What Does Business Freedom Really Mean?

What's up business freedom podcast listeners? Today's episode I'm calling what does business freedom even mean? So if you've been following real estate B school and anything I sort of preach, teach, just everything I'm passionate about is building your business in such a way where it gives you freedom. Problem is, in our industry, in real estate, traditional success even as a top producing real estate agent is just, it's a life of slavery. And even small teams, medium sized teams, even $5 million teams, have built businesses that aren't giving the owners any freedom whatsoever. And even the way the businesses are set up, they're not built based on sustainable systems and empower people. And the main cog in the thing is, is the top producing agent that just surrounded themselves with people lose systems, no one's really empowered. So that main cog in the middle of the cog, if it stops moving, everything stops moving. So what does business freedom mean? And I'm going to talk about, I'm going to talk about time, money and stress a little bit. And then I want to talk about three tools that we use in real estate B school that will help you no matter where you are in your journey, even if we never do business formally together. So time, money and stress. When I talk about time, money and stress and y', all, I have not figured out all of this at all. I break up my business growth journey, my business freedom journey, usually called business growth. I'll call it business freedom journey into three phases. I had a corporate job prior to 2007, so my first phase of business freedom and figuring stuff out was 2007 to 2012. And that's where it took me a full five years to build the real estate team business in such a way where I had freedom and you know, it wasn't. There was nothing easy about it. Next episode I'm going to go into what I call the hard easy principle. So I'm not going to touch too much on the journey. I'll save that for the next episode. But the time, money and stress, at the early part of that 2007-2012 part of my journey, there was no freedom in it at all. Like I was doing all the jobs of real estate agent. Even when I hired my first administrator, I was still the cog that did everything. My first buyer agent, I didn't set up systems probably the right way. Once I got the vision to build the thing in a way where it doesn't, I'm like a little cog on the outside of all the cogs And I'm not the main cog turning it around. That's when this concept of business freedom really came to light. So the question I have for you is, is the trade off of time, money and stress worth it? So are you making the kind of money you want, working the hours, reasonable hours, 40, 50 hours a week, and your stress level is a 5 or 6 consistently. And it's not an 8, 9, 10. If it's an 8, 9, 10, chances are you're coming home, the kids are restless, you kick your do. Like whenever I'm an 8, 9 or 10, there's little margin in my stress meter. I don't have the margin. I need to be able to do the other things in my life that are important. Be a good husband, be a good dad, all of those things. So ask yourself the question, always and forever, is the trade off time, money and stress worth it? Usually top producing agents and team leaders hit a point in their journey where it's not making sense. And something typically was set up foundationally wrong either. You haven't gone in to build leverage through systems and people. I'm not talking about massive real estate teams. That's a fallacy. You know, folks think that you have to have 20 agents to sell, you know, to build a business, and it's just not true. We have 12 team members doing almost 3 million GCI and just a really tight systems, tight culture, a cadence, and a really nice little business that we've got running. So time, money and stress, always and forever. Think about that. The three things I want to focus on are three things that I use Business Freedom in the title and I want to give you some context around it. I do masterclass trainings as well. So if you have missed one of our masterclass trainings, I go deeper on some of these concepts in the trainings. For the purpose of this podcast, I just want you. I want to really ingrain this business freedom concept into you. The first thing is our Business Freedom Navigator. So there's six phases of growth that you'll go through in terms of going from a struggling real estate agent, which is 98% of our industry, is not selling more than two homes a month. So real estate B school really only picks up, you know, really not at two homes. It's three, four, five homes per month, or you're building, you've got a team, or you're doing eight to 10 to 12 homes a month. So the Business Freedom Navigator is helping you navigate all of those different phases of growth in a way where you get More freedom as you ascend up the mountain, so to speak. And so most folks that attempt to go from agent to running a team, they don't build it in a way where they get more freedom. So again, Business Freedom Navigator, not just growth for growth sake, our industry puts folks on a pedestal that sell a lot of homes, whether you're doing it as a solo agent or as a team leader. And nine times out of 10, there's no freedom at all in the thing that person built. I know I've had over a thousand conversations with folks that have come into real estate B school and I know exactly what our target market is going through. And our target markets, that 1% who's already started a team or they're like super top producer agent staff. So that's one concept. And the question around that is like, do you have a clear path to as you grow to get more freedom? So that's the Business Freedom Navigator, alright? The second thing is the Business Freedom Index. So this is a tool I created just to normalize things as it relates to time and money. So two of the three things I focus on for myself is time, money and stress. So time and money, here's the cool thing and the thing that blows most pictures people's minds is that you could delink time and money pretty easily in my opinion. I've done it in two businesses now and I'm seven plus years in real estate B school helping folks, you know, helping, helping you realize that you don't have to simply put in more hours to make more money. Traditionally that's the only way to make more money in real estate. I gotta go out and sell another home, which means I need to make money, generate another lead myself. I need to convert that lead to a consultation, I need to convert that person to, you know, a buyer or seller. I need to service that listing or service that buyer. I need to get them through contract to closing and then I need to, you know, and that's not, you know, a unit of effort, it means a unit of income. That's not the game that we're playing. So when it comes to the Business Freedom Index, it's simply looking at the money you make for the time you put in. My first aspirational calculation of this was I wanted to make $500,000 a year in real estate. This is pre tax, pre owner's compensation. So the money you're going to split with the government. So I wanted to make 500,000, I wanted to work 2,000 hours a year. That's $250 an hour. So that was, I had my mind focused on that. And the cool thing is, is that most jobs a real estate agent, if you put them together with systems and you put the best person in that spot to do the thing that needs to get done, most of those things you can hire folks that are better than you for less than $50 an hour. So I had this really big spread. 250 I wanted to make and $50 I could hire a good 80% of the jobs of a real estate agent out create the system and, and empower someone to fill. Took me about five years to get to $250 an hour. And then I talked about that first phase, 2007, 2012 and then 2012 to 2017, that was another five years it took me to get to $500. And now I'm working on the last phase of the Business Freedom Index is to get to a thousand plus. And so I'm sort of in the third part of that journey. The question I want to leave you with as it relates to the Business Freedom Index, how closely is the money you make tied to the hours you work scale of one to five? One is, yeah, one is bad. So one is like the only way to make more money is to, is to do more in your business. And five, you can actually do things to the business that can generate opportunity for you. And so you're more like the, the entrepreneur where you can kind of move things in the business without working with buyers and sellers directly. So just ask yourself that question. And then number three is really the frameworks and what we call the Business Freedom Blueprint is the thing that you need if you really do want to build something that's representative of a true business that provides a high level service to buyers and sellers. So we talk about four drivers to a business that is going to be worth owning in the future and it's not going to enslave you. It's a track, convert, deliver and scale. And around each of those drivers there's three accelerators that we focus on with our new members to make sure we figure out what do you have that's going really well in the business and what do you need help with in the business. So around attract there's three. For example, there's three accelerators, Database Marketing, Listing marketing and Buyer marketing. And there's tools and systems within each of those accelerators that we employ for our members to move the needle in that area of their business. And so there's really no the guiding question in this area is, is there a roadmap that you're working from to get the growth that you're looking for? And when I say growth, I definitely don't mean growth in hours. I mean you can go from 50 sides to 100, 150 sides, 200 sides, make more money and work less hours and experience more stress. And a lot of that is easy for me to say sometimes hard for me to convince folks of when you consider having the blueprint already laid out. We're on four, four generations now of our, of our how we sort of train folks up on our stuff. We know the areas of the business to focus on so the drivers and the accelerators and then that we had the tools and systems built. A question for you. If you want to build this thing, what roadmap or blueprint are you following? And are you really confident in what you're doing? And if that means you're with another organization and you're hoping that they can show you the way to build a systems driven, profitable business that's sustainable, then you need to stay there. If you're not in a position where you have a high degree of confidence that you're in the right place, that's when we need to have a conversation. And like I said, we do really well with folks that have already achieved what most won't achieve and they've realized that where's the money? And I have no time to do anything but work. And I'm super stressed all the time. And all that stress is having. There are implications to stress in other areas of my life. In a relationship with a spouse or with your children, not enough time there or in your physical life or in your spiritual journey, there's some collateral damage that you're feeling. That's who we want to have conversation. If that's you, just go to realestatebschool.com a next step is typically there's an Apply now button where we just make sure you're a good fit. We ask you a few questions and then we get on a coaching call. It's just a conversation. If you're a fit for the program. If you are a fit for the program. Our entry point is our pilot program and there is no obligation whatsoever to participate in our pilot program. And we do that pilot program because we want to make sure that you, before you sort of get into more of a longer term relationship with us, that you are 100% confident that you are a good fit for real estate B school. So if this is you and all of this resonates at a high level. At a deep level. Not a high level. A deep level. Go to realestatebschool.com and take action.