A real-estate agent recounts a vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, during which he repeatedly worked short bursts to try to save an $850,000 short-sale transaction. The buyer later cancelled (leaving the agent unpaid despite a potential $25,000 commission), and the speaker reflects on how that choice hurt his family and motivated him to change his business model. He shares production numbers from his growth years and promotes his book 'Scale or Die' as a blueprint for building time- and money-free businesses.
So raise your hand if you've ever worked a real estate transaction on vacation. Raise your hand high. How about, you know, have you ruined a family vacation by doing a real estate transaction? You know, our industry is jacked up. If you followed me for any period of time, you've heard me talk about the challenges of being a traditionally successful real estate agent. You know, and we do these things that we think are the right things to do in terms of giving attention to our real estate business when we should be giving attention to our family and being present with those that love us the most. You know, I look back on my growth journey and I'm not proud to admit that in those early years when I was figuring out, you know, one foot from the other as far as building a business that that was sustainable, I failed in so many ways. And that's what I want to go through today with you and is just to tell you specifically about one such vacation and the pain that it caused my family. On today's video, I want to go through that vacation that I ruined for my family and the pain to this day. I just talked to my wife about it. This happened probably seven or eight years ago and she still remembers how painful it was, me choosing real estate over her and the family. If you're at the point in your journey where you know there's a better way, you just don't have the path, the roadmap to get there. Make sure you stick around to the end of this video. I'm going to let you know how to get a copy of my book. I wrote a whole book on the journey from the pain I'm going to talk about in this video to the beauty of being a business owner. If you like the video, give me the thumbs up, hit the like button, make sure you subscribe, and also turn on notifications so you're the first to know about future videos that hit. And also leave comments so we can have a dialogue and I can challenge you and you can challenge me. Alright, let's get to this vacation. This was probably my third full year in real estate and the big promise was that, you know, I was going to lay the groundwork for building this business. You know, I'd already figured out my first year and a half or so that traditional agent, you know, success completely sucked and I was working way too many hours. I had hired a buyer, agent, an administrator. I was in the year where I think I had three or four agents and one administrator. That year we did 118 transactions. I was still super heavy in production. So we were definitely going somewhere. We went from 58 to 118 and then we did 178, 248. So this was going in the right direction. The commitment I made to my wife Julie, is that we could take time away, go to the mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I love Gatlinburg. We still go there every Thanksgiving. And it's just an amazing place. And I made a commitment and it was going to be like, I'm going to shut it down for. I think it was only. I think it was only four days, honestly. And I was involved at the time in the biggest transaction in my career. So three and a half years into real estate. I remember we had a property under contract for 850,000 and it was a short sale at the time, so the market was struggling. And the higher price point market was, you know, 40% discount on some of the high priced homes in our area. And this was a doctor who was under contract on $850,000 home. And we were in the mountains. I had no reception. So I was back and forth with the agent who was talking to the bank. There was another party interested in the property. So they were putting pressure on this. The buyer was wanting to get in the property to see repairs and I was out of town and I was coordinating like it was a complete crap show. It required me like working several hours per day, but in like 10 to 15 minute increments. So I couldn't go do the activities that everyone was doing on top of it. It was me, Julie, our children. Well, Kendall was just born. I think it was fall 2010. So we had a baby. Anders was like two and a half. And Julie's parents were there, and my sister and my mom were there. So not only did I let down and it was obvious that I was ruining this vacation for Julie, you know, everyone got to see me put business in front of my family. So not a proud time for me at all. So all this stuff is going on with this transaction and the buyer is just being really difficult. You know, this property probably sold originally for 1.4 million. So here he's got under contract for 850,000 and ends up canceling the contract. So not while I was on vacation, but after I got back from vacation. So I spent every day of vacation on the phone. I'd have to drive down to the base of the mountain where there was actually cell reception. And I was just working to keep this deal together. It was only because There was a $25,000 commission check attached to it. He opted out of it. He just got buyer's remorse and he decided to cancel a contract, which, that part didn't matter as much. Right. It's his decision to cancel a contract and not move forward. The fact that I chose to ruin my vacation over this and not even get paid. And here's the kicker. The home that we were under contract on is in the neighborhood I live in now. So now I run like six days a week. I run my neighborhood. And there's. It's a small neighborhood. There's only 50 homes. It's only one loop. I can't avoid seeing this home every day. I go for a run. So on the one hand, it hurts a little bit to just the reminder of what I put my family through as I run past this home. On the other hand, it's a reminder of how far I've come, you know, so when you're looking at where you are in your business and the sacrifices you make, just remember this. And there's just a few things I want to share with you. Your family doesn't care about the next transaction. Like, I'm going to grab this call real quick. Is never a good situation. Just know if you're saying that to your spouse, it's not leaving them feel loved and cared for, and you should probably just not do it. The thing you're going to do is not as important as being with your spouse. And it comes with some discipline around setting standards with your clients. You know, I was clear from this point, moving on, what I was willing to do and not willing to do to, you know, when I went on vacation and it motivated me even more to get out of parts of the job that I knew I couldn't really have. Freedom around working with buyers. Like, I just couldn't not, you know, I couldn't be free from my business and have time and money freedom if I still had to work with buyers and get into properties and measure for blinds and like, do all the crazy stuff we do as buyer agents, I would challenge you to look at your business and where are you falling short in the commitments you're making to your family and where are you putting your business First? You know, when I think about someone in my journey, you know, in real estate, B school, someone that I've helped along their journey, it's Dan Jones, who he was on my real estate team and decided to launch his own thing. And then last year, fast forward, he did 300 transactions out of production, has built an amazing business. He built his business from this motivation that he wanted to be there for his child and his dad wasn't there for him as a kid. And so when you think about where you are in your journey, what is your next move to just be a little bit honest and real with yourself about where you're coming up short. I actually wrote a book on it. It's called Scale or die. Go to ScaleOrDieBook.com or click on the link below. Actually wrote out my entire journey and the steps that you'd need to take to go from just where you might be now struggling to put it all together to a completely time and money free business owner. You know, if you like the video, I appreciate the thumbs up, hit the like button, subscribe to the channel and also turn on notifications and and leave me comments. You know my goal here is to challenge you and push you to think about your business differently and for us to challenge each other to live a bigger life and business. We'll see you on the next video.
