Our Standards Dictate Our Success in Life & Business

Hey there, Business Freedom podcast listeners. So today's episode is actually inspired by a chance I had to reconnect with a guy here, local in Charlotte that was the leader of the first missions trip that I went on. And it had to be, I don't know, 2012, maybe 2011, probably before I launched real estate B school. I went to Lima, Peru with Samaritan's feet. And man, it was just. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about it, but if you haven't spent any time out of our country and just spending time with folks that are, not only are they far from God, they are far from anything that we know. PAUL Poverty in our country is absolute wealth when it comes to material things in other countries. So just some crazy experiences that I really won't get into. The point of this is that he was, his children were down in Peru with him. And at the time, I think they're like 25, 23 and 21 now. And this was probably about eight years ago. So I think like the oldest son was probably 17, 18, and they went, you know, 17, 15, 13 or so when I was down there, maybe even a little bit younger. I have no concept of time. They moved them back to the States. I guess it was seven years ago that they moved them back to the States. This is maybe nine years ago. And so it's a long time ago. So we reconnected because he listened to an episode of the podcast that talked about time and money freedom. Like he opened a machine shop here locally and he actually ended up acquiring another machine shop that was sort of kind of a multi generational business that has, was sort of winding down and they had a great name, but they didn't have any leadership stepping up. And so he acquired that business and he revitalized it and he's taken off like gangbusters. And the challenge though, is that his hours are ticking off like gangbusters. And so as of him listening, when he listened to my podcast, he and I think it was the one where I challenged everyone to delink time and money. And it inspires me to record this podcast which I'm calling really the realization in sitting with him is that our standards dictate our success in life and business. So oftentimes in business, and this is especially true of real estate agents. But after getting together with him, I realized that it's true of any small business owner. You know, you just get so caught up in doing the thing that's in front of you that you don't even consider that you could take a step back, draw a line in the sand and just, you know, not be willing to do the thing that is not leading to you to where you want to go. And it sounds like, I know I botched that sentence. It doesn't even sound like English. But my point is, you have to have a standard around what you're willing to do in your business. Not because you're not, you know, you're not willing to show homes or you're not willing to, you know, put a listing in mls or you're not willing to, you know, run a sign out or take pictures of a property or like dozens and dozens of things we do as real estate agents that don't make us a whole lot of money. And it was interesting. He said, you know, his attachment to the hard work and the hours and the working six to seven days a week. He was 70 plus hours a week consistently. It was linked to his childhood and a work ethic installed from an old school mentality that, you know, hard work is where it's at. Like, hard work is what defines you. And I'm okay with that. So I put in my hours. You know, I've just recently, you know, with the world pandemic and all of that, I've doubled down. We've shifted some things in real estate B school. You know, we've had some change in personnel in the real estate team and I had to step them back into some positions and, you know, all that is fine. So it's not so much that I'm not willing to do those things. I just have a standard around what my time is worth, that it precludes me from going into those activities. And if I'm going to go back into an activity that's sort of below my pay grade, I'm going to do it with an eye toward making it better and tightening up the system so that when I get somebody to do it again, I'm never going to have to personally go back into it. And so, you know what's funny though, going back to the standards is that once he listened to my podcast, he made the decision that, crap, I'm spending at least 30 hours a week doing things that I don't need to be doing. And I've got leverage around me, people that can help do those things. So he instantly went from 70 to 40 hours a week just with this realization that there were big chunks of his calendar, the things he was taking on in his small business. And it's only like seven people in this business, that'll do like 1.6, $1.7 million this year. So, you know, I helped him sort of pick apart what had to happen in order for this business to take it, to make it to the next level. So this business has the potential to become a 3 to 4, maybe in a $5 million business in the same physical footprint with not a whole lot of complication with one administrator and a shop foreman and maybe three or four more guys in the shop. Not even any new equipment because they're only running one shift now. And so his standards though, around what he was willing to do before he listened to the podcast. He was willing to do everything to keep the business moving forward. And by doing all of those things, he was hurting the business's chance of growth. So he was the thing that, that was in the way of the business growing. And I thought this was, he had realized all of this in his head before we even connected. He reached out to me on Facebook, you know, weeks after he heard the podcast. And all of these realizations as a result of just me challenging him through the podcast about his standards and where he was spending his time. And what he realized was that he put himself in a position to do all of the administrative work in the business. And this business is making good margin. So it's not like he's cash, you know, he's cash poor. He's able to pay his family a really good wage and there's still a good amount of margin left over. So I said, man, you know, I repositioned it a little bit. I said, you know, right now this business needs just a key administrator, like the stuff you're telling me, you know, he'll spend a day tracking down like purchasing like important stuff that has to happen that's mission critical stuff. But it's administrative. It's 15 to 20, probably 15, 16 bucks an hour, my local market. And he would spend the whole day tracking down the logistics behind a big order of raw material or stuff that they had shipped out that hadn't hit, you know, their clients loading dock or whatever. And I'm like, man, that seems like, you know, that doesn't seem like a good use of your time. And we got down to the point where, you know, we figured out his superpower is his ability to sell. So if once he sets this thing up in a way where it could handle any amount of orders that come in, he could easily double the business. And I said, easily? He said, probably triple. I'm like, really? I'm like, well, let's just. Let's just get the administrator, you know, like that. That'll be the top priority. He's got to get a. Get. He has to get a certification, some ISO certification or something, which is like the second piece. And. And then work out some of the processes in the shop in terms of just making sure stuff flows through a little bit easier. And the cool thing about all of this is that he still runs that same mission in Peru. It's done through, all through local folks. They've pulled all the Americans out, and they're getting much better success. These guys are going into the jungles of Peru to reach those that are far from Christ, who have never heard the gospel. And he's able to do that. The more we can grow this business, the more he's going to be able to do that. And he wants to expand that same approach into Mexico as well. And I'm like, I'm all in. Like, whatever I can do to help you turn this into a $5 million business, let's do it. But I just thought it was cool that he realized that his standards, like him willing to accept, you know, doing those administrative tasks, that was the thing that was going to hold the business back, you know. And the second move he made after he heard my podcast before we got together, was he identified one person in the shop that could run the day to day. This young guy in the shop, he. I think he gave him like a 20. No, I think he took him from hourly. He gave him quite a. I think it was like a 50% increase in pay went from hourly to his salary to a player coach. So the guy was working in the shop, but he was also running everything, sort of running the operation. And so that move along with, you know, he now realizes he has to hire an administrator. He can now free himself up to sell, and he can even sell from Peru. He's like, if I could handle those two things, I could sell. We could double the size of the business and even triple it. And I'm just like, man, that is like the coolest thing ever. And so think about it, you know, as I kind of open up this story. What are you doing in your real estate business that is holding the business back from growing? So think of like the roughly dozen jobs that a real estate agent does. All the things you do all day long. What. How are you getting in the way of the growth of the business? So if you're doing 25 transactions, what are the things you're doing to earn to get 25 transactions? That if you offloaded those things right, if you hired a shop foreman, if you hired an administrator, if you got this special, whatever they are for a real estate business, how could you go from 25 to 50 to 100 to 200? And honestly, it's not all that. It's not much more complicated than that. I wish it was. It always starts with a mindset shift. And so I'm confident with a podcast episode from a guy that I haven't seen in over seven years because they moved back seven years ago and I had gone before that. So probably eight, nine years ago, he heard a podcast episode, he acted on it, the one episode. And now I'm pretty sure we have the next three moves to triple the size of that business so that he can go do the thing he really wants to do, which is spread the gospel in Peru and third world countries with people that have never even heard of any of it. And so, man, I just thought it was the coolest thing and I thought it was worth sharing. You are in the way of your growth. You know, the fact that 85% of real estate agents don't have an administrator is, like, mind boggling. Those 85% do not have a shot at time and money freedom. They don't have a shot at scaling anything. They have just. They haven't even entered the game of business. And so if you're a solo agent listening to this right now, what are the things? Imagine the opportunity as I'm recording this, we're in the midst of a pandemic that has economic ramifications that nobody could have imagined. Can you imagine the level of talent right now on the sidelines that are ready, willing, and able to pick up 20 hours a week? Right. Can you imagine what, 20, 30, 40 hours a week of someone just helping you with marketing coordination, helping you with, you know, with showings, even there's licensed folks in your market that would be desperate to come on your team as an administrator, you know, listing coordination, coordinating your buyers, you know, closing coordination. There's just all this work that you don't get paid a whole lot of money for. And the fear is always that I'll lose the client relationship if somebody else shows those homes. I'll lose the client relationship if I hire a closing coordinator, I'll lose the. You're not going to lose anything because you're going to put systems in place for the person that you plug into that position to do it way better than you do it. Right. Everyone on my team does the position that they're in better than I ever did it. Let me say that again. A multimillion dollar business sells hundreds of homes per year. Everybody that plays in all the positions on the real estate team right now, every one of them is better than me at every position maybe, except a couple of the higher level, you know, vision and you know, tracking. I'm trying to think of, you know, tracking and systems. I still love systems. I'm still pretty good at systems, you know, some, a couple, three high level things. Because I've made that commitment to make the leap from agent to owner. And so if you're sort of just struggling in that part of it, it is a common struggle and it's not specific to real estate. This is for every small business owner everywhere. And so the thing that's holding you back from having the impact you want, right, for this guy, it is spreading the word. Peru and Mexico and in third world countries. What's holding you back? The way you're doing your business right now and the fact that it's all consuming seven days a week, evenings, weekends, all of it, all the craziness, what is it holding you back from becoming? Are you losing out at home, right? Are you failing as a husband or wife or as a mother or a father? Are you failing in your relationships, your physical body, your spiritual walk like, your emotional well being? What is suffering right now? Because your standards for where you spend your time are out of line. That's where I want you to contemplate a little bit. And this is not preaching. I was there in 2007, 2008, 2007. I did every job myself, instantly. I was in the top 2% of agents in our market by selling 27 homes. All of the leads I generated myself, my broker didn't give me any of them. Then I went to 44 as a solo agent. That's when I hired my first administrator. That was top 1%, maybe even 0.5% in my market. I'm like, this sucks. Traditional success sucks. And that was my first full year in real estate. I was top, less than top 1% of agents in terms of production. And it sucked and I didn't have the path then. And that's all I've been working on for the last, since 2007, 2008. And the market tanked at that time as well. And so if you're at the point in your journey where you need help and you haven't achieved that, we call it that 500k level where you haven't sort of launched your business. We just launched a program called Business Foundations. If you have that in you or you see yourself as a business owner, you just don't have the path, then that's why we created Business Foundation. So there's not a hard sell. It's a month to month deal. It comes with live coaching daily from all of our business coaches who have been in our world for three years. They've sold anywhere from 200 homes a year to 400 homes a year consistently. And I do the live training on Wednesdays. You're going to get trained by me, you're going to get coached by them and you get access to every tool and system we've ever built. It's Business Foundations. And go to getbusinessfoundations.com and and check it out. It is something we're not going to honor that price for very long. We're looking to get about 100 members in the first push and then once we get there, we're going to increase the price, probably double the price. So you want to get in at this price, we'll grandfather you in for eternity. You'll pay that price to have the access, all access to everything, including live coaching, including live training. So go over to getbusinessfoundations.com much love and respect and check your standards. I think it's everything in life and business when it comes to being truly successful. We'll talk soon. 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. 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 500,000 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 realestatebeastchool.com and apply for a free business growth strategy session 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. 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