what gets you to the 250 to, to 500 and then ultimately to a million. And there's just different mindsets and different systems to build out and different delegations and automations. There's so many different aspects and if you aren't working with somebody that has navigated all those stages of growth, chances are you're not going to be able to do it yourself. There are a lot of coaching programs out there or mentors that they'll claim that they can get you to the next season of growth. But if they haven't gotten to 250kgci or 500kgci, it's like the blind leading the blind. So they have to have a baseline level of experience at that next stage or a couple stages beyond where you're at in your business growth journey. So number three, the third reason why you want to seek mentorship if you're looking to grow your real estate business, is that typically a really good mentor, they have the systems that you'll need to implement to get to that next stage of growth. So if you're going from 100k to 250k, typically there are lead generation systems, there are lead conversion systems. It's not just putting in more effort, there's only so many hours in a day. Typically the answer to that next stage of growth is systems. And when I define a Business, Right. That is the work that we help agents do. I consider a business as simply a system of systems and you know, we work together for 90 days with our members in million dollar agent methods and we help them build out actual lead generation systems that are documented and will run for many years to come. Outside of the 90 days, we work together lead conversion systems that nurture emails and text sequences or video, the process you use to secure listings or to secure buyers, or the client care processes and checklists that you use to deliver a world class service to your clients that doesn't rely solely on you, the byproduct of which are referrals.
Right.
Every transaction we want another transaction to come just via the world class experience that you've documented and you're executing and even to do that at scale. Right. So it's the systems approach that a good mentor will have you thinking as a business builder and not just, you know, make more calls, make more calls, why don't you make your calls? And just having you feel like, oh my gosh, is this the only thing we're going to do all the time? Are we ever going to work on building a business? Right. So depending on your season of growth, you need to make those calls and have those meaningful conversations. Albeit we don't teach paid leads, we don't teach cold calling or anything like that, but the lead generation systems that we teach have inbound, organic, high quality, warm leads that are coming in. The fourth reason why you really need to seek mentorship if you want to grow your real estate business is that it will save years. I mean years in terms of the journey that you wanted to go on. Let's say you're at a hundred thousand, you want to 10x your business to a million. You may figure it out one day. But wouldn't it be awesome just to get a mentor that can show you the exact step by step way to get there? This sounds a little bit like a commercial for million dollar agent method, but it is something I'm massively proud of. So bear with me a little bit and hopefully the examples I give are helpful. To get from 100 to get to a hundred requires hustle and just let everyone know that you're a real estate agent and you're probably haphazard on social media. Maybe your database isn't put together, but people at least know you're in the business. That's more than the Average agent selling 10 homes, $10,000 commission check each gets you to that. A hundred thousand to get from 100,000 to 250,000. It's a different game entirely. You have to have a steady source of leads coming in. And I'm not talking about paying for leads. I'm talking about structuring and building your database. I'm talking about setting up and expanding your digital footprint. Maybe you've got a direct response sort of letter campaign to expireds, or a letter campaign to for sale by owners, or a motivated sellers letter campaign. There are lead generation systems that you have to put in place in order to get that next level of growth. And so you can set up those systems and not have to go through the dozens of things that don't work and save years implementing only the things that work. I had a conversation with an agent today. 14 years in the business and she did really well. Last year she sold 19 homes. That's probably not top 1%, but maybe top 2%. No systems though. I know that she came into our world, she's going to be our newest member. And I know that she's going to be able to double, if not triple her business and work a reasonable amount of hours and hit her financial goals. She has a goal of saving $500,000 cash in the next three years. I'm as close to 100% certain that she's going to be able to get there. I'm not sure that she could have done it in five or seven years, but the confidence that she can now be on the right track to do it and save many years because she wants to retire in three years and save that 500,000 of a bit of a nest egg. I'm confident that she can now do it. So you'll save years working with a mentor that has done the thing you're looking to do. The fifth reason that you want to hire or at least consider a mentor is that they'll help you prioritize. There could be 12 things you need to do to go from 100,000 to 250,000, which is two to three deals per month to get to maybe even 500,000. If that's a goal. There may be a dozen big chunky systems or priorities that you need to focus on, but if you do them in the wrong order, you may not get the result that you're looking for. Or you may go out of bounds on working too many hours. And maybe you've got a wife or kids. You don't want to give up on your personal life while you're building your business. And then even within the business, you have to make sure you're Working on the right thing at the right time and you're not focused on all the distractions, what other agents are working on and what they're building out in their business. So it's focusing on the things that are going to get you to that next step in the business. And usually it's a series of automations and delegations. 80% of what a real estate agent does is generally administrative in nature where it can either be automated or delegated to someone that's earning a lot less than $10 per hour. Where you can go out and earn 100 or 250 or even $500 per hour. Okay, so number six, the sixth reason why you want to consider hiring a mentor is personal growth. Building a business is going to challenge you in all these crazy different ways. Part of the cool journey that you'll be on is that you will grow personally in ways that you couldn't imagine. Give you one example, my business. And this isn't going to shed too positive a light on me, but I'm going to be honest here. When I first started bringing leverage, even my first administrative hire, I was able to grow my business to about 120 transactions with just like one junior buyer, agent and an administrator. I think we may have had like a couple other agents join the team that year. I didn't want to build a team but I had so much opportunity because I had installed these lead generation systems that I was almost forced to like I couldn't handle all the opportunity. I didn't know how to lead others. And so, and I'm generally introverted. I joke even with my team now that like, don't look behind the curtain on like the wizard of Oz. Don't look behind the curtain. I'm just pulling the strings and setting up the systems. Back in the early days I didn't know how to lead people so it was very, I was very reactive and triggered and people were there almost to, to like a cog in the wheel and the growth over the years and this is a decade of not big teams, I haven't built massive businesses, but just the personal growth on realizing that I'm in their life to help them achieve their goals, you know, so that's just one little example. Now like I come to every interaction with my team and it's more or less I'm thinking, okay, this may be their challenge. How can I help them hit their income goals? Or what maybe even difficult conversation would I need to have with this team member so that they can get to their next level and the company can win and they can win. And so that's an example of like a personal growth inside the business. This business growth journey will support you growing in ways that you really possibly couldn't imagine. Specifically in our million dollar agent method, we have a very simple implementation dashboard, we call it, where you're going to track a handful of things around your productivity and time management. And these are like simple check marks around building and structuring your database, around expanding your digital footprint. And then we have four personal growth areas that we track. One is taking care of your physical body, making sure you get your sleep hydration, reading a book for 10 minutes a day, and then just sitting still, whether you pray or whether you just sit still. We also have members come in and the first thing they do in their onboarding process is they go through a personal wellness assessment. There's 10 areas that we assess a scale of one to 10 to see where they are, where they start with us, and where they are where they end with us. So working with a mentor that makes sure we that they take care of the personal like the person, and not just help you sell more homes. There's lots of mentors out there that will teach you how to sell more homes, but maybe they've sacrificed something like a marriage or their physical body to get there. And so it's important that you're growing personally and as well. The seventh reason to consider bringing a mentor in your life to help you grow your real estate business is income potential. You probably thought the income potential was limitless and you're realizing that it's really competitive and it's really hard to make 20, 30, $40,000 take home net after expenses after paying your broker.
Right.
So the income potential working with someone that's already charted that, that course for themselves personally and they've already taken thousands of members through that same journey. I would put my money on you hiring that mentor versus you doing it on your own. And I would love to see if we could like run parallel universes where you didn't hire a mentor and you did hire the right mentor and you're at a hundred thousand. What are the chances you can go to 200,000 or 300,000 or 400,000 on a proven path versus you just trying to figure it out on your own and watching random youtubes or paying for third party leads or cold calling or door knocking, which is nothing that we teach or nothing we condone.
Right.
So what's your income potential with a mentor, the right mentor, and not having A mentor. All right. The last reason why you want to consider hiring a mentor, and I kind of covered this a little bit in some of what I've talked about, but I wanted to drive home the point that work life balance, we call it the double win, where you're winning in your real estate business, you're crushing your income goals, but you're also doing it in a reasonable amount of time where you still have time and even just the mental rack space to be able to show up in your family, maybe as a spouse or a parent, maybe you have older parents of your own that you want to care for and spend time with or siblings or friends or hobbies that you want to participate in. It's the whole person that needs to be cared for if you're going to enter into a mentor relationship. We call it the time freedom system in real estate B school where we have you time block your calendar when you're going to be working, when you're not going to be working, and then you just stick to those commitments that you make to yourself because it's not worth having. You go from one home sale every other month or one home sale per month to two, three deals, four plus deals per month consistently. If you're working 70 or 80 hours a week, that is not an outcome that we wish for you. It is generally, it happens a lot in real estate, but it's not one that we want for you.
Right.
So the work life balance element here is really, really important. So those are the eight reasons why you must consider a mentorship relationship. Obviously we're here if you need help. If you implementing systems in your business, that's our sweet spot. We work together for only 90 days. The outcome of those 90 days heavy implementation. Four lead generation levers are implemented in your business. We've got 10 total. You work with an implementation coach one on one to decide which lead generation levers are going to serve you. Each are good for one plus transactions per month. So we really stack the deck in your favor, helping you implement those lead generation levers and all the lead conversion systems, all the sales frameworks, all of that stuff, turnkey, swipeable, deployable plug and chug right into your business. So if that is you and you know you need that implementation support, just go to million dollaragentmethod.com. there's a seven minute video. If it resonates, definitely book in a call with my team. We call it a business growth strategy session. We're just gonna look at your business, where you are now, where you want to be in the future. We what's been holding you back? What have you tried that maybe hasn't worked? And then if a conversation about real estate, B school, or specifically Million Dollar Agent method makes sense, we'll talk about it. If it doesn't, that's totally cool as well. So hopefully we'll see you over there. Be good.
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