Starting A Real Estate Business From The Ground Up

A lot of times I'll get asked the question, you know, how would you build your business today if you had to start over? You know, with the good, bad and ugly behind me and right in my current situation and even in front of me, you know, business is just one of those things where it's not always super smooth. I'm always learning, I'm always failing fast. There are a few principles though that I'd love to share with you in terms of how to do it in today's climate. You know, there's just challenging forces. You know, we call it the shift storm. Things that are going on to and in the real estate industry where I would take a different approach if I had to start all over again. If you're at the point in your journey where you wish there was a roadmap to the stages of business growth, I actually put together such a roadmap. Stick around till the end of this video and I'll give you a free report called the Real Estate Business Growth Navigator. And if you like these videos, give me the thumbs up. Make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn notifications on so you're the first to know about new videos when they drop. As I mentioned, I have failed more than anyone that I know in business, in every aspect of business. You know, I didn't have a deep rooted set of skills or experiences in building businesses before I got into real estate. The only sales job I ever had was two weeks in high school. I went door to door newspaper sales and I was horrible at it. I hated it. I thought I would never do sales again. And now I get into real estate and I realized that it was really sort of a contact sport and it was selling. And I didn't really, I was okay at it, I did it, but I was mostly focused on building systems. So I didn't have to do the thing that I didn't really have a passion for. And that's this concept of systems and leverage that if I were to start over today to build a business in a market where, let's say I lived in the market but I didn't have any real estate business, that's where I would start with a vision of what I wanted to build. That is the biggest differentiator I see with folks that get to a point where they actually have some freedom in their life of time, money and freedom from stress. Contrast that to like struggling, even successful, traditionally successful, but struggling real estate agent, because real estate agents, because they don't have freedom of time and they have to work every evening, every weekend and on every vacation. It's just a miserable and challenging existence. I say that because I've been there and I feel that pain. And so if I had to start today, my three year vision from zero transactions, my three year revision would be 100 deals. So that's, that's what I would just lay the groundwork for. I would have one administrator and two agents. I would be doing 50 listings each. Of my two agents I probably have three or four. You know, some of them don't necessarily pan out the way that you think they will. My agents would sell 50 homes. Two agents doing 25 transactions piece. I'm only doing listings. I'm working 40 hours a week. My administrator is licensed. Maybe at that point she brings on or he brings on a va. And that's the vision for the business. And in terms of my hours, I'm just working less than 50 hours a week, probably maybe not 40, selling 50 homes. You know, I'm probably going to be working from let's say 8am to 6pm Monday through Friday. I would design it out of the gate to not work evenings or weekends whatsoever. So that would be the three year vision. So my question for you, what is your three year vision? If you were starting over your business today, what would your vision three years from now be? And that's just the business part of it. But even personally, you know, where do you want your net worth or your debt situation or your relationship with your spouse or your children? So this concept of a three year vision is like the most powerful thing that we could work on together. And so what does that look like for you? That's the first place that I would start. The next thing I would do is the database. Your database. It doesn't matter what it's doing right now. In terms of income generation, your database is I would say at least a seven figure pillar in your business. In terms of income, gross commission income, it may be a multiple seven figure pillar if you really treat it with the respect that it deserves. So that's the next thing I would do is just focus on building the database. Taking anyone that I have in my phone or in my Google contacts or in Facebook and bringing them all from those sources into my database. It doesn't really matter what CRM you use. There's a dozen decent CRMs right now. Follow up Boss is probably one that I would look at knowing everything I know right now. Just a very simple, inexpensive. It sort of plugs into all different sources and does a really good Job at what you need to do as a real estate agent just to keep in touch with people that know like and trust you. And so that's my question for you. How much time and energy are you giving your database? Do you have 30 minutes a day where you carve out just to get your database in order? I mean like take contacts from your phone and put it in the database. Are you tracking on a weekly basis how many people are in your database? That should be like one of the most important key performance indicators, we call them KPIs. The leadingest indicator of success is the number of people that know, like and trust you. And then the next thing I would do is I would have one other lead source. Back in the early days for me it was expireds and fizbos and not so much. I picked up the phone and sort of smiled and dialed. I became a really good direct response marketer and that was like 2008, 2009. It was easier to get listings then. We use those same systems today. Even in a tight market, a tight seller's market, we're still generating more than a phone call a day from a very low cost direct response marketing system for expireds and FSBO and FSBOs. And so that's the next thing I would set up in my business and always keep it running. A lot of times I'll see agents or team leaders, they'll get expireds up and running. When there are expires to be had, then the market shifts and the market goes to a seller's market. There are less expireds, they let that system go because they get busy. Every pillar, lead gen lever that you put in place, the vision I have for it when I put them in my business is that this is good for 50 transactions. So database number one, I have to see a path toward 50 transactions. Expires and fizzbos, I kind of lump those together even though they're slightly different. That has to be a path to 50 transactions. So as you look at your business, you know, what are the lead gen levers, those income pillars that you've set up to be able to, you know, systematically generate high quality buyer and seller leads. So you, you see, I'm starting with a vision here. I'm working through the drivers of the business attract is database marketing. Expire, FSBOs, convert, what are the scripts you're going to learn? Your sales system, the consultation framework for sitting down with buyers and sitting down with sellers. I put all of those systems and sales presentations in place today in the environment we're in now and even in the future as I'm filming this, we're in a global pandemic. COVID19 everything we've done has gone virtual and I'm pretty sure we will never go back. Our conversion rates have gone through the roof with a virtual consultation framework for buyers and for sellers. We're meeting consumers where they are and honestly serving them in a way that is more convenient for them. So as you look at your business, is your sales process set up in a way to be scaled right? Is it scalable? The fact that we have a virtual consultation process? I could be doing five listing consultations literally at the same time. You know, are you the only one that can go and do a listing presentation? Do you even have a sales process? Are you tracking your numbers? That's the last point I'll make. Is that from the get go, in starting this new business, this vision of a hundred, actually I'm changing it to 150 transactions because I think I could do 150 on those couple lead gen lovers. Either way, you know, we're starting with this vision and now we sort of put the attract pieces in place, the conversion pieces. The last piece is to track your numbers and to know, you know, exactly what's going on in your business from a leading sort of indicators and lagging indicators, you know, how many contacts are you making every day, every week, how many people are agreeing to meet with you for a consultation, how many actually show up, how many do you sign? Where we have to know, put those systems in place. Because as we scale, it's the same thing. Agents that come on our team, it's the same systems that they're going to follow for accountability. So I do it, I'm going to set these systems up first. We do it, we do these together, me and a couple agents in this three year vision and then four to five years from now they do it. And you can make this journey from agent I do it to we do it. You're more of a coach manager to they do it, you're more of a business owner. And that's as complicated as I was. I would, I would make it, I wouldn't add a bunch of paid lead sources as you build up your listing inventory. The yard marketing, that's probably the third pillar I would put in place that would be good for 50 transactions. We've got a yard marketing system that has three yard signs all with different sort of emotional triggers to get people with different sort of thought processes to call on those yard signs. So that's just a little bonus for you if you're at the point in your business growth journey where, man, I wish there was just a guide, like a booklet that I can open up and just see the stages of growth in a real estate business. You don't have to wonder if there's such a guide. I created one. It's called the Real Estate Business Growth Navigator. You can pick up your free copy and@realestatebusinessgrowth.com I go through every stage of growth from 100k in GCI to 500 to a million to million 5 to 2 million plus and how you need to show up at those different stages. Go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com if you like the video, give me the thumbs up, turn on notifications and make sure you subscribe to the channel. You know, this journey of agent to manager to owner, not an easy one. And when you really lean into it, you know, getting out of your comfort zone and leaning into the discomfort of learning new things, it is so rewarding. So until next time, just lean into that discomfort. We'll see you in the next video.