How to Manage Your Time as a Real Estate Agent in 2023

Hey, what's up? Real estate business builders? I am actually in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, getting away skiing and snowmobiling and I was actually just going through some of my best time management videos and I wanted to share them with you. There are three videos in total, kind of taking you through the mindset of what it looks like to disconnect time from money. So in your real estate business, you know, we invest a ton of time. We hope it's worth it. We get, we want to get money out of the business. Oftentimes, though, we're working too many hours. We're letting those around us, our loved ones, down. And so that's what these videos are about. I hope you enjoy. If you want to take your business to the next level, you just want to have a conversation about what that might look like, go to rebsgrowthassessment.com enjoy these videos.

Are you feeling stuck in your real estate business? You know, are you working way too many hours? You're stressed out all the time and at the end of the year you're wondering, like, where is the money? Like, you're not moving yourself forward financially, right? You're not achieving your financial goals. You know, the question is, is it possible to sell hundreds of homes per year working a regular work week so that you can have the balance between achieving things in your life and that really matter the things outside of real estate and still achieve at a high level financially and in your business and scale a business that gives you more time, more money, more freedom, more impact in your family and in your community. Make sure you stick around to the end of this video. I want to give you access to a report I put together that details the six stages of business growth.

And if you like the video, make.

Sure you give me the thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel and you if make sure you turn notifications on so you're the first to know about a new video when it hits. And make sure you leave comments as well. One of the first books I read when I got into real estate was E. Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. In the book, Michael Gerber challenges the readers to think about their business a little differently. And so the E. Myth question, as I remember it, might not be exact. It's how would you have to think about your business differently if you were to replicate it 10,000 times and just let that sink in for a second. As a real estate agent, no matter where you are in your journey, how would you have to think about your business differently if you were to open up 10,000 of them across the country or across the world. That question, I never forgot that question that hit me so hard and it was so impactful. And it changed everything in my real estate business and the way that I looked at my real estate business. And so a member of ours that I've been working with for over five years now. I remember when I first met Dave Hook in central Pennsylvania. He, I think Jenny was pregnant with their first child. They now have three children. I think they're all under five years old. And at the time, he was working 70 to 80 hours a week. He was doing just under about 100 transactions or so. He had an administrative assistant, I think one buyer slash showing agent at the time. And he was losing his mind. It wasn't worth it. The trade was not worth it.

Where he wanted to be a great dad.

And this was sort of coming, you know, Jenny was pregnant, so he was going to be a dad. And he wasn't positioned to have the margin and the time to be able to do so. And so when I think about e myth, he was living the E myth, E myth is the entrepreneurial myth. It's this thought that, like, hey, we're a real estate agent, so we're in business for ourself and now we have all this freedom and we're entrepreneurs. It's a myth because you're a slave to your business. That's like 99% of real estate agents. It's an entrepreneurial myth. And so in the book, he challenges us to give more time to the personalities that allow for growth and freedom in our business. So the three personalities inside every entrepreneur. Number one, it's the technician. It's the person doing the work. Like you're constantly doing it, doing it, doing it. This is most real estate agent. Then there's the manager. This is the person that builds systems and has people run those systems. Then number three, there's the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur thinks about the vision of the business.

Where are we headed?

Right.

They view business as a return on investment. So if I put in this amount of effort or if I invest this amount of dollars or I bring these people to run these systems, what could it look like? How do we compete in the market?

Right.

So the entrepreneur is thinking sort of bigger picture systems and how you move things around the managers in the day to day building systems, having people run the systems. The technician is doing the work. They're showing homes, they're entering listings into mls. They're kind of in the grind of real estate. So as you look at where you are in your business, where are you spending most of your time? Are you spending any time building systems? Are you spending any time thinking about the future, planning and casting vision?

Right.

Or you just buried in the technical work of the business, in the technician. So fast forward just a few years, Dave was able to build his business. Last year he did about 250 transactions. He works about 30 to 35 hours a week in this business. I'm actually working with Dave right now to go down to two days a week in this business. So he has a 2.2 to $2.4 million real estate business that's set up on the right economic model. He's been out of production for a few years now, and it's systems based. So everything in his business is systems based. He is like the systems master as far as I'm concerned. He's building one system at a time. But his mindset around systems is that, hey, if I build this system the right way, the growth or the leverage, he's either going to grow his business or he's going to buy time back or he's going to make things easier for those that are in his world.

Right.

So now he's able to coach his team and make sure the systems are running versus, you know, grinding out transactions and doing the technical work. So about, I'd say about 50 to 60% of his time is spent in that business as the entrepreneur thinking big, big picture. Maybe 20 to 30% is as the manager helping his team members with systems and maybe holding them accountable to those systems. And very little, I don't even know what percentage is left, but 10% or so in the actual technical work of the business. Very rarely is he brought into the technical work of the business. And so think yourself. The mindset shift question is how would you think about your business differently? If you're to replicate it 10,000 times, you couldn't go on 10,000 consultations at the same time.

Right.

So your sales systems have to be built out. Maybe there's a virtual process that can get the same conversion rate. We've worked on that and it's worked out really well. We get the same conversion without having a salesperson present our buyer services or our seller services.

Right.

So how could you rethink your sales process? Same thing with marketing. We have lead gen levers in our business that produce at least 50 transactions per lead gen lever. And we're not being, we're not buying, you know, forced buyer registrations from Zillow or we're not doing Pay per click. We've cut out all that stuff, right? Our social proof is the engine in our business. That's our most dominant lead gen lever. So what are you doing in your business to have the success that you want and scale without scaling your hours and losing your mind? If you want to know the step by step, the stage by stage process, the mindsets, the questions, the tools, how the team looks for all six stages of business growth, go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com that's realestatebusinessgrowth.com or you can click on the link here in the description for this video. If you liked the video, give me the thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel and make sure you turn notifications on and also leave comments so we can go back and forth on the content here. We'll see in the next video. Is it really possible to run your real estate business working only one day per week? This is probably the question that I'm asked most often is Lars, are you really only working one day a week.

In your real estate business?

So in today's video, I want to go through the step by step process. The different stages of growth that I experienced to go from like overworked, underpaid, super stressed out all the time real estate agent to, you know, not showing up as a great dad, not showing up as a, you know, a present husband and serving my family, not taking care of my physical body, not having any faith, you know, walk whatsoever. Back in those early days to fast.

Forward, you know, five or six years, we sold 400 homes and I was.

Working one day a week and I was, you know, really active in my.

Faith and I was taking care of.

Myself emotionally and physically and I was showing up as a husband and as a father. How do I go from, you know, seven days a week to failing on all fronts to one day a week making more money than I imagined and now showing up in all the areas of life that matter. Stick around to the end of this video. I want to give away a free report that really details the mindsets, the tools, the systems, the team structure, the questions you need to ask yourself at.

Every stage of this journey.

Stick around and I'll give you access to that free report after this video. If you if you liked the video, give me the thumbs up. Make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications so you're the first to know when a video drops. And leave comments below. All right, so I'm going to go through my journey once again. The backdrop this time is this concept of, you know, how do I build it in such a way where I can completely step out of it? Let's pretend you want to work no days a week. The mindset here is the most important thing. The first book I read when I got into real estate was E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. It doesn't give you any sort of practical tools or systems or tactics or even strategies. Well, I guess it talks about strategy, but it doesn't give you specific things to do to go from the technician to the entrepreneur. It gives you the mindset necessary to.

Be able to do that.

And so here is my guiding question, and this is the question that I've never forgotten that will change everything for you if you truly understand it. How would you think about your business differently if you were to replicate it 10,000 times? So, E Myth revisited. If you don't know much about the book, it is a book Michael Gerber wrote about the entrepreneurial myth. That's the me myth. The entrepreneurial myth is like, hey, I'm a real estate agent, so I'm a business owner, right? All I do all day long is the technical work of a real estate agent, yet I call myself a business owner. And he has this funny quote about.

You know, you have the worst boss ever.

You've decided to get into business for.

Yourself, leave your corporate job, you're now a business owner. You have the worst boss ever, yourself, right?

There's no accountability, there's no vision, there's no sort of logical business practices. You're not spending anytime thinking about the future.

You're not building systems or empowering people.

You're not doing any management work. You're just doing the technical work in the business. And that is the entrepreneurial myth. So how do you bust out of that? Sort of just grinding out the technical work? It is thinking about your business differently. If you were to replicate your business 10,000 times, think about the McDonald's franchise. If you've seen the movie, the founder, you know, Ray Kroc viewed that first McDonald's location differently than the McDonald's brothers. The McDonald's brothers built the franchise prototype, right? If you remember from the movie, Michael.

Keaton in the movie, who was Ray.

Kroc, is not sort of painted as.

Like the best guy, really shrewd business person.

Put that aside for a second.

The McDonald's brothers in that parking lot.

Scene, that was when they were building the franchise prototype, they were orchestrating like, how do we create, you know, really great tasting food fast, right? In less than a Minute you can get your burger in the parking lot scene, they're, they're wiping away the lines.

They're redrawing where the oven is, the.

Ketchup station, where they put cheese on, how they bag it, and how people.

Are moving so they're not bumping into each other.

So building the franchise prototype is the same thought process as if I were to replicate it 10,000 times. So if you were to practice real estate, let's just say in a hundred markets across the country, how would you think about your business differently?

In each of those markets, you have to generate leads.

You would have to, you know, have conversations with buyer prospects and seller prospects. You'd have to compel them to take action and come meet with you in.

Your office, presumably, or go to their house, maybe for a listing appointment.

You'd have to compel them or convince them to do business with you, sign.

A buyer loyalty agreement or sign a.

Listing agreement and at a price where it will sell, you know, at a commission rate that you choose, with fees that you, you know, you know, you deserve. And, and then how do you get them on the market or searching for homes if they're a buyer, and then.

How do you get them under contract.

Into closing successfully, where they're actually more happy with you at closing than they were when they agreed to do business with you? So imagine doing that in a hundred different markets. You couldn't be the one doing any of those things. So everything in your business becomes a conversation around, how can I build a system to do this?

How can I build a system to.

Nurture my database, you know, fully leveraged to the point where I can generate business from the database? So you could record a weekly video just like this to your database where you can add value.

And as a result of adding value.

Over time, they're going to think of you.

When it comes to real estate, you.

Could actually do that and get into 100 different markets doing that. So that's a system, that's a leveraged activity that we could translate into, you know, multiple businesses, your sales system.

Right.

How would you have to present in 100 different markets in the same day to a new buyer coming into your office looking for a buyer's agent or buyer, buyer's representative? You'd have to figure out some sort of virtual consultation process, or at least a step by step process where you had someone in those offices presenting, you.

Know, the services or what we've done.

We put together a virtual consultation process where I'm the one actually talking about the benefits of working with our team.

Right.

Same thing on the listing side, the step by step process to hold a virtual consultation process to go through a.

Pricing conversation, a marketing fee conversation.

Right.

What's the systems and processes that you put into place? So the journey from you know, where you are right now to what's possible in your real estate business, it's. Yeah.

It comes with six stages.

Right.

0 to 100 is where you're starting or barely surviving. 100 to 500, we call that the ramp stage, where you're really ramping up your production and the money's okay, but you're working too many hours. 502 million is where we call build because you're primarily building systems in your building, in your business. A million to 1.5 is what we call the lead stage. That's where you're leading and managing others and holding them accountable. 1.5 to 2 million is what we.

Call the exit stage. That's where you have the opportunity.

If you've done all the things right.

On all the stages prior where you.

Could exit production and you can still profitably run a business, then 2 to 3 million plus is where you could take the owner seat in your business and work one day a week. And that's the conversation we're having.

It's a step by step process.

There are a handful of things to do at each stage.

No more than 30 sort of big.

Focus areas along the journey.

But we've broken it down into step by step.

And it's this mindset of, hey, in the future I'm going to end up with a business that doesn't rely on me and what do I have to do today to make that happen in the future?

Right.

If I can create this vision for three to five years from now, break.

That into a one year plan, 90.

Days at a time, 30 day goals.

Weekly commitments, our whole planning system.

Right.

How can I get there systematically, predictably.

Right.

This journey is not only possible and.

A hundred percent predictable.

Real estate B school was created out of necessity. Like I started the conversation.

I wanted to be a good husband, I wanted to be a good dad.

You know, I didn't want to be focused on business all the time. It's still something I struggle with and I guard myself against it. Yet I have freedoms now that I wasn't able to have back then because I wasn't in a position where I.

Had figured out all these pieces.

So real estate B school only exists in because I failed through all of those six stages where I didn't know what was coming at the next stage? Because there was no next stage. There was no real estate business growth navigator, right? So go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com it's going to.

Lay out every one of these stages.

All the mindset, all the tools, what you're making, you know, the hours you're working, what the team structure looks like, the questions you should be asking yourselves, and what, what exactly it's going to take to go from one stage to the next stage, how to graduate from stage to stage. So go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com that's realestatebusinessgrowth.com or click on the link below. If you like this video, give me the thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel, make sure you turn on notifications and leave comments below. We'll see in the next video. As a real estate agent or a.

Real estate team leader, have you ever slowed down enough to, to really consider what your time is worth? You know, there are jobs as a real estate agent where you get paid like 12, 15 bucks an hour.

Think about running signs out to a.

Property or taking pictures of a property or, you know, I don't know, running a check from the attorney or from your client to the attorney right there. All these jobs we do as a real estate agent that don't pay a lot of money. And on the other hand, I mean, think about when you're sitting, sitting in front of a seller and you have the opportunity to bring a listing into your business that you know will sell that might be worth 10, 12, $15,000 commission. How much is that 90 minute listing consultation worth to your business?

I want you to stick around because.

I'm going to invite you into the Time Freedom Challenge where I'm going to push you and coach you and just offer you an opportunity to think about time and money differently.

If you like these videos, give me.

The thumbs up and subscribe to the channel and make sure you turn notifications on. You know, as I look at my business growth journey and our most successful members, I think about this concept of how do we detach time and money. And here's what I mean by that. You know, there are a full 12 jobs that a real estate agent does and each of those jobs have different tasks associated with them. So let's take marketing coordination, right? Somebody has to maintain your database, send out maybe direct mail or an electronic newsletter or post on social media. Let's take listing coordination.

You take a listing, somebody has to get the pictures coordinated.

You know, maybe there's a staging consultation involved or you know, an inspection, a pre inspection before you get the home on the market. Let's take closing coordination, all the T's and I's that need to be crossed and dotted and all of the detail that goes along with negotiating repairs and you know, what's that worth in your business? And so we get sort of caught up in our business doing everything ourselves. In real estate B school we have developed a metric, a concept, a construct.

That we call Business Freedom Index or bfi.

It's a very simple calculation and I want you to slow down and go through this calculation with me. I promise you I'm not going to bring out a spreadsheet. It's a simple calculation. I'll run through a couple examples and I want you to think about what your actual BFI is and I'll give you the definition in a second. What it is today and what do you want it to be in three short years from now. So BFI Business Freedom Index is simply a calculation of your age, AGI, your adjusted gross income from last year. So whatever that number is divided by the hours that you put into your business. And if you are working with a spouse, it's your collective hours. So if you file jointly and your AGI is $250,000, let's say, yeah, let's say there's two of you and you work 50 hours a week, each of you. So 2,500 hours each, each times two is 5,000. The 250 is divided by 5,000 hours or $50 an hour. Let's say you're a solo agent and you earned a net six figure income. So maybe you took in 150, 160,000 GCI, you pay your broker some marketing expenses and your AGI on your tax return, basically your pre tax income is $100,000. But let's say you worked 60 hours a week consistent consistently for the year to generate that hundred thousand dollars. That's a typical top producing agent. That's someone that's coming into our business. Foundations program, our entry level program for solo agents that want to scale their real estate business. That's a typical agent that's making about six figures and they're working about 3,000 hours a year. Let's do the math on that. 100,000 divided by 3,000 is three $33 an hour. So we went through that. There are some jobs you'll do as a real estate agent that you're making 250, 500 $1,000 an hour. That listing consultation you Know, generating new business over the telephone, you know, sitting down for a buyer consultation and securing that client, that activity, you know, securing the client, the buyer client is worth way more than the next day. You go out and spend three hours opening doors to homes, showing agents don't get paid $500 an hour. So just think, the mindset I want to challenge you on is to think.

About your business differently.

Alright?

So at this point you should have what your BFI is. So in this example was $33 an hour. How do you look at your business.

Differently so that you could be in.

A different situation financially in the future? Let's say you want to go from $33 an hour, your BFI to $100 an hour. What would that look like? So you have to raise your income from 100,000 to 250,000 and decrease your hours from 3,000 to 2,500 hours.

Right?

250,000 divided by 2,500 hours is $100 an hour. You can triple your BFI, go from 33 to $100 an hour, take your hours down. What is that? About 60 to 50 is roughly 10. Around 15% decrease in your working hours. That's the power of BFI for me. When I first did this calculation back in 2008, I looked at 2007 and I think my take home was like a measly $36,000. I worked a lot of hours, 60 to 70 hours a week on average. In that first part year I was in real estate, I calculated my BFI and it was like one time I calculated was 14. I think I fudged it a little bit the second time because I felt bad for myself. And it was 18 either way, it was less than $20 an hour. How do I go from less than $20 an hour to $2,300 an hour just a handful of years later? It's this concept of just looking at where I'm spending my time and being honest with myself. Is this thing I'm doing right now the highest and best use of my time? When I think about one of our members that has really accelerated and achieved a 10x increase in her BFI. It's Cody Riddle out of Phoenix, Arizona. When I met Cody, she was a successful real estate agent. She had been through bit of a grind when it came to her real estate business in those great Recession years. This is before real estate B school even existed.

So she was 18 years in the.

Business when I first met her and she was doing about 250 to 300,000 GCI. The challenge was she was working way too much. She's fallen out of love with real estate. Over 3,000 hours a year. Let's use round numbers. Let's use three. 300,000. Actually, that's her gross. So 300,000 after expenses, probably she took home about $200,000, which is amazing pay, but not if you're working like 3035. Some agents are working 4000 hours a year. In her example, let's use 3000. So 200,000 divided by 3000 hours is $67 an hour. It's pretty decent pay, right? Most people you meet that have sort of regular jobs are not making $67 per hour. She was ready to give up her business at that point. So we got to work. We came up with this three year vision for where she wanted to be, how she wanted her business to look, to focus just on listings, to have a small, nimble sort of Navy SEALS team around her. We took her business from 250,000, 300,000 GCI in that range to like last year she did 1.2 million GCI. And this year she's on track for 1.5 million GCI. Her hours have come down from 3,000 hours to closer to 2,000 hours. Her take home this year.

Let me just do quick math.

She'll be at almost, you know, 350 to $400 per hour that she puts.

Into her real estate business.

So a more than a 5x increase in her Business Freedom Index. So as you sit here today, where are you in terms of the money you're generating, the income versus the unit of time you're putting into the business? Right? That's Business Freedom Index. Where do you want to be aspirationally three years from now? Where do you want to be? And when you think about where you are and where you want to be, what's holding you back? What are the things you must stop doing? Are you showing homes on evenings and weekends when you can hire a showing agent? Are you involved in paperwork, marketing coordination, listing coordination, closing coordinating?

Right.

Are you doing all the administrative jobs in your business? Are you running signs around town? Are you taking your own pictures? Are you entering listings into the mls? All these things that you're occupying your days with, Think about the dollar per hour that you could have, someone that is better suited to do them anyway so that you can focus on the highest and best use for your time, the highest dollar. Productive activities. We call them DPAs. In real estate, there's only four. It's prospecting, lead follow up appointments, consultations with new buyers and sellers, and then negotiating deals. If you're doing anything other than those four things, chances are you're not making the kind of money you want and deserve. I mentioned earlier the Time Freedom Challenge and this is just an opportunity for.

Me to coach you and train you.

And teach you how a new way of looking at your time and your money and delinking the two right 250 to $500 per hour consistently in your real estate business is possible once you understand the principles, the tools and techniques and hacks and systems that you'll use forever in your business. So go to thetimefreedomchallenge.com or click on the link below. If you like this video, give me.

The thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn notifications on.

Until next time, Think about where you're spending your time and don't be discouraged where you're starting. Be encouraged by what's possible.

We'll see you in the next video.

So hopefully you enjoyed those videos and it gave you a little bit of insight in what it might look like to start to think about your business differently and consider disconnecting time and money. You know, putting systems into your business, automations and delegations, using technology at a higher level so that you can make more money in less time with less stress. If you want to have a conversation about what this might look like in your business, Specifically, go to rebsgrowthassessment.com this is not a sales call. This is just a conversation about your business, what's working, what's not working. And let's come up with a plan to help you grow and scale your business and and your income and just live an awesome life. We'll see you on the other side. Be good.