Building A Business That Runs Itself - Part 2

Welcome back to the Business Freedom Podcast. Lars Hedinburg here, founder of Real Estate B School. Today's part two of a three part series where I interview one of our members about their journey in real Estate B school. And this was actually part of an event we did for members only. So this is an inside look into our world and the success that our members are getting. If you missed part one, you want to go back one episode and check out part one. And as you get into this interview, if you know that you need help and you want to go down this path, we actually just launched a case study program. And go to rebscasestudy.com that's rebscasestudy.Com for more information. We'll see you over there. And stay tuned for part two of this three part series. And so real quick, so your cadence with your administrator. You know, sometimes we talk about 10, 80, 10. The 10% that you put in is like, okay, let's work on these couple systems. You know, here's how you check in with me and then I'll review. Like what was your cadence with your administrator to get those key projects done and how did you prioritize them?

So we knew that, we knew that we were spending so much money on closing coordination that we wanted to bring in the drip campaigns and the checklists for listing coordination, buyer closing coordination, and seller closing coordination and the customer experience. So she spent a lot of her time focusing on how to develop all that before we ever started using it. And so we decided on building that out first. No, I would take that back. Actually. There was the business tracker at the time, if you remember that. So we ended up building out the business tracker first so we could forecast our business and I could hold my team accountable to the sales metrics that were necessary. And then we moved on to today. What that is is CTE you. At the time, it was the business tracker. And so, and then she focused on the closing coordination pieces. And so I would meet with her once a week and she would show me the advancements that she had made in there and we would fire some blanks through it. Instead of some live rounds, we would fire some blanks through it and just anticipate what would break in it. And she and I would talk about that. And then she would have seven day objectives of going back in there and fixing the stuff that would likely break down. And then coming back and showing me what she had progressed through. And as she finished projects, we would just reassign a new one. And so she would maybe work on a project for a month or two at a time before that was actually completed, and then she would start to manage it. And once she started, once she completed all the listing and closing coordination stuff, we actually hired somebody in house to do listing and closing coordination for us.

Okay, let's talk about. We're going to get this question at every point in your journey. Um, what were the lead sources when you were, when you were able to go from, I guess the year you went from 60 to 1 20, where you got out of working with buyers and you had, I think it's when you made that comment about the number of listing appointments that you were going on, where were the lead sources coming from? You know, what were you focused on? I think you said expired FSBOs, but was there anything else that was producing for you? And we're going to get that question, so we'll just cover it. You know, as you describe even your current business, I went really deep into.

Expired and fizbos for seller lead generation. So I would call them. I would also use a direct mail campaign that Lars had put together for Both expireds and FSBOs to generate some inbound opportunities. And because we started putting signs in the ground, then yard sign calls became important. So we put out the multiple yard sign strategy to generate more phone calls. And that's literally the only stuff that we added was the drip campaigns, the direct mail to generate inbound opportunities from expireds and FSBOs, and also the yard marketing. So that took us from 60 deals to 120 deals.

Okay, so it wasn't anything more exotic than that. And have you guys ever stopped direct mail marketing to fizbos and expireds?

You know, we have, and really, it's just recently we've, we've, we've, we've scaled back on how many times we mailed to them. We used to mail to each expired in FSBO six times, and now we only mail to them once. And when the market starts to shift back in the other direction, we'll start to ramp that up again. Seller marketing becomes less impactful when sellers don't have problems. And right now, obviously, they're not having many problems selling their homes. So. Yeah, so that's, you know, we measure our ROI through CTE with all of our tracking to see what, what pans out and what doesn't. And we just saw our return on investment in those lead sources go down over time to where they were essentially break even. So we stopped doing that or we act one.

Yeah. So I'll make sure Dave covers his lead sources currently, because I know you're going to get that question asked throughout, but I want to keep the story sort of in line. So real quick on Justin's question. So I think we struggle as owners or entrepreneurs to let go. And so the 1080, 10, I think it was something I learned from. Could have been Dan Sullivan or. No, it could have been. I don't know who it was. Doesn't matter. So you need to effectively get projects implemented, right? You pick these rocks and you need to get them fully implemented and go deep on them in your business, yet you're trying to do them by yourself, right? So the 1080, 10 is that, you know, you want to set the stage for this rock getting completed. What it looks like an impact filter, or, you know, this is this, this impact filter was created to make sure the thing you're working on is going to have an impact in the business. We have a full version of this that you can, you can use to, to make sure the person you're working with, your administrator, really understands the impact that you want this system or project to have in the business. And so that there's a lot of effort up front to make sure they're working on the right thing. And then there's just these progress while the 80% is being done by them, and then you sort of finish it out after that. So it's. You're not, it's. It's not your project. You're just sort of managing it and setting the vision for the project, if that makes sense. All right, so this is the year you did 120 is 2016 or 17?

17. 17, 17.

Okay, so. And at this point you have. How many buyer agents ended that year? Do you remember? Three to three? Four?

I ended with three buyer agents and I started training somebody to go on listing appointments with me.

Okay, okay, that's pretty much exactly. I went from 58 to 118. And I think exactly at that point in the journey was when I was stepping. I was definitely a year out of buyers, and I was definitely. That's when I brought on the year we did 178, the year that we brought on one and then two listing partners. How many did you end up doing in 2018?

2018 to 270.

Whoa, 270. Okay, so 30, 60, 120, 270.

When you look at the Growth Navigator, you know, every time I look at it, I'm like, gosh, that's the exact same growth that I went through. And I Think what you created with the Growth Navigator is you modeled the growth that you went through. Right. And as I started, you know, the conversation with them, I'm all about finding people that have already achieved something that I want to, so that way I can coach with them and figure out what they did and just model what they did. Successful people use models. And if I can use Large's model, I can achieve the same exact thing as long as I do it. And so when I look at it, it's not coincidence. When I look at your growth and I can say, gosh, my growth was exactly the same. It's because I modeled exactly what you did.

Okay, but we have to talk about how you skipped a year. So I went from 118 to 178 to 248, and you went from 120 to 270. So what did you do during that? Doesn't happen like just by chance. What were you doing in the year you did 120 to set yourself up for that sort of growth where the next couple, three things. Because I think a lot of our folks are honestly stuck in the 75 to 125 transactions or they got past that, but they're still like, they're not getting the freedom.

Sure. I think what probably happened is that you had to take the time to figure out how to build out the operational systems in your business for you to get the growth from 120 to 270. And it might have taken you two years where it took me one. And the difference is I didn't have to do that. I just had an administrative assistant that reviewed what you did and implemented it. And so I didn't have to spend any time to focus on that. And that's the beautiful thing about, we call it R and D, rip off and duplicate. And we were able to do that with your systems. I didn't have to focus on it. I didn't have to spend any of my mind share on that stuff. I just continued to get more listings and hire more buyer agents and eventually hire a listing agent. So it's likely that I was able to make that jump because I just completely focused on sales and didn't focus on anything administrative or operational.

And the year you did 270, so that's 2018, how many transactions did you do personally? Any buyers or just because that's the last year of your production? Personal?

Yeah, that was the last year of my production. So the guy that I started training the year that I did 1:20, I started training him at the. The last three months of the year, and then he moved.

So.

So he moved out of the area. So the year that, in 2018, when I did 270, I hired somebody in March to take listings over for me. And so I was out of listings by May. I stopped going on listing appointments in May. And then the guy that I trained that moved out of town, he actually moved back in August. So I got really lucky where I had two people in a listing role and I was completely out of listings in the second half of the year.

Awesome. So any. Any advice, anything that you would tell folks that are stuck in that, you know, million to a million and a half and they're still in production, and we've got members that can't seem. They want to get out of production, but they can't seem to get there. For me, it was like, I'm getting out of production period. Like it was just going to happen. Wasn't necessarily pretty. The first time I did it, you know, it was a. I let somebody go on 105 appointments before I even checked how he did. I was just like, so done with it. But what was. What was key for you in. In that getting out of production with that level of growth?

I'll say the. My first fire agent, Jackie, really helped me get through some limiting beliefs that I had around that somebody couldn't do something as well as I could. And I didn't really care about that on the operational side because I was just really dedicated to leveraging all of that to somebody. However, I spent a lot of time training her, and it was hard for me to let go showing buyers because I just didn't think that anyone would be able to convert like I could. And when she converted at the same rate as me, she really helped me get over some limiting beliefs that. That people couldn't do something as well as I could. And after that, it became really easy for me to delegate sales activities to other people. I think if you are really fearful that no one's going to take care of your clients the way that you're going to, or no one's going to convert the way that you're going to or the way that you do, then it's going to be really hard for you to finally, like, actually really let that go. And so once I got over that limiting belief, it was really easy for me to engage in the mindset and the goal of just getting out of production as fast as I possibly could. So when she helped me get out of that, I knew my next Step was to completely get rid of all the buyer deals. And as soon as I did that and I really mastered listings because I wasn't that great at listings. Honestly before then I was okay. But I really wanted to master it just like I had the buyer side of the business. And the reason why that was important to me and should be important to you is again, successful people follow models. And so I had built a model on the buyer side of the business that worked really well for me, that I trained people to, and I wanted to do that on the listing side of the business is build a model of exactly what to do when you set a listing appointment all the way through, it's under contract. And that way somebody could do exactly what I was doing and produce the same results, if not better results. And so I dedicated. As soon as I worked that model out and I was able to hire somebody, I was really aggressive about giving up those appointments. And so the other thing that you have to get your mind wrapped around is people are going to want to work with you. And so you have to, it's, it's much harder for you to turn that down when your team members are saying, hey, I've got a request. Somebody doesn't want to work with me, they want to work with you. It's so, it's, it's really hard to turn that down when you, when you hear that. However, one tip that I have for you is if you can do a really good job training your team on how to handle those objections and be really clear with them, that you never want them coming to you with that kind of statement. And instead this is what you need to say and this is how you need to handle it and this is how you need to work with them. Then you eliminate those temptations of people coming to you with those kind of requests when your agents get those phone calls and appointments and people want to work with you. So that was a big one too. It was hard for me to turn down clients that I've already worked with or million dollar deals and things like that.

Yeah. And I think if, if you want to convince yourself that you're valuable, you will get drawn back in. It's a, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Right. Like if you just, you're so important, right. That you're the only one that can meet with this, this seller or buyer, you will confirm that. Right. But if you really have put the systems and the models together like you said, and the way someone else does it is even better. And more handholding, you know, I got to the point in my business and you probably did as well where you're so busy that you're not giving the best client care, you know, and you're so scattered, I was late for everything, you know, where you're just not showing up as your, as your best self. Okay, so anything else around that, that big transition year? Anything? This is the point where you're identifying a key leader or two. Any, anything around that.

No, I think those transitions of like, you know, taking that hat off, you know, you guys talk about the E myth and wearing multiple hats as a business owner and dedicating to removing those responsibilities and creating a position on your accountability chart. It's, it's a rock to set. I mean, I remember in my first intensive that I went to in Charlotte, you know, I still have my business freedom planner and I'll open it up. As a matter of fact, I, you know, have my business freedom planner sitting right here. Can't really see it, but there it is. But you know, I look at it and literally had a rock that said hire a buyer's agent. And then the next rock for the next BFP in the next quarter was stop going on buyer appointments. And so it takes a lot of focus to dedicate to that. I know it's a scary transition for a lot of people and it's, it's worthy of like setting a rock around, drawing a line in the sand. After this date, I will never go on another buyer appointment. After this date, I will never go on another listing appointment. Otherwise, like Large mentioned, it's a slippery slope where you can end up right back into it.

Yeah, I want you to talk. This is going to sound really self serving, so please do not take it this way. When I said that it's going to come off this way. So Dave, you have done something like I'm not even able to do the level of focus on like you were fully engaged five to six years in the real estate B school journey. Like we would show something at the intensive that you're like, man, when the first time we rolled out the Business Freedom Planner, you're like, I'm going to get my whole team on this. You know, where it's not that you didn't do all the work and you weren't excellent at every point in the journey and you didn't, you, you did what you did and I honor you for that. But you didn't recreate the wheel. Like I find a lot of times, and even me, I get disinterested or Discouraged or I want to go from this program to this program where, like, our stuff maybe isn't the most sexy stuff, but it works, you know, like implement this before you. Like, we have members that they'll go out and like, good example. And if you're using SISU and it's crushing it for you, but SISU hits the market and before it's even installed in anyone's business, everyone is rushing into this tracking thing that's going to make CTE irrelevant, right? And then it didn't deliver and then, you know, then people. So we're always looking for the next best thing. What could you tell us, me included, Your mindset. Are you naturally the, like, one thing at a time kind of person or do you guard against the squirrel like I do?

No, I'm not naturally like that. I love shiny objects. If you put a project in front of me, I'll get an 80% done and then we won't ever get any results on it because I won't get it across the finish line. And I just recognize what my faults are, and so I guard against that. We have the same CRM that we have conversion. It's the same CRM that I initially signed up with. Conversion has gone to a completely new model which is called like Inside Real Estate or something like that. And they called me right when it first came out. There's another guy in our market who is actually a B school client at the time, and he was on conversion right when it came out. He called me up, he said, this is great. The new conversion is out. Are you going to flip over to that model? Which, mind you, it's like going to a whole new CRM. And I was like, there's no way I'm switching over to that. I'm not switching until they force me to. When I am the last person on the old platform and they're about to turn it off, I'll switch. And they called me and I told them that. I said, call me back when I'm the very last person. I was like, what we have is working right now. Changing it will be a total distraction. I don't think we're going to get better results because of some updated technology versus us just focusing on our prospecting and our scripts and our sales ability and doing the simple things that work like give me a drip campaign and give me a phone and we'll sell a lot of homes if you give me leads. And so a lot of people jump from CRM to CRM and always say the same Thing that, you know, I switched because it wasn't working as well. CRM is not going to sell homes for you. It's just something to keep your notes in to remember your relationships that you have with people. And so I got focused on not making changes to think that it's going to help me sell more homes. I decided the thing that was going to help me sell more homes is my leadership and management ability, my ability to coach and train people on sales and, and generating more leads for them. And that was it. And so as I'm always tempted with all these shiny objects, I always pump the brakes and put myself in check and don't do it. Whenever there's a new project that I want to get done, I'm very excited about, I pump the brakes, put myself in check and give it to the operations team and they put into priority of where it goes because they're the ones that are actually going to get it across the finish line. We'll all get it 80% of the way and then move on to something else really quickly. You never see any results.

So. So if, if I'm hearing you correctly, it's. You're abdicating authority to, to do anything you want in your business at any time, which, which is not typical. It's definitely not typical behavior. So we share the behavior, but we guard against doing that in our businesses. We had a guide in intensive one time, really struggling, doing the work, putting in gazillions of hours like struggling at home. And, and I asked him a question, I said, you know, how many times times have you changed CRMs? He said, four times in five years. And he's not scaling his business. And so there's only like five good CRMs and he's done four of them. And it's the CRM's fault, right? It's like, I'm pretty sure, like there's the common denominator. So I want everyone to hear it. I say it a lot and you know, and I show this guy a lot and you know, there's a reason he's still on my desk. The squirrel is because most everything is a squirrel. You just need to understand that the proven way to do something, run that in your business before you do something else in your business. So I'm hoping you enjoyed the time that we spent with Dave Friedman and getting a glimpse into his business and his growth journey. Going from 60 transactions to 375 transactions. It seems like an impossibility, maybe for some of you, but there is method to the madness There is an approach that we lay out. We do a three year vision, a one year plan, a 90 day world. We have planning systems and everything you can possibly need to scale your business you get access to in our case Study program. So go to rebscasestudy.com that's R E B S case study.com and you'll get all the information about how you can work with us for free with no risk whatsoever. So go to rebscasestudy.com and we'll see you over there. Thanks for listening to the Business Freedom Podcast. If you're getting value from the podcast, would you please leave us a five star review and share it with others who might benefit from the content I'm sharing? And if you're ready to scale your real estate business sustainably and profitably, there are a couple options for you. If you're doing under 500,000 in annual GCI, our business foundations Program is for you. Head over to getbusinessfoundations.com that's getbusinessfoundations.com and learn how you can make the shift from overwhelmed real estate agent to true business owner. If you're doing more than 500,000 in annual Team GCI, there's our graduate program designed for top producers and team leaders who want to grow their team and scale their business. If that's you, go to realestatebschool.com and apply for a free Business Growth Strategy session. No matter where you are in your business growth journey, we have the tools, systems, strategies, training and coaching to get you where you want to be. Remember, only you can create your future, so take action now.