How Bob Hertzog Is Setting Himself Up to Be the CEO of His Business

So, Bob, how long have you been working with Lars?

I've been with Lars about six or seven months now.

Okay, and how long have you been in real estate? And could you describe the path that led you to working with Lars?

Yeah, you've got. I've been licensed as an agent. Got licensed as an agent in 1999 and as a broker in 2001. So what's that, about 15 years, almost 16 years in the business. The way I found Lars is, you know, I've gone through a lot of coaches over the years. Never really found a great fit that lasted more than 60, 90 days, just for whatever reason. And this time around, you know, I'm getting to a point in my. In my career where, you know, I'm 46 years old and I don't necessarily want to be in production too much longer. You know, I don't want to be out showing houses in my mid to late 50s. So I've kind of made a decision that, you know, my true passion is really helping other folks build their business. And we've got a team right now of 13 agents. And I was really looking for a coach or a program that. That could get me to the level where I could get out of production and basically just supervise these agents and help them to grow their business. And it's very, very difficult to find a coaching or training program out there like that. Most of the coaches that are out there today are coaching you to be, you know, just to be a top agent. And I'm not necessarily. That's not necessarily where I wanted to go. So, you know, I just kind of found Lars through talking to a few other folks that I know in the industry, you know, telling them kind of what my. My dreams and aspirations were as far as building the company. And a few people just kind of pointed me his direction and. And I liked what I saw.

Awesome. Okay. Could you kind of describe how your business was doing at that point, seven, eight months ago?

Yeah, I mean, we were doing okay. I wouldn't say that we've seen. I mean, to be honest with you, I wouldn't say that we've seen a huge, like, increase in business yet. But what has gotten a lot better for us is, is our systems and tracking profitability. That's something that I think most brokers, team leaders, fail miserably at. IS is accounting for every dollar that goes in and out of your business. And Lars training program, it's not just training on, you know, it's soup to nuts from how to recruit agents all the way to how to implement, you know, the business tracker and so many other systems that come with the program.

Definitely. Could you kind of describe some of those first systems that you started working on right away?

Yeah, we. We started working on the business tracker right away. I wanted to get that in place before we really went heavy into any recruiting and so forth. And we jumped right into the marketing materials right away for the, you know, the listing presentation and the buyer presentation, so that we were prepared for that. Danny helped us out there big time. So I would say actually our first thing we did was we jumped right into the marketing and the buyer and listing presentations, then the business tracker and then top producer, you know, getting all of our emails in place for that and using it for the right purpose. And right now we're just kind of zeroing in. We're going deeper into the system and figuring out the various input forms and so forth that kind of dovetail into the whole system. And we're just getting everything implemented. I mean, it's. There's a lot to this thing and, you know, and that's the great thing about it. There's so much information and so many systems available to you. The biggest challenge, I would say, is continuing to produce, sales and implement everything at the same time. I mean, Lars is, he tells you time and time again, don't just stop production and start working on implementing these systems, because it's not going to happen overnight. But I would say one of the main things that I've gotten out of it so far was, you know, we ended up having to get rid of our operations manager and our transaction manager, because I just found through this training and everything else that they just weren't the right people for the position. And Stacy actually helped me a ton with helping to fill those positions with the right people. And I feel like we've got, you know, some really good folks in place on the admin side now. So now it's just a matter of our systems are pretty much in place right now. Now we can start focusing on recruiting and bringing in some new talent.

Excellent. Okay, you mentioned you've done some coaching in the past. And without naming any names, could you describe how your experience with Lars is different from what you've done in the past?

I think the biggest thing for me is I'm one of these guys that I'm going to listen to, respect and pay more attention to. Someone that's actually in the trenches doing it right now versus somebody that sold real estate for a year and now is a quote, unquote, Mega coach. The beauty of Lars system is he's doing this stuff right now. So when he finds something new that works or when someone else in the group find something that works, we can always find new stuff on Facebook and that sort of thing. But the biggest takeaway for me in this training so far and the reason I'm still doing it and I'll continue to do it forever, I mean, I don't see ever leaving this program is it's always evolving. You know, there's always new things that Lars bringing up is bringing up in our coaching calls and so forth. And when he says something works, he's not just, you know, making it up. I mean, you can actually look at his numbers and see what is actually working and what's not.

Would you say you were skeptical at all before signing up?

Yeah, I mean, I'm always skeptical. I mean, I've gone through coaches like crazy. You know, it's just so you're always kind of skeptical at first, but, I mean, it's all right there for you to look at. You can go into the drive and see the information you're getting before pretty much before you even sign up for the thing. So it's just there. I mean, it's a matter of implementing it. And, you know, I know that one of the biggest challenges for someone like Lars is probably, you know, most agents, you can tell them a thousand times what needs to be done, but 98% of them will never do it. So, you know, I'm. I have the type of personality. If I see something that's working for somebody else, then I'm definitely going to try it.

Absolutely. Okay. Bob, what tips would you offer to someone in the program right now to maximize their success?

Yeah, I would say the biggest thing is to take your time with this thing and don't try to do it all overnight, because the amount of information, the systems and everything is so vast that if you focus too much on it, you're going to leave your production out of the equation. And now, you know, you're stuck. You've got to continue to keep producing income while you're building this system out. And I know Lars really stresses out with us in our coaching calls and everything, but it's really easy to take your take, take your eye off the prize, so to speak, and get away from the production, which is actually making you the money, just to try to get this thing implemented. And it just takes a while, and you just have to be patient with it and work on blocks, you know, get one thing done. If your goal is marketing, get the marketing materials done, get that done before you move on to the next thing, you know, and then, you know, if you want to work on your business tracker, get that thing done and then move on to the next you want to implement. And don't try to scatter yourself all over and try to do a little bit of everything. Just focus on things and get them done.

What would you say to someone who's on the fence about working with Lars?

Well, I mean, I've talked to several people about Lars program and the one thing I always do is I'm not selling it or anything. I'm just saying you have to be in the right frame of mind. I mean, you have to be somebody that eventually wants to get out of production and run a business. And you know, not everybody's in that mode right now. And that's what makes this thing so unique. You know, a lot of folks go to various coaching programs to increase their sales volume and you'll definitely get that from large systems and that sort of thing. But this thing is meant for people that want to get out of production and become a CEO of a business. And if that's what you're looking to do, then you're in the right spot.

Perfect. What does success look like to you and where's your business headed?

Success to me is me not in the car, working weekends, showing buyers homes, having open houses for my listings. I'm getting to an age now where I want to kind of not slow down, but I don't necessarily want to do that every single weekend. And you know, working 60, 70 hour weeks, you know, I'm just getting to that age where I'm kind of done with that. I'd rather, you know, train folks that work for our team to increase their business and just make them great real estate agents. I'll know I'm successful when I've got, you know, 14 or 15 agents selling 30 homes a year that love what they're doing.