How Tom Nickley Created a Self-Sustaining Business and Improved His Quality of Life

I started in real estate September of 2013, and kind of went at it full steam ahead. Started a lead generation website right out of the box. And my ultimate goal was to eventually start a team. I got a lead generation website because I know to start a team, eventually I would have to have lots of leads. So. So for the first year or so, it was just me. It was me and only me. I had no admin, I had no help. Started off first four months, closed a few deals, but then come spring of last year, 2014, I started getting pretty busy. I was doing four or five transactions a month, but I was doing them all on my own. It was just me running the transactions, working with buyers, doing, taking listings, doing everything myself. I always knew that I was going to need a business coach. I always knew that I wanted one, but I wanted to find the right coach because I had a lot of business experience previously and I knew I needed a specific business coach to help me really focus on turning my real estate career into an actual business. Last August, September, I reached the realization that I needed to develop a team because I was just getting so busy and it was way too much for me to handle, I believe. I watched a couple webinars on Lars online. I talked to somebody in my Commissions Inc. Facebook group that said that they were working with Lars. Had a lot of great things to say about him. So I started watching some of his YouTube videos and about his B school, his B school, business school for real estate. It made it just seem like a perfect fit. It seemed like exactly what I was looking for. His systems were how to kind of take yourself out of the business eventually and build a business that runs itself. And it was before I met him. I felt like it was kind of a match made in heaven because it was everything I was looking for. So I talked to him the first time. And this was late September last year, actually, right before his intensive last year, a couple days before, jumped on board and just jumped in. Head first, man, from that day and have been implementing his systems ever since.

Okay, so what struggles did you have when it came to building a team or even before that? What did you feel like you could have improved on your business?

Oh, man, so much. I mean, I had a lot of business going on, but I was trying to run everything myself. I mean, I had no family life at all. It was. I mean, I literally went from brand new to being pretty busy as a single agent, but I was still trying to figure out the business in itself. You know, I was. When I got real busy and started doing multiple transactions at a time. I was struggling because now I was trying to run the transactions and deal with the mortgage lenders and deal with title and deal with everything myself. My prospecting started to struggle because I had so much going on and I absolutely had no balance. I was being successful early on in my career, but my family life struggled. I was literally working from 8 o' clock in the morning and usually not getting home till after the kids went to bed. And I was doing it pretty much seven days a week, going out with. I was doing everything. And my main struggle was I just had no balance.

Okay, so those first couple of phone calls, what did he notice right away that you could have improved in your business or what were the first things you started implementing?

Well, the first thing I started implementing is getting buyer's agents, bringing buyer's agents on, and starting to remove myself from that business. So instead of working in my business, I can start working on my business. I had a lot of great ideas. I had, like I said, I had a lot of prior business experience. And I think the conversation we had is, I think he was psyched to talk to me because of the fact that I already had so much experience and I already had a plan. His exact words to me is that he thought I could do what it took him three years to do in the first year just because I was so far ahead of the curve. But the key was to start taking myself out of the everyday. Running around with buyers, getting in the car, spending so much time, and start finding people that I can develop and train to do that so I can start working on building the other facets of my business and start building some systems out that I can plug people into.

Okay, so you mentioned your learning curve was cut in third. So I want to know what the success that you have been seeing looks like. I mean, what kind of results have you been seeing?

It's actually pretty amazing, man. I literally went from doing four transactions a month, on average, four or five. I actually ended up doing a little bit over 60 transactions last year. Started the team late September. Actually. I started the team a little bit before I started with Lars. We started in early September, but when I started with him, that's when we really started going in fast forward. Great, man. We have done year to date. I think we're up to 29 transactions closed and pending for the year so far. The pipeline is crazy. I've got five buyer's agents at this point, and I haven't went out with a buyer in six months. I haven't gone out with a buyer since the day I started working with Lars. I haven't been in the car I've been spending a lot of time in. It's great. I have my two young kids in baseball. I've been able to attend every one of their games, but I've been able to attend every one of their practices. And I remember before Lars, I didn't even get to see my children. I was lucky. My wife and I had a deal that I'd bring them to school one day a week back then. Now we split time, dropped them off at school. I'm at all their activities. The quality of life's gone up, but the quality of the business, it's great because we've done great so far this year, and we've done that. And it's really the tip of the iceberg. It's like everything that we've been building out in the last six months really starting to come to fruition. And I feel like we're really just at the beginning. And it's great because everybody on the team sees it, everybody understands it and knows it. And it's been pretty awesome, man, because I've got agents that are finding me to want to be on our team because the morale in our team is so great that the team members, the guys in the team are talking to other agents and other people and the word's getting out. I haven't even. I've implemented his recruiting system, but I haven't even had to use it because I have people coming to me wanting to be on the team. So across the board, it's just our business has changed and it's cool to think that we're really just at the beginning phases.

Okay, so you're pretty new in real estate. Have you had any real estate coaching before?

None at all. None at all.

How about business coaching?

None at all. I actually was in the wine industry for 10 years and I, I built business there. My whole business. I ran three offices for my company was based out of California. I ran the whole east coast. So I had a lot of prior experience building business, running offices, training, hiring, prospecting. That was with the whole business. When I came over to real estate, I was kind of ahead of the curve on all that stuff. But real estate was a brand new realm. So I was very, very, very specific, picky on the type of real estate. I didn't need a rah, rah, rah. I didn't need a coach to talk to me about mindset. I needed somebody to Give me a clear cut path in real estate and help me develop systems. So Lars was the first, but it's like perfect match. He had all of the things. I was really hesitant for the first year to even think about a coach because. Because I knew that I wasn't going to really get what I needed to help me build my business. So when Lars came along, it was just perfect.

Okay. So I'm wondering, since you're seeing pretty good success on the program, I'm wondering what tips you would offer to someone who's kind of in the middle of.

It like you are, as far as in the middle of building a business.

In the middle of Lars coaching. More specifically, like what. What are you doing right, that you feel has been beneficial for you?

Listen, man, it is really, really simple. I just do what he does verbatim. I mean, I literally go through his system and my systems. We haven't swayed. We just build them verbatim from, from the buyer system to, you know, the policies and procedures, to the tracking forms, to the, you know, the top producer plans. We haven't tried to recreate anything. A lot of the stuff that offer a lot of the stuff we were doing in our business. But he just gives a really clear cut path of implementing and when to implement and what not to implement and to not chase squirrels, as we love to talk about, and just stick to it and get one thing perfect and get it running and then move on to the next thing. It's no magic potion, man. It is what he teaches in his program. As far as systems, I think following his systems of implementing the systems I think is really key. It's not been magic, it's really just been methodical and not getting ahead of ourselves. We got lots of great ideas, but he's very much about just do one thing at a time, do it right, and then move on to the next. So it's not magic. I mean, I think if everybody realized how easy it was, they'd be amazed.

Okay, so what does success on this program or in real estate or business in general look like to you? If we were sitting here in maybe.

Two or three years, I think it's the business running as a business. I think what I've noticed very, very, very much. I realized it before Lars, but it's crystal clear since we've been working with them. And it's great because all my guys on my team are new, like brand new to real estate, with the exception of one. But it's crystal clear to them when they go out and they're working with other agents and they're working with other teams or other organizations, it's crystal clear to them how far ahead of those other people we are because we really treat our business like a business. To me, it's not being involved in the day to day again, working on the business, dictating my schedule, my family life, how our businesses run, creating an experience for, for not only our clients but the other agents we come across and the vendors we work with and the title companies. And for me it's being able to have a business that's self sustained and has people that each have a job, their own job that they're great at, where I'm not the one that has to be in it every day, that everybody knows their role and what they need to do and that everybody compliments one another, you know, and the team is bigger than the individual. So not having to be involved in the day to day and having a team that everybody does their own thing and not only me, having a quality of life, but you know, I preach to my guys, you know, the buyer's agents, you know, operations, that it's not just about seeing success but having a quality of life and having a balance between work and business. You know, we want to be busy, we want to all be successful and make a lot of money. But just as important as we have to be able to enjoy the time with our family and our loved ones. So I think that's the big picture and it's great because our big picture, we're doing the things now that complement our big picture. The big picture we have is great, but we're also doing those things now that are part of our big picture that are only going to help us get there faster.