Can You Double Your Income in Real Estate Without Doubling Your Hours?

If you break it down like I have, you would be shocked to find out that most real estate agents make less than $25 an hour practicing real estate. Think about it. The largest financial transaction most people will ever make in their life is being handled by someone that makes $25 an hour. That is a shocking fact, and it's true because most of the of the time we spend in our business, we spend doing the things that aren't very dollar productive. And it's those things that allow us to stay where we are and earn a meager income when we should be getting paid as a high level, you know, professional. We should be paid as a trusted advisor, not someone that does administrative work. In today's video, I want to talk to you about a concept I call Business Freedom Index. It's, it's just having an awareness around where you are in your journey in terms of the amount of money you're making in a given unit of output, which is per hour. So when I look back on my journey in real estate, my first 10 months in the business was 2007, right before the Great Recession. I remember my top line, I was like 240,000 of gross commission income. I remember I took about 176,000 of that for me and I had 37,000 left over after expenses. So I paid my broker about 75 grand. I had only a little bit left over. I made 14 bucks an hour. So that's definitely not what I want for you. That's the typical agent though. So if you're struggling and you want to know the step by step sort of secret sauce to building a business that gives you financial freedom, stick around to the end of the video. I'm going to give you a 15 minute training that will show you exactly how to do it. Like the video. If you like the video, subscribe to the channel, turn on notifications and make sure you interact with me in terms of comments. It is the thing that feeds me and gives me the strength and courage to bring you more content and bear my soul in these videos. So let's dig into today's topic. I teased you a little bit with this concept called Business Freedom Index. And I want to run you through the exact calculation that I went through back in 2008 looking at what I made in 2017 to calculate the reality of what I was making as a highly paid trusted advisor. As a highly paid trusted advisor, number one agent in my office in my first 10 months. I didn't need a full 12 months to be the number one agent and I made 14 bucks an hour. And so I'm not going to lie and said I made all the right decisions with how I spent my money. I definitely paid my broker at the time too much of what I was making. At the same time, I was able to open my eyes to the fact that most agents aren't making even a decent living as a real estate agent. So let's run through the calculation I've mentioned in some of these videos before that the first book I read when I got into real estate was e Myth. I don't even know if it's worth reading. It doesn't give you specific tools and systems. It does help you focus on this franchise prototype. 10,000, you know, replicate your business 10,000 times sort of concept. That was one thing I really internalized early on. The other thing was a challenge. In a book I read by Dan Kenney, Dan Kennedy called no BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs. And again, I remember nothing about the book except this one calculation he had us do. And I think I even did it the wrong way or I think I did it the right way, but it ended up being the wrong way. And my spin on it is the same spin I want to give to you. I look back on my 2017 earnings, my take home money I was going to split with the government and I divided it by the number of hours I worked. It was straight up 14 bucks an hour. At the same time, I remember that I had to challenge myself to think about where do I want to be. I want to be at 500,000 a year working 2,000 hours. 500,000 divided by 2,000 is $250 an hour. So the question I had to ask myself is how do I need to change the things I'm doing in my business to move away from $14 an hour and closer to $250 an hour? Hour. So it's the Business Freedom index that allows us just to be honest with ourselves about where we are in our business and the value that we're providing in the business. And so, you know, $14 an hour to a few years later, $250 an hour in my real estate business. And then the year we did over 400 transactions. So we've served 400 plus families in a single year. That year I worked one day a week. And I think I calculated last time I made like $2,300 an hour in my real estate business in 2014. So for me, this is not like some concept that I would love for you to achieve. It's A predictable path that we can follow. And if you missed the video on the Business Freedom Navigator, right. There's six phases of growth that we can follow. And the Business Freedom index goes from 0 to $25 an hour, from 25 to $50 an hour when we get to the ramp phase, from 50 to $100 an hour in the build phase, from 50, you know, from 100 to $250 an hour as we enter that lead phase, from 250 an hour to 500 an hour as we go into the exit phase and we choose to get out of production. And then as an owner we can make 500 to 1000 plus dollars per hour as I did in my real estate business. And when I think of someone that has done this journey, the good, bad, ugly of what it takes to build a real business is Andy Mulholland. He is one of our members who actually exited his real estate business and became a business coach for us. He was at his wit's end when we met. He was doing 100 transactions and I think 85 of the 100 transactions was his personal production. He had an administrator and a couple agents that were doing in total 15 sides. And he was overspending in his business. You know, his Business Freedom index was likely in that 25 to $50 an hour range. He was able to more than double his business and cut his hours almost in half and stop spending money at a pace that that wasn't allowing him for the profit margin that he deserved. And he was able to go from about $50 an hour in his business to a 5x increase to $250 an hour. And I remember this conversation, it was on our first conversation where we talk about where you are in your business. This is before he was even part of real estate B school. He was working 78 hours a week. His dream was to buy an RV and travel with his family. And that was his three year vision. You know, if you've heard me talk about planning before, it's a three year vision, a one year plan, 90 days, monthly, weekly, daily. We broke down that three year vision. Like I'm alright, like if we're going to do this, this is what it needs to look like, you know. So he went from 100 sides, doing everything, putting in all the hours, no freedom whatsoever, to making the choices with his time, to building the systems, to doing the things he needs to do not only to make his climb in the faces of growth, but also just to shift what he was making in his business financially. And he took 67 days in an RV with four kids. I think it was all four of their kids. It was his vision though. And it was almost to the month, three years later that he was able to purchase that RV and start planning that trip. So what is your three year vision? Where are you now when it comes to the money you're making in your business? Think about like double the income is not possible. Triple, quadruple, 5, 10x return or increase in where you are right now is possible if you commit to having a plan in your real estate business to get there. So you may be at a point in your journey where you're like, I don't know how to do this. I wish there was a little bit of training to help me get clear on the drivers and accelerators. And I know Lars, you talk about tools and systems and it's just too much. I put together a 15 minute training where it puts it all together for you. Go to predictablerealestatesuccess.com or click on the link below and just see exactly what I was able to do. My business and the model, the roadmap that we give our members for them to achieve the same in their business. I love doing these videos. Hopefully today I challenge you to look at your business a little differently. If you like the video, hit the like button, subscribe to the channel. Subscribe. Make sure you turn notifications on so you're the first to know when a new video hits and make sure you comment. And it gives me the fuel to continue bringing this this content out so we'll see in the next video.