Business Freedom: what it looks like & how to achieve it

What's up, real estate team builders. Lars Hedinburg here, the founder of Real Estate B School. Today we're going to talk about business freedom. I talk a lot about this, and it's sometimes unclear what I even mean when I say, like, business freedom. It sounds cool, but no one's ever heard of it. But more importantly, how do you achieve it?

Right?

So I'm going to go through business freedom. What does it mean? And how do you actually go about achieving it? And this conversation was inspired by the last episode. I talked to Brent Bowers, who the guy does, like land flipping, and he writes notes on just the wildest business ever. And in that business has achieved a certain level of freedom for him and his family by kind of doing the thing tactically himself and then putting systems in place and having people run those systems so that he can enjoy a level of impact and meaning in his life that would have extended beyond where he came from. And he told his story. It's worth going back one episode to hear it. And so when I talk about business freedom, let me tell you what it's not. So rewind to 2007. 2008. When I first got into real estate, I left a sort of, I say, cozy corporate job, but there was no freedom in it. I made, you know, with stock options, a couple hundred grand a year. If I'm being honest, I was working probably 50 to 60 hours a week with travel. Simple math, though, let's say, was 40 hours a week, 2,000 hours a year, $200,000 earned per year divided by 2,000 hours worked per year. It's roughly I was making a hundred dollars per hour. And for whatever reason, my brain thinks in this way. And when I got into real estate, I'm like, I'm going to get after it. I'm going to make 250 to $500 an hour. I'm like, I read a book by Dan Kennedy, no bs, Time Management for Entrepreneurs, and fast forward. Like the end of my sort of part year, 2007, I worked 10 months. I took home 37 grand. And in those 10 months, I probably worked over 2,000 hours. But do the math. And I made $18.50 an hour. So I was working too many hours. I was very, very stressed. I was making poor decisions, you know, because I made a lot of Money. I sold 27 homes in 10 months. I just didn't keep a lot of it because I was distracted and spending money on all these different things. And I had no plan, no vision whatsoever. So I did not have business freedom. And that kept up for probably 2008. My first full year I sold 44 homes with a part time administrator and then 58 and 118 probably until the year I did 178 and then 2012 was 248. That's when I really sort of understood business freedom and what it took to achieve it. And where I think most real estate agents and just in general entrepreneurs get it wrong. And so I'm going to go through. That's essentially what business freedom in business freedom, to me the definition, because I don't think you can really sort of look this up on the Google or in any kind of Wikipedia. It's building your business in a way where you install sustainable systems and you empower team members, whether they're virtual assistants, where you're taking advantage of geo arbitrage in different countries. We're currently doing that in Brazil. We've done it in India and the Philippines as well. Really talented people bless their lives tremendously and they just work in a different sort of economy, which is, which is awesome because we get more done at a lower labor cost. And if there's any sort of really sort of fierce American folks listening out there, I think that's where the marketplace is global at this point. So a little bit of apology if that kind of rubs you the wrong way. But we have really quality people working twice their labor rate and they're getting $3.75 an hour. So that's another thing in business we do need to consider like talented people around the world are willing to bring their gifts into your business, which I think is pretty cool. So business freedom, back to the core definition is like how do I set my business up in a way where I'm not the one doing all the things and, and experiencing all the stress and everything is falling on my shoulders and where I can detach the money I make from the business, from the hours I put in, that's ultimately what, what we, we want in our businesses. So that's business freedom. And I will say this, I will plant a little bit of a seed only because I've been contemplating this move. This podcast up till around episode 400 was called the Business Freedom Podcast. I shifted at somewhere in around episode 400 or somewhere around there to real estate team builders, to kind of focus on like something that I, you know, I failed, but succeeded mostly in building a highly leveraged, super profitable real estate team, traditional real estate team. And now I'm just getting exposed to so many sort of Things in the real estate world that provide a level of freedom. So I'm going to test this on you. I may go back to real estate, the real estate Business freedom podcast. So just going to throw that out there. So if it happens, you're not going to be totally blindsided. But let's talk about how do you actually achieve it? So wherever you are in your journey, really in, I would say in any business, there are four things. When I look back on my ability to, you know, I did it with the real estate team, you know, built it up and detached myself totally. Where I was a silent partner, worked, you know, one day a week if I was in town, did the same thing in my, my business coaching company, real estate B school. Now I'm working, you know, building out the EXP platform, which is a residual income opportunity. Massive value for people that partner with me, but just another sort of thing that allows for a level of freedom that most will never experience. And I'm building systems out in that opportunity as well to help others recreate a version of what I've done in that platform. So there are four things, if you're able to take notes. This is worth taking some notes. When I look back and what enabled me to kind of pull this thing off. I would say the first thing, not even part of the four things that I'm going to go through, but the first thing is, is your mindset is believing that it's possible. And so I remember in my first business plan that my 2010 plan, which I wrote in 2009, before I even launched a true business. This was me doing everything in the business still. I remember telling myself, actually, no, it was two things. It was a quote from Napoleon Hill. I could still see it on my laminated business plan. I laminated like 20 of these things. I was obsessed with reading, seeing my future, what, what the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve. So you've, we've all seen it like, conceive, believe, achieve. That was from a Napoleon Hill quote. And then just telling myself, you know, that nobody really can tell me. Like, it doesn't matter how much experience I have in real estate. You can't really tell me that I can't go out and do this. So double negative there, meaning, like, I can go out and do this if I have a vision and I'll go through the steps here, but I can do it. I can just decide that I'm going to do it and get after it.

So.

Here are the things when I look back. So number one is mindset. It's just believing it and it's not even number one. It's like the overarching premise here is that you just got to believe that it's possible that you can delink time from money by setting up these systems and have people running these systems. And there's only so much that you touch in a business that really impacts the business ultimately. Number one is the vision. And part of that's mindset. But vision specifically, what's possible three years from now? So my question for you is, do you have a written three year vision of where you want your business to be and even other areas of your life? And this was something that I've done every year since that plan I wrote in 2009 for 2010 and it had 2012 and I've emailed it out to some of you that have requested it, but it had 2012, 14 and 2020, like very specific where I was going to be financially in my hours and the number of weeks of vacation I took per year and all of it. So you have to have a very clear written out vision in your business, in your financial life, in your relationships, of exactly where you want to be in the future. That's number one. If you don't have that, it's not an overly complicated exercise. We have it down now in real estate B school. And when you work with me directly, when you partner with me, I'm going to challenge you that you must have what we call a 319-03-2020, year vision. One year plan, 90 Day World and I'll go through the rest of it. But number one is do you have a clear vision of where you want to be in the future? Number two is a one year plan. Like it's one thing to say, okay, I want to, you know, I want to sell 200 homes a year. Let's say you're selling 50 homes a year today or this year, past 12 months, you want to sell 200 homes. That's your vision, right? But what's, that's your three year vision. What's the first year? You've got three years in that three year vision. The first year is critical. You need to put some foundational systems in place to give you the growth possibility to be able to achieve that.

Right?

So what's your one year plan with like what big systems for lead generation do you need to put in place? Real estate B school, we have like seven, we're working on an eighth lead, what we call lead gen levers. Each are good for 25 to 50 plus transactions. When you install them in your business and you focus on them and you go deep but not wide. But you have to actually install the systems and do the work of a system, sort of the work of a manager. If you're talking in e myth lingo where you install systems and you get people to run those systems. Number one, three year vision. Number two is a one year plan. Number three is focus. So vision, plan and focus. Focus is taking that one year plan and deciding okay, what has to happen in the first quarter of this first year of the three year vision. So if you break down a three year vision into quarters, you have 12 quarters to focus on one or two things at a time that if you can do work on the next right thing, but only one or two things at a time that stack on top of each other to build a solid foundation and then we have the ability to not only grow our business but to scale it. That's what happens in the 90 day world. So these are like specific projects. If you don't have a database system or clients for life system or a social media system where these are the posts that you do and this is the design brand colors and it's in Canva and you've got a virtual assistant sort of running that whole platform. This is the monthly market Facebook live you do, but it also goes in the e newsletter and you've got a print hard newsletter and you've got a blog. You're doing two videos a month and all this stuff, right? If you don't have the specifics of the system you're going to work on in that quarter that feeds into the year you're not in the game of building a business. Right? So that's the focus. And then number four is what we call action. So again, three year vision. Vision one year plans. You need to have a plan. 90 days is where you focus on the next right thing, your business. And then number four is the weekly and daily rhythm and we call it action. Like are you doing the things necessary? These are usually the not urgent but critically important. When you're thinking about your three year vision, are you doing the work today, this week and today to work on the projects that it's going to build the foundation of a stronger business so that you can grow and scale. And most aren't even in the game, right? Real estate agents were sort of get up and they'll check their email, they've got a deal that's blowing up, they're like all over the place they're not even in the game of real estate and that you can't so especially with what we're getting ready to move into in terms of not only the market shift, but I think there's just.

Not.

A political statement, there's just some big stuff going on and there's talk of if you start to study changing world orders and not in a freak out kind of way, but there's just some big things that are going on. And you know, financially as a country, we were in a challenging time with so much debt and interest rates and all of that.

Right.

I think some crazy things are going to happen. And if you don't have this three year vision, one year plan, the 90 day world, the seven days, the weekly stuff and then this commitment to working on and feeding, sort of having priorities on a daily and weekly basis that feed into this bigger vision of where you're going to be in the future. That's the name of the game. Use an example in your marriage, right? If you're not doing the weekly, the daily activity of spending a little bit of time with your spouse and making sure they know that they're important to you and once a week doing a date night, once a quarter doing a couple days where the two of you just get away, once a year, an annual honeymoon. Those are the things that a marriage retreat or whatever it looks like, family vacations. Those are the things that if you don't do those things you're three, five, ten years. Like who knows where you're going to be. Same goes for your business. So if this spoke you to today and you're maybe a little bit intimidated but you're also excited about what's possible, I would say go grab a copy of what I built a report called the Real estate Business Growth Navigator. If you go to real estate business growth.com I think I also have two giveaways in addition to the Growth Navigator takes you through all six stages of your growth. Doesn't matter where you are in the journey, but it's all the tools and systems. The questions you should be asking yourself what your team potentially could look like, the amount of money you'll be making at each of the six stages that we define there. So go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com and much love, much respect for being in the game and being willing to fight the good fight. We'll see in the next episode.