How I Overcame The 2008 Financial Crisis

What would you have done if you know, you just got into real estate and every other real estate agent you knew they were exiting the business? That's right. Back in 2008 when I got into real estate, we went from 15,000 agents in my market to 5,000 agents. Here I was, I left a cozy corporate job making a multiple six figure income and I became a real estate agent. It was the Great Recession, the housing crisis last almost four years. How is it that I went from 44 sides in 2008, my first full year that was sort of the onset of the Great Recession to 248 sides four years later where I only did one of those transactions on my real estate team. In today's video, I want to break down that process for you. We will see more crises, we will see more economic shifts. There is a ultimate shift storm happening right now in multiple areas. Consumer demands, technology. Just the business model with iBuyers. Are you prepared for it? So make sure you stay tuned to the end of the video. I've got an offer for you where I've actually written a book that I will give you a copy of the book if you stick around. If you like the video, give me the thumbs up, hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, turn on notifications and leave me comments as well. Let's dive in. Let's talk about the reality of when things get really hard. How do you respond? You know, back in the day, this was 2008, was my first full year in real estate. You know, as I'm filming this, we're going through a crisis. It's a global pandemic. We don't have really, we don't see the economic impact yet. So this is coming, this is real. Back then I didn't know what I didn't know. I was all in. I had left a corporate job. I was not going back to that life, right. I got into real estate so I could build something different, something better, something that allowed me to have some freedom. And instantly I had no freedom. And I wasn't make the kind of money, I wasn't even making the kind of money that I was in my corporate job. And here I am sort of stuck feeling stuck in this business. I was a new dad. I was trying to figure out how to be a good husband. I was trying to take care of myself physically. I was just coming to know God and my relationship with Jesus at the time. And so that was sort of just weird. My emotional well being was complete crap. And I was just struggling to make Sense of it all. So how do I. What were the steps I went through to go from, you know, just struggling in all of those areas to really getting it together and building a sustained, sustainable, systems driven, profitable business that was able to serve clients at a higher level, but also serve the team members, the people that were helping me build this business. I want to break down a few things for you so that you can do the same in your real estate business. First and foremost, I committed in those early days to become a master marketer. I knew that the key role I needed to take in my business was to generate leads consistently at a low cost, high quality leads, buyers and sellers. If I could figure that part out, every other domino in my business would fall. And I did it. I figured out how to generate, you know, sort of match what was going on in the market to the message I was putting out there. At the time it was Craigslist. And then it shifted, you know, to different sort of online sources. But I had the thing that buyers and sellers wanted at the time. I could help them get a deal. If you're a buyer and I can get your home sold where other agents weren't selling homes. And so what is your messaging going into a shift or coming out of a shift, wherever you are in the market cycle right now, it's a cyclical market. Are you matching your messaging to where the market is? Are you a master marketer or are you just stroking a check to zillow or realtor.com or are you paying Google to force registrations onto your website? And they're not even leads at that point. Right. They're they against their will, they give you their contact information. Right. We have to shift how we think about marketing in our businesses. If we want to build a business that allows us to absolutely crush anything the market can send our way. The next thing I would say in a shift, especially in any kind of crisis, that you have to be willing to do the work. For me in those early days, it was new business development and lead follow up. So no less than four hours a day, every day, while other agents were getting out of the business, I was time blocking new business development. New business development is when you're reaching someone or reaching out to someone for the first time. Either they've registered or they've asked for something for you, there's a reason to follow up. So I never was much of a cold caller. I didn't build my business on cold calling. I, I decided to become a great marketer like I said. And then Generate the lead. But I was also willing to do the work even when I didn't want to do the work. You know, at the time I time blocked early evenings, Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturday mornings and three other time blocks throughout the week. It was 12 hours in the calendar where I was doing new business development. This is generating new business for my business. You know, I started every day with this thought that I have nothing, I have no clients to serve today. I have to generate them out of my database. And so are you doing that consistently in your business? And if you have a team, are you sugarcoating the amount of effort that they need to put in to be able to achieve at a high level in their business? Are you tracking numbers? You know, how many contacts do you need to make to set an appointment by lead type? You know, I got so good at lead follow up and new business development, I, I knew for this lead source I would have to talk to 37 people to get one to agree to meet with me. I would have to meet, you know, out of 10 people I met, I would sign eight or nine buyers and I would sell about 50% of them homes. So to me it was just a numbers game. I figured out how I do it, then I brought people into my world and we do it and then I can get them running and gunning and then it's, they do it. Where I am now managing and leading and, and I'm in an owner position in the business. So where are you at in your journey? Are you willing to do the work that others won't do so that you don't have to be one of the agents that get out of the business when everything hits the fan. My next piece of advice is to keep your eye on the prize. You know, don't forget the why behind the why. You know, why are you building this business? To give you a life beyond the business. You know, traditional success is not worth having in my opinion. You, it leads to a life not worth living and a business not worth owning. You know, the prize for me, you know, and it still remains the prize is to build something that has impact outside of me. You know, how can I build a business that serves clients at a better level, at a higher level than I can serve them myself? That was my initial why. The why behind the why was that would allow me to not have to be with those clients evenings and weekends. And I can show up as a husband, I can show up as a father, right? I didn't have those things growing up. I had A jacked up childhood that I wouldn't wish on anyone. And that was another why behind the why behind the why. Like, I think there's like five whys deep to get the ultimate motivator front and center to remind yourself, like, oh yeah, I'm willing to go drive an hour and a half from my home to show this property because I don't want to end up like my dad did. Right? He fell into addiction because the pressure of his business. He lost his kids, he lost his marriage. He had nothing to show for any of his efforts. 33 years in business. That was the why behind the why behind the why for me. So think, just take a little bit of quiet time and think about why are you doing this? Ask yourself a few levels deep so you really can ground yourself. And in the why behind the why, I think of someone that has had massive success in real estate b school, Dave Friedman. You know, he did 35 transactions the year before I met him. No, six years later. We've been working together for six years. He did 375 transactions. He 10 xed his business. Ironically, he was working 70 to 80 hours a week to sell 35 homes. He works 20 hours a week to sell 300 and 75 homes. He's making more than 10 times the amount of income working less than half the hours. Was his journey easy? It was not easy, right? Was it? Were there times where he wanted to give up 100%? Probably a hundred times where he wanted to give up. Did he know the why behind his why? And was he willing to push through even when it was hard? Did he challenge himself to learn new things and adapt to different ways of doing business 100%, you know, so when I think of someone that has really sort of taken our systems and really r. Indeed. Straight up rip off and duplicated our system and put them into his business, using that as the foundation for success going forward, it's Dave Friedman. If you're at the point in your journey where it is hard and you're wondering, like, if only there was a guide, maybe a book that can lay out the entire journey from agent to owner, maybe this book is called Scale or Die. I've written a book exactly. For someone that wants to know how to go from being enslaved to their business to be completely free from the business in terms of their time and their money and freedom from stress, go to ScaleOrDieBook.com or click on the link below. As always, if you like the video, hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, make sure you turn notifications on so you're the first to know about new videos and leave comments so I can be motivated to do more videos to serve you more and more and more. You know, this is one of those topics where it's not easy to talk about. I do it because I want a different outcome for you than most of our industry. So keep showing up and I'll see you in the next video.