The Business Growth Navigator - Part 2

Welcome back to the Business Freedom Podcast. Today we're in part two of a three part series on the real estate Business Growth Navigator where you're getting an inside look into our world. This was an intensive workshop that we just did about a month ago and our inner circle members, our highest paid clients get to just talk to folks or interact with folks that have done what they want to do in their journey, gone from agent to owner in their business. Specifically the real estate Business Growth Navigator details the six stages of growth. So this is part two of a three part series. If you missed part one, go back one episode and consume part one before part two. If at any point in consuming any of the stuff that we put out, you want to go deeper and learn more about real estate B school or at least how you can get on a path to be our next case study go to rebs case study.com that's rebscase study.com you can learn how to work with us for free for 30 days. So go to rebskstudy.com we'll see you over there. And stay tuned for part two. And so this, this is the journey that as a team owner you can, you can go through. And by you getting out of the low dollar productive tasks that opens up a void through for people to step into. If you're, if you're deciding I'm going to shed all the a hundred dollars an hour tasks, somebody on your team has to pick up those tasks and they may have to shed the $20 an hour task that they're doing right. So the opportunity is the opportunity on a team run the right way with an owner that has a mindset towards this provides financial opportunity for the team members that don't exist in any corporate job. It's awesome when you start to think of it this way. And then I'm going to go into the stages now but I want to talk about work on your business. This is something where it's easy to say very few of us do it. So at its basic level you have to have time blocks in your calendar three a week that say work on business. If you don't have those time blocks in your calendar, you're not going to be able to move the needle in your business. And those are guarded like listing appointments. Very few of you would miss a listing appointment but you kind of blow off your work on business time blocks. So three 90 minutes are the best but we'll take 60 minutes. This is non negotiable in our world. Right. You just have to commit to doing it. And sometimes this is not the most fun work. But when you look at how fast you'll progress in the different stages, that's when it becomes really fun. And that's why the strategic business assessment. So we have you go through your personal wellness assessment and your strategic business assessment on the first Monday of every month at 11:00am Eastern your time. So just put that in your calendar. 11:00am Eastern your time on the first Monday of the month. Recurring appointment, it may take you 30 minutes. You can do your net worth calculation at that time as well. We added that leadership assessment so you could just have assessments, you know, so a 60 minute time block once a month, first Monday and you just do it and then just that identifies over time where your strengths and weaknesses are and what you should be focusing on so we can deliver on this promise together of just more money, more time and less stress. You will show up differently in your world if we can just work on this together over time. And so we have made that commitment with you and you need to show up and do your part. So we are going to talk about the six stages here and I want you to help me with all of this. There are going to be some strategic questions and some things things I'm going to ask you to sort of give me examples of. So get ready to interact. The six stages are grouped in first stages one and two start and ramp are I do it primarily like it's only you. Like maybe mid to late stage two you can hire an administrator. This is primarily the whole business is you in stages three and four build and lead. It's we do it. Big picture businesses fail to leave stage three because the owner kind of steps out and they go straight to they do it. They're like I'm not going to do inside sales anymore. I'm going to hire an isa. I'm not going to have the same standards I had for myself as my agents. And they can prospect or not, they can come to the office or not like that. That's the biggest thing that we see. People just want to go to I do it to they do it and the business fails to scale and then they do it is really when you need to make the decision that you're going to exit production and you're going to take the owner seat. Even if you think you're never going to exit production. Like John Michael said yesterday, he's like, I didn't think I wanted to exit production. I told him, I promise you everything will be better when you do so just Build it that way. Just build it as if you were going to exit production so at least you have the choice. Because if you don't have that mindset, you're going to make stupid decisions about your commission splits. Your economic model is going to be way off track because you're just going to do some extra deals to make the numbers work and all of a sudden you'll be a $2 million business with like $750,000 in personal production and you're only netting $500,000. That is like, that's worse than me selling 58 homes on my own with a part time assistant. Like the pressure that you'll inherit, having a poorly set up two to $3 million business. We've seen it over and over and over again. You don't want to get there. All right, so let's talk about the start stage. So this is 95% of real estate agents, maybe more. I mean this is a good chunk of our, of, of our industry. Maybe not 95. Less than 100k. They're making less than 25 bucks an hour. You know, it's this naive excited feeling as you're kind of putting, you know, you're getting closer to 100k. Massive dropout rate. Massive dropout rate. What I tell new agents is go find a well run team. Right? 82% of agents don't renew on their second anniversary. The question is, where does my next deal come from? To graduate out of start, it's all about keystone habits. It's all about sales skills, building inside and outside and a determination like in your heart, in your gut, like I'm not going to fail to grow. Like you really have to. And I've shown this before. Like I still have a picture of my family. You know, this is probably, I don't know how old this is, but it's pretty old. That's when they were cute. They're not cute anymore. So I keep remembering when the days are hard. I just look at that, I'm like, oh, they're so cute and they're not cute right now. So go in the chat and type in some keystone habits. Like think about like, you know, in that hundred K range, like as you were just accelerating and growing and like top producer in your office prospecting for sure. What other keystone habits? Because some of you have forgotten these habits or prospecting 100% time, blocking scripts. Yes. Showing up every day. That is like the best one. Follow ups monthly contact with soi. Follow up, follow up past clients, role play, organization, accountability, guarding Your calendar. Positive mindset, attitude. Follow past clients. Coaching, prospecting, role play, practice. Prepare the night before. Love that. So as we talk about stages beyond start, think about, like, how many of these keystone habits have you stopped doing if you're still the one producing? Or how lax have you gotten with team members? Like, I found that I didn't hold my first round of hires to the same standards that I knew. I knew it in my heart, like, when they didn't succeed on my team, it's because I just really didn't want to just dig in and tell them the truth about being successful in real estate. And I don't know what that says about me, but I know I see it in a lot of other teams. It's like, no, you don't need to. We're not going to time block. Like, you just kind of do your thing. Here's what I recommend, you know, and it's just this loose sort of thing that's not. That's not scalable. And this is when you're solo. So 85% of real estate agents don't have administrators. And I would say 85% of the work a real estate agent does is administrative. So think about that. Very few administrators exist in our industry. Chip says had a voicemail that said, I will call you back in two hours or less. And I did. People knew I was committed to being the best real estate agent. I was the agent that called you back quickly, and my name grew by word of mouth. Yeah, I love that. It's helpful to remember these early days and to look at your current business and see what have you, what have you, you know, sort of just what are you overlooking in your business? And so for me, this was November 2007. So that's the year I sold 27 homes. And I was like, I remember this picture was taken. Julie. I forget what happened. Julie was not in the room, so she. It didn't happen smoothly. And I was like, rushed out. And then they just gave me this baby. And they're like. And they gave me a bottle. And I was like, holy cow, Julie, better get back here quick. I'm like, I don't really know what to do with this thing. And so I just remembered in that moment, like this was going to happen. Like, there's a whole new level of responsibility now that, like, if I don't feed this thing, it's not going to live. And so whatever that looks like for you now, maybe it's something different now, you know, maybe it's a different stage of Life. But there's something you can attach emotionally to. You have to find out what that is, because we're going to ask you to do things that you're not going to want to do things that are going to make you uncomfortable. Right. So you have to ground this in the emotional. Let's talk about ramps. This goes all the way from 100 to 500, from 10 to 50 deals. This is where top agents live, traditionally successful real estate agents that are working seven days a week. I see these agents in my market all the time. They're like, hey, I'm out on a Saturday running signs around. Or, like, doing an open house on a Sunday. Or like, nothing wrong with open houses. For me, the decision I made that an open house was never going to fit into my lifestyle, like my desired lifestyle. I did one traditional one, and I remember nobody showed up. And I slept. It was for three hours, and the seller asked me to do it. It was on my first listing. I don't even think I left my corporate job yet. And I. So I didn't know how to do real estate, and she asked me to do an open house, and I did it, and I literally napped. It was really, really satisfying. Yeah. So the question. So this is 25 to 50 bucks an hour, 40 to 60 hours. You're hopeful, really busy. So you've already passed through the threshold of like, you are the guy or the girl in your office. You're the top dog. Right. But the strategic question is, where do I need leverage the most? So if you're going to, like, crush through this stage, you're thinking about leverage. That question is a question I have never stopped asking myself. So when you do your Clarity breaks, which we asked you to do, that is a question you should ask yourself probably once a week. Where do I need leverage the most right now? Personally and professionally, where do I need leverage the most? Right. So when I had a personal challenge come up, I was like, where do I need leverage the most? And I just. I looked at my calendar. I'm like, I can't do that. I can't do that. I had to make some big requests of Stacy and Jessica and the team, but I got to pivot. I pivoted out of the real estate team. So leverage is the thing that we're working through. This is a superpower of mine. I have lots of kryptonite. You can talk to my team about my kryptonite. My superpower is, like, figuring out leverage, delegating administrative tasks. Leverage, lead generation. So I wasn't a big prospector cold caller. But I was really good at just setting up a system around having leads come in. So my database or I think I probably started expired mailers pretty early on. Yard signs I started early on and I had a system. When the leads came in, this is what happened to them. And then selling is the only priority. That's going to sound really bad for some of you that think that showing the homes or I don't know, managing contract to close or like those things are important but they're not a priority. Like they have to happen but you cannot do them. So if you're failing to scale, if you're stuck at any stage and selling isn't like your obsession like every day, what did you, how many meaningful conversations did you have? How many appointments did you set? That obsession with set met signed, that is selling. And there's not a whole lot that matters out of set, met signed when it comes to just straight up scaling a business. So if your business just take a second and think about it, how obsessed am I in my business on a daily basis with set medsigned and just sit with that for a second. And if there's not an obsession then you're probably failing to scale. Like it's just going to be painful. You're going to constantly be sort of tripping over yourself as you grow. And this is probably a full time administrator for sure. One to two agents. You know, at this point I leveraged, you know, buyers off of my plate through showing agents and that sort of thing. So real quick in the chat if I ask you the question, where do I need leverage the most? What's your, what's the first thing in your business? What's the first thing that comes to your head? Admin showings. Love that admin. So be specific. If it's admin, like is it listing coordination, Is it marketing coordination, is it closing coordination? New hires, Megan, specifically what about new hires training or finding them? Lead gen. So Chris says lead gen. Is that like generating a lead or the physical act of prospecting? Admin work. Annie Green says. So when you say integrator you probably mean like a key operations person, like someone who can step in and help you where you're weak. Better admin support. So is that a different administrator or a first administrator? Buyer agents, showings for sure. Transaction, transaction management, inside sales. Who not how. Love that. Marketing coordination, onboarding and training. Training new hires. Getting an ISA. Marketing coordinates. Database. Yeah, database. We do a 60 touch. The same concept though. So Chris Hennessy Said marketing coordination. Yeah, like, setting up the system is the most valuable thing you'll ever do, but running it on a. Like, running it is not. Is not leverage. Right. The actual running of it. This is a really good list. Recruiting for other markets we want to be in. Love that. Admin office details, bills, organizing details of business growth. Love it. All right, so for me, this was 2008. This year we did 40. Well, I said we was me and Tia, my first administrator. You can see Anders is like a year older there. And Julie, I have so many good pictures of me doing stuff I shouldn't be doing. Like, so I probably shouldn't be working when I should be, like, enjoying, you know, time with. With my boy. He is 13 years old now, so I know some of you have kids. When I say that, it's like, oh, my gosh, like, thankfully, I was so obsessed with building the business to give me leverage that I didn't, you know, I didn't miss out on. Well, I'll say that. I'll say, you know, as soon as I figured out the real estate business, I started real estate B school. And I put myself right back in the. In the production side of things. So I'm sure he's going to have some therapy later in life with the amount of hours that I worked, which isn't all bad, but I was definitely working when I shouldn't have been working. So. Build stage. So this is 502 million. I find in the build stage is where we see people sputter and lose momentum the most. This is where a lot of our members, they either come in when they're sort of leaving the 500 and they just. They fail to leave or they're stuck when they get here. This is where they've been for three to five years. Right. So there's a lot of hours involved. You're making pretty decent money. You're definitely hit the ceiling. You don't have a roadmap at all. The strategic question says, what systems do I need to build or firm up? So that's something that you want to write down. What systems do I need to build? You need to start thinking about your business as a system of systems. And if you set up a system the right way, anyone can run it. Almost anyone can run it. Like, think. Think of how much in your real estate business, you know, is like button clicking or, you know, stuff that doesn't require necessarily you or a high. The highest, you know, level person that you can think of. So leverage on the buyer side. It's really hard to have a balanced life. If you're going to work with buyers, at some point, you need to draw a line in the sand and just say, I am not working with any buyers. You can learn the scripts on how to get out of it. You can be the account executive. In my mind, I was the account executive for the buyers I worked with, but I didn't show homes. So I had like maybe two to three hours in a buyer. But my buyer agents at the time were happy to show homes for me. I think I paid 20 bucks an hour with a $250 bonus if they got them under contract. So they essentially were the buyer's agent. And so I was like $500 in a deal or less. And at that time, it was about a $7,500 commission check. So I was about 8% payout on my buyer deals. That's not a bad deal for them. And it was a really great deal for me. I own the relationship. I got the person to the point and I signed them up to a buyer loyalty agreement. And then I just needed someone to show homes and I was available. They were texting me. I helped them put the offer together. So again, it was just this obsession session with leverage and just this constant conversation around leverage and systems. And so this is one administrator, probably a second administrator at this point, because you're probably going from 50 to 100 deals and two to four agents. I think the year we did 118, I had four agents on my team and one administrator. We hired a second administrator late in that year. So it was our first vacation. The year we did 118 sides was our first vacation. And I ruined the whole vacation by working a deal. Raise your hand if you have worked a deal and pissed off a spouse on vacation. Yeah, it really sucks. Of course, in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, there's no reception anywhere, so you have to drive down to the mountain. Ironically, this house that didn't end up closing is in the neighborhood I live in today. So it was a short sale is like half price what it sold for like three years earlier. And so again, just another emotional wound that I caused to people that I love that gave me more motivation to build the business the right way. So then now we're at lead stage. A million to a million five. You're working more reasonable hours at this point. So this is where you've made the leap from just doing all the building to actually leading more in your business. This is really uncomfortable. If there's one thing I could Go back and do differently. I would learn how to be a better leader earlier on in my journey. Like I feel like if I tripped into anything and failed most on anything, it was just like the skill, the soft and hard skills of leadership and management. Like I just feel like I've really sort of, I've just been tripping over myself Instead of getting ahead of it. We did a whole intensive on leadership back in, what was it? Colorado Springs was that fall 2017. If you struggle with leadership, I would go back into the member portal and I would consume that. It was four sessions. There was a workbook associated with it. It was based on how to be a great boss. Really, really good. Now the question is how do I help my team members get ahead? So like have you, if you're at this point or you're approaching this stage, have you started to think about how do you help your team members get ahead? So that wasn't my question. Like I feel like that was fundamentally. That was weird. I feel like that was fundamentally my biggest miss as I was scaling is that I didn't ask myself that question early enough. And so any failure or discomfort or culture issues was that I wasn't asking myself that question. That's not a great reflection of me as a leader. It's just the truth. So to graduate out of lead and to have a shot at exiting, there are client care systems. So client care is a lead gen lever at this point. How do you design client care for the natural byproduct without you being involved to be referrals? It's all about culture and cadence. The business has a life outside of you and the listing system and training. So you building the listing side of the business to completely exit really, really important. So two administrators, maybe a couple VAs, four to six agents at this point and this is 100 to 150 deals at a $10,000 commission check. I hope you enjoyed the real estate Business Growth Navigator and just learning more about these stages of growth. They're predictable like clockwork. These are the six stages that I went through my business growth journey to go from 58, well 44 sides my first full year as an agent just grinding, working seven days a week to over 400 sides. So almost 10x growth in my business about six years later. So this is the exact journey that I went through and all of our most successful members have gone through. So I'm hoping you enjoyed it. If you want to take the conversation to the next level level, go to rebscasestudy.com you can learn how to work with us for free. Get access to all of our tools and systems, all of our coaching, all of our training. We'll set up a three year vision. A one year plan gets you situated in a 90 days. We'll get you set up on the real the Business Freedom Planner. We'll get a personal wellness assessment done. We'll get a strategic business assessment done. And you get access to all of it for free for 30 days. So go to rebscasestudy.com and we'll see you over 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 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 realestateb school.com and apply for a free Business Growth Strategy session. No matter where you are in your business growth journey 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.