What is Real Estate B-School? (How it All Started)

What does the B in real estate B school stand for? And how did this crazy thing get started? You know, my journey was not an easy one. I made this commitment early on that I couldn't be a great husband, I couldn't be a great dad if I was a successful real estate agent. Right? Traditional success in our industry had me working every evening, every weekend. Even when I was with my family, I wasn't with my family, I wasn't present. So real estate B school was born out of a necessity. I built real estate B school not even realizing that there would be a real estate B school. Stick around to the end of this video. I'm going to share the six stages of growth in what we call the real estate business growth navigator. If you like the video, give me the thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel and make sure you turn notifications on so you're the first to know about new videos when they drop. So unbeknownst to me, I got into real estate in middle of 2007 where the market in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's the market that I practiced real estate in at the time. The market was shifting and nobody knew it. And so if you remember these Times Back in 2008, the Great Recession, a lot of the shifting, the underlying mortgage crisis was happening in 2005, 2006. It only really caught up with Charlotte in 2007. I didn't realize it. I was licensed in 2006. I had these dreams of becoming a top agent, making lots of money, having time, freedom didn't really pan out that way. I sold 27 homes in my first 10 months in real estate, 44 my first full year. So here I am. I sold 71 homes by the end of my first full year. I made over 500,000 in gross commissions and gross commission income. I didn't keep a whole lot of it. And as I look back on that journey, you know, those years were the formative years in terms of the pain that I suffered and endured. And those being really the birth years of real estate B school. Not because I really envisioned that there would be a real estate B school, more so that I realized that, you know, being a top agent, you know, 27 sides in 10 months, 44 sides in 2008 in my first full year, and then 58 sides in 2009. I did have an administrator that year and I was working seven days every evening, most weekends, even when I was with my family. Like I said, I wasn't actually with my family. So the genesis of real estate B school and why it exists today. It's because I wasn't a great dad. I wasn't honoring my wife, Julie, and being present with her and. And seeing how her day went. The real estate business consumed my entire family. It consumed every conversation with Julie. I was stressed out to the point where I couldn't be there for her. I couldn't engage with her. You know, I would hold my son Anders, in those early days, he would have to feed himself a bottle because I was on at the time. I had a BlackBerry. And Julie has all these pictures of those early days where I'm like, on my phone, we're at the zoo, and I have my BlackBerry, you know, clipped to my belt. All. All looking cool. Our first vacation as a family was 2010. This was the year we did 118 transactions. So I had made the shift to build a team and get some leverage in the form of people. I made a promise to Julia, like, I'm gonna unplug. This is like four or five days. We can go to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and just enjoy ourselves. And her family came with us. My family came with us. And I ended up working a deal on that vacation that, ironically, it's the home that I was working on. The deal is in the neighborhood that I live in right now. So I'm a runner, right? Six days a week, I'm running around my neighborhood, and it's a 1.2 mile loop. I do it four times, and I pass that home 24 times a week. And so I worked the entire vacation. There was no reception in the cabin yet. I was plugging away in the computer. Of course, Julie captured a picture of that moment as well. And the pain that I caused by stealing that time with Julie and really, honestly embarrassing her in front of her parents and my parents. And I'd have to drive down to the bottom of the mountain to get reception to make phone calls. And of course, the deal never closed. And so when I look at, you know, real estate B school as it is today, the pain I endured, the crazy hours, the low pay because I hadn't figured things out, and the pain I caused my family, Julie, and the lack of presence, you know, being present with my children, that is the genesis of real estate B school. That sort of just grounding in how hard it was back then. I definitely had coaches as I was growing this business. You know, my first coach was more of a productivity coach. Generate a lead, call the lead, track your numbers, get good at scripts, meet with folks, sell my home, do the work. Of a real estate agent, no concept of leverage. My second coach, pretty much similar, right? Let's maybe add a few more scripts, a little bit sexier marketing, a little bit more brand and image advertising. Let's go mass media, spend a lot of money, you know, touting ourselves as number one. And you know, I can do everything. And I'll guarantee this, I'll guarantee that I trusted those that were sort of coaching me at the time. None of them really taught me the concepts of leverage and systems. And so another reason Real estate beef school exists is that there's not any coaching program programs out there that focus solely on business coaching. How can I train you to sell more homes in less time? That is like the mission of Real Estate B school is like, how can I help you build sustainable systems? Bring on empower people so you can systematically increase your net worth and time away from the office. That mission was born out of the pain I suffered in the early years. The realization that, you know, other coaching programs, while really good at catering to 95% of the population, 95% of the real estate population probably doesn't want to become a business owner. They don't see how hiring an administrator or building out a system or tracking your numbers like they don't have an interest in that. Maybe not 95%, but you get the point. So for me, it was like, man, my God given ability. And the thing I figured out was business coaching. The systems and tools that you need to be able to build systems in your business around marketing and around sales and, and client delivery so that you could enjoy a life outside of real estate. And I didn't see a whole lot of people doing that. Whether they were top agents or they were real estate team leaders. They were just so lost in their business, in the weeds and dirt of their business. And they were never spending any time in the clouds anytime enjoying life. And I didn't want that for my business. And subsequently, as Real estate B school launched, I didn't want it for my clients. Right. They all came to me with this pain of traditional success. And I knew at that point that there was a better way in order to scale your business but not lose your life in the process. There's definitely a different approach, a different mindset you need to bring to the business. You know, I think of our CEO Stacy Peterson right now. It's a little known fact that Stacy Peterson was the first client of Real estate B School. She called me on a phone Friday afternoon and she had seen me at another event accepting some plaque or trophy. And you know, I said some kind words. I think I cried on stage. I think at the time I probably talked about my kids. They were probably at that time they were three and five years old. So I had young kids and I had already built the business up a little bit at that point. And I was launching B school out of this sort of. I did it all for me, but it could help other people. And so Stacy reached out. You know, she was kind of scared to reach out to me, but we connected and I said, call me on Monday, I'm starting a coaching program. And she's like, there's no way, just by coincidence you're starting a coaching program on Monday. And God does work in crazy, crazy ways. Because at that point I was ready. I had packaged these systems, the things that I had learned and I packed and packaged them up in a way where they, they could be used by others. And it was not perfect. We're on like Gen 7.4 at this point of how we help others and how we make the process easier and how we've simplified the tools, simplified the system so they're easier to swipe and deploy. Back in those days, it was like, hey, here's what I do, here's what I've done. Good luck. Stacy actually took all those systems as a client of Real Estate B School and she like documented a process to install the system because she had to be the one in her team that was doing it. We took her out of production in her business within six months of starting to work together, she tripled the size of her business to 300 transactions. She was able to sell the business for a seven figure valuation in a market where that had never been done before. And it was all born out of that early pain I suffered, right. Realizing that most coaches in the real estate industry didn't really provide business coaching and just knowing that there was an easier path for those that wanted to go down this ascension from agent to owner. If you're at the point in your journey where you know, I want to know the different stages of growth. I want to know where I'm at. I want to know what questions I should be asking myself, what tools and systems I should be implementing at this time, grab a free copy of the Real Estate Business Growth Navigator. Just go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com or click on the link below. If you like this video, give me the thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel and make sure you turn notifications on so you're the first to know about a video when it hits. We'll see you in the next video.