Consistency Separates Winners From Wannabes!

Welcome back to another edition of the Business Freedom Podcast. Lars Hedinborg here, founder of Real Estate B School and co founder of High Performance Real Estate Advisors in Charlotte, North Carolina. And today, I want to chat about something that is really near and dear to my heart. You know, so many people make big claims about, you know, what they're going to achieve and things they're going to change about themselves. And you know, what really is how do you break down the code to changing areas of your life that you want to change? And you know, the easiest example to sort of pick on is New Year's resolutions, right? So many people make these big claims about getting in shape, stopping bad habits, doing this or that. And I want to open this with a question. And for you to ask this question, if you are at somewhere where you can write it down, I think it is a powerful question. And it is this. Am I making consistent progress toward meaningful goals in the areas of life and business that really matter? So am I making consistent progress toward meaningful goals in the areas of life and business that really matter? And so a lot of times in real estate, we'll set these goals. And I've done it. I don't know that I ever have achieved a goal that I set for myself. And this is before I was a little bit more emotionally intelligent. You know, the year that we did 118 sides, it was my third full, no, second, third full year in the business. And I had just hired a couple misfit real estate agents. I think the goal for that year is like 200 or something like that. I had no grounds to, you know, I just thought goal setting was, you know, set something out there so crazy that if you miss it, you know, you're good to go. This is a cool question, though. And that isn't really the way to set goals, by the way. Especially a lot of people I see these days, they set these goals that they spend money to achieve the goal, and then when they fall short of the goal, they make no money. Seeing this a lot with some of these teams in real estate, this quote I've really been geeking out on a book by James Clear called Atomic Habits. And this is the quote from the book. He says, becoming the type of person you want to become, someone who lives by a stronger standard, someone who believes in themselves, someone who can be counted on by the people that matter to them, is about the daily process you follow and not the ultimate product you achieve. So in the book, it was this. He made a comment like, you know, the goal shouldn't be to run a marathon, it should be to become a runner. So it's the process and you know, your habits are the things that make you for better or worse, your habits are the things that make you. In business we do a really good job of, we set, we call it 3, 1, 4, 13. And so when it comes to achieving in business, we've got it down to a science. We use it in both of my businesses and we use it in real estate, B school with our clients as well. And it's this three 1, 4, 13. So this is worth writing down. So you have a three year plan and usually we do it personally and professionally in the key areas of your life and the key areas of your business. A three year plan. And then we break down that three year plan to what has to happen in the first year to achieve that three year plan. Right, what has to happen the first year and then we break down that year into four quarters. What has to happen in the first quarter of, of the first year to achieve the three year plan that we set out? And then we break that quarter down into 13 weeks. So what has to happen in the first week out of 13 weeks that make up the first quarter of the first year for the three year plan? And we've really gotten this process down to a science pretty much. So living in and living in a 90 day world is so much easier than, you know, just constantly throwing these goals out there that are meaning less. And so I really encourage you to sort of break down your goal setting process and then even the weeks we break down into days. So what are the daily processes, the daily habits, the daily systems I need to adhere to to be able to have a successful week, feed more successful weeks into a quarter than not successful so that we can stack these four quarters to crush the year to be on our way to achieve the three years. So there's always a bunch of stuff. Here's the other thing, there's a bunch of stuff you could do to be successful, but what will you do? So there are probably a couple dozen ways you can scale your real estate business, you know, in terms of marketing, marketing focus, lead generation, people like who's your next best hire? What sort of model are you going to follow with your real estate business? What role are you going to take in the real estate business? There's all these things you could do, but what will you do? And just narrow down every 90 days and then every year narrow it down to the things that you have to do. And you know, we go Through a process. If, and this is both personally and professionally, if I want to improve a part of my business, I will go through a really easy process. It's called bridge the gap. And basically it's the same process we go through when we do a strategy session for a potential client for real estate, B school. It's essentially, you know, where are you now? So where are you now in a particular area of your business with your referral marketing database and referral marketing. Now we'll do. And it wasn't always like this, so it's going to sound like I'm bragging, but our goal this year is to do 1.5 million GCI from a pretty small database. We've got the science of database and referral marketing down to at. And so let's take that as an example. You know, what's this status? Where are you now with respect to your database referral marketing system? And then where do you want to be? You know, three years from now that could be a million dollar system, million dollars in gci. So where do you want to be? And then what's, what's holding you back and what needs to happen? What are the action steps that you need to take to be able to get from where you are today to where you want to get into the future? What are the three to five things you could do to move the needle in that area? Same thing goes for your business, Same exact questioning that we do in our business growth strategy sessions. And so the one other thing I will, I want to share with you. And it's a challenge to take regular clarity breaks. So I want you to take out your phone. Unless you're driving and listening to this, I want you to take out your phone and for 90 minutes once a week, I want you to schedule time to just be with yourself. We call these clarity breaks and just ask questions about where your business is, where you want it to be. If you have any people issues, if you have system issues, if you have, you know, just go through all the different bits of the business and what you could change to move the business forward. That is the purpose of a clarity break. And I want you to put it in your calendar so that you don't miss, miss it. And there's no technology allowed yet to be totally present. And just look at the areas of your business and the areas of your life in your business. We break it down to six key drivers. So there's. Do you have a plan? So number one is roadmap. Do you have a plan in place? Or are you following it? Number two is marketing. Your marketing systems driven, bringing in all the buyer and seller prospects. You can handle sales. Do you have a sales process? Is it tight or your conversions tight? Set to met, met to signed operations. Right? Are you systematically delivering an awesome experience to your buyers and sellers? And then number five is finance. So are you tracking at a high level? Do you know, do you have the data you need to make decisions in your business? And number six is people. Six drivers, people. Do you have a system in place to attract talent to take your business to the next level? So that's on the business side, on the personal side, you know, what are the different roles you have as an individual? You have just different areas of your life. You have your faith, you have your fitness, you have your finances. I go by the Fs. You have your future. How do you feel about your future? Your fun, your family? You maybe have a spouse, you may have children. How are you showing up in each of those areas? So just take 90 minutes once a week, get it in your calendar, get it repeating, and just think about all these different pieces of your business. And that one practice alone will have you looking completely different in the future. So will you do it? Is the question. You know, if you're at the point in your business where you are, you've already crushed what our industry considers to be traditional success and you don't know what to do. You don't have that next step. You know, the next logical step is to just get on the phone for a strategy session. There's no hard sell. It's either a fit or it's not. And this is business coaching for real estate agents. It's not productivity or accountability coaching. We help you take your business to the next level so you have more time, more freedom, and less stress in your life. And we've been at this for six and a half years, so we know what we're doing. So if that's you, go to realestatebschool.com and there's only one way to take a next step with us, and that's a business growth strategy session. So we'll see you there if that's you. Otherwise, you know, I hope this is valuable for you. These are all the things I wish my, you know, what is it, 11 years now? My 11 year ago, Lars could have known to make his journey even. Even, well, I guess less exciting. I had so much excitement. It was a fascinating, as we say, ride. And so this is just to make your journey easier. So be good much love and respect. Bye.