Mindset is Everything in Business

Hey there, Business Freedom podcast listeners. I just got off a strategy session, which in our world, it's a conversation with somebody that needs help, and they've achieved traditional success, and they're looking to real estate B school to help them make the transition from. And these guys in particular were running a small team, doing about 110, about a $50 million in volume team and business partners. And they're both doing the bulk of the transactions. Like, I think over 80% of the transactions, maybe even a little bit more. It was some. Some crazy, crazy number. And they've been doing this for a long, long time. Like, I think that one guy was like, 15 years in or something crazy. And. And so they're talking about their concerns and what it really takes to make the transition from agent to owner. And my response and the title of this podcast is Mindset is Everything. Mindset is Everything. And easy to say and hard to translate into. Like, what do you actually mean by that? And so I took these guys through a conversation about, you know, one other thing that they were talking about was the fact that their market is really, really tough. And I don't dismiss that at all. And these guys play the game of real estate at a very, very high level. They're super competitive, like hard workers. You know, they're willing to give everything they've got to the business. They. They're just misaligned. Like, they're going in this direction. When business freedom is over here, they're going over here. So the way they know how to increase their income is to increase more, to put more into the business in terms of units of input, hours, effort, with not a whole lot of regard for where they're focusing their time. And so I was having the. I said this to them, I said, you know, what if at the end of three years, you had to support your financial life? Like, the only way you could make money is by running your real estate team and not selling homes. I said, how? What would you have to work on right away to make that come true? And how would you shift some of your time now to guarantee that that becomes a reality? And in my journey, that is exactly what it was. I was married in 2006. We had our first child in 2007, the same year that I got into real estate. And instantly I was selling a lot of homes. I was working a ton of hours. I didn't have the systems in place. I hadn't run a business before or sold anything before I got into real estate. And I was just sort of scratching My head. A lot of coaching, a lot of personal development, mostly out of the real estate space and good folks in the real estate space, mostly productivity coaching. These coaches taught me how to sell more homes, but put more hours in to do it. And it wasn't this delinking of time and money that if you've heard me on the podcast, you know, I obsess over. The game that I love to play is how can I add so much value that I have to work a fraction of the amount of hours to make the kind of money that I want to make. And it's this whole progression from 25 to 50 to 100 to 250 to $500 an hour to 1,000 plus dollars per hour. That's the journey that I'm talking about. In true business ownership, that's possible. Here's the kicker, and this is what both of these guys said. They, they know they can go out and kill the thing, get the deal, grab $10,000 commission check, and that is where they're always going. So instead of carving out an afternoon to build a system for recruiting agents and onboarding agents, or to build out the sales system that these guys use. Cause they're both like top, top producers, you know, what's their culture and cadence? How would they train someone to do what they do instead of spending you know, every Friday afternoon for the next 50 Fridays to build out all of those systems? They're just chasing the deal. Chasing the deal, chasing the deal. And if you've ever heard of the Eisenhower grid or the Eisenhower matrix, it's a quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower. I think it's Dwight D. Eisenhower. I think he's the, I forget what number president he is. He has a quote though. What is urgent is seldom important. And what is important is seldom urgent. Something like that. The whole point of it is like there's this matrix and we make decisions all day long. Urgency and importance. And so if you think of four quadrants in this example I'm giving with these, with these two hard charging, you know, sort of business, building a team. But they're really just busy real estate agents. They are only focused on the urgent, maybe urgent and important. They're not spending any time whatsoever on the not urgent important. And there are things that are not urgent that are critically important if you want to end up owning a business one day versus just the rat race that is real estate. And so I challenge these guys with this three year challenge. You know, real estate, B school, we operate on this. It's a three year vision. You know, it's a three year journey is what I like to say. There's a one year commitment and then we have, you know, a couple months where you can love it or leave it. And I said, three years from now, how do you want this thing to look? You know, what is the three year vision? And they both described, you know, 10 agents each doing two to three homes per month and they're just working with their SOI. So they're doing real estate. You know, if they. And actually I had to kind of crush their mindset or shift their mindset a little bit on that too. I said, man, you guys are gonna, at first they both want to do 50 deals a year and then have all those other agents. I'm like, that sounds like a lot of work, but if you can just succeed 100% through other people but you. If so we kind of shifted things a little bit there and so just challenge them. What would it look like to achieve your vision and what would have to happen? Like just draw this line in the sand that starting today I'm going to spend a portion of my week working on the future business that I'm building. You know, we never give time to the building the thing we want in the future. And we're just so wrapped up in what, what's in front of us and killing that next animal to bring home, bring it home to eat it, rather than making an building an agricultural system that runs like clockwork and it's run by other people and you don't need to go out and kill anything. And you know, instead of you being the hunter, you're now the owner of this big farm that runs, runs without you. I've never used that analogy before, so if it came off weird, it should have because I've never used it before. You get the picture though, is that you're mentally, you have to mentally make this shift that I'm going to be a business owner. A business owner, like a McDonald's franchise owner is not flipping the burgers and real estate is the same way. Yeah, we don't sell a 99 cent burger and our commission checks, you know, could be 8, 10, 12, $20,000. It's still the same mindset that we have to break it down, the business of real estate into all the different things and then get to work on building systems around those things and getting folks that love to do those things to do those things so we can spend time, the things we're really passionate about that pay us a lot of money. And so I just had to get in here and record a podcast episode based on this conversation. I think our industry suffers tremendously in this area. Most, you know, only 15% of agents in our market, no, not a market of licensed agents, even have an assistant. So that means 85% of real estate agents are doing administrative work. When they're not building systems, they're not selling enough, they're not marketing enough, they're not leading, managing, coaching, holding folks accountable. They're just not doing, they're not spending enough time doing the work of a business owner. And even if you need to spend a certain amount of time in both worlds and you're still, you have to sell homes and maybe you never want to get out of production, it's going to be a hard journey if you don't figure out leverage, leverage through technology, leverage through marketing, and leverage through people. And so that is the challenge I have for you, if you're listening to this episode, is where is your mindset holding you back? Where's your mindset holding you back? For me, I was super clear, I had no idea how I was going to do it. I was super clear that I wasn't going to be the one working with buyers and sellers. I can't say I had the one day a week vision. You know, in those early days, I just knew selling 44 homes in a single year with a part time administrator, at least I had administrator that year. It was seven days a week. I was stressed all the time. You know, there was no reprieve or any margin in my calendar whatsoever. And I was going to miss out on opportunities and I was going to likely fail as a husband and a dad. And so what is the journey like? Where are you now in that mindset continuum? You know, if you are a busy agent and you are working seven days a week, have you really embrace the fact that we can build this thing as a business? It is possible to envision a future that doesn't rely on you 100% being in the business and that you can take a week or two weeks or eight to 10 weeks off a year and still have the business making you the kind of money that you want to make to support that sort of lifestyle. Like I said, traditional success in our industry is really, really hard. And it does come down to the actual systems. Like, what's your actual system to generate, you know, leads from your database? Is it a system? Does it run without you? Same thing for listing marketing, same thing for buyer marketing, same thing for lead management. Are your leads all following the same protocol and policy without you having to tinker with it. Same thing for setting appointments. Same thing for your buyer and seller consultations. Same thing for client servicing or transaction coordination. Same thing for all your critical technology tools. Same thing for your plan in terms of creating your future. Same thing for knowing your numbers. Do you have the systems in place to track things and you're just a consumer of those numbers? And then same thing for growing your team. The culture, the cadence, the recruiting, the hiring, the onboarding process that all of those things I just went through are all of the things we focus on at real Estate B school with an eye toward building them out. A system that doesn't rely on you. And if you don't have that mindset, it's likely that you'll end up with traditional success with selling a lot of properties, working a lot of hours with a lot of stress. And maybe the money's good and sometimes it's not good. And there's no clear plan to financial independence and net worth of any significance. So no matter where you are in your journey, you know we exist as, as a business. Real Estate B school is a school for business. It's a business school. That's what the B stands for. To help real estate agents and team leaders. If your business isn't running smoothly and you're in the midst of all of it and it's. It's a crap show. So without picking on you, if that describes you, we just launched a program called our Business Foundations Program. These are all the tools and systems you need to set this thing up the right way. And it includes live coaching four days a week. It includes me training you once a week, every Wednesday at 2pm Eastern. It includes our Business Freedom Planner. It's a proprietary quarterly planning system. You can see here if you're watching the video, if you're listening, it's probably pretty boring. Got daily weekly cadence, a quarterly cadence. This is where we pick the projects you're going to work on. This is where we go through passion versus pay and we delegate and we elevate and lots of cool stuff we do on a quarterly basis to give you more time, more money and less stress in your life. So if that's you, go to getbusinessfoundations.com the investment level now is only going to remain at 297 per month until we get to our first hundred members that then we're going to 497 per month. So do not hesitate, take action. Right now, there's no commitment. It's a month to month contract and you get the keys to the kingdom when you sign up. So go to getbusinessfoundations.com and we'll see you there. Thanks for listening to the Business Freedom Podcast. If you're getting value from the podcast, would you please leave us a five star review and share it with others who might benefit from the content I'm sharing? And if you're ready to scale your real estate business sustainably and profitably, there are a couple options for you. If you're doing under 500,000 in annual GCI, our business foundations Program is for you. Head over to getbusinessfoundations.com that's getbusinessfoundations.com and learn how you can make the shift from overwhelmed real estate agent to true business owner. If you're doing more than five in annual Team gci, there's our graduate program designed for top producers and team leaders who want to grow their team and scale their business. If that's you, go to realestateb school.com and apply for a free Business Growth Strategy session. No matter where you are in your business growth journey, we have the tools, systems, strategies, training and coaching to get you where you want to be. Remember, only you can create your future, so take action now.