Your Goals Are Too Small! - Here's How to Play a Bigger Game!
19 Oct 2023 · 13 min
Lars Hedenborg argues real estate agents set goals too small because the industry limits ambition. He sold 131 homes and helped his team members grow from 2 to 27 homes and 10 to 100 homes using disciplined lead generation and scripted follow-up. His method: audacious goals plus proven daily actions.
Questions this episode answers
Over 5,000 families.
131 homes for around $1,000,000 GCI.
One agent: 2 homes (first 18 months) → 27 homes (first 12 months with Lars). Another agent: 10 transactions/year with another team → 100 transactions within three years on Lars's team.
Average two-year agent makes a little under $10,000 GCI; an industry veteran (16–17 years) is around $80,000 GCI (pre-expenses).
A 90-day program called the Million Dollar Agent Method (marketing name in episode); it includes a $40,000 GCI guarantee (twice your investment back if you don't earn $40,000 additional GCI).
I had an agent join my team that was doing 10 transactions a year with another team joined my team. Within three years she was doing a hundred transactions with me. So this stuff works. But I want you to rethink what's possible with your real estate business.
The real estate industry has failed to create a clear path to time and money freedom, Having helped over 5,000 families in my real estate career and coached thousands of agents to scale their businesses and I know what works and what doesn't. And my goal on this podcast is to share it all with you. The good, bad and ugly of building a highly lucrative lifestyle business so you can focus on what truly matters in life. You won't find any hype or fluff on this show, just real world tactics.
And strategies that get results. You just gotta do the work. Welcome back. Real Estate Business Builders. Lars Hedinborg, the founder of Real Estate B School here and I'm actually not sure how this episode is going to be to land. We just went through a season in Real Estate B School where I did a series of trainings. One was goal setting, one was productivity. And then we did a quarterly business planning session. The goal setting workshop was one of our lowest attended workshops. We do weekly deep dive trainings in Real Estate B School, one of the lowest attended. And productivity I think was even a little bit worse. And at the same time I was going through a couple of Facebook posts. I've got a free Facebook group, you might be in it. It's called Real Estate Business Builders. If you're not, definitely go check it out. I do a weekly free training in there and I did a couple posts in there which fell totally flat. One of them was titled Crybabies don't read this. And then the other one was something about having small goals, like you're being selfish, your goals are too small and you're being selfish. And not a lot of play, not a lot of thumbs up, not a lot of comments on those two posts. And I want to put this a little bit into context. So I do believe that most agents play the game of real estate in a really small way. And I don't think it's the agent's fault. I think it's the industry's fault. The industry is stacked against the average agent, right? The industry, every mls, all the whole industry exists on a gazillion agents each selling four, five, six, seven top agents are selling 10 to 12 homes a year. A recent NAR study and I don't know if this is one year old or two years old has the average two year agent is making a little under $10,000 in gross commission income. So pretty much like one home sold two years in, the average agent is at around, I think somewhere around 45 or $50,000. So four and a half, five homes on average. And an industry veteran, which they define as 16, 17 years in the business isn't breaking 100,000. They're at like $80,000 GCI. And those are all pre expenses, pre broker splits, pre advertising, pre any expenses. So the industry itself is really, really jacked up. A lot of part time agents, a lot of agents not really taking this craft seriously. And the reason why I think your goals are too small and I think you're being selfish is that maybe it could be that you don't know what's possible. Right? So if you've listened to any episode, you've heard me talk about my journey in real estate, I'll just reiterate. I did a few things right in the early days to figure out how to generate high quality leads, use a very simple script to follow up with those leads and time block 12 to 15 hours a week for the act of new business development. And new business development has two parts, lead generation and lead follow up. I had a database. I did this for three years. My first, by the end of my my second full year. So 2007 was a part year for me. 2008, 2009, I sold 131 homes for around a million dollars worth of GCI. So hadn't figured everything out. But I certainly figured enough out where I went on to teach other agents that joined my team how to do that. My first agent came in first 18 months in the business, he sold two homes. First 12 months with me, he sold 27 homes doing the same things that I did to get busy. I had an agent join my team that was doing 10 transactions a year with another team joined my team. Within three years she was doing 100 transactions with me. So this stuff works. But I want you to rethink what's possible with your real estate business. The post that I did in the Facebook group where I I said crybabies don't read. And I also sent out an email to 20,000 folks on my email list and I said crybabies don't open. Where I was having a conversation with one of our members recently and this Guy was doing 27 sides in the last 12 months and his goal was to double his business. But when we really dug into it and he knows our system, less is more. In our system, right, you only need one maybe adding in a second Legion lever. But this guy was convinced he was doing six different things. Six Legion levers. Four of them weren't even proven right. So we have nine Legion levers in real estate B school. He was doing six, but four of his six weren't even ones that we've proven out to work. So convinced that, you know, adding lead gen levers was the way this guy was not actually willing to do what it would take to go from 27 to 54 to 108. Right. Doubling the business a couple years in a row when you're at that one to two transactions per month is completely doable, but not if you're not willing to follow the process. So in this post and I want you guys to go in and into real estate business builders Facebook group and read it. I likened it to my son who actually just made in one of the top volleyball clubs in the country. He made the the ones team in his age group which is 16 1. So he plays volleyball. He's obsessed with volleyball. And a year ago he, I'm not sure he was going to even be able to hang at that level. He was, he weighed 204 pounds. He played a bunch of video games. Maybe not the best parenting necessarily. I kind of just let him explore video games and I didn't really push him on, you know, some of those habits and the, the detrimental effects of those habits. I let him figure it out for himself. I planted one seed. I said, hey, Anders, there could be a chance if you, you know, watch what you eat, that you'll drop some weight and it will increase your vertical. He's an outside hitter and in volleyball, vertical is the whole game. And so the last year for my son has been nothing short of a miracle and not really. He just made the decision to commit to being better and what it looked like was £50 lost. He did 110 days straight. Raw vegan. He works out twice a week at a D1 training facility. I do those workouts with them and they are like soul shattering in a good way. I'm sore for every bit of the three, four days in between each of the workouts. He works out with a private one on one coach. For volleyball, he has two practices now we're back in season, two practices with the team. He does jump training twice a week at RO Pro, this other athletic training facility. And he's going to start stretching and you know, he's, he's vegan. He's not raw anymore. But he's still vegan. He watches his protein intake 100 grams of really clean plant based protein every day. I mean, he is on point every day. He's hitting a volleyball. If he's not hitting a volleyball, he's watching, you know, tape or footage of his past games or college games. I mean, he's really committed to being good at volleyball and to be, to put himself in a position where he could compete at that level and it's highly, highly competitive. And there's no surprise that he, he made the team, right? He's doing everything required to put himself in a position to win in volleyball. So my question is, and this is, this is just something for you to figure out. And I asked myself these questions, you know, am I putting myself in a position to win when it comes to the, to the things I want in my life, whether it's in business or whether it's financial goals or whether it's in my marriage or with my children, Am I doing the things necessary or am I just saying that I want something right? So going back to the example of me talking to one of our members that wanted to double his business from 27 to 54 sides. Really smart guy, pretty. Probably better at real estate than I ever was at real estate. I just decided to play a different game. And he wasn't willing to play the game necessary or take the constructive feedback, take the coaching. It's kind of like my son Anders, if he wants to get better at volleyball, you know, the, the coach he has is a, a D2 program. They play in D1, but their D2 program and he's the assistant coach for that. I don't know if it's varsity or I guess it's just one team, but he's the assistant coach for that team. So high level coach. It's kind of like Anders telling that coach that I don't really think, you know, I should do it that way. I'm going to go ahead and keep doing it this way. It'd be crazy to pay and it's not cheap. But it'd be crazy for Anders to tell his coach that he knows better than the coach, right? He's there to learn so that he can ascend. He's a sophomore now. He's got roughly two years before he can get recruited. He wants to play D1, you know, and even if he plays D2, which is highly competitive, he's putting himself on a path to be successful. He's doing the things necessary, he's working hard and he's taking the coaching, right? So you know, are you doing the things necessary to achieve the goals that you're setting for yourself? That's the question. This is not about real estate B school per se. Some of you are at the point where you're ready to have a conversation with us and that's awesome and we welcome that conversation. This is more about just you looking inward and asking yourself, are you doing the things necessary to put yourself in a position where you can succeed at the highest level? And then are you setting goals that are scary enough that will push you out of your comfort zone and allow you to develop skills and maybe breakthrough limiting beliefs that maybe you couldn't do before? I hope it lands well with you. And this comes from a place of not preaching but more so things I figured out for myself. And it hasn't been an easy journey. Every part of my journey has been uncomfortable, comfortable. I've just gotten used to the discomfort where I know if I'm comfortable I'm typically complacent and something in my business or my life is falling backwards. So that is my encouragement today is look at your actions. You know, are you just saying that, you know, growing your real estate business is a priority or are you actually doing the things that are required for you to grow your real estate business? I just launched a new program. It's called my million Dollar agent method. It's a 90 day program. I'm looking for agents that want to absolutely crush it. So there's a $40,000 GCI guarantee. You come into the program. If you don't earn 40,000 additional GCI above and beyond what you would have earned on your own, I will give you twice your investment back. So to apply for this program go to rebsgrowthassessment.com that's R E B S growth assessment.com book in for a 15 minute call. We're going to figure out exactly what your business looks like now, exactly where you want to go and what might be holding you back. The one thing that might be holding you back and if it's a good fit for this program, we'll have a conversation about it and we'll book you in for for a longer strategy session with me personally, I would love to talk to you and see if you're a fit for this program and let's just set some aggressive goals and get after them. So go to rebs growth assessment.com and we'll see you over there. Much love.
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