Clayton Getz built systems in his real estate business so he could step away from client meetings for five months without losing income. The key: work on your business, not in it, by creating standards of care your team can deliver instead of relying on you personally.
2005
About five to five-and-a-half months
Richmond, Virginia
All right, myth number four, your clients want and need you. I can only talk to Lars. Exiting production is impossible. Right? Let's debunk this myth. So the problem is most agents actually believe that exiting production is not possible because your clients demand that they work with you personally. Let's talk some solutions. If you build systems and infrastructure to support your exit in terms of the standard of care that you require your team provides to your clients, you can absolutely exit production. So your clients want a level of care and service. They don't necessarily need or want you. You must take time to work on versus in your business. One of the books I read early on in my real estate career was Michael Gerber, E Myth, right? Entrepreneur, technician, manager. Working on versus in your business. Number three, you must have the confidence to step out. My pastor had a sermon titled, you're not that important. So a lot of times we think that the world revolves around us. And the truth is that we're not that important in our businesses. And we need to design our businesses in a way where it has a life of its own, right? A true business and not just a job. And lastly, realizing that there's more to life than grinding out deals, a lot of agents just get comfortable in the deal environment because they know that they can do a certain level of activity and that will lead to a commission check and that's a comfortable existence for them. So that's not the way we live in real estate B school. So we'll hear from Richmond, Virginia agent Clayton Getz here in a second. But he began his career in 2005. His team was doing really, really well. By most measures. He's a really blessed guy and he'll be the first to say that, but the business was taking over his life, so it was tough to manage that business. He was attracted to real estate B school because it gave him the path to building a self managed business. And now he is really working toward complete financial freedom. Not only financial freedom, he had good finances before I met him. So he dialed in on his finances. But I've given him through the tools in real estate B school, time freedom. He built his listing system so he could step out and spend time growing his team and really be the CEO and sort of the visionary for his business. I love this guy because his true passion, you know, like me, is my faith and my family. So let's hear from Clayton.
The business was amazing. I mean, we're incredibly blessed. But it was running my life and you know, I have two small children and a wife that is my best friend. And, you know, aside from my faith, I mean, they're just the most important things to me. So it was just beginning to take over my life. I knew I had to make a change or I was going to go do something else. After talking with Lars on that second call, I was surprised when he said, just stop. If you don't want to work with clients anymore, don't. The amazing thing about that is I just. I didn't think I was there. And there's still part of me that doesn't think I'm there, by the way, but it's been five months since I've been on an appointment. Five and a half months since I've been on an appointment with a client. So that was that one call. Just when he said, look, I've reviewed your numbers. I know you're debt free. I've looked at your P and L. You can. You're where I was when I stepped out of my business is what Lars said. And, and that was. That was awesome because I thought I was at least a year, maybe two years out from being able to step away, but it just wasn't the case. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so the biggest result is I'm not in production anymore. And I know it's a little bit different for me because my volume and my profitability was just in a place where I didn't know it. I mean, that's the important thing I think that needs to be said is Lars had the experience to look at my business and the infrastructure, the people I had in place, my P and L, and he, because he's been there, he's done that, and now it's just building on that. Okay, so what next? And again, when you're working with somebody that's been there, it continues to grow their business, their real estate business, while actually not being in the business, but being able to work on it instead of in it, and has that knowledge that I just didn't have and still don't have to. His degree, that's powerful. So now it's just working on making sure that the business, the infrastructure is stable enough so I can go work on the things that I'm most passionate about.
