Your 2023 Growth Plan | Grow Your Business While Putting Your Life First

Welcome to Real Estate Business Builders. I'm your host, Lars Hedenborg, the founder of Real Estate B School. Bottom line, the real estate industry has failed to create a clear path to financial freedom. Traditional brokerages and coaching are designed to keep you running on the transaction treadmill with no exit strategy. While I didn't have any sales, marketing or business building experience when I got into real estate, I was willing to bet on myself and figure it out because my family was depending. Having served over 5,000 families with their real estate needs, I've made every mistake you could possibly make in this business. Through Real Estate B School, I've helped hundreds of agents and team leaders realize their goal of true time and money, freedom and living a life without regrets. If you know there's another level of growth inside of you and you want to learn how to build a highly lucrative lifestyle business, then you're in the right place. You won't find any fluff or hype here on this show. Just real world tools, systems and strategies that work. Let's grow together.

What's up, Real Estate Business Builders? This is Lars Hedinborg, the founder of Real Estate B School. And this episode is all about creating plans that drive results. This is your 2023 growth plan. But it doesn't matter when you're listening to this episode. If you're not on track with your annual plans, your three year vision, you're, you know, crushing your quarters, you're winning your weeks, you're dominating your days. Please slow down and do the work that I'm going to go through on this episode. So if you haven't grabbed a copy of, uh, there's a worksheet that goes along with this. It's a guide I put together. It's about 15 pages long and it's called Putting youg Life First. Jump into my free Facebook group, Real Estate Business Builders. Just go to Facebook, look it up, request access, answer a couple questions, and you're in. It's Putting youg Life First. It's a step by step guide to a balanced business and life plan. So if you've been tracking the podcast for any length of time, you know that my promise is to help you guys increase your net worth, but do it in a way where you have more time off and ultimately get the freedom to put first things first. That is what I'm passionate about. It wasn't always that way for me. You know, I got into real estate in 2007. March 5, 2007 is when I left my very cozy at the time, I Thought super lucrative corporate job. I just saw in that corporate ladder track that. That I wasn't really. I probably could have won that game. I was pretty well aligned with some guys in the company that went pretty far. I just didn't want to play the game right. So I chose real estate. I thought it was going to be great. I'd make lots of money, have a crazy amount of freedom. And then the reality set in. I sold 27 homes in 10 months. I was, in 2007, in those first 10 months, instantly out of bounds. We had Anders in November 2007. So I was working all the time as he was sort of oblivious to some of it. And I remember at the time telling my wife, you know, I was not really showing up as a husband. I was not showing up as a father. And I didn't really have a great example of that growing up. But I remember telling her, I think these might have been the exact words, trust me, honey, I have a plan. And I actually did come up with a plan. I ended up putting it on paper the end of 2009. And like I said, you know, my dad was an entrepreneur. He moved to the States from Sweden and opened up a hair salon with my mom. And, you know, I think partly the pressure of all of that in a failing business and him doing it all by himself, the ultimate E myth, the entrepreneurial myth, I think it at least contributed to him turning to drinking, alcoholism. Now I get the fact that it is an addiction, and that is real, and the additional stress of having to go out and kill dragons in a business. You know, I've been there, and it's just not easy. So that was part of my why. And one of the questions I have for you is, what is your why? For me, it was, I was new to being a dad, I was new to being a husband, and I didn't want to be like my dad. And so that was my driving factor. So in late 2009, this is before I added my first buyer agent or really thought through the leverage of all this. I came up with a business and a life plan. And I was really, really clear on what I wanted my business to look like. You know, three, five, and ten years, and also the annual and quarter, quarterly, but also all the activities I needed to focus on to get there, and then all the areas of the business that I needed to make sure I was building systems around so that the business could take on a life that of its own and not rely on me and just the activities that I was doing. But I could get leverage on some of the lower dollar productive activities. And we'll get into some of that here in a second. And in 2011, I did the same thing. And then I still have a life plan that is actually, it's like 14 pages long at this point. But all that to say is that I've been doing this since the early days of my growth trajectory and I've made all the mistakes. The one thing I've done though is I've always envisioned a future that was different than my present. And you know, in the early stages, my present was not great. You know, I was not working out, I was working late. I was. Then I was working like super late, like 10pm to 2am Working on the business because I spent all day working in the business and it was pretty sideways. The question I have for you outside of, you know, why are you doing this? What's your big why is do you have a plan in place to achieve meaningful goals in the areas of life that really matter? That is the thing that we're after today in terms of your 2023 growth plan or when. This stuff is timeless. So if you're listening to this a year from now or two years, it happens to be December as I'm recording this, but you're going to be able to apply some of this stuff no matter when you're listening. And a follow up question to if you have a plan, are you following it? Are you crushing your goals? And so planning matters because it is a crazy time right now. Who doesn't have competing priorities, right? Who doesn't have like kids or a spouse or you're trying to work out and take care of yourself or spend time with God or you know, crush it in business. And then there are just distractions, right? Social media, Netflix, the news and all the craziness in the world. Couple all of that with the fact that real estate is really, really hard. There are a ton of agents competing for, as I'm recording this, a shrinking amount of business. But agent count is at an all time high. And we're playing a very specific game, right? We generate leads, we have conversations, we set consultations, we meet with would be buyer and seller clients. We get them to agree to commit to working with us as their buyer or seller agent. And and then we take them through the process of getting them under contract either as a buyer or seller. We get them closed and hopefully we do that in a way where they still love us and then we have a client for life. They give us a raving fan testimonial and then we use that testimonial back in the marketing and it's this virtuous cycle. The challenge though in our industry is that we're viewed as commodities. There are low barrier to entry, there are a ton of us. And so we have to be aware of this. So I'm going to teach a few things that will kind of lay some groundwork for a series of questions that I'm going to take you through. And you may want to go back and re listen to this. When you have a journal or if you can stop now, get a journal. I'm going to put you to work here in a little bit, but in a way that's going to serve you ultimately for the long term. The goal is to change the way you think about your business and life and get to work on making your future match what is in your head. So the first thing, there's six points that I want to cover here in terms of planning is that we have to know our worth. I did a podcast on the Time Freedom System which goes really deep into this, but it's a simple calculation. It's your pre tax income divided by the hours that you work. So let's say you take home your AGI, just a gross income and your tax returns is 250,000. Let's say you work a 50 hour workweek, you have two weeks of vacation, so there's 50 working weeks, that's 2,500 hours a year, that's 250,000 divided by 2,500 is $100 per hour. We call that your Business Freedom Index. If it's not $100 an hour, you know we're really in trouble. But how do we take it from 100 to 250 to 500 to $1,000 an hour? That's the game that we want to play. So you have to know what your number is now and you have to know what you want it to be in the future. And then you draw that line in the sand and you get to work, to automate, to delegate, to stop doing things that aren't leading you closer to making the kind of money that you want in the amount of hours that you want. That is the game of business summed up right there. The second point I want to teach you is we have to be productive, not busy. There's a definition by Dan Kennedy of productivity. It goes like this. Productivity. It's the deliberate strategic investment of your time, talent, intelligence, energy, resources and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals. So let's think about that deliberate strategic investment. So on a daily basis, are you deliberately and strategically investing your time, talent, energy, resources? Right. So just gauge your days on that in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals. So did I move measurably closer to meaningful goals today? And if you can't answer those questions or contemplate this definition of productivity and give yourself a high score on regular basis, then you're not in the game of getting closer to what you want your life to look like in the future. So there's only five things that make you money in real estate. It's very simple. It's P L A N S. It's prospecting, lead follow up appointments, which is first, appointments with the buyer seller to get them to agree to do business with you. Negotiating a home under contract and then working on systems. That's the only five things that make you a, a crazy amount of money in real estate. Then we have to delegate stuff off our plate or automate stuff or get a VA or get a showing agent. We've got to get stuff off our plate if we want to make a lot of money in real estate and have freedom to have the impact that we want. Number three is that there's freedom in structure and this is going to be a little fast and furious. And there are deeper dive trainings in real estate, B school, even in our business foundations program. But we have to begin with the end in mind. That's number one. Where do I want to be three short years from now? That's where we start a three year vision. Then we create an annual plan. What must I accomplish this next year so that I leave no chance that I won't, you know, achieve my three year vision. Then we construct our quarters. So what must, what must I focus on during the next 90 days? Right. So three year vision, one year plan, next 90 days. Then we win your weeks. What are my top three must dos this week to move closer to hitting that three year vision. So for the coming week, what are my top three? And these all stack together, dominate your days. What must I do today to reach my goals? So we begin with the end of mind three short years from now. What do you want it to look like? What must I accomplish this next year? What must I focus on during the next 90 days? What are my top three for the coming week? And what must I do to reach my goals? Really good book by Brian Tracy called Easy eat that frog Typically on a daily basis, you're going to have to eat that frog, do the thing you don't want to do to achieve the vision that you set out for yourself. And the reality is, is that cash follows your calendar. So if you're not tending to your calendar, and again, the time freedom system goes into this and we did that training live in real estate, business builders Facebook group as well. But you have to have a deliberate approach to your calendar. Everything needs to be in there. New biz, dev time, your lead, follow up time, appointment slots, your family time, your workout time, your work on business time, your weekly planning sessions. You're very intentional and deliberate with how you place your time. And maybe a couple evenings a night you work late. You have to be really, really diligent about this. So number four in terms of the teaching part here is that you have to think in systems. A business is simply a system of systems. And if you're doing all the linear income activities, linear income, when you do things in a certain order and it ends up getting you paid. So in real estate, typically you're finding a lead, you're getting them to maybe show them a home and then you show them some more homes they get under contract, you're working through the contract to close process, you know, then you get paid or that deal falls out and you're like, oh crap, I have to start over again, start that linear process over again. We teach leveraged income and that's, you know, thinking in terms of systems. How can I build systems in place for my lead gen, my lead conversion, my lead follow up, you know, my sales processes, virtual consultations, like all of that you have to think through if you really want to make a lot of money in real estate. And then this is a really good quote, There's a really good book, James Clear Atomic Habits. And this is a quote I probably repeated a thousand times. So if you've heard it, give me a little bit of grace. And if you're not living it out in your life, then start living it out. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You focus on, fall to the level of your systems. Let me repeat that. You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems, right? So if you want to run a marathon and that's your goal, but you haven't like downloaded the running, the 16 week running plan and you haven't mentally, you know, accounted for it, you haven't blocked out the time, or you don't have an accountability partner Those are all the systems that will have you succeed, successfully run that marathon. Right? So number five here is that you must regularly assess where you're at, both personally and professionally in real estate B school and from a financial standpoint, in terms of your net worth, we have a process in real estate B school we do a personal wellness assessment, a strategic business assessment, and we calculate our net worth every month. The first Monday of every month at 11am in all of our members time zones we have them do those three assessments. So you have to be honest with yourself. Last point here in, in terms of the teaching is that you have to run your race. If you guys have ever seen not all horses, but some horses have those blinders on their eyes. Those blinders are there so they don't get spooked or distracted by other horses as they're running their race. So it allows them to essentially stay centered as they're running their race. And in our society and in real estate, I think in particular, there's so much comparison and it is the thief of joy. But I'll tell you this, I had a high level. One of my, one of my business partners through exp was talking to a guy that had closed 800 transactions and everyone was like, man. And I think he spoke on stage or something, man, you know, that's amazing. 800 transactions in your team. And my guy who runs a solid business on the right economic model had a conversation with him afterwards and it turns out that he made $24,000 including his own production. He made $24,000 on that 800 transactions. That is scary. So the whole game of business, it's just a you versus you game. And you just have to know what your next right thing thing is. You don't have to look at anyone else. All right, so that was a lot of teaching in a short period of time. I could have done an hour long podcast on each one of those teaching points, but I had to go through that just to lay the groundwork so you could understand how all of this fits together. So I'm going to take you through a series of questions and you're going to need a little bit of time to go through this and journal this out. But let me kind of get through this and then I will really push you guys to get with a journal, grab a cup of coffee, put some electronic study music in your ears, and first question, what are your top three best things looking back 12 months, top three best things, looking back 12 months, what are the biggest challenges you've grown through in the last 12 months? Biggest challenges you've grown through in the last 12 months, what unfinished business do you have? So if you've stalled out or you lack momentum or confidence in your business or life right now, what unfinished business do you have? Or maybe unfinished projects? What are your top three aspirations for the coming year? For the next 12 months, what are the top three things you want to accomplish? How do you want your numbers in your business to be different or your net worth or your debt? How many homes do you want to sell? How much GCI do you want to bring in? How much money do you want to drop into your bank account this coming year? How do you want your marketing to be different? Do you have lead gen levers set up in your business? In real estate B school, we have seven current lead gen levers that are each good for 25 plus transaction once installed. If you're not at that point right, how do you want your marketing to be different in the next 12 months? How do you want your impact to be different? Your clients, your vendors, your family? How do you want to impact differently? How do you want to show up differently? How do you want your lifestyle to be different? This is a big one, you know, Is it time that you get your calendar in order? Is it time that you you make time for vacations to get away quarterly with your spouse or two, three, four family vacations where you're unplugged? Figure out a way to get leverage and not work evenings and weekends lifestyle. What do you want more of in the next coming year? What do you want less of in the next coming year? Right. So take some time to go through those questions. That's gonna set the stage for an Amazing next 12 months. As I'm recording this, we're going through some really sort of squirrely things in the market. I think the headlines are gonna freak a lot of agents out, so you need to mentally stay in the game. But I think it's going to be an interesting 12 to 24 months in terms of just the economy and, you know, some of the cans we've been kicking. Politics aside, the cans we've been kicking for a long time in terms of debt and as a country, it's just been a little wonky. So I will tell you guys this. You know, get over into real estate business builders Facebook group. I just give a lot of free stuff away in there and if you want to go further, faster and it really doesn't matter where you are in your growth trajectory if you know you want to, if you, you're under 500,000, you want to break through that 500,000 GCI mark. That's our business foundations program. We can tell you exactly how to do that if you're above 500,000. But maybe it's not as profitable or you're working too many hours or you're stressed out. We have a program that fits, you know, go to 500 to a million to 2 million and work less hours and have less stress in that process. But it all starts with a business growth assessment. This is a quick call to see where you're at, where you're going. Go to rebsgrowthassessment.com that's rebs growthassessment.com Like I said, we're just going to look at where you are in your business, where you want to be in 12 months and also 36 months. And what's holding you back? What have you tried that's worked? What have you tried that's not worked? So much love, much respect, and you guys go out there and crush it.

Thanks for listening. Would you please take a minute to share the show with other agents who may be struggling? And if you love the podcast, please, please leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. And make sure you visit ScaleOrDive.com to get a free copy of my book. It's a nuts and bolts guide to building a real estate business that gives you true time and money freedom so that you can live your life without regrets. Thanks again and see you on the next episode.