How Chris Upham Began Tracking His Business to Improve Systems and Profitability

I'm Chris Up, I'm in the Washington D.C. metro area. I first met Lars about four years ago in a coaching group we were in together. And it was the year that I was sitting next to him in the front row of a conference and he was named, won the King Kong Award because he'd taken his business from 10 million to 28 million to 46 million to 60 million. And so my very first ever experience sitting next to him was watching someone who had really executed on very high level. And it really got a lot of credibility with me just seeing that he'd executed so well subsequently. We were in a mastermind together. When he had an opportunity to present, I really saw that he was really walking the walk in terms of having a business himself that was very productive, very profitable, but that also what really intrigued me was how he was building and growing wealth. And that was something I really wanted to learn more about. So Lars started his real estate B school where he had basically done this live video broadcast covering all of the aspects and elements of the business. And I had a chance to watch that and it really exposed me to all of the systems that he had created for sharing his business with other agents like myself that I could model and replicate his success in my business. And so that was great, but I hadn't really implemented a number of things. And several months later I was at some other conference sitting next to another agent that was coaching with him. And the whole time we were at the conference, he had his LARS Edinburgh Business Tracker dashboard pulled up on his computer in front of him. And on that dashboard he could see every aspect of his business, what was going on, tracking every element of it. And I'll be honest with you, I was jealous. I said, I really need to have that in my business. And it was seeing that real estate business tracker and feeling like that I needed that to be in my business. And specifically the fact that it had the 30, 60, 90 day profitability and cash flow forecasts. Because at the time, you know, I'd had coaches that had asked me, what's your monthly nut? You know, how much, how much expenses do you have? And even though I go on a monthly basis to the bookkeeper and work on tracking my expenses, I really did not have a good sense as to how much was going out in agent commissions, how much was going out in expenses. The Lars, this tool with the business tracker really gave you a good sense where I could program in expenses. One, two, three, six months out. And then as we put properties under contract, it'll show me in real time what is the cost of sales, what is the expenses, and then what is my profitability two, three months out. That was huge. That's been a huge tool for me. I gave Lars a call and we talked things through and he said he could help me. And the biggest things that we did starting off was really take a look at my expenses. And the thing that I really needed to do is to be able to cut expenses and to achieve my profitability targets. And I'm happy to say that within just a few months we were able to be hitting our profitability targets. Through my coaching with Lars, the second thing, I noticed that even though over the last number of years I've probably spent most every dime I've earned on the next lead gen system website or shiny object or squirrel. What I realized about all of those systems that I had been spending money on and buying was that they were very expensive and they had a very low return on investment and a very low conversion rate. And what I had been missing was the foundation piece which was to have 33 plus touch system to my sphere of influence and past clients in order to get repeat and referral business. That was the very next thing that Lars worked with on me. And basically I realized how could I have neglected this so long? It is the foundation of my business and I just neglected it for years. But it is the lowest cost, highest return on investment, highest conversion rate. And actually it was what helped me to realize that was seeing Lars Business Tracker where it showed the return on investment and conversion rates over each lead source. And I saw some of my Internet lead generation systems were less than 1%. But the sphere of influence, repeat and Referral business was 16 to 19%. And you had to have those higher converting ratios in order to average everything out to a higher conversion ratio in our business. So that was huge. Next, what Lars helped me to do was to recognize the other systems and tools that I needed to have in my business. And in order to have a business that was operating on systems and process based. So we've been working on implementing those and it's making a difference. So this is my second high performance workshop with Lars, the first one that I went to six months ago. He really took us through an intensive two day process of identifying what were the six most important things that we could do in our business to move it forward as well as in our personal life. What were the six most important things we could do in our personal life. With 90 day goals, one year goals and ultimate vision. And really that has served as the blueprint of what I've been working on the last six months in order to implement my business and help us take us to where we're going to go next. The thing about that is Lars has studied from all of the greats. And I think he says that he spent over $400,000 on coaching with world class coaches. And I know he studies a lot with Tony Robbins. And one of the things Tony Robbins does is really try to get to the core inside emotional reason why you need to and want to make that change. And when you're able to tie what your goal is to the inside core emotional tie of why you need and want to see that happen, it really helps give you the drive from the inside to see that. So that was part of the process that Lars took us through with that goal setting was to really tap the inside of us and really tap the emotional drive that will help make that happen. At this high performance workshop that we've been doing, he's really taken us through the process of really determining from the inside of us what is our vision and what are our values. It's the kind of things that you have to have if you're going to build a large world class business. But the truth is, most of us, when we're just so busy with business, we never take the time to do it. So the process that Lars has taken us through in this high performance performance workshop to really develop the foundation, values and vision for our business are the things that you have to have in order to build a world class large organization and business. But the fact is, when we're always so busy with every transaction and leading our business and our team, we never take the time to do it on our own. So I'm really grateful we've gone through that today. We're going through. And actually the other thing that was really great that he, that Lars covered was the shadow tendencies and types of leadership and recognizing that there's aspects of my leadership that, you know, sometimes we might call them as weaknesses, but they're shadow types that I need to be aware of that if I do not cast light on and really, really pay attention to how I'm leading in those areas, they can be weaknesses in how I'm leading my business. And that was really helpful to learn. Today we're working on our organizational model. How is it that we build the vision of an organization that will take us to our ultimate goals? What I really appreciate about Lars coaching is that he focuses on simple systems that create a profitable and productive business. And he's not about chasing squirrels or shiny objects or getting the latest gadget with the hopes of becoming an overnight millionaire. He's really focusing on what are the best basic foundational things that you have to have. And the result is that your business is more profitable and your agents and your team is more productive. The value of having the one on one access to Lars is that when we've gone through the process of developing our vision and our plan of what we're building with our business, the opportunity to be able to connect with him. When I have specific questions of should I go this way or should I go that way? And truthfully, we come to learn that usually Lars answers are, let's go the simple route. Let's go the route that'll be more profitable. Go the route that's more productive. And that's what I'm really learning from Lars.