The Six C’s of True Business Freedom

Welcome back, Business Freedom Podcast listeners. This is Lars Hedinborg, founder of Real Estate B School, and this is the.

Good, Bad, Ugly edition of the Business Freedom Podcast. So this is where I just get to sometimes rant about things I'm seeing in the industry. Most of the time it's my time.

To help you get a little bit.

Of a glimpse into what the business growth journey is for real estate agent making that shift to, from production to business owner. And there's a framework that I've used.

That has really served me well over.

The last, you know, this is what, 10 years or so? Just finished my 10th year in real estate. Started my team, my first assistant I hired in 2008. That was my first full year. Then I hired my first buyer's agent in 2009. And then, you know, went from 58 to 118 to 178 to 248, 312, four plus 400 plus sides, family served.

And it wasn't all perfect.

So I don't tout those numbers to tell you anything except I had this.

Real clear vision of what I wanted.

To achieve in the real estate industry.

And it was not to be a.

Real estate agent and it was to build a business worth owning.

And at the time I had a.

Young child, Anders, my first, who's just turned 11, was born in November 2007. That was really just about when I got into real estate. And then our second child was born in April 2010. So I was not about to be working seven days a week for the next 10, 15, 20 years like most traditionally successful real estate agents.

And this four part, I learned it as a four part framework, but it's now six parts. So I want to kind of give you the context of what it is. If you're in a position where you can stop and write some of this down, take some notes, I would love for you to do that. And so going from, you know, let's say an average real estate agent sells 8, 10, 12 homes. If you kind of cut out all the folks that are not really doing it full time, the 1, 2 transactions, it's probably about 12 homes. 10 to 12 homes per year is a typical, traditionally successful real estate agents agent. If you take that one home per month and you go to top producer status, two to three homes per month, it's likely you're working that seven day. Even if you're rationalizing, you've got a traditional, I mean, you've got the ability to kind of carve up your schedule and you're your own boss. Really, you're not. You're working seven days a week. I can say that because I was in that position in, you know, my part year. My first year was 2007. 7 and then 2008, I had a part time assistant and it was a seven day. I did Sundays by appointment only, and I was working most Sundays. I was working on systems, marketing, systems, technology, systems, you know, just anything I could do to get a little bit of leverage so I could do more business in less time, make more money with less time, less stress. That's the equation you hear me talk about a lot of times. You know, are you making the kind of money you want working a reasonable amount of hours with a level of stress that's manageable? That is the holy grail. Being able to answer that question with an emphatic yes is the reason that this podcast exists. It's the reason that real estate B school exists. And so that's what I want to get after today. So here is the framework. I learned this from Dan Sullivan and I have a different interpretation of it now. So it's the four Cs that I call the six Cs of really true business freedom. So let's call this the six C's of true business freedom. And so let's start with the four C's. So Dan Sullivan taught me that everything starts with a commitment.

Right.

So I made the commitment to, let's say to hire my first assistant and go down the path of building a real estate team. That was a commitment. Those are kind of easy to make. If we bring it to personal, it's easy to make like the commitment of I'm going to work out, I'm committed.

To working out more this year, or.

What'S a better one? Because I know the next C is coming. Yeah. Let's just say in business, I'm going to commit to building a real estate team. And that's great, right? A commitment. You know, if it's a true commitment, it's powerful. The second C, though, is courage. And so you could commit to something and then you really have to sort of wade your way through the icky feeling of having the courage to do the things that, that you need to do to stick to that commitment. And so, yeah, I'm going to start a real estate team. Do I have the courage to make that first hire? Do I have courage to spend money on leads that buyer agents that I need to train and hold accountable are going to make me a reasonable return?

Right.

So it's all the courage stuff, the I've never managed people before, that takes some courage to overcome that, right? So it's the commitment to build a real estate team, the courage to, to make those couple decisions, learn new skill. Like all, it's the courage to move through that. The third C is capabilities, right? So Real Estate B school is a business coaching company for real estate agents. We have the systems, the tools, the strategies, anything you could need to build a real estate team, we have those capabilities. The challenge is there aren't a lot of us in the industry. 85% of real estate agents don't even have a part time assistant. And so there aren't a lot of real estate agents that have bridged the gap from committing to building a business worth owning and bridge the gap over into the capabilities to do it.

Right.

So we provide the capabilities, we also provide that gap, right. Seeing others that have done it. The agents go from 32 sides to 325 sides in four years, working 70 hours a week to working 15 hours a week in their business. So being part of a community, a business coaching community will give you that courage. So commitment, courage, capabilities, you can build the capability to be a manager. You can build the capability to have a lead management policy to train your agents on how to follow up with leads, right? You can build out the capabilities and a lot of it is tool systems and strategies and learning from others that have done it ahead of you. When you make a commitment, you drag yourself through the courage, you build the capability, it gives you confidence. And that is the fourth C. The thing that is cool about this is that when you make a small commitment, it doesn't take that much courage. You build the capability, you get a little bit more confidence. Next time you make a bigger commitment then you, it takes a little bit more courage, but you have the muscle, the memory of the success you just had with that smaller commitment. So you can get through the courage on a little bit bigger commitment. Build out a bigger capability and you get even more confidence, right? So hiring your first assistant, I'm committed, right. I'm spending 40 hours of my 60 hours a week doing work that I can hire out at $15 an hour. I'm committed this year to hire an assistant. Great. The courage. I've never managed people before. Okay, where am I going to get the money? It doesn't seem like I have the money to pay someone 24 or $30,000 this year. The capability is, yeah, we've got the job profile, we've got the job Duties. We've got all the systems they can help you build out. Gives you a little bit more confidence. Next time is I'm going to hire.

A buyer agent, right?

That's a bigger commitment because you're giving away part of your production work through the courage, build out the capability. I've got the buyer system, I've got the accountability stuff. I've got the cadence on the team. And then you get more confidence. You hire a buyer agent or two.

Right?

And this is sort of an evolution of the four Cs. The fifth and sixth C is where things go sideways for business owners in general. And I see this a lot in real estate agents that fail to scale or they hire their first assistant and it didn't work out, or they hire their second, third, fourth, and they've been through six assistants, Right. The fifth C is control. It's human nature. And I feel like business owners, entrepreneurs have this like, we need to control everything and it's not healthy. It you're not leaning into any kind of faith that you have the capability to build something beyond yourself. You know, it's this inability to let go that really trips us up. Right. So the four C's is great. Commitment, courage, capability, confidence. And it sort of spirals upwards. Bigger commitment, a little bit more courageous. Bigger capability or a tougher system to install in your business. More confidence, right? That I get the ability to let go and let. Let someone else empower someone else to run a bit of your business. Give up control, Give up working a certain part of a transaction.

Right.

To an assistant. Giving up showing homes. Maybe you hire a showing agent before you bring on a full buyer agent. Giving up pieces of the job of a real estate agent so that you can get leverage to move to the next level. You know, whatever your next level is, that's where the control piece comes in and the way to do it, and this is something I want to challenge you with, is to delegate and elevate first and foremost to realize that, let's say there are eight jobs of a real estate agent, eight big jobs, four of those jobs. In my market, we can hire someone anywhere from, let's call it 15 to $20 an hour. You need to decide how much money you want to make every hour. And if it's more than 15 to $20 an hour, hopefully it is. Hopefully it's at least $100 an hour. My number out of the gate getting into the industry was $250 an hour. I wanted to work 2000 hours and make $250 an hour. Do the math. I want it to make $500,000 in real estate simple. When you make that decision, what you're worth an hour, that makes it a whole lot easier to give up control. It doesn't mean that you don't need to build the system for the person to take over.

Right.

So tool system strategies, right. Real estate, B school, we talked about that. You've got to let go and delegate to elevate. So delegate the parts of your job that you can make. Build a system around and have someone at a lower wage that's better suited to run that system run it for you. And that's the key. So that's number five. That's the fifth C that can trip you up. The sixth C is certainty. This is another human nature thing, and I learned this from Tony Robbins, that we. It's a little bit of a mind trick, because as human beings, we have the need for certainty and also uncertainty. The need for uncertainty is typically what attracts a real estate agent to building a team and to being an entrepreneur. It's like being an entrepreneur in an industry that allows for tremendous opportunity for business building. And so we as business builders, as entrepreneurs, if you're listening to this podcast, it's likely that you're in that mindset. You have this need for uncertainty. You also have a need for certainty. And as a business owner, you could do the four C's all day long. You could let go of control if you can't live in the uncertain when it comes to your business. So that's a good example of this. So the uncertainty, you know, real estate is a 30 to 30, well, 28 to 35 days, you know, so we're four to five weeks to close a transaction. When you begin to build a team, you need to take on some level of expenses. Hopefully you're. You're coached by someone who's a good coach that's going to teach you to lead with revenue and have keep track of your leading indicators. And you're the CFO of your business. You know your numbers. You still have this level of, like, you need certainty to grow the business, and there is no certainty in business. And so I hope I'm explaining that right. I really want you to understand that you'll go out of business quick if you just lean into the uncertainty and you're okay with it. And you're just shooting from the hip and you're spending money like it doesn't matter and it grows on trees. And, you know, we need to have responsible Business practices and that needing certainty. I've seen a lot of real estate agents fail to scale because they require certainty. And the certainty comes from, I can work with this buyer, I can work with this seller. I know that I can provide a high level of customer experience. I know that I'll keep track of every detail even if it's not in my sort of God given abilities.

Right.

There's certainty in being able to be, you know, one degree of separation away from the client. Or I know that I can get on the phone and I can call my sphere, I can door knock or do open houses. Like I know I can generate a lead or a prospect and I can communicate, nurture and put them into a buyer and seller. And that's where traditional success comes from. You're in year 1215 of your real estate career. You're selling 25, 30 homes, your top producer, when you look at conventional success and it is not a life worth living. Traditional success in our industry is complete lack of freedom. You may be making okay money, but your money is linked to the amount of hours that you work. So it's not scalable. You know, you can't have a healthy six figure income sustainably working 35 to 40 hours a week. You can't make a half a million dollars consistently working with buyers and sellers working a reasonable amount of time. You may be able to do it working eight days a week. And I've met agents like that. They're making 5, $600,000 after expenses and they're working 80 to 90 hours per week. And they're on their third marriage and their health is failing them and they are on their second set of kids. And their first set of kids don't love them or don't like them or don't see them. You know, I'm being dramatic, right? So that's not for everyone. We see that a lot in our industry though. Our relationships with our spouse and our children suffer, our health suffers. We're not present, we're not where we're, we're not where we're supposed to be when we're there, right? When we're with our family, we're elsewhere in our brain. And so I've been there and there's no judgment, right? That was my first two and a half years in real estate. I was just not present as I was building the infrastructure for the business. I had to work with clients and I had to prospect and I committed 12 to 15 hours of new business development a week. So hopefully this framework serves you the Commitment, grind through the courage, build the capability, get more confidence, and don't let control and certainty mess you up. And the one other thing I will add here is I have begun or I have recommitted to a daily practice. My mornings are. They were pretty good last year and I have tightened it up this year. And one thing I really recommitted to is a journaling practice. And so in the morning, I will journal, quite simply, three things I'm grateful for and then three great things that will happen today. So it's sort of like a psychology of expecting the best from the day. So three things I'm grateful for, three things I expect to be great about today. And then at night I do two things. I journal three amazing things that happened today, and then what could I have done to make today better? And that's my journal process. So that's encouragement for all of you. It's going to help as you're going through the mental shift from agent to hopefully from struggling agent, hopefully to top producing agent to team leader to business owner. And that's the journey that I stand for. I've committed my professional life to serving agents that want to make that transition. And this podcast is never a pitch for anything. If that is you, I always want to let you know that there's an opportunity to take a next step if you choose to. This framework is going to help you no matter what. If you want to take a next step, we are just honored to get on the phone with you for a free coaching session. So don't hesitate to take us up on that offer. It's rebstrategysession.com so I say to all of our members and you are part of our community, you're part of the Family for Real Estate, B School and the Business Freedom Podcast. Much love and respect. This is not an easy path. Business ownership, you know, is. Is a tough journey. It's committing a couple years of your life to doing things that most people won't do. They won't get through that courage. Our industry, this is sort of a profound prevalent in our industry. They won't make the commitment to building something beyond themselves. And once you make that commitment, your life will change. And so I have a lot of love and respect for you for doing this, for listening, tuning in, for making this mental shift. It all starts with a mind shift. And so hopefully you enjoyed the episode and we will talk to you soon.

Bye. Bye.