Learn How Stacie Exited Production And Tripled Her Real Estate Business!

Hey there, everyone. Lars Hedenborg, founder of Real Estate B School. I am super excited today to talk to Stacy Peterson, who has been with Real Estate B School for a few years now. And Stacy's out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And, Stacy, I'm gonna let you kind of introduce yourself. Tell us about yourself personally and how you got started in real estate and kind of a little bit about your journey.

Yes. So I'm married, and I have two kids, 9 and 11. They're 16 months apart. So this is the sweet spot where no one teases me. Like, you have kids the same age? Like, no, they're 16 months apart. But, you know, when you say 9 and 11, it seems acceptable versus 9 and 10. So they're those ages right now. I got into real estate because growing up, my parents flipped houses before. That was cool. I grew up in a tiny town called Scotland, S.D. had at 800 people, and they would buy houses and then either sell them or rent them out. And when I went to college, my dad and mom and I bought a house together so I could rent it out and have roommates. And the realtor that helped us asked if I was interested in becoming a realtor. I didn't even know it was a job because in my small town, you, you know, we just, like, shook hands with the person that was selling their house or they, you know, passed away or something like that. So there wasn't anybody in between. So it was just really intriguing to, you know, do this for a job. And if I'm honest, I really just thought it would be super cool to see my face on a billboard or something. So I kind of started with those ambitious ambitions.

Awesome.

Thank you.

So we met in, I think, 2014, and when we first met, I think we formally talked on a Friday, and I told you to call me back on a Monday, and I'll let you tell that story. But what did you want to achieve when we first started working together?

Yeah. So I originally reached out to you because I just had no margin at all, like, in my schedule, in my life. I felt like I was on this slippery slope of just being available to everyone else but my family, my business wasn't systematic. And so when I contacted you. Yeah. On a Friday, you mentioned, hey, I'm starting a coaching company on Monday. And I thought, what? That's crazy. Wouldn't everybody say that if someone called and said, hey, could I pay you money to help me? But you really did have a coaching company. So that worked out. But when I first started working with You. I just had admired your business. I had met you in a different. At a conference, and I watched you get these awards, and I was like, I want to be on stage getting these awards. Right? The person that started real estate because she wanted her face on a billboard. Of course I wanted to be on stage getting awards. And I saw you getting awards, but I also saw you not just talking about that, but talking about your family and your faith and fitness, just like other goals. And I thought, man, that is what's missing in my life. Like, I've got, you know, business down, quote, unquote. But really, it was a mess. But I felt like I had enough information that way. But I didn't have a mentor or someone that I could look to, a coach that was really successful in a lot of areas of their life. And that's what made me reach out to you, was I was like, I need that. I need more than just real estate and how do I sell more homes? I need to know how do I leverage myself? How do I make money? I didn't even know how to read a P and L. And it's a little questionable today. I think I'm better, but I just didn't. I didn't understand the concepts of business.

Yeah, let's dig in a little bit there. You know what. What were the problems you were facing both personally and professionally back when we got started?

Yeah, definitely personally. It was just not a good situation. So my husband is, like, the nicest guy. You know, really strong faith, great dad, great husband. But I was just not fulfilling on any promises. So I'd say, you know, hey, I'm just gonna work late this night and maybe tomorrow night, but then on the weekend, I'll be available. We can go do something fun and put. I just never was right. My phone was always ringing. My kids knew when it rang. Like, you know, hand the phone to mom, and it was just always this chaotic. It was always chaotic. That's a good way to describe it. And I can think of one time when we were at. On a little weekend vacation, just to, like, this big mall with an amusement park, and we were walking around and of course, right. Like, I have a listing that has multiple offers. So my phone's ringing off the hook, and. And I'm out of town. And so I'm answering my phone, and my husband leaves me standing in the middle of this mall in front of this amusement park with my youngest daughter because he's so mad because I've done this a hundred times. And he asked me for like two hours just to shut the phone off. And I didn't. And I was just so flaming mad at him for leaving me there. I was like, are you kidding me? Do you know what I'm doing? Like, I'm building this thing, you know, how can you not be supportive? And then when I look back, and if I'm honest, it took me probably two years to realize it, but when I look back, I think, you know, I was the jerk, really just thinking about myself, like, people need me to answer and they need me to sell their home. Like, I can't leverage any of this stuff, when honestly, I just didn't know how. And so that was something that you definitely helped me with as well, is learn the path, how to do as much deals as I want to or have the income that I want, but it doesn't have to all come from me. Like, I don't have to be an on call agent. I don't have to show homes, you know, 247 without any kind of standards. So that was something that, you know, that was really what my life was, like, chaotic.

Yeah. Talk a little bit about some of the commitments I had you make to your children and your husband.

Yeah, that was so emotional. So when we started working together, you caught on super quick that I was just overwhelmed and, like, exhausted. I'm gonna pretend you didn't look at me and see it. I'm just gonna pretend that it was only because I was huffing all the time. When you asked me to do something or you asked me a question, I just like, sigh or huff, you know? And it really was just. There was so much going on and everything felt so heavy. So you said to me, because I had told you the same story about how, you know, my family's sick of it, honestly, I'm burnt out. And you said, we're gonna make a commitment and I want you to stick to it. So you had me, you filled out this document for me that said I will not work with buyers or sellers after a certain date. And, you know, I'm committing to building this business, but basically not at the expense of my family. And I had to take my husband to dinner and sign it, and he had to sign it. And I mean, I remember his face sitting there and he was. He was very supportive. He was like, I believe in you. I believe you can do it. But it meant a lot to him that it wasn't going to be at the expense of our marriage or our kids, you know, lives, honestly, because everything revolved around real estate. And you also had me shoot a video talking to them, like, one year later, and I could barely get through it. I was just so. I was just like, all the emotions were coming, and, you know, I was like, hi, kids, it's Mommy. But basically, you know, the same message. Like, I. You know, you are everything to me, and I'm so sorry I haven't treated you that way. And, you know, it just wasn't something I expected with working with you. You expect, you know, hey, I'm going to a business coach, or I want to fix my business. And you really saw through that, and it was. It ended up being more holistic than that. Like, one of the questions to work with you was, you know, how many diets have you been on? And I thought, oh, crap. Like, should I really answer that? It's a lot. And, you know, and what you were getting to is like, do you have integrity with your commitments? And do you have integrity with your family with what you say you're gonna do? So I really appreciated it. Not so much at the time, but I definitely appreciated it, especially when, you know, I could show my family in the year, like, look how far we've come. And look at what's happening now. And the business, right? The team, too. They were. I can't even imagine how chaotic things were for them. If you have a chaotic leader who is up and down on that roller coaster, you know, I'm sure I was just a horrible leader because nothing was good enough. Nothing was enough. You know, sell more houses, then it'll get better instead of, hey, how can I serve you?

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things, you know, now that you're with real estate, B school, you know, it's your. It's your passion to help others through this journey. I mean, it's. It's like, what's wrong with our industry? Conventional success? It just sucks. Nobody's talking about, like, how's your marriage? Like, how's your physical, you know, emotional or spiritual health? Like, do you kick your dog? Do you do crack cocaine? Are you watching porn? Like, nobody has, like, authentic conversations in our industry. And just being willing to. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many homes you sell, and we still want to grow. So God created us with this, like, innate drive to compete and grow. And so we don't want to dishonor that, but we don't want to give everything to it as well.

Right. I mean, we were just made for so much more than real estate. And, you know, why, why live your whole life around it and then you look back and go, oh no, I really have nothing to show for it because at the end it isn't going to matter about the money or the stuff. And honestly, that was the path I was on. The more money, the more stuff, then I'll amount to something, then people will think I'm great, you know, and it honestly, it's not what any of it really is about.

Yeah, awesome. Let's dig into the nuts and bolts of the results. So all this sounds great, but like, you know, like, what did it actually mean? Like, when were you able to kind of, you know, just so everyone knows, it's this shift from production to business ownership. That's what real estate B school does. That's what Stacy and I worked on together. That's what she helps clients now work on. Talk about that shift from production to business ownership. What did. It's like a three year journey for you, but you know, how many months did it take to get out of production? What are the top two or three tools and systems you worked on that really helped you leverage the business? Take us through that.

Yeah. So to get out of production, part of the document that you had me signed was out of production in six months. And that was buyer and seller. I really had because I had a little bit of a team. I had four people. I was able to offload some buyers. So I had part of it built which allowed me to be out of the buyer side of production. But I didn't know that because again, I didn't know how to read financials. And then within six months I was out of the seller side. Then I really dug into the operations side of our business. So it's something that I love doing is finding a problem and like creating a system. But I was a salesperson and salespeople creating systems are like a mess. So while I thought my systems were great, they weren't duplicatable. So that's really what, you know, you, you really dug in with your mind and you know, being more like analytical and engineer type mind, your systems were able to be put into my business. Even though it's completely different markets, completely different, even, you know, people Midwest versus East coast. And you know, we were able to put it in our business and it worked because we put our small spin on it. But they were systems that made sense versus just how I felt or how I thought things should be done. Like this was proven and I was able to do that. A couple systems that I just love. Number One is the equity evaluation. So most agents, you know, you, you might even put like two, three hours worth of work to go in for a listing to price it and you're hoping you have some type of, you know, right range or right number. The equity evaluation allowed me to come in and value a house four different ways. It was like by far my favorite tool. And it worked for any type of personality type. So no matter who I was meeting with, I loved, I love showing it. The second one was tracking. So it's my number two and three is tracking. And I am not a tracker. So it's not anything natural to me. That's why I was on a bazillion diets and tried, you know, if there's like a new thing, I'm on it, but tracking. One part that helped me was tracking my finances and tracking where my money was being spent and where my deals were coming from. So then I could understand, hey, this system's working, this isn't. And it wasn't a guess from me and it wasn't, you know, me hoping, well, if I just spend the money, it'll come. It wasn't that anymore. So those were. The tracking part is probably multiple systems, but the overall is just learning how to track. And I didn't start with 15 things at once. I tracked a couple because that was about all I could, you know, commit to. Ongoing.

Yeah. And it really is, I mean, maybe there's other industries like this, but in real estate it's like you get, you get the conventional success and then you just all of a sudden decide that I'm going to lead others. Like, and there's no training, there's no like, you know, you just decide you're going to do it. It's like, you know, e myth, just the entrepreneurial seizures. I'm going to start a business, right. I know how to sell homes now, you know, so talk a little bit about what that was like for you. So you had a little team when we started working together and then really what did the people process? Because a lot of agents are really scared of even hiring a part time administrator, you know, and knowing what you know now and how you coach now. What advice would you give someone that is like in that, you know, hiring their first assistant or they're hiring a buyer agent or two or talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, hiring is a hard part, right? I mean everybody, I think that that is like something everyone's scared of because you're afraid to make the wrong hire because it costs you more Time and more money. But I also don't think you just have to have this like amazing, you know, operations manager out the start when you're just really needing some help and leverage. So I never concentrated on this person has to be everything, you know, they have to be a leader now too. When I get to a certain level, I just tried to find a person that would be great at all the things I'm not. So details, crossing all the T's, dotting all the I's, closing, you know, updating my clients, all those types of things and helping to make some calls. Not necessarily like to leads, but just, you know, past clients updating. That's where I started. So the whole theme of probably everything I do is really small increments. It's just that little, you know, 2% movement that allowed me to build on it. So I would say if you're hiring someone or you're worried about it, agent or administrative, just put together a plan. Even if there's 10 things on it, and start with that from there. When that frees you up a little bit, because they're performing on these 10 things, you can add to it. And that's the cool thing about a lot of systems and stuff that you gave me and went over with me was I knew exactly what I could have someone do out of the gate because that was all available. So it was nice. I didn't have to come up with it. But before I knew you, in my first hire, we started small and I listened to her. She was like, hey, these systems are crazy. Let me help you. Like, oh, hey, that's a good idea.

And it's funny, as we were making the shift from client to working together, I tend to overcomplicate things a little bit. And you're like, no, I'm the person that you're selling this thing to. So let me. You literally created a document that we now teach to need an admin, start here and need an agent, start here. And it's just like a couple, three page document, step by step, what you need to do. And then we have like more complicated systems that I've built because we generate like thousands of, you know, interested candidates for our team. You were like, no, we've got to break this thing down super simple. Like, your thing is cool for like, I don't know who, but I'm gonna design this thing.

I just, I have to have small checklists because I'm easy to give up on things. I think that's why I have to keep them simple and they have to be, you know, a few things. I complicate a lot of things, too, but it's how I learn best. And so I think that's how a lot of people, you know, that's maybe my strength, where yours is that, hey, let me dive into an intricate system and I'll give you all of it, and it's going to produce really great things. And I'm like, okay, wait. Let's just back up, though. What was the 10 steps you did before that? Because I can't even follow it yet. So that's where I think that's kind of fun that we get to have those different kind of strengths and it works well together.

Yeah. And I can't tell you, I mean, you know, how many times I've sent you that. Talladega Nights, Jiffy the Shake and Bake. Yeah, it's definitely. We definitely fit well together. Tell me about, like, you know, I know you kind of saw me from afar in, you know, in a certain sense in the early days. What objections did you have, like, going into working with me? You know, like, I almost didn't, like, join real estate B school because, like, what objections did you have in your mind?

You know, I don't know that it was anything about B school. Like, when I think back, it was really more like, can I do it? You know, I bought lots of systems because, I mean, I'll pretty much buy anything. I love infomercials and qvc. Like, I wouldn't mind being on qvc, but, you know, I'll just buy things and I won't follow through. And honestly, I was worried that I wouldn't follow through. And I knew, you know, it's kind of like a personal trainer. Like, I know that would be great. I know that they would help me, but am I willing to really do the work and be helped? I think that was my only objection. And for me, knowing that it was more than just one box, like, it's not just here's scripts. It's not just here's, you know, social media marketing. Here's your listing presentation. It was accumulation of so many things. And we talked about the holistic side of it, you know, like, how is your family? How's your faith? That's how I knew. Or that's how those objections melted away because I knew I needed more. And there was more than one point of success here. I already tried one point of success. You know, my team's here and we're hitting a ceiling. I don't know how to move up I hear what you're saying, but because we were able to look at multiple things, then that's how we were able to gain more success. And we, the team, and I tripled the business working with you. And I just. It wouldn't have been possible had we not started together.

You know, a lot of team leaders don't think that growth is possible, you know, to exit production within six months, to triple the size of the business to a point where it's sellable for really amazing valuation that you got for the business in your market, where what you did in your real estate team, just growing the business hadn't been done before. And then being able to have something that was saleable was. It was never done in your market. There were teams that literally gave themselves away to other people because they were like, well, this is of no value anyway. I might as well just move into your KW office or whatever. So your journey is impressive. And I know you don't give yourself props enough for what you achieved, but talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, I don't even think. I never built it to sell it, so it wasn't my thought, but I knew I wanted to do other things besides sell real estate selling. So I didn't come in with, you know, hey, I'm going to sell it. And this is my short time frame. So I was looking at it like, what can I build? And you know, what. What can it become? And how can I serve the agents on my team? I want their lives to be better. Secretly, I wanted to receive a call from their kids, you know, on their graduation day saying, thanks so much. My mom and dad were at my graduation and all my little league games because they were part of your team and you helped with, you know, personal development and. And all that stuff. Now, I'm not really expecting that call, but if I get one, that'd be nice. But that was my goal, to help serve them in my market. Yeah, people just ended up, you know, giving up their business or saying, hey, will you pay me some referral fees? Or they got eaten up by a brokerage. And the only reason that I understood my business could be salable was because of the financial work that we did together. How do I read, you know, a P and L? How do I even know if I'm making money and how can I explain it to others? And so that was a way for me to look at it and say, hey, this business is worth X amount and this is the return on investment you can get. And I definitely wouldn't have Known that. So that was sort of a really awesome, you know, product of working together, but also something. Yeah. That hadn't happened in my market. So it wasn't like this was done, know, multiple times before.

Yeah. And it's a foundational business principle that, you know, we follow at real estate B school. We build your business so that you could exit production if you wanted to and that you could sell it if you wanted to. And when you think about your business that way, like, how would I need to build this thing so I don't have to go on appointments and I could sell it like, you may always go on appointments because it's your true passion and you may never sell it, but we need to build it with that in mind. You have to build it with an exit strategy in mind and you may never exit it. Right. And so that's. That's awesome. Tell me. I want to ask this question from two different perspectives because you have the unique perspective from being a client and now sort of serving. Now your mission is to get those calls from the children of the folks you coach.

Yes.

That's my passion too. It's like I feel for your little kids, you know? You know. Right. What's been your favorite part of real estate B school as a client and now, as you know, running our coaching.

As a client, it was definitely just knowing there was a better way. So there was a way to have a family, have a life, make the income I needed to because I was the primary income earner. So. So I couldn't chance that this doesn't work. And you were very transparent with your own tracking and money that you were spending and financials. And so I just loved the transparency. I also loved the swipe and deploy. So you had it ready to go. And I could just edit what I needed to easily, like through Google Docs and boom, put it in my business. And that meant a lot because I already had no time. So if I had to go back, reinvent the wheel, you know, just. There's no time for that. Also, honestly, a thing I never expected was the community. So that. And that's part coach and client. But everybody in our community is looking to help each other succeed. I really, you know, in the real estate industry, it's so lonely. Right. Your competition sits beside you in your brokerage or, you know, it's just you always feel secretive, like, oh my gosh, I printed something on the printer run. Get it before someone sees it. Where, you know, like, in this community, people are sharing things and we're not Chasing squirrels all the time. And so that was just, like, really cool. Surprise.

Yeah.

On the coaching side, you know, I always wanted just to give back. Right. You gave so much to me, and I really wanted to give back. And, you know, just getting to be a part of real estate B school and, you know, selling something that was my own and really personal to me, to come to this, I think hopefully speaks volumes on how much I just care about people. And I really do want your businesses to be successful, but I don't want it to be your only mark of success. I want your families to be successful. I want you to have good faith, good health. I want you to have fun. Like, I'm still learning how to have fun. So, you know, it's. That's been just something I think I couldn't have predicted in the way it's affected me.

Yeah, that's awesome. Who would you recommend real estate B school to and why?

I would recommend it to anyone that is feeling like they're not enough. So maybe they feel like they're not enough in their business, or maybe they feel like they're not enough for their team. Maybe they feel like they're not enough, they're not providing enough financially. Maybe they feel like they're so lost they don't even know how to move forward. And that's not enough. And I would tell you why, because no matter where you're at, there is a tool, a system, an idea, something already, though, that has been proven that you can put into your business and life to move it to the next level. And I think. I don't know who it wouldn't be for, but definitely those people that are feeling something's lacking. And maybe. Maybe you just have to start with business. That's okay. Come check it out.

Yeah. Awesome. So all I can say, I mean, you've heard it from my first client ever, when I was literally building the thing as I was flying it, you know, back when Stacy took a leap of faith to join Real estate B school as a client and transition to serve our community and her clients within real estate B school. And, you know, so just thank you for your time, Stacy. And if you. If something in this talk here kind of strikes a chord with you, you know, maybe you've achieved conventional success in your real estate business and you're sacrificing relationship with a child or your spouse, or your health is suffering, or you're not doing what you need to do in friendships, or there's some other area of your life that's suffering you know, that's where we pick up. That's really where we excel, is to help you put together a growth plan that doesn't sacrifice all those areas that are really, truly way more important than selling more houses. So we use our businesses to serve our life, rather than the conventional model where real estate takes over your entire life. So there's information to take action here on the page here. So do that right now. We'll literally just get on the phone and see where you're at in your business, where you want to go, what's holding you back. And if we can be a part of your journey, we'd be happy to do so. So we'll talk to you then. Thanks so much. Thanks again, Stacy.

Thanks. It.