Lars Hedenborg warns real estate agents that shortcuts like paid leads and high referral fees destroy margins and long-term freedom. An agent with eight years of experience still has no database despite generating 70% of his broker's business, yet pays 35% at closing. Building a client database is what actually creates freedom.
Effort. People aren't answering at the rate I want them to, so I'm just going to go knock down their front doors. That attitude that I'm going to find the business no matter what. A lot of times what I see is that agents will go to the thing that feels easier. Even if it's not the thing, it's not the path that they know is the right path to build a foundationally strong business. Agents will still kind of go down that path. Could be paid leads, or it could be referral fees. At closing. I just got off a call with a guy, 70% of his business. He's paying 35% at closing, and he's like, 65% of anything is better than 0%. He's been in the business for eight years, and he doesn't have a database. You just kind of get on this thing, and you're not building a foundation.
