What Is The Next Step For Top Producing Real Estate Agents?

Here's what I hear from a lot of top producing real estate agents. You know, Lars, I like what I hear. I like the concept of freedom. You know, I can't wrap my head around what it takes to go from, like, overwhelmed. I don't have an extra minute in my entire week. Just super busy real estate agent. How do I make the shift, like, tactically, step by step, make the shift to business owner? You know, I've never built a business before. I've never managed people before. You know, some of the things you talk about, I'm not good at systems. I feel like spreadsheets scare me, you know, and how do I actually go from agent to owner? You know, traditional success in our industry. If you look at any top agent in any market, chances are they're working seven days a week. And so there's just sacrifice that comes along with it. And it's not a judgment statement when I say I don't think that is a life that's worth living. And so I'm not judging that person. It's just I wasn't willing to make that sacrifice for too long. I made it for a few years in the early days until I figured out how to build these systems and how to get a little bit of leverage from administrative staff or VAs or a showing agent. Right. And so. So maybe you're at the point in your journey where you cannot even think of how I can fit in an extra minute to focus on anything except the thing right in front of me, and that's that client or that deal that's blowing up in your face. If that's you, stick around to the end of the video. I wanna challenge you to spend 21 days with me in the Time Freedom Challenge. If you like this video, hit the like button. Subscribe to the channel, turn on your notifications and make sure you leave comments. That allows us to interact with one another and challenge each other to step up in our lives and our businesses. In my humble opinion, I think it is near impossible to live a full life as a top agent in real estate. Right or wrong, I've been challenged in this before. You know, where agents are selling a lot of homes and they're working seven days a week, and somehow they rationalize that they're their own boss. I'm choosing to work these hours and I'm just like BS on the whole thing, where if you're working with a lot of clients, you take on the drama. Every one of those transactions, you take on the stress of the people involved in Those transactions. Most folks aren't going to buy and sell homes like a few times a month, or in our case, 20 to 30 times a month. Right. They're not in the business doing real estate. So for them, it is like the most stressful thing that they can possibly be involved in. And in that process, all of the ugly comes out in our clients. So being a traditionally successful and busy agent, you're going to have challenges around your time. I think of one of our members, Dave Hook. I started helping him when he was just starting to realize that he couldn't be a good husband. His wife Jenny was pregnant and he knew he was going to be a father. He was doing about 80 transactions in just one administrator and one or two buyer agents. And this was just less than a handful of years ago. And he knew that things had to change if he wanted to be successful in his business, but also in his personal life. And he was on the clock because a baby, like it or not, this baby was coming into the world and they knew they were going to have more babies in the future. So he had to get to work to shift how he thought about his business. Not only his mindset, but there were specific steps that we took him through. Fast forward a few years. Last year, I think he did 260 transactions. So more than tripled the size of the business. He took his work hours, he cut them in half, literally. And he more than 5x'd his income from his business. So if you've seen my other video on Business Freedom Index, it's this calculation of the money I make versus the hours that I work. And so he cut his hours in half and he more than 5x his income. So his Business Freedom Index went from like 30, 40 bucks an hour to 3, 4, $500 an hour. By employing the strategies that I want to go through with you right now, the first thing that I recommend you do if you want to make the shift from just overworked, tired, stressed out agent to a business owner that has a little bit of freedom of time, of money, and freedom from stress that comes along with real estate, is to do a time study exercise. It's the first thing that we have members go through in our world. And it's just an honest assessment about where you're spending your time from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed. Are you working in your business, on your business, administrative tasks in your business? Are you taking care of yourself? Are you on media, social media, news, Netflix, you know, are you spending quality time with family. And so just be honest about where you're spending your time. Once we take you through that time study, we're able to look at with your working hours. What are the things you're working on that you're really passionate about that pay you a lot of money, you know, and it's this. Every 90 days, we take our members through this exact process where they get to categorize the things they're doing into high passion, high pay, low passion, high pay activities, high passion, low pay activities, and then low passion, low pay activities. We have them do this in their business and also in their personal life. And it is like eye opening what we see in our members. We have folks that are spending 60 minutes in bed on social media every morning. At the same time they're telling me they want to be a good father, a good husband. Right? They want to build an amazing business. Yet the first 60 minutes of their waking hours are spent like mind numbing, just scrolling through their Facebook feed, seeing all the amazing moments of everyone else's life, which is not the reality of those friends. Right. Facebook friends anyway. And so just be honest with yourself. Is that a high passion, high pay activity? Like, is there a business application for that? You know, and it's tough. I get criticized quite a bit. I'm going to pick on the guys for a second here. Guys that spend all day Saturday watching football or when they're, when they get off their real estate job, their real estate work, they'll, you know, watch college football. And then Sunday they have to fit in watching a game or two. Right? So get the church stuff done with the family and then you feel like you checked the box and you've earned the right to watch football, the afternoon game and the evening game. That's okay. If you don't want to achieve in your business, if you don't want to play at a high level as a dad and you, you don't want to play at a high level as a husband. If you don't want to have an impact in your community, if you don't want to have an impact in your business, if you don't want financial freedom, those things are 100% okay. Just don't tell me that you want time and money freedom if you're spending a whole bunch of time doing those things off my soapbox. Some of you have hit stop on the video and will never see the part I'm telling you right now. So let me get back to something tactical that will maybe reengage. Some of you, you Know, when I think about those choices I made along my journey, I was drawn to the thing that was not urgent, but to me, critically important. So because of. We all have these jacked up childhoods, right? Because of where I came from, I just didn't want to be. I didn't want to fall down and not show up as a dad. I didn't want to not be able to show up as a good husband, right? I was figuring out my faith and I wanted to follow Jesus more. And I made that proclamation when I was like 35 or 36 years old. And so that was one thing that was important to me. So these decisions I made along the way that crowded out some of those things that weren't, you know, giving me freedom, you know, in my business, in my personal life, or in my spiritual journey. And so tough decisions to make. And I was willing to make them because of the payoff, the upside of what I wanted for my life and for my business. So once we agree to be honest about where we're spending our time and then to categorize into passion and pay and do all of that, it's time to just design our week. What do we want our week to look like? Every 90 days for over 10 years, I've been doing this exercise where I just decide on paper what I want my week to look like. Wasn't as awesome as it is today. Back in the day, this allowed me to be really clear about my commitments I was willing to make. So it's your ideal week. It's from when you wake up to when you go to bed. Where do I want to spend my time? Then we make commitments about where we're going to spend our time. We actually put time blocks in our calendar about the activities we're going to do as a husband, as a father, in our spiritual journey, in our business, pre populate our calendar with the most important, the highest dollar productive, the things that, you know, have to get done for you to build a real business. And so that ideal week translates into like actual activities because we've made commitments around our time blocks. And then what does the daily cadence look like? You know, every day still to this day, I decide, you know, what I'm going to achieve in a day. You know, I have an intention around my day. I start out my day in gratitude. I write down the things I'm grateful for. I, I go through my affirmations, I write down the three things that have to happen today for me to be successful. There's a whole bunch of other things that I do. But what three big things, you know, a process, a project, or a person that I'm developing have to happen today for me to move my business forward. You know, when I look at Dave Hook and his journey, you know, his journey didn't start out. It was a bit rocky. You know, he made some poor decisions with his time in the early days. And he, you know, agreed to have those lines of communication open with his wife, Jenny. And, you know, as a result, he was able to shift his business entirely and live a life that most will never be able to live because they're not making those tough decisions. And so some of that's a little heavy. I get it. And I get the whole football thing probably, you know, some of you checked out. And if you're still watching, though, it means you're serious about building a business that allows you to have more time and money, to have more meaning, more impact in your business, with your team members, in your family and in your community. So if you're at the point in your journey where, like, you know, there's a better way to do this, you don't have the time, money thing figured out, go to thetimefreedomchallenge.com it's thetimefreedomchallenge.com or click on the link below. And I'm going to spend 21 days with you, training you, coaching you, pushing you. You know, we'll have open dialogue. We'll have Q and A live once a week. I'll answer all of your questions no matter where you are in your journey. We'll do activities, we'll do a time study. We'll do an ideal week. We'll go through the passion pay exercise. Most of the things we'll do the weekly commitments, I'll land the thing and in a daily cadence and how to design your perfect day. And so you'll have most of the elements I just went through in this time challenge. So click on the link below or go to thetimefreedomchallenge.com if you like the video, hit the like button. Please subscribe to the channel. Turn your notifications on so you're the first to know when a new video hits. And make sure you leave comments. I love to see what you guys are thinking where I may have pushed a little too far on this one. It might be the whole sports thing, but please honor the intention of what I was calling you out on. Right? So there are times I'll get off my soapbox and I will say, I have binge watched Dexter. I have binge watched Breaking Bad recently, Outlanders and Better Call Saul. So that's my version of football. So I succumb to the mind numbing checking out that we all do. And yet I still need to check myself. Am I staying up a little too late? You know, so I'm not getting up on time to be able to have that quiet time in the morning and show up in the first part of my day with intention and energy and vitality. As always, thanks for joining me today. Keep tuning in so you can keep being challenged. Keep giving me feedback so I can bring you stuff that's relevant to where you are in your journey. We'll see you in the next video. Sam.