20 Reasons People Fail at Business Planning - A Simple Business Plan

Ever felt like your business plan is just a decorative piece on your shelf? Join me, Mark Jones, for a riveting conversation with Dylan Shively and AJ Regatas, as we unravel the true impact of business planning in the aftermath of the 2024 real estate market crash. From Dylan's leap from car sales to credit management to AJ's decade-plus expertise in real estate, we dissect the pivotal moments that transformed their business trajectories and how setting goals can be the compass that guides you through the stormiest of economic weathers.

Get ready to dismantle the myths around one-time planning as we dive into the evolution of business plans from mere documents to dynamic tools for success. Learn from my own tales of chaos in the absence of a solid plan, and let's discuss how a 'big boy business' approach can lay the groundwork for future prosperity. We also spotlight the transformative role of a business coach in steering clear of the generic six-figure dreams and into the realm of actionable, realistic targets.

Wrap up your earbuds for the grand finale as we tackle the art of leadership accountability and the balancing act of personal and professional life. Discover why knowing your 'why' is more than just a fancy catchphrase—it's the fuel that keeps your business engine roaring. And for a touch of magic, let's muse over the wonders of AI in podcast production. So if you're navigating the complexities of business ownership, this episode promises to be an invaluable compass in your entrepreneurial journey.

A.J. Reygadas:
- A top-producing Realtor and team leader with the Reygadas Group.
- Recognized as one of the Top 10 Hispanic Realtors in San Antonio, Top 100 - Hispanic Realtors nationwide, and Top 1% 
Dylan Shively:
- Founder of James Warren Group
- Specializes in credit education and repair, assisting over 5,000 families.
- Focuses on helping individuals improve their credit to enhance their lifestyle.


his is all things Mortgage & Real Estate, Education with Mark Jones, Producing, Branch Manager, in San Antonio TX. 

On this Channel you will find 
-  Key Factors Podcast - Live Experience - Weekly Discussions with Industry Experts
-  Mortgage & Real Estate Tips, Tricks, and Update 

Mark Jones
TX-NMLS# 513437
Founder of https://reviewmymortgage.com/
President | iTHINK Mortgage 
Mann Mortgage LLC, DBA iTHINK Mortgage 
Equal Housing Lender - NMLS# 2550
Top Producing Sr. Loan Officer
https://ithinkmortgage.com.com/

Weekly Industry Topic Discussions | https://www.keyfactorspodcast.com/
Listen to Full Podcast Audio 
https://keyfactorspodcast.buzzsprout....

Apple — https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id...
Spotify — https://open.spotify.com/show/45ARRko...
Instagram —  

 / keyfactorspodcast  
Facebook —  

 / keyfactorspodcast  

Key Factors Podcast is Powered by ReviewMyMortgage.com
Host: Mark Jones | Sr. Loan Officer | NMLS# 513437
If you would like to work with Mark on your next home purchase or as a partner visit iThink Mortgage.

Key Factors Podcast is Powered by ReviewMyMortgage.com
Host: Mark Jones | Sr. Loan Officer | NMLS# 513437
If you would like to work with Mark on your next home purchase or as a partner visit iThink Mortgage.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome back to another episode of Key Factors podcast. I'm your host, mark Jones, and we are powered by ReviewMyMortgagecom, the largest index of mortgage programs in the nation, and I want to first off start by thanking everybody who has continued to like, support, subscribe, share with friends. It's working, guys. And here we are in 2024. And previous episodes we've discussed marketing tips, using humor in marketing in the real estate business. We've talked about realtors under fire. Basically, we've talked about the crash of 2024. But now that we've made it to 2024, it's time to talk about business planning. So, before we get into our episode, our discussion, I want to ask you, just take a moment briefly and ask yourself have you completed your goals for 2024? And a second question have you written them down? So, as you think about that, I'm going to introduce my guests. Today. I've brought along two friends and I promise to continue to bring extraordinary people to this show to have these great discussions. So, without further ado, let me introduce Dylan Shively. Dylan, what's?

Speaker 2: 1:26

up guys. So my name is Dylan Shively. I'm the owner of James Warren Group. We're a credit management company. We help people understand how credit works, help them build it, how to leverage it to their benefit, fix it if there's a problem. I mean we got a whole lot. We could get into it later. But you know, one of my goals for today is to make sure that I don't make it much about me and more about the people. So I like keeping the intro short. Plus, I don't even like talking about myself.

Speaker 1: 1:49

That's all about you, bro, and my second guest, aj Regatas. Aj, how's it going?

Speaker 3: 1:56

Good man, Thanks for having me again. I appreciate it. It's been a minute. It has been a minute. We've been busy and it's not a bad thing. Yes, sir.

Speaker 1: 2:03

So if you could tell us about yourself, because we've got folks and, luckily, because of the audience, we're starting to reach past Texas, we're starting to reach all over the United States and I'm getting inquiries Thanks for bringing that guest upon et cetera and I want to make sure that these folks know who you guys are and why they should listen. Thanks for that man. What's your story, man?

Speaker 3: 2:24

Yeah, pretty much been in the business for a little over 13 and a half years. Owner, broker, owner of First Choice Realty. Two months from now, it'll be three years that we've been open and operating.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Congratulations. Yeah, man, it's been a journey.

Speaker 2: 2:36

Absolutely, it's been a journey.

Speaker 3: 2:39

But, yeah, 13 and a half years in the business, got in in 2010 and experienced that recession. So you know, it's funny how we've kind of dabbled a little bit before we started about, you know, the 2020 potential crash. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to talk about.

Speaker 1: 2:51

Absolutely so. The reason why I have these two gentlemen on the discussion today is they're both business owners, like myself, and a great deal of planning must go into what we do on a daily basis, weekly basis and an annual basis, and sometimes we even try and forecast further than that. But I don't believe that there's anybody better to help me divulge in this discussion than you two. So if you could tell us how long you've actually been a business owner or self-employed and how you got started. Dylan, you want to start, yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:29

So it's seven years total. On the credit space, prior to that I did have a managing partner opportunity with Verizon. That was two years, so I guess in total it is nine years, but focusing more like on the credit side. How that really happened was I became my own first customer. So from transitioning to car sales, which was the last job I had, going into the ownership for Verizon, there was investment, obviously, and then I learned about payroll and there was a thing called P&Ls that I've never saw before.

Speaker 2: 4:01

And I was like oh man, so the profit time was cool, because I'm like oh, I get my piece. And then when the losses came and I'm like hey, we didn't sell shit, and they're like yeah, but they still got to get paid and we still got consignment and we still have it and I was like what the fuck is this?

Speaker 2: 4:15

Yeah, see, I said fuck already, but anyway, so yeah. So I was on the Verizon side. I was learning a lot and I would say that was my first big boy business in a sense. So I learned how to manage people, how to lead people, how to direct people really, because I learned it was the people business. It's the people in the walls and the people that come in. So you have to learn how to adapt and how people think and gain their trust and do the right thing.

Speaker 2: 4:41

And so then I carried that over to the credit side, because in Q4 of retail it's always super slow, absolutely, and I started like losing a lot of money maxing out cards and I tried hiring a company and it was debt relief, it wasn't credit repair. I didn't know the difference Short version, they screwed me over. I paid a lot of money, they made all these promises and I was like shit, this fucking sucks and I'm in a bad situation. So I went to Facebook, like any other good consumer would do, and I bitched up a storm about it and told everybody about the experience and it didn't change anything.

Speaker 2: 5:14

And I want to say it was probably like two months or so after that where like I was on this whole kick of like I'm going to ruin their shit, I'm going to whatever, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3: 5:22

Going to Twitter.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Yeah, like just going hard, going super hard, and I realized, yeah, it was about 60 days in where I'm like all right, I kind of got my frustrations out, but I'm still in a bad situation. I still got to do something about it.

Speaker 2: 5:37

So that's why I became my first customer, started dabbling in, started taking courses, started learnings and that was my own guinea pig. And then fast forward to now. Now we help tons of people and I realized the big thing for me was how to get specific but keep things simple and easy to digest because it's not a, you know, common thing that's talked about in a certain level of depth, so in every situation's unique, so I have to still learn. Even today, I'll come across things where I think I've heard everything.

Speaker 2: 6:07

And then there's just one new situation and I'm like what the fuck yeah?

Speaker 3: 6:11

You know.

Speaker 2: 6:12

So then I go back and I learn, I apply what I know, and then I'm like, let's figure this thing out together. So yeah, man, it's crazy how fast the time has gone, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Constantly adapting, constantly leaning into those curve balls. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2: 6:26

Well, also understanding this, that as soon as you think that you know everything, you know the world is going to check you. Yeah. For real man. Oh, you think you do and you get humbled really quick. That's true. You know and you're like, oh shit, I got. So I've learned to just forever be a student and go with more of an open mind.

Speaker 2: 6:41

I've even adjusted from from originally moving here, being here three and a half years. How we first were and did things versus now is even completely different, absolutely Again, because I'm just learning and adjusting and making sure that I can be the servant that I said I'm obligated to be. That's right.

Speaker 1: 6:57

And then go backwards till the asteroids come. How about you, aj? How long you've been working for yourself?

Speaker 3: 7:05

Oh man, you know it's funny because I think we can all relate when we say working for ourselves. It's more of like how long have we been a hustler for that's right, that's right.

Speaker 3: 7:13

But yeah, you know, like I said, 13 and a half years. I would say honestly, though, it took about three years being in real estate, where I hired a business coach and actually learned how to take it serious with P&Ls and profit. You know I mean personal budgets and things like that, and I would say now so more so on the brokerage level. You know it's frequent, right Like it's constant adjustments, and so I always, you know I say it pretty often, pretty frequent, in front of the agents or even publicly about my secret weapon. My biggest asset is my office manager, jackie.

Speaker 1: 7:48

Absolutely. I got a Jackie too, honestly. Yeah, she runs the books. Man, Shout out to our Jackie.

Speaker 3: 7:53

She runs the books man, and so it's, if not every day, it's every other day, every week, that she's constantly going over numbers with me, you know. So it's pretty cool to know that I have that. Where I delegate and leverage that's something she's done for over 17 years to where I was, you know, blessed with the opportunity to bring her on and hire her and, honestly, man that's been my biggest secret weapon with our growth is Jackie. So with that, you know it's I think I speak for all three of us where we've gotten used to, more importantly, the past five years, where none of this has been normal, whether it was a hot market, we were, you know, we were constant, and 2020, 2021, we're constantly adjusting every single month, almost like, felt like, every single week, everything we were having our meeting it was like, okay, you know, bidding wars 20 offers.

Speaker 3: 8:45

Let's adjust to this right, let's try this.

Speaker 1: 8:47

And so somebody raises their hand. It's an appraisal waiver, yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:51

So more so over the past year, year and a half. It's been still constant adjustments, but at the same time it's just more so of like okay, let's get creative versus how to keep up. Now it's let's get creative to learn how to make sure we're getting them sold. Absolutely yeah, it's constant constant adjustments.

Speaker 1: 9:07

I believe that, especially being a business owner myself, it's just constantly something being thrown at you that wasn't already in your business plan. We do our best to try and see the future or create the future, but there's always something you know. There's always something.

Speaker 3: 9:23

You know it's. It's funny to add to that too, because as we were talking about this before we started, I was thinking there's one thing that kept coming to thought and and I know y'all watched too, a lot of MMA fights and whatnot, and one of the things that I constantly hear from a lot of those fighters in the UFC that they often talk about is we all go in with a game plan.

Speaker 1: 9:41

It's once you get hit. Oh yeah, that shit changed real quick Once you get hit.

Speaker 3: 9:45

How do you adjust? Right or do you adjust, or do you just fold? Does the game plan go out the window? So it's it's. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we get hit in the mouth but, at the same time, it's like we're constantly getting hit and how we adjust.

Speaker 1: 9:56

I think the best way to say it is is you can't practice a game time situation unless you're in the game right. So we do our best to to predict, but at the end of the day, you can't really know until you're actually in the thick of things. So, that being said, I want to go back to the question that I asked our listeners, which is have you completed your business plan for 2024? And if you haven't, those that are listening watching. That's okay. The reason why I say it's okay is because it's better late than never, and I firmly believe in the philosophy that if you fail to plan, you're planning to fail. Basically, that being the case, I want to start with the basics, the basics of business planning. Number one when did you guys realize that you had to create a business plan? Because for me I'll be honest running my first business, which was credit repair, I didn't have a business plan, and I was flying by the seat of my pants. I know how the plan was to make money.

Speaker 2: 11:02

Make money. That's exactly right. I need to make money.

Speaker 1: 11:05

I wasn't really fine tuned with the operating expenses, with the variable expenses, with the insurance, with the oh shit moments all of those things Matter of fact, fast forward to when I became a top producing loan officer.

Speaker 1: 11:22

It was like holy cow, there's a lot thrown at me, I can't just fly from the hip anymore. So at that point in time I got a business coach and we talked about business planning. You've got to create a plan to get to X, y and Z, because if you don't and you don't figure out what activities it takes to get there, you're literally just like a loose chicken running around. Exactly. So at what point in time did you guys realize that you needed a business plan? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:53

So I'll kick it back to the Verizon times because, like I said, technically that was like that first big boy business. Sure, I apply a lot of what I learned there to. I forgot if this was a top or a side one.

Speaker 2: 12:06

So, what I, how I apply it or how I apply it now, is based off what I learned there. So I learned two things. One, you have to have your plan in place as soon as you get started. Even if the plan is as small as I just need to make money, because then it's okay Well, how much money do I need to make? And then understand, why do you need to make that much money?

Speaker 2: 12:28

So then you dial it back and find out well, I need to make this much per month, so this is what I need to sell, because these are my expenses and this is what I need to walk away with. And then you can dial it down day by day to figure out what actions do I need to take in order to hit the goal and understand that it's not going to go the way that you always expect. Right. So that was the first thing. Then the second thing was how often? And adjusting and we may get that later. So I don't want to like overdo it, but I learned that I have to adjust it often because things happen and things change all the time. So as soon as you start executing part of the plan like, let's say, you have a monetary goal of I don't know $10,000.

Speaker 2: 13:05

As soon as you start seeing yourself trending, to get there you have to adjust the goal, doesn't matter if it's two days later, a month later, you know whatever it is. So those are the two things of just start with something, because something will start to build the momentum of oh, I'm working towards something. It gives you that motivation, it gives you that kick. Oh, I can't slack off today because I'm this far off the goal. If I lose, I'm not paying any fucking bills.

Speaker 1: 13:29

That's right. That's right, yeah, so that before I ask you, aj, that brings up something that I had jotted down previously, and it's a philosophy of there are three different types of people when it comes to this topic in particular and this is my opinion. Others can think other things, but I'll explain it. The first type of person is going to be the person that does not do a business plan at all. They run their business, which is most Most.

Speaker 3: 13:59

That's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Most salespeople, most, yeah, if you talk at the front.

Speaker 3: 14:04

Yeah, I was like oh, I can hear myself.

Speaker 1: 14:07

That don't business plan at all. They may do well, they may not. They may do well for a little while, and then it you know what Shit happens and it falls apart because it was built on straws. Then there's the second type of person. Those people do a business plan every single year. They go through the motions of it, but they don't pull it up after February.

Speaker 2: 14:32

They do it.

Speaker 1: 14:32

They're done, that's it. I know what my goals are. They're in my head. They make their post.

Speaker 3: 14:37

They make their post, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 14:39

And they move on with their life, never to be seen again until the next year rolls around. And then there are those, which is the third person, that complete their business plan and are constantly checking it, week after week, month after month, maybe even putting it in somewhere where they can see over and over and, like you said, utilize it to motivate you, utilize it to hold yourself accountable, utilize it to measure and make modifications to the needle moving activities or to the critical success factors money making moves, et cetera, whatever you wanna call them throughout the year, to give yourself the best chance at hitting your goals Right. So, that being the case, aj, when did you realize you needed to create a business plan? When I hired a business coach.

Speaker 1: 15:25

Okay, very good.

Speaker 3: 15:27

And honestly it was the coach that told me like dude you're all over the place.

Speaker 1: 15:30

Same here, man, same here.

Speaker 3: 15:32

So you know, like I said, I didn't know anything about P&Ls and personal budgets and lead tracking and all that stuff. So right now I'm referring to putting my real estate agent hat on right Gotcha, I would imagine there's more real estate agents probably listening.

Speaker 1: 15:44

So it relates to both. So by all means yes.

Speaker 3: 15:48

So, and even now to this day, like when I sit down with an agent, you know and I talk about, okay, what's your goal for this coming year, it's always the common answer of oh, I want to make six figures, right. And so it's like, okay, well, but six figures can go from 100,000 all the way to a million, that's like what kind of six figures are you? Looking to make right, and so then, once they give me a number, it's like, okay, now it's almost like we got to do reverse engineering always, that's right.

Speaker 3: 16:17

So because, again, most agents are especially new agents are paying in this perspective of, I just know I need to hit a six figure income title. Right, that's the goal, that's what I want to do. But what does that really mean, right? Like, how many deals do I need to close, how many conversations do I need to have on a daily in order to increase that percentage of what the standard expectation through I should say through NAR says? This is what the average agent does, right?

Speaker 3: 16:45

So, looking at all those numbers and stats and percentages and then being able to break it down with the agent, so that way they understand, okay, if I know I want to make 100,000, then that means I need to do at least 15 transactions for the year, because the average and every city is different, right? But the average sales price 330, 340, let's give some grace. Say that the agent's doing an average of 300,000 on their sales price and they're closing $300,000 transactions. They're making nine grand minus the split or whatever they're on 15 transactions, that means okay. Well, nar says that anywhere from 0.4 to 12% is the average conversion rate in a conversation for an agent, for elite. So breaking that down even further, that means I need to have at least 10 conversations a day, five times a week. That makes 50 a week, that makes 100 a month. And so you're breaking it down for them Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Yeah, this is what I geek out on this stuff, man, I love it.

Speaker 3: 17:40

So I geek out on this stuff because, again, man, I have had so many of those conversations with the agents where it's like let's break this down so we can have an actual game plan, right, versus just saying I want to hit six figures and then it's like throwing shit on the wall and just hoping that it sticks and see what happens.

Speaker 1: 17:54

I want to, I guess, frame this for those listening, simply because the way that AJ just described his thought process in that that is a seasoned mindset that has been through this, done them over and over, failed at it, learned how to correct, learned what to to focus on, and we'll be talking about those things. But I want to make sure that you guys understand that it does not have to be that complex. We're talking about multi-year business owners here and it multiple businesses in some cases, and it does take quite a bit of thought process to go into these business plans. But I also don't want you guys to think that it has to be overwhelming. The fear of actually getting started is like oh man, what do I do? There's so much that goes into it. You Google business plan and it's like this PDF with like 10 sheets of paper here.

Speaker 3: 18:55

What the hell.

Speaker 1: 18:56

And it does not have to be that complicated.

Speaker 3: 18:58

So, given that, Let me, I can simplify it.

Speaker 1: 19:04

Let's start with what goes into the business plan Before you decide to put pen to paper. What are some things that, as a business owner, salesperson you would think about that would go into that business plan. An accountability partner? Okay, very good.

Speaker 3: 19:21

So start with accountability partner that has the same drive and desires. You do right, Because I can find an accountability partner that says, yeah, I wanna make six figures too, but if they don't really have that drive in them, then I might be partnering up with the wrong person. Are they willing to wake up with me at 8 am or 7 am in the morning?

Speaker 3: 19:39

Are they willing to commit to making those X amount of calls a day. So finding the right accountability partner and that's where you gotta be careful, because I think in our industry a big mistake that we see is when people do find an accountability, they find their friend.

Speaker 1: 19:54

Yeah, it's their friend, those are two different things, and I think that goes to the concept of being in your comfort zone. So they think that, hey, I'll do you a solid, you do me a solid, we'll be accountability buddies, let's go to lunch.

Speaker 3: 20:09

You going to the gym this morning?

Speaker 1: 20:11

No, okay, me neither. But yeah, I do think that that is a great way to start. What else? What are some things that would go into that?

Speaker 2: 20:20

Well, just to comment on what he said too. I think a big piece of it is understanding when you were choosing who to pick. The one thing to point out is the friend, like you said, is gonna give you the break.

Speaker 3: 20:31

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2: 20:32

And if you pick a friend, then you're already in your current circle of influence and you're usually flocking to the people that you're at a similar temperature to Correct. So how are you gonna get further if they never got further?

Speaker 1: 20:46

because you're already associated, so yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:48

Am I saying you shouldn't be friends? Absolutely not. But we're just saying pick a different person. So I like explaining some of the how. It's like, here's what you need to do. My brain immediately goes to okay, well, if I'm somebody who's never heard that before, how do I do it? Sure, so the how is the person that's not light years ahead of you. It's finding the person that you just know to certain traits and just by the questions you ask you can tell.

Speaker 2: 21:14

So being specific is a part of business plan. I think that is a skill that needs to be cultivated in everything. So if you practice the skill of being specific, you'll notice things will change. So I wanna make six figures. That's why he immediately went to well, what kind of six figures? Like, I wanna know down to, I wanna do $127,000 because of blah, blah, blah, blah. So when you ask your potential accountability partner, what do you want to make, if we're gonna do this, and they say six figures, they're not the person you need to choose. Not because they're a bad person, but because if for themselves they're generic, they're not gonna be able to get specific and detailed, to pick you apart, to get you back.

Speaker 1: 21:53

I actually agree with that pretty solid and to that point. I almost think and you guys can give me feedback on this I almost think that when choosing an accountability partner, you need to pick somebody that almost makes you feel embarrassed or ashamed that you missed something. For real, would you agree 100%?

Speaker 3: 22:12

The perfect example of that man is like. So I'm known in the office of like. I love putting people on the spot. And it's something I gotta work on. I'm not gonna lie man, but I love putting people on the spot.

Speaker 1: 22:22

I'm right there with you Because I love being put on the spot. Same Right. It's gonna seem like everyone else like that. Trial by fire baby.

Speaker 3: 22:26

But I love role playing, I love practicing calls and whatnot, and sometimes we'll be in a meeting or I'll just stop an agent in the office and be like, if I'm interviewing to sell my house and I'm interviewing three agents, why should I choose you Right, and they all? You know it's always talked about.

Speaker 3: 22:40

They all almost get the same kind of answers, and so then we work on that, critique that. But when we role play, specifically like on cold calling, I'll tell the agents to partner up and they'll partner up and you hear them role playing and it's always like yes, okay, yes, I can meet you.

Speaker 1: 22:56

It's like no like give them a hard. No, like give them a hard, like why not? Yeah, objections, you know, cause it's not gonna make you better If you're just okay, yeah, that time works for me.

Speaker 3: 23:05

You know like, no, give some hard objections so that way that can put them on the spot, make them stutter, but make them better, right right, yeah, keep them on their toes.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Yeah, I like that, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:14

Go ahead. I guess an effort to go for the on the spot, my on the spot question for you would be why do you think you need to change that? Ooh yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:24

I'm right there with you on that. I like that. It is just a different coaching method.

Speaker 2: 23:29

We know, nobody likes being put on the spot, so you're doing it because the intent is to do what To make them better. So of course you're gonna say hey, I need you to stop making me better, because it makes me uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 23:42

Right, it's just like kids.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Right. So, like your kids, don't want to be put on the spot or being told what to do, but you know, at the end of the day, if it's what's best for them they'll thank you later. So I would just say as any advice, if I could give it, I wouldn't change a thing.

Speaker 1: 23:57

Yeah, you know what. I would give a little advice and I think you can agree with this Don't change what you do. I would change the approach in the sense that giving an announcement email text message to the group saying hey guys, I know that I tend to put you guys on the spot, I'm going to continue to do that, but now you know, and that just kind of lets everybody know that it's open season type concept, but it's not a surprise as much as it was prior to giving that base expectations of hey, nobody is immune to my wrath, so, and I agree.

Speaker 3: 24:45

The only challenge I've had with that, though, when I've done that, is guess what Now there's empty seats in the meeting.

Speaker 1: 24:51

Ah, because they don't want to get called.

Speaker 3: 24:52

Yeah, they're like, I'm not going to show up to that. Now, is that a good or a bad thing? True, because the ones that do show up, those are the ones that won't change, that's right, that's right, so yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:01

Initially as the man running the show. It's like, well fuck, I want people to show up. So that's kind of the initial leverage they may have is knowing that you'll be like, well shit, I want a full room. Yeah yeah, but if you run with it anyway, the room will refill itself with the people With quality.

Speaker 1: 25:19

Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.

Speaker 1: 25:20

True, that's true. So a couple more things that go into the beginning of creating this business plan. How about the previous year? Do you look back at the previous year In doing these goals? Is it annual? Do you have a quarterly? Do you break it down that much or do you keep it simple because you're doing so much? Me personally, I do one simple business plan for each of the businesses, one page and then I have a Miro board where it's just this big white board online. That is just like a mind map and probably only I can understand it, but it's still there to where, if I need to go back and tweak something, I follow the chain up and go okay, there was the broken chain, there was the activity that I didn't do enough of that didn't get me to that goal in the quarter. But I wanna hear from you guys what do you consider when making those goals to set that business plan?

Speaker 2: 26:19

So for me it's the once a year. However, I still break them down in quarters and then break them down to even the month and then the weeks Because, again, being specific, you have to be that way. You have to look at okay, if I wanna hit this for the year again, what do I gotta do every day? Well, if you're dialing that in every week like let's just pretend in a perfect world it was every Friday, well, by Friday, I don't know, in that week, are we trending to hit the goal or not hit the?

Speaker 3: 26:52

goal.

Speaker 2: 26:52

Because I'm not just looking to hit the goal, I'm looking to see do I have to increase the goal because I set it too low?

Speaker 3: 26:59

right.

Speaker 2: 27:00

So, it's either well, this thing is way too high and it's unachievable and I need to go back and retrain, or, man, this needs to get moved really quick because I've underestimated our ability. So that's why I look at it so often. And then we just do like we have a Monday call with the sales staff to say like, hey, here's what we're at, here's what we're doing, just keep on track, and then every once in a while, throw bonuses and stuff out there.

Speaker 2: 27:25

Like, hey, let's do this. If you could get this done, If you could do this many, if you can get this review, if you can make this customer happy. Like you know, they have their incentives because, also for people that work for you, you need to set goals for them, because they're not gonna do it at the same capacity we are. And one last thing is I make sure that I explain the why we have the goal.

Speaker 3: 27:46

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 27:47

I think that was a big missing piece for me in the beginning years where it was just let's make the money, hit this goal, hit this goal, hit this goal. Well, a lot of people are driven by certain things. They're not all driven by money. They're not all driven by the same things, very true. So it's like well, how can I then adjust the goals, understand the person and then put my goals along with theirs to show a collaborative?

Speaker 3: 28:09

I like how you just pointed that out right there, because that was something that I had to learn over the past. I would say year, year and a half, of me adjusting to that with the agents, because I was guilty of, you know, holding all the agents to the same accountability.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Correct.

Speaker 3: 28:27

When I know that my honest hunch is is projected to do this much this year. So then I would hold my new agent to that same level of standard, not saying, oh, I'm expecting them to do that many transactions, but more so of like that same level of expectation of your effort, of your drive, of your you know what I mean, and not everybody's on the same scale, and not everyone's on the same scale, that's something that I've learned to work on for myself as a leader, where it's like, okay, just because so-and-so's goal is to do X amount of transactions doesn't mean that's so-and-so's goal, you know.

Speaker 3: 28:57

As well.

Speaker 3: 28:58

So learning, identifying, sitting with them individually, one-on-one, and learning about what their individual goals are and then giving them the opportunity to let me know that, hey, if you want me to hold you accountable, let me know. Right, like, because I've had quite a few of our agents that have reached out to me in the past few days, right, coincidentally with the new year and saying, bro, I really want you to hold me accountable this year, like I need to make this much, I need to do this much, and I'm like, cool, thank you for telling me Because, now that I know, just be open to it, right, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 29:30

And so-.

Speaker 3: 29:30

So go ahead. I was just gonna say perfect example is last night, you know, I shared what she wrote in her story on Assanches, where she had a bad I don't wanna say a bad day. She had a closing yesterday, but she had a tough day. Okay, she had a rough A learning day, A learning day. And sometimes our conversations, which we talk just about every other day, sometimes our conversations can be me getting on her, sometimes they can be me just listening to her, and yesterday she needed a listening moment. Got ya, she was venting and she just had a rough day and I could tell she beat herself up and so I sent her a text afterwards after we talked, because we talked like four times yesterday she was going through it yesterday and at the end of the day, I sent her a text and I'm like look, at the end of the day, you're a badass, right Like?

Speaker 3: 30:18

you're known for being a top producer for a reason and you need to demand that respect and that cooperation from your client. If they refuse to give it to you, then you need to be okay with firing them, Because not one transaction is worth your peace and sanity, that's exactly right. And to know that she accepted that where it was like thank you, I needed that right it was that reassurance of all right?

Speaker 3: 30:42

let's chalk the L for this day if we wanna call it that? And then let's wake up tomorrow morning and let's go again. That's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 30:47

So I've got two things to address what you both said, and I'll start with AJ's the rating, the level of accountability and I started doing this about three years ago and directly with the loan officers when it's time. Matter of fact, we're doing all of our one-on-one reviews with our business plans on Friday and the first question that I asked them is on a scale from one to 10, circle, how much accountability?

Speaker 1: 31:12

And then you have to define what one is and what 10 is, so that they know all right, you want a 10, that means I'm gonna be on your ass. Matter of fact, I really don't wanna be a 10. You know, you sure you want this 10?

Speaker 2: 31:25

Because I don't know what time for a 10.

Speaker 1: 31:29

But that sets the clear expectations and when they go through and circle that number, that's now kind of a contract in their mind that any quarter we can refer back to it and say this is what you set the expectations for me. So would you like to update that? Or are we still on that same train, because you seem to be getting upset that I'm getting on your ass.

Speaker 3: 31:50

You're picking on me.

Speaker 1: 31:51

Right. And then the second thing, which essentially is the first thing, kind of like Simon Sinek said, start with why right. And on the simple business plans that I give out, it's one page for the loan officers it starts with four goals and out of those four goals I have them pick two that are personal goals. And then I emphasize the reason why I had you pick two personal goals whether it was income and a trip or income and I want to buy an investment, proper, something along those line. That's personal to you is it almost creates a annual why, even though we work for our kids, we work for a better life, et cetera, that's our big why. You've got to have something that drives you constantly. That is not necessarily a long term goal. If it's a long term goal on an annual business plan, it feels like you're never going to get there. I mean, the idea behind these annual business plans and setting goals is to actually hit them. Now, most people in general don't actually hit their goals, but that's OK. If you set the goals, at least you know what you're working towards. You know what you need to correct the next year, all of that jazz to make those adjustments and have a better opportunity at hitting those goals, not saying that you're going to guaranteed to do it, because to each their own and everybody's different.

Speaker 1: 33:17

And then the last thing was and I think you mentioned it before is being realistic. If I've got a loan officer that tells me I want to make $100,000 this year, ok, great. I'm looking at your W2 from the previous year and you were at third. How the hell are you going to make a $70,000 increase? And it's I'm not upset with you. Yeah, I would like you to tell me back into these numbers. Yeah, to make it make sense, because it should all make sense. When you add up the frequency of needle-moving activities, the magnitude at which those activities equate to dollars, it should all make sense. You know I'm gonna make five calls a week and out of those five calls, every single one of them is gonna be a slam dunk. That's just not realistic, right? I think that is a big part of why people fail in creating these is they're not realistic and honest with themselves first, right? So that's just a couple of things to get started for those out there. Let me see what else do I have on the agenda.

Speaker 2: 34:23

I'm like playing with this. I'm gonna figure it out, because I was originally focused spin.

Speaker 1: 34:27

Matter of fact, spin it all the way around one time, the opposite direction. The whole thing. Yep, yep, yep. Oh cuz the wire.

Speaker 2: 34:37

Did that really do it? Yes, yeah, oh shit, it's like originally I had it for here, but then I remember that was there, but then I'm like I don't want to be talking to you, so now spin it to where this thing is like pointed at your mouth like that and what's funny now you sound like Barry White.

Speaker 3: 34:53

Turn off the lights.

Speaker 1: 34:55

So the funny thing is when I go to edit these yeah, even if you're like that, it actually cleans up the audio.

Speaker 2: 35:03

You're good, yeah, good we got that AI shit.

Speaker 1: 35:08

So a couple of additional topics and and these are things that I've gotten from other podcasters, I've gotten them from other business owners, but a lot of the business owners that I speak to start with six things that they Usually touch on each year with their annual business plan, and I'll name those things and we can talk about them. So we've got your financial goals, okay, you've got your family goals, business health, personal development and your spiritual. Hmm, if somebody is an atheist, well, they only have five.

Speaker 3: 35:48

Okay.

Speaker 1: 35:51

So that be in the case. I think that that is very important to Create, let's say, a diagram and put a percentage from one to a hundred what percentage? Or how do you feel about these categories currently? And then that will kind of tell you what you need to focus on. And if I mean, a lot of folks out there say that you've, you've got to work towards balance. I, I personally don't agree with that, simply because it's an unrealistic expectation at the start. It's like telling somebody to become the best multitasker. So the concept behind it is Taking these buckets and ensuring that the things that you want to focus on because it's gonna be different than everybody. There's nobody out there that should tell somebody you need to have X amount of percentage focus towards your family, x amount focus toward hey, you know what? Last year I didn't focus shit on my health y'all, but this year I'm stepping it up right.

Speaker 1: 36:57

If I am, for example, starting a business, startup company, and it takes a lot of my time. I've already had the conversation with my family that I'm going to be pulled away a lot this year, so I setting those expectations. That doesn't mean that my life is imbalanced, it's just my priorities are shifted so that I can have a better life for my family, etc. And having that conversation for them to know that, I think, is super key, because those of you that are married, have a significant other or have kids, things of that nature it's tough to take away time from them in general, for it doesn't matter what, yeah, but go ahead.

Speaker 3: 37:39

I was. I was gonna say, man, that you nailed it right there. I mean, I think the biggest challenge for every relationship, whether you're in a you know, boyfriend, girlfriend or or Partner or marriage or whatever it may be boyfriend, boyfriend partner, whatever.

Speaker 3: 37:52

Maybe the biggest result to a breakup, to a divorce, is lack of communication. That's right and so, and in financials, but also lack of communication. And so when you're able to set those specific expectations, expectations up front with your partner, right, and that kind of sets the tone of At least it's like, hey, I warned you, I prepped you right, and hopefully you've picked a partner that already understands what they've bought into right, right. So so it shouldn't come to surprise, because we've already established that when we first met yeah, three years in, it's like a lot.

Speaker 1: 38:26

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 38:27

But. But I mean, I'm a, I'm a perfect example of that man. Like, I talk about it a lot. It's been a minute since I've done a class, but when I would do my, when I would open up with my classes, I would always talk about like hey, I'm the perfect example of Starting real estate and not doing it the correct way, right, it resulted into the engagement of my daughter's mom and I ending many years ago because I was so invested into the business right just becoming somebody in it.

Speaker 3: 38:52

It's a good way yeah success and and so that ultimately resulted into, you know, a splitting, because I was seven days a week of real estate, right, you know. So you're right on that. I also agree you're touching on Probably one of the best coaching call I've ever had with my business coach, which was about five years ago and it was called the will of life.

Speaker 3: 39:12

Okay, which are the same components that you're referring to right there. And and I'll never forget that conversation that we had, because he was like AJ, there's nothing that I can teach you at this point on how to sell real estate or any ways right strategies, any of that. He was like you already know everything you need to do now. It's just about me holding you accountable, right. And so he had said to me he goes, I want to focus on something new with you. It's called the will of life, and he do. He did a pie chart right of each component of my life right, business, financial, spiritual Relationship, relationship with my kids, love life, whatever it may be. And every week when we had our coaching call, we always started off with that and he would ask me each question on the pie chart of okay, it's from a scale to one to ten, ten being best, one being lowest. Where are we at with your financial situation this week? Where are we at with your love life? Where are we at with your spiritual life?

Speaker 3: 39:57

Where are we at with your kids relationship, right, whatever I scored the lowest on is what we would focus our call on so many times our calls weren't even about real estate, right, they were about my family, my kids, my love life, my spiritual right or my financials. And and his thought process which made sense was if I can help you attack what you're struggling on the most that week, it will help clear your mind up to focus better on business. Right, because you're right, we're never gonna be able to ace Of balance. Yeah, we're never. That's what we're always gonna shoot for, right, but we're never gonna be able to ace it. You're the likelihood of having someone saying oh yeah, I have the perfect balance work life balance right, it just doesn't exist. I constantly gonna be working on that.

Speaker 1: 40:40

I agree and I see it all the time I've got the perfect balance. I'm working towards balance.

Speaker 3: 40:45

No, you're full of shit.

Speaker 1: 40:47

You know you're playing this game of I want to look like I've got it all together when in fact, if we look behind the curtain, you're probably shits and shams. Who knows? Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 40:57

So another day I'll try my best.

Speaker 1: 40:59

I was like I'm working on that too.

Speaker 2: 41:02

Sorry.

Speaker 3: 41:03

DD bro.

Speaker 2: 41:04

Yeah, like as soon as I'm like oh fuck, I don't want to forget it. But anyway, another part about the balance. So again for the, the listeners that are trying to think about Okay, I just learned from this podcast that the balance I've been told about that sounds way better. The balance that I've been told about is Now no longer existed. These guys just said balance doesn't exist. So what do I do after that?

Speaker 3: 41:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:30

Well, the answer is we look at balance the wrong way.

Speaker 2: 41:34

Yeah we're trying to measure it day by day or week by week. So it's like okay, I have today, I wake up, I'm gonna do two hours and 37 minutes with my kids and two hours and 38 minutes with this, and so they try to break it up day by day. I personally believe that when the balance does exist, if you want to hold on to that as a measurement, is the overall lifespan of when you live, so from the day that you're born to the day you die.

Speaker 2: 41:59

If you measure balance in that way, then everything we're saying makes sense, because there's going to be seasons when you're gonna be three months into, where you barely see your kids.

Speaker 1: 42:08

You barely see your right and again expectations and whatever.

Speaker 2: 42:12

so if that is set, somebody who doesn't operate like that it's gonna say you're in balance, you work too much, mm-hmm. But I'll give you perfect personal example. So when we moved here it's been three and a half years now we went hard every day for the whole almost three and a half years November and December, if anybody took notice no classes, no events, no nothing.

Speaker 3: 42:34

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 42:35

It was 60 straight days of no work and it was just us and the kids, right and so who can take 60 straight days off right now? But it's because I imbalanced myself for a long period of period of time. I set the expectation for the kids to say we're gonna do a Christmas where it's 60 straight days, so all in November, all in December where it's no work or anything, it's all you guys know, and we did that.

Speaker 1: 43:05

Now I will applaud you number one for actually doing that, but the bigger applaud is what you've done thus far that allowed you to do that. Mm-hmm and I think that's super important for people to know is Can anybody just take off 60 days? Sure, but what will go by the wayside by you right doing?

Speaker 3: 43:25

What's the result?

Speaker 1: 43:26

What's the result? What is, what is the Impact of that on your life, on your business, on the earth, sure your family is gonna be super strong and by day 60 That'll be kicking your ass out.

Speaker 2: 43:38

So I'm here.

Speaker 1: 43:40

So I think, based on being able to do that, the important piece is what you've done to get you to be able to unplug like that and everything still continue to run right means you've got everything pretty tight right now. Sure, as a matter of fact, when, when you and this is kind of, I don't know, side note or sidebar question, but I want y'all's opinion on it, because you guys do a great deal of Events, coaching, things of that nature, as myself Do you do a super simple business plan for those types of events or those types of Meetings, things of that nature, and if so, what? What's that like?

Speaker 3: 44:23

Yeah, definitely, you know, like, for instance, I mean, we got events going on all the time, dude, so it can get a little overwhelming at times. But yeah, I mean it takes a team effort. You know I might come up with an idea for an event, but it takes execution from everyone else. You know participation and execution, buy-in, you know from everyone else. You know it's I haven't had a chance to really speak on it but our big into the year holiday ball, which is our biggest event of the year. It's our biggest expense of the year. Right, and, and honestly, I might have came up with a couple ideas for it, but it was Jackie that ran the whole thing, sure, unfortunately, she doesn't get enough credit for that, you know everyone's like a great exactly, yeah, shout out Jackie.

Speaker 3: 45:05

But like everyone's like, hey, jay, you put on a great event. Like it wasn't me, I honestly didn't handle any of it, other than the pay, of course. So, like you know, paying for stuff, but other than that, like I didn't handle the coordinating of any of it, the conversations, the bookings, the all that stuff, like thankfully she handled all that. So so I guess what I'm saying to answer your question.

Speaker 1: 45:26

I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 3: 45:28

But, but at the same time it takes participation, because you're not gonna be able to carry the workload by yourself on that a while at the same time being a leader, while at the same time you know navigating the trainings and doing the, the interviews and all that stuff with agents. And so it's it's learning how to delegate and being okay with leveraging Things that you know you're not good at.

Speaker 3: 45:48

I like right things that you know. Because because, especially as leaders right as as we're all business owners and leaders I think the most common thing for a business owner is letting go, letting go and letting others Take on the things that you know you're not good at. That's right, and so I'm not saying I've aced that, but I think I've gone a lot better at that over the years and and continue to get better at it With just leveraging my weaknesses and you mentioned something that I believe should be added to the beginning of this Conversation.

Speaker 1: 46:19

So those of you listening, add this to the beginning.

Speaker 1: 46:23

And it's what you think about, or what goes into your business plan initially, and I was taught this Concept early on in the coaching process and it was the focus funnel, and what it allowed me to do is Exactly what you mentioned is take every activity that I do currently and then Contemplate and and put pen to paper on what I actually have to do, whereas what can be delegated, eliminated or automated.

Speaker 1: 46:54

Put it through a list, put them in columns, get rid of them so that you can actually feel the weight Lifted off and put over there visually, because a lot of folks tend to fill their business plans with all of these things and then you look at back at it and you go wait a minute, how many of those things were actually needle-moving activities and how many other than were just things? I'm going through the motions. I know that they're gonna want me to have this on here, so I'm gonna put it, and that focus funnel will save you a ton of time now. Is it a long process? Sometimes it just depends what it is that you do yeah, but determining what you actually have to do versus what you think you have to do yeah.

Speaker 3: 47:37

I think is very important. I want to share this and I don't want to cut, I don't want to speak in front of you. One thing I just want to share, man, that I kind of learned that that ties into that, touches into that. That I Stopped doing was going on lunches with people like like in the industry, the same right years ago.

Speaker 3: 47:53

Even with agents that were like, hey, we're thinking of joining your brokerage, can we do lunch? I'm like, no, you can come to the office right. Yep, because the only and I actually I'm not gonna lie like I give credit to to Jack Hawthorne and Craig oh, and I got this from them where they're like, yeah, we only go on lunches with our agents. That's exactly what I do now.

Speaker 3: 48:11

The only time I go to lunch is with one of my agents and that's it, you know, and so so, understanding the time that you have in a day and then and then, you know, making sure that that time is being well spent with the right people. Right, and so with that, you know, because I've been so open in the past and willing in the past to go to lunches or go have a drink real quick with someone and, just, you know, chop it up. Now I think the adjustment I'm working on that ties to that is getting those people to understand that hey, don't, don't take it personal. It doesn't mean I don't like you anymore. I just means that I need to be more cautious with my time now Because I need to continue to focus on my people.

Speaker 3: 48:49

Right and so that's been a big adjustment that I do give credit to Craig oh and Jack Hawthorne on the other in front solid mentors.

Speaker 1: 48:55

Yeah, absolutely so that be in the case. I've got a couple more questions that I want to ask you guys, and then I want to get into a little bit of failures that most folks out there and Encounter along this path of our road or journey of creating a business plan and all that jazz. But as we get into this, let's see which way do I want to go with this, right now, so, and right after this message.

Speaker 2: 49:33

Alright, so pretty much you have a holy shit. You sound so good yeah where was this the whole time? So, when it comes into the business planning, even for events for classes, that just became a habit. So, yes, I plan for everything and I was somebody like back in school and all that like I didn't plan for shit.

Speaker 1: 49:52

I don't know.

Speaker 2: 49:53

Oh, I think we're even like five years ago, four or five years ago, I would not plan shit. I could even tell you let me be even extremely vulnerable even from first moving here, when I would do classes, in my mind I was like, well, I know what I'm talking about and I know the message and I would even wing some of that. I was just like, oh, I'm so good at winging it. And then I forgot who it was that told me, but I'm not gonna take the credit for it.

Speaker 2: 50:14

Somebody told me, like you, hey, that's good that you can be good on the whim or on the fly, but if you want to be great and understand people took the time out of their day to listen and get a message Right it's actually disrespectful to them if you don't plan something. Agree, and I was like, holy shit, I never thought of that. So since then you could call it overplanning or whatever. But I think down to the and it comes through repetition of doing it, analyzing what went good and what could have went better, where I plan everything down to okay, the event space we picked, what's parking gonna look like?

Speaker 1: 50:50

are people gonna be pissed off or they gonna?

Speaker 2: 50:51

be late. Is it easy to find? Do I have to give them additional Directions, cuz sometimes where we hold the class, maybe take the elevator to this and walk down this hallway. So, now we got to put signs on there to direct them. We want to do everything to make sure that they're not late because of us, right? So then we can start at a certain time. And so I go into all of this planning, and the most planning we've done was like social media bootcamp. So, the first one was done in 28 days.

Speaker 1: 51:16

It was intense planning, but it was a short time.

Speaker 2: 51:18

Yeah, the second one that we had at tech port. We had a little over 60 days to do that one and that was huge, because one of the things that got taken away from me was part of the planning. Yeah, so you know, for them they have different requirements, like the stuff we were able to do at the Norse conference center. We couldn't do here right, so I'm like oh yeah, we could bring our guys for this and this, or like, no, we do that.

Speaker 2: 51:40

We have our own and I needed to fill out this whole like five page or five tab, whatever excel sheet of like specifics down to, okay, from 801 to 804. You need to play this and this is the start time of this song and then transition to this and I'm like you don't just give me a clicker. You know I mean, and then the slides had to be on specific format. Yeah, and they're like well, don't do this type of video file in it because it won't play, and and I'm like what?

Speaker 2: 52:10

down to the very minute. So initially it gets overwhelming and I'm like, whoa, this is new to me, yeah. But then I just remind myself like, hey, man, you've been down the new road before. This is what you need to do to adjust. So shut off everything of trying to control it and go with the plan of what they have and adjust your way of doing it, and then it worked out.

Speaker 2: 52:28

Well, absolutely right. So classes, events, anything, everything I do is planned, even now when I get DMs on Facebook or Instagram of like hey, I want to talk to you about credit, whatever, I have a Calendly and I pay for the, the Subscription, because now I can make unlimited things. So, rather than also trying to just say here's a consultation link, I find out what they want to talk about and then I take the extra initiative to say, okay, I'm gonna label this as the meeting with you and I yeah and then, based on what you want to tell me, I don't think it needs to be 30 minutes, I think it only needs to be 15 minutes, and then I put more questions within the Calendly link, right?

Speaker 2: 53:05

so then that way, when I go Into it, I already know the things that need to be done.

Speaker 1: 53:09

So it's a good intentional 15 minutes rather than a wasted 30 minutes and you streamlined that process right then gives you back Time to go do what you do best, exactly. So I've got something to add to what you're saying. And it was towards the beginning, mm-hmm, and it had to do with I used to do things on the fly and I was pretty damn good at it, and there's a ton of folks out there matter of fact, I was one of them, aj, I'm sure you were one of them as well and my message regarding that is could you imagine if you now took the time to put it on paper, to plan it, to Actually go back and have a tool that you can utilize to gauge and measure your actions and what they amount to? I think a lot of folks take that concept of just being good at being on the fly For granted. Yeah, instead of taking it and leveraging it and harnessing it to something that you can look back on and go, holy cow, I actually moved the needle that year versus.

Speaker 1: 54:08

I got through it and it was a good year and I was bad ass yeah like wait a minute you know, still be a badass, but in turn, what it tends to do is and I don't want to call it overthinking, I Just call it critical thinking you know when you come up with I plan every damn thing. Well, elon Musk plans every five minutes. So how granular do you want to get? And I think the message to the folks out there is get as granular as you want. You don't have to be as specific, but I think in time you will be. You will be that's exactly correct.

Speaker 2: 54:43

I agree. Quick thing that just trigger back into my mind Earlier. You said something to the extent of I'm trying not to mess it up, but it was that second thing I wanted to comment on.

Speaker 1: 54:54

Oh man, Well, it's okay, we weren't recording, so we got to do that again. I'm just kidding. Save the last thing that you said before, the concept of Actually utilizing a business plan.

Speaker 2: 55:11

Even though you think you're a badass, you could be a better badass, that part hmm, so Every, every person that does what we do as far as running a business, there is a level of confidence and a little bit of ego. That is required. Yeah, you have to have it. However, you start to notice like, so, talking about like balance in the business plan. This is how I'm gonna mesh them. Most times people will say, well, if you go all in on this and you over plan on this and you spend all this time planning and you know, then you ask you here like you're taking away from here. So People don't want to do more than what they're already good at right, because they think it's gonna take away from something. I'd like to argue, to think that it allows you to expand. So to kind of put not a definition on it, but to kind of put clarity on what you guys were going back and forth with earlier. Now that, I remember, is, if you go all into the business, some people will say, well, that takes away from your family.

Speaker 2: 56:06

Yeah no, it doesn't. If I plan and I set the expectations, now, what I'm doing is because I had a good work day. When I come back to my family that day, I'm an even better version of you of me, because I won.

Speaker 2: 56:19

I built the momentum that day. Yeah, and same thing spending all that time with my family and not doing the business. Well, oh, that takes away from your business. Well, okay, physically, yes, but now the person that I became in those 60 days, now my focuses have changed and I'm gonna apply 10 times more because now that I'm away, I got the reminder of what I'm walking away from.

Speaker 3: 56:43

It's very true man. I'd like to touch on that because it's. Yes, it can be challenging when you're trying to get there right when you're trying to build.

Speaker 1: 56:51

It's supposed to be it.

Speaker 3: 56:52

It's, that's what it's meant to be right to, because not many can make it to that level. So it's always that goal of trying to achieve, whether it be success or or just balance, or whatever it may be. It's that constant just wanting to achieve, trying to achieve and and planning on getting there one day. Man you're, you know that, because right now I I I'll never say I have the perfect work life balance right, but I have a pretty good hold of your priorities, of my priorities, because right now, like you know to know that, even though we've surpassed a hundred oh shit, I haven't announced that yet.

Speaker 1: 57:29

I'll edit so. So, even though we have Ringo, it's fine.

Speaker 3: 57:31

No, it's fine. Um, even though we have the amount of agents that we have now, I Still am done with my work day by five. I still make myself available, fight by phone call to my agent still seven o'clock, sometimes eight o'clock on the weekends I'm with my kids all right family time or my my time.

Speaker 3: 57:50

I don't really work weekends, you know, especially Sundays. I definitely don't work Sundays. But you would think, oh, then your, your, your agents are missing out, right, or they're losing out on your available though they're not like, I still have the agents that are like dude, like you're always available, you're always there when I need you. You know, I don't have complaints of oh, you're never available, you're never in the office, like no dude like you can. You just have to develop that structure and then stick to the schedule, but then more importantly understand, like you know that, your priorities, understanding your priorities and sticking to them.

Speaker 1: 58:20

Right Now, let me ask you was the being off by five, not working Sundays, things like that. Was that one of your goals?

Speaker 3: 58:27

in the very beginning, okay, and when I say very beginning, I'm referring to when I was selling, sure, right, so. So when I was selling real estate, yeah, that was the goal. I didn't think it was realistic, I didn't think that it was possible.

Speaker 3: 58:38

And then my coach was like no, you're gonna have that Right and it was just like that's impossible because I work seven days a week. I love bragging about being available to my clients seven days a week when, in actuality, it's all about setting proper expectations in the very beginning. And when you set those in the beginning versus in the moment, then your clients will respect you absolutely in the moment they're not gonna respect you because now they're gonna feel like you're just not making them a priority. Now I agree right, so yeah so you're right though.

Speaker 1: 59:02

So I want to just quickly touch on the basics of Just what goes into a simple business plan, because I personally utilize a simple, one-page business plan initially, and I I encourage everyone to have a one-page simple business plan. Within that simple business plan, you want to focus first on a couple of goals that you have that Conclude by the end of the year, both personal, financial, touch on those six topics that we had discussed. Then you want to list off the needle-moving activities. Some call them Critical success factors, some call them money-making moves.

Speaker 1: 59:42

You can call them whatever the hell you want, but there are things that you do personally verbs, you actually do them that amount to Closings, amount to revenue, amount to sales, something along those lines that not only are activities, but are activities that can be gauged. You need to have a frequency on them, whether it is, example, open house one per week great, you measured that. And then you look back a month later, two months later, and you go okay, did anything amount from to that, from this? No, okay. Well then I need to adjust that number in frequency, not change the actual.

Speaker 1: 1:00:23

Task correct Yep. So in my simple business plan I also have one target focus for all of those, and most of the time it is motivation or focus or Something along those lines that keeps all of those different factors in place.

Speaker 1: 1:00:42

key factors, key factors Lastly, I've got a list of projects that need to be done before the end of the year that not necessarily are Income producing, but they lead to Income producing factors. That is as simple as the business plan should be. Then, when you have an accountability partner, it allows you to not have to just rely on yourself because let's keep, let's be honest, we're human, we. It's not easy to be consistent, it's not easy to hold yourself accountable, it's just not easy to human these days, you know. Yeah, so having accountability partner is totally something that I would recommend as well.

Speaker 1: 1:01:20

So what I'm also gonna do is I will drop a link to the simple business plan for you guys in the Comments, in the description, whatever you want to call it. It's a nice nugget, yeah, absolutely, and I empower you guys. Reach out to me or any of these guys, but definitely at the beginning of the year, every January, I do one-on-ones with realtors, with brokers, other lenders, to go over the simple business plan and how to do it, because, let's be honest, you probably haven't yet and that's okay. So, that being the case, package that sucker up. I want to ask you guys a couple of questions personally, with your businesses, yeah, and what you do so? The first one how much weight do you put on your future goals From the previous year?

Speaker 3: 1:02:06

Hmm.

Speaker 1: 1:02:07

Is it? Is it super important? Is it something that you just look back, you learn, or do you gauge this coming year based on last year?

Speaker 2: 1:02:17

So I look at, I look a lot at last year, not just in the financial aspect, so something I may have said it once or twice over time, but it's not something that I really pushed hard For the people local here.

Speaker 2: 1:02:30

They know that we have staff right now we're at 49 and so like it's a huge, you know, payroll expense, but it's because, for me, one of my goals and so I got to make a certain amount of money because I want to hire a certain number of people, gotcha, because there there's a part of me where I want to create more jobs, yeah, so you know, it's a little bit of a different mission, like you know.

Speaker 2: 1:02:51

Obviously, I want to create more jobs, which means we got to make more money, to make more payroll, which means we have to help more people, and the way we help people is Recreating the feeling they get when what we've done has worked for them. Yeah, right, so that's how it all works together. So one of my big goals is I want to see what it takes for me to get to 200 employees, because that's a big deal, yeah, and it's not to say I have 200 employees. I look at it like this that's 200 people that are on the same mission as me, yeah, which means the wave is gonna be created or even bigger.

Speaker 2: 1:03:21

The impact is bigger. And then think about those individuals. Think about, you know, when they go home, do they feel good about what they do? Are they getting paid fair? Are they making a good income? Does that make them better for when they go home? So, like I said, we have those Monday calls and you know we discuss a lot of different things. So I look at what do we do last year and how do I get to this goal. Again, the goal isn't necessarily or primarily Monetary. The goal is the 200 employees right then back dated to this is what we need your, why yeah?

Speaker 1: 1:03:52

right it goes into your how right, yep, I like that.

Speaker 3: 1:03:56

And I like how you're saying that, because you're you're pretty much saying your outreach the goal to Mittley is because You're gonna be able to have 200 employees and your outreach of the Dylan Shivelyway. Right is gonna touch so much more people because of the culture and everything that you're working on with your employees.

Speaker 1: 1:04:11

So I like that man. That's pretty good. That's, that's impactful man. Yeah, yeah, for sure, and I we know that that message resonates in your posts. Yeah, demeanor and the delivery and everything that you do deliberately. It's fantastic.

Speaker 2: 1:04:26

Thank you, keep it up, it's a it's a one thing I guess I'll probably say, just because we're on it real quick, and then I promise I'll get off it. You know it's fine, because you know that I'm learning the industry is it gets very high school-ish real quick.

Speaker 1: 1:04:39

Yeah, it's a pickle.

Speaker 2: 1:04:41

So the one thing, now that you know the reason why so hopefully this brings clarity, just in case. One of the things that frustrate me the most right now is that there's a message among other people who do what I do Right and they're they're marketing to people is that they don't want to be as big as we are, right, so. So they're like oh, we don't want to be as big as James Warren group, blah, blah, blah. You know. So then, that way, as the owner, you know, if a client wants to talk to the owner, they can hey, and I'm like yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:05:11

So at first I'm like really that's cute when you started and then I'm like you know what?

Speaker 2: 1:05:16

they don't even get it. So I guess I'm kind of stealing this time to explain myself. So maybe if they watch it they'll know. Yeah, one, you sound super dumb because what you're doing is you're saying you're gonna limit how many people you would want to help Change the trajectory of how they live and the quality of their life because, like you said, finances are a big reason for divorce and families being split. Yeah, so understand what we really do. So you want to limit how many people get that because you want to tell the next realtor lender that they can talk to you.

Speaker 1: 1:05:46

You want to have an impactful pitch.

Speaker 2: 1:05:49

That's what, right yeah and so for me I'm like well, hey, guess what Everybody could be taken care of if I got 200 people. Yeah, yeah, and then those 200 people are taken care of, and then we get to help more people. And then, guess what? I still take calls, I still talk with people.

Speaker 1: 1:06:03

That's right. I just don't publicize it.

Speaker 2: 1:06:05

I just told you earlier about the Calendly, that's right?

Speaker 1: 1:06:07

Yeah, I still talk with people. Yeah, you respond every time.

Speaker 2: 1:06:11

I texture Every time, you know so it's just like and this goes for any industry, to take it away from me, if, if a marketing tactic is like you know, we want to remain small because of whatever one Understand going on the small side for a second.

Speaker 2: 1:06:26

You're speaking that into existence. And if you really believe that you're gonna remain small and then, when you're home thinking about why shit ain't paid and why you ain't doing more and why you're not happy, it's because you're trying to appease somebody to say that you want to play small, as if that's a noble thing, when it's not.

Speaker 1: 1:06:41

Or as if it's a diss or really right.

Speaker 3: 1:06:44

Good luck, yeah, and good riddance, yeah, Anyway it's no I mean, but you, you you're spot on man, because I can relate to that too. The the most recent one, I heard that I from one of my new agents that I I was just mind-boggled by it, but it was just like man I've heard I Can relate, bro. Yeah, I've heard a lot of different brokers talking about me to where it's like you know what they're talking about me.

Speaker 3: 1:07:06

Yeah, I'm not talking about them, they're talking about me, so obviously it's a sign of something so, but the most recent one I heard is that that was said to this new agent because they were trying to pitch to get him to go over there. Where they're at was Well, don't get sucked into the hype of all their events at first choice.

Speaker 1: 1:07:22

And it's like I would have, I would have me being me. I would have said you know what? Can you explain that?

Speaker 2: 1:07:30

Yeah, can you break it down? Yeah, you know what?

Speaker 1: 1:07:32

here's a piece of paper. You know, draw me a diagram of what that looks like.

Speaker 3: 1:07:35

But this is specifically why I've been very vocal and open about like everyone's invited to our events.

Speaker 2: 1:07:41

Right. Even other brokers are invited to our event. Absolutely.

Speaker 3: 1:07:45

I don't see this as competition. I don't see it as oh, I don't want them to see what we're. I publicize everything we're doing, like where everyone, where I take pride in seeing other brokerages or big teams that are implementing what we do, it's cool, it's like. The way I see it is. We're creating a certain level of standard now, right, and that's how it should be and a lot of people are catching on and implementing good, you know, and those are the ones that are not talking trash.

Speaker 1: 1:08:11

The ones that are implementing are they're not talking trash. I don't want to make that very clear.

Speaker 3: 1:08:15

But yeah, I saw that and I was like, well, first off you've been. I told my agent. I was like you've been to a few of our parties events already. We're not a party atmosphere, no, right. Like we only have two events, three events out of the year that have alcohol in them. Right, it's, it's one of our first choice family night, where it's for our agents and just their family members, where we have an open bar. Then it's our end of the year holiday ball where, yes, there's open bar but it's for our brokerage, right. And then we have our pre-fiesta kickoff, which there's alcohol. Other than that, our first Fridays don't have alcohol at them. They're family friendly.

Speaker 1: 1:08:49

Right.

Speaker 3: 1:08:50

So so to to to make a comment of oh well, be careful with their parties and their, you know, don't get sucked into the events. It's like you're missing the whole concept of why we do the events. I'll be honest, it's people talking out of their ass. Yeah, because they don't have anything else to say and a prime example of that is this podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:09:05

Yeah, and and you mentioned you're very transparent in what you do. I feel like when I have guests here, we're all very transparent. There's a reason why you guys are on this show. There's a reason why we're starting to pick up tons of viewers. Yeah, we're getting tons of support, it's mind you. I've been doing this for two years now.

Speaker 1: 1:09:27

We're on episode 68 today. That's awesome, bro. So that before it was millennial market talk, you got it. So, that being the case, matter of fact, you were one of the first guests on that one. But in the beginning I could see that people didn't want to like it. It was like something in them that was like I can't do that, or I don't want to do that, or that's foolish, so I'm not going to tune in or I'm not going to follow, I'm not going to support.

Speaker 1: 1:09:55

Now it's to the point to where these conversations are so transparent in what we share in our business plan. We are giving them blueprints in every single episode, every single discussion that, as you mentioned, it's intended to be so hard that here it is. If you can duplicate it or make it better, good for you. That's why we're putting it out in the air, leveling each other up. Absolutely. That's what it's supposed to be about. But there are a lot of folks out there that are I don't want to use the word hater, it's more so something that's within them that they've got to come to terms with that. Hey, I can learn from many situations. It doesn't necessarily have to be that person or that thing, but I'm going to keep an open mind and soak up what I can.

Speaker 3: 1:10:41

I'll make myself vulnerable real quick and share with you the brokerage. We didn't hit our goal this year or this in 2023.

Speaker 1: 1:10:47

We didn't hit ours either.

Speaker 3: 1:10:48

We didn't hit our goal. So, to kind of circle back on your initial question do I use the previous year to help gauge and set goals for the upcoming year? Yes, however, I can also give myself grace in understanding what the previous year was like for everybody. There you go. So do I say, oh, we're taking the L. No, we're not taking the L. I'm still happy and proud of what we did last year, knowing that the goal was to do 500 transactions as a brokerage. We came up short, right under 400.

Speaker 3: 1:11:21

But I always I try to train the agents always look for the silver lining in any situation, even if it's a goal that you didn't hit or if it's a bad situation that you're going through or season that you're going through, always look for the silver lining. The silver lining that I took from those numbers, knowing that we didn't even get close to that goal, which it was a far stretched goal, but knowing that we didn't get close to that. The silver lining I found is well, you know what we? Also, based off of the amount of agents we have, our average ratio of closed transaction per agent is 3.8 for 2023, when the SABOR as a whole average is less than 1%. So I hold on to that. That's a big win that I'll hold on to.

Speaker 1: 1:12:02

And one would probably say, man, he didn't hit his goal. What was the point of doing the business plan? The point of doing the business plan is knowing what you can control and what you can't control. And our philosophy and I believe you guys agree with me is let's focus on the things that we can control and all the other outside forces.

Speaker 1: 1:12:22

they're going to do what they do. Those are the what do they call them? Variable items that we can't foresee. That's the shit that's being thrown at us in the mix that we got a role with, and if you didn't have that business plan, you're still flying by the seat of your pants. We didn't hit our goal and we don't know why we didn't hit our goal.

Speaker 3: 1:12:40

See, I feel like I'm still, because we're approaching that three-year mark, we're still building that blueprint of data for our brokerage, and so we're building that blueprint.

Speaker 3: 1:12:50

I feel confident that by year five we'll have an actual five-year blueprint of how to project and make those five-year plans for the future. And so, with that being said, it's also making those adjustments I actually realized because of my ADHD. I didn't answer your question earlier about the business planning, so I do use the previous year to plan for the following year. I usually start my business planning like in October, right, or September, october, and that way I can set forth those goals. So it's an annual business plan, right.

Speaker 3: 1:13:24

We then review them with my leadership committee every quarter, right? However, I review them with Jackie every month, very good. However, my TC's I review with them are transaction count every Friday, right. So I break it down all the way because, I'll be honest, man, it is hard sometimes to project what we're closing on a weekly basis because a lot of agents not just mine, but a lot of agents are known for not uploading their documents of their closing until the day before closing. So when we don't know until the day before or the day of closing that, oh, there's another transaction this week, it's like it's hard to project sometimes right.

Speaker 3: 1:13:58

But so that's how I break it down, and then we adjust, right, we adjust, and if we didn't hit our numbers on a monthly basis, I'll bring it up in the meeting and I'll bring it up to everybody, right? So the whole brokerage knows like, hey, we were in the red this month, or hey, we just came shy, or this is our goal, just so you know, like I already know our goal on a monthly basis of what we should be projecting, and so that's how I break it down Very good, and I'm sure that's insightful for the folks listening to understand that it's OK to look back at the previous year, but no, don't what.

Speaker 1: 1:14:35

Yeah, exactly what to look at and what not to. Yeah, so I've got the last piece that you guys have a little bit more time, I'm good.

Speaker 1: 1:14:43

So, we've got 20 statements items as to why folks typically fail at creating a business plan. I want to run through them and we can talk about each one, or we can skip over some or give kudos to the others. Jc, would you flip over to that other awesome screen? Boom, it worked. So on your screen, guys, you can see what we are looking at now, and this was pulled from Patrick Bet David's podcast that he has. I listen to him religiously. I think he's a pretty solid dude, both personally and from the business aspect, and he, kind of like we were talking about, gives it all away. Here's all my secrets. He's already done it and I think most people that have already done it are more than willing to share what their trials and tribulations. So this first one here and again, this is 20 reasons why people business owner salespeople fail at creating a business plan.

Speaker 1: 1:15:47

So, number one not taking the time to plan and, as mentioned, planning or what is it failing to plan? Is planning to fail, planning to fail? Yeah, basically. Number two not having data. Not having data at all, and that is tough.

Speaker 1: 1:16:05

Let's say it's your first year in the business. Second year in the business, you have very minimal data, just like your situation three years in. There's limited data to go around, but at least using what you have to create these checkmarks, these gauges that you can tweak up or down. I think it's super important. Number three overestimating what they can do, and this we discussed earlier is I want to do a hundred grand this year, okay great, that sounds good for me because we all profit when you do better, but last year you did 30. How are we going to do this? So that's just unrealistic, all right. Number four not knowing what to measure. I think this is super important because people tend to add fluff on their needle moving activities or critical success factors just to fill up a page when you're just going through the motions or trying to add busy work to appear busy.

Speaker 3: 1:17:03

You know, one thing I can touch on this that might be good like a cheat sheet for real estate agents is as a new agent. When I don't know what to measure, but I want to. If I'm a new agent I know I want to hit 100,000 next year. Maybe go and reach out in your brokerage that you're at to the top agent.

Speaker 2: 1:17:17

Yes.

Speaker 3: 1:17:18

Right, the top agent, which, for the most part top agents usually want to help others Absolutely and so, but I can also speak for a lot of top agents. It's like, if you're going to come to me and ask me for some help, don't waste my time, right?

Speaker 1: 1:17:32

I'm going to add to that because it's a great point. It needs to be on their time. Yeah, not your time. And what I mean by that is the approach taken is Crucial. You can't go to them just out of a whim and just say, hey, can I take your bro Whoa? They're a top producer. For a reason. Their day is probably broken down into I'm not gonna say five minute Intervals, but my day is broken down, your day.

Speaker 2: 1:17:57

They're broken down.

Speaker 1: 1:17:58

So if you're trying to get in where you fit in, it ain't gonna work. Yeah, as I'm texting my 12 15 meeting ham running a little behind, but, but, but, but but a perfect example of that.

Speaker 3: 1:18:07

Those go to your top, go to the top producer in the office Doesn't mean they're gonna share their goals with you and you have this expectation. Oh, I need to hit those goals. Yeah but they can at least outline a basic goal setting plan for you of hey, okay, you're, you're a brand new agent, this is what you should shoot for right because I was a brand new agent at one point. Yeah, we all started somewhere.

Speaker 1: 1:18:27

Yeah, I agree number five not doing your research. I think that's important Because, as we, as we discussed in the very beginning of this episode, what are the things that go into this? Outside forces? Do you look at the political landscape? Do you look at the Financial aspect of it? How much you're saying you're gonna do all these things. You don't have any money in the bank. So how do you do those things without the funds to do so? Not having the right research to get those goals true?

Speaker 3: 1:18:56

being careful where you get your research from very good.

Speaker 1: 1:18:59

Important on who you take that vice from.

Speaker 3: 1:19:01

I'm curious in kind of topic, but I'm curious to get your opinion on this right as we're, as we just said, this is the whole Speculation and things that you know, this, this post that went like a wildfire about. Oh, in 2024 there's gonna be six rate drops. When I, like you, start Disacting where that actually came from, to come to find out, to the best of my knowledge, that wasn't even. That's not what was actually sad. No, and so but of course you see every real estate agent now sharing that post.

Speaker 1: 1:19:27

Oh get it now, before it goes crazy, because there's gonna be six drops funny and and the listeners Maybe pissed off at me for saying this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I say what I'm thinking. Well, maybe Shit. What was I gonna say?

Speaker 3: 1:19:45

We all share common trade here.

Speaker 2: 1:19:49

Maybe this helps trigger it. What I was gonna say is we live in an information stage now, so you got a one, validate it and to understand, most information you get when it's posted on social media is based on perspective and experience, not by fact. Yes, so you have to understand the fact of it, and so too many people are putting out information, adding perspective Mm-hmm, and then it gets die are diluted down. It came back to me very true.

Speaker 1: 1:20:11

So I think it's funny that when volume drops, you see a lot of realtors turning into lenders on social media.

Speaker 2: 1:20:21

Oh yeah, Incredible.

Speaker 1: 1:20:22

I'm like I'm like how the hell do you know what rates are gonna do? I don't even know, you know exactly.

Speaker 1: 1:20:30

So, to answer your question, I Believe that rates will drop, but they're not gonna drop like people think. Yeah, because if they do we're gonna have another Situation where we have to go backwards, and the Fed doesn't want to go backwards after they do something. So I think this gradual easing is what's gonna end up happening. We probably, by the end of next year, end of this year, we could be sitting at a pretty solid Five and a half six percent rate, I think that's healthy.

Speaker 1: 1:21:00

Yeah, I really do. A volume has picked up dramatically in the last two weeks and I think momentum, momentum is a hell of a drug.

Speaker 3: 1:21:08

Yeah, you know not that I'm a mortgage expert by any means but that's what I was thinking to somewhere in the high-five At least it peaks the interest of whoever your audience is, any type of I.

Speaker 1: 1:21:18

I Encourage realtors to continue doing that, but be careful what you say. Don't quote rates, don't. Don't. Don't be the expert in something You're not the expert at. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:21:29

I would add to that by saying, like it, which is touching on that is be a little bit more patient on Commenting your, your, your perspective or what you've heard. I've gotten better at that, right where it's like okay, this is the new, what do you call it? The new new cycle, right?

Speaker 3: 1:21:47

Yeah cycle for the week to where it's like I might read it, I might look into a little bit, but I'm not gonna be so quick to share it or or comment on, say, guys, this is what's happening just because you saw it on your feet doesn't mean it's I would also like to add this.

Speaker 2: 1:22:01

So Understand, like some of the things I hear and again, not a real estate professor, I'm not a real estate agent nor a mortgage broker but being involved in real estate and understanding how it works, I think those are the external things that Really fuck people up. So, for example, I agree when rates are high.

Speaker 2: 1:22:18

Now they're gonna blame their lack of production by the high rates or they're broken and Then, once it reverses and the rates get lowered but the home prices increase, because it's always gonna absolute right, so it's gonna be one or the other, you know yank, then one, the other kicks. Well, now the reason that nobody's buying and they have low production is this. So I think that the focus Should be shifted and apply this to any industry, in case there's listeners outside of real estate. You can be aware of what's happening, but don't allow it to dictate, because you start to tell yourself a story again. You then speak it into existence. You start, if everyone is saying that rates are high and nobody's buying, well, then you start to buy into that, yeah, and then you stop doing certain things because you assume Rates are high and people are stopped buying. But the reality is this people are growing their families.

Speaker 2: 1:23:05

Yeah, people are getting divorced, people are getting job changes, which are the things that will never go away. So someone's always gonna need to buy and someone's always gonna need to sell, and they're continuing to procreate.

Speaker 1: 1:23:15

Yeah right, all I know yeah, so.

Speaker 2: 1:23:18

So what happens now is if you allow yourself to fall victim to the perspectives and experiences and the Opinions rather than the facts. Right, that's what steers you wrong in the business. So, agree, be aware, but don't be obsessed, because once you start believing that story, it's gonna showing your production.

Speaker 3: 1:23:37

That's true. That's our biggest opponent, I think, in sales in general not just real estate, but in sales in general our biggest opponent is Creating that mentality of a victim based mentality.

Speaker 1: 1:23:47

Yeah right, so yeah all right, so let's move on to six, and I'm gonna run through these pretty quickly for time purposes. Number six not learning new skills. This is, and I think this is something that a lot of the old dogs are refusing to get on board with.

Speaker 2: 1:24:00

With AI and optimization, technology, streamlining.

Speaker 1: 1:24:06

It's gonna make you better, but no, I'm scared of it. I'd like doing things the old way. Well, guess what all your customers are doing the new way? Number seven not having enough cash. We talked, I talked about this. You need to make sure that you're being realistic with those number eight, not preparing for the worst-case scenarios. Yes, all of the many things that you can think of that could happen. There's always more, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:24:30

And just a simple statement on that when you're planning, it's like, oh, here's all the good things. And then you get Temporarily motivated because you've already pictured yourself at the destination, right, yeah, and then you don't take into account Perfect example, like a house, like a new build. No, when you walk through it, oh my god, look at this beautiful house. But if you were to go through it, you would notice oh, that's cracked, oh the tile is bumpy, oh it's blue tape, right, yeah, so so blue tape, essentially your goals, don't know like that.

Speaker 2: 1:24:57

Don't live in the yeah, fuck, put that on a shirt or something. But that's the idea you know. Just don't live. Don't live in the. Oh my god, this is all the things that are gonna happen. Understand that worst-case scenario I'm gonna go broke. How long can I go broke?

Speaker 1: 1:25:11

for yeah, okay, this happened?

Speaker 2: 1:25:12

what if everybody turns me down? Where's my next list of people?

Speaker 1: 1:25:16

Yes, and then you focus on the things that build that True, that number nine, not knowing how to incentivize. I think that's important, especially for leaders that have employees or I was gonna ask for clarity on that was that. So that's basically Once you set a goal for yourself, make sure you understand what accomplishing that goal looks like. Make sure you understand what the milestones to Accomplishing that goal looks like and those that are in leadership positions. Make sure you're painting the picture for your, for your students, for your folks that you're coaching.

Speaker 2: 1:25:51

Okay, I had one more, if you want to, if you're, if you just heard that and you're like well, I'm not a business owner yet I'm aspiring to be, or I'm just doing it by myself. I don't have employees, so this doesn't apply to me. You're wrong. So Everybody is a leader, because you could be the leader in your household. Your kids watch you, so it's pretty much leading by example.

Speaker 2: 1:26:12

Yeah so again, things that your kids do are caught not talk, right. Right, you could try to teach them whatever, but they're gonna catch on to what you do, yeah do as I say not as I do, right that it that don't work, you know they're gonna do it anyway.

Speaker 2: 1:26:25

So you can be a leader, whether it's in your marriage, your relationship with your kids. So if you're thinking like, well, I don't have employees, this doesn't apply to me. Hopefully you're still listening and didn't fast forward it because there's somebody, there's at least one person. Sometimes you can even be your parent. It could be what. There is one person in your life that looks up to you. Yeah, so you're the leader in that situation, whether you know what or not. So just fact, assume it's everybody around and hold the standard facts.

Speaker 1: 1:26:48

Yep, all right. Number 10. No, not cutting the fat. That's a tough one for many folks, myself included, especially this past several years. I'm gonna run through the rest of these pretty quick number 11, asking small thinkers for feedback. I think that is a pretty heavy one right there, that's. That's the Looking at the haters and giving them any kind of weight.

Speaker 2: 1:27:11

Yeah what you're doing.

Speaker 1: 1:27:12

Sure, Most of the haters are fat anyways, focusing too much on the competition when the competition and I'm gonna add to that when the competition should just be, you, yep, you know, yep. Number 13 Letting competition intimidate you again, look in the mirror. If you're ugly, you're still ugly. Number 14 not planning with the calendar. I think once I started using a calendar personally, it changed my life. Yeah, same same advice to many. You use it, I use it. I don't know if you do get yourself a Calendly Account and send it out so people can use it. The issue is, when you have something like that, a tool like that, and you don't actually use it, stop asking people wins, a good time to meet. Send them your calendar and let them pick. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:27:59

Number 15 not knowing who your next recruits are Moving on. 16 not giving each year a theme. I like this concept and that has a lot to do with what I was talking about on the top two goals that you start with Personal goals that set the theme or the tone for this year coming up. 17 not having their next five moves in order. Now, patrick Bet David wrote a book about this. I haven't read it just yet, but I'm sure that that is super impactful.

Speaker 1: 1:28:28

Number 18 going into the year with the wrong partners. You touched on this 100 percent accountability. Partners. 19 not doing business plans with their team. I think this is important for folks to understand that If you are coaching a team, you got to be on the same page, but if they don't know what your goals are and how you're going to achieve it, how the hell should do you? You know how do you guys get synergy? It's just something to think about. Number 20 Keeping their business plan a secret, and I think that's the biggest one and probably why he finished off with that. The intention of all of this stuff is to share with other folks over there Especially.

Speaker 2: 1:29:13

Let's see, here you can Think that's pretty much like how I mentioned earlier. I told you specifically what the goal was. Yeah, you know what I mean, um, sometimes when you share goals. So you know the small thinker versus the the big thinker, like the visionary, whatever you want to call it Because the the smaller minded people, which is okay. Right, it's not like everybody's got to be a big visionary, whatever. It doesn't make that person bad, but you can tell by the response.

Speaker 2: 1:29:36

Like you know it's like I'm gonna do this and I'm like you're gonna what? Yeah, and. And understand that none of that stuff is personal. That's something I've had to work on is understanding, not taking things personally. Understand that it's a them thing, it's not a me thing, yeah they don't think they can do it. They're genuinely curious on like well, I don't think you can do it either.

Speaker 2: 1:29:52

It's not because they're saying fuck you to me, it's because they're already playing themselves down to say well, I can never accomplish something like that, so how are they gonna do?

Speaker 1: 1:29:59

it Right, right now. I totally agree, especially with the concept of when somebody says, hey, take it easy, don't work too much.

Speaker 2: 1:30:10

I've had that happen in a you know, know me fool yeah. I've had that happen in a couple relationships just in this year, like obviously professional relationships, and uh, that we don't even talk anymore and they're still doing the same shit makes sense.

Speaker 1: 1:30:22

So I'm gonna close this thing off. Um, before I do, I want to ask those that are listening Viewing that, if you got anything out of this, make sure to share it with a friend. Like go to our uh apple podcast Um page. Leave a solid review. Those things mean so, so, so much, because we're not spending money and marketing for this. Um, this is intended to, like we talked about, to give you as many Blueprints and perspectives as possible from experts in our field. Um, so, before we close it off, you guys have anything that you want to add? I think there was a ton of nuggets in this discussion. Um, for the folks listening to, now, tune out and go put pen to paper and actually put their business plan to work.

Speaker 3: 1:31:06

For sure I can start off with saying you know, I I'm working on being more vocal about my vision. Of course, the a lot of the agents in the brokerage, or all the agents, should know what the vision is for first choice, or for first choice realty. I was trying to get away the whole session without saying the name of the brokerage. I don't like to make it about the name or the brokerage, um but, but so um. The vision that I have for my brokerage is that. Well, let me ask you to nationally people, national listeners or viewers might not Understand this, but um, but with y'all to here being local, when you hear of the brokerage and the name philis brownie, what's the first thing you think of?

Speaker 3: 1:31:41

In my opinion Old school, okay, but okay, give me another one in a positive Okay, which I'm not saying, that's not positive, but but you are, you are right on that Um sophisticated, sophisticated, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:31:52

What else Um accomplished, mm-hmm seasoned. It's more of a gosh upper echelon.

Speaker 2: 1:32:02

Luxury luxury right, or even use the word standard.

Speaker 1: 1:32:05

Yeah now there's a yes.

Speaker 3: 1:32:08

So so I've always admired philis brownie Sure, especially when I was getting my license. I remember that was the first brokerage I looked into because I was like, oh, they're the luxury right. And how did I get in? I'm gonna be completely honest with you. How did I get, how did I get influenced into real estate Million dollar listing there you go. It's so funny how, once I got my license, though, I never watched another episode of that thing.

Speaker 1: 1:32:28

He's like this, ain't true?

Speaker 3: 1:32:30

But but philis brownie? Of course you know it's a prestigious luxury brand, local brand, Not a national brand. But she has made that brand for her brokerage where when you first think of them, you think of prestigious you think of luxury right. How was she able to establish that right? Granted, it took years, but how was she able to establish that?

Speaker 1: 1:32:50

I tell you what it started with one, exactly.

Speaker 3: 1:32:52

It started with one my vision. Because everyone's always asking me oh man, y'all got a lot of agents. Now how many agents do you want? I never set a goal for it for headcount. I never set a goal for agent count. That is not even on my radar. I like how many agents we want. I will admit we've reached that pillar, that I'm about to announce. But it wasn't a goal. Right as we got closer it's like oh, we're almost at that right.

Speaker 2: 1:33:13

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:33:14

But so my ultimate vision, my goal for the brokerage is when you in san Antonio think of first choice realty, I want people to automatically think they're knowledgeable over there. They're very seasoned, there's experience and there's a reason that I'm working towards that, right. You've never heard and I will never go into Champions or, you know, like a school of real estate, because I'm not. I'm not saying we don't accept brand new agents, right, but I'm not focusing on brand new agents, right. Or as far as recruiting Right now, yes, we have trainings for brand new agents. We do focus on our agents and our brokerage, but I guess what I'm getting at is I'm not trying to build a headcount based off of recruiting brand new agents.

Speaker 3: 1:33:52

I don't even like the word recruiting because, I've never picked up a phone to call an agent and I've never dm'd or I've never made a post on social media saying that we're hiring or anything like that, like I have built a brand of a brokerage and Including my agents, because I will not take the full, like I should say, accolades of what our growth has been, because it's a contribution of our agents too.

Speaker 3: 1:34:14

There's been a lot of agents that have joined our brokerage because of our agents that we have in the brokerage. They've influenced them to join. But that is the reason why I don't focus on recruiting, because I want to build a brand of knowledge base. Right now it's, I'm proud to say we have four different brokers that have joined the brokerage.

Speaker 3: 1:34:33

And that is a cool feeling to know that they could have gone and opened their own brokerage. But they decide you know what? No, I like what you're, what you're about. I like what your message is. I like where you're going. I want to be a part of that. That's. That is. What I'm shooting for Is a knowledge base brokerage that will be known in san antonio one day for that.

Speaker 1: 1:34:48

Not only is that a stellar goal to have, um, it's very future oriented, and the reason why I say that is I Firmly believe that the future of real estate Only leaves room for experts. Yeah. I agree, because of all of the technology, all the noise absolutely with with the attacks on realtors, with technology evolution, all of the things that consumers have direct access to. What are they missing by not having a realtor or lender?

Speaker 1: 1:35:18

Yeah and it's the experience, the expertise, the advice, the, the, the Value that that in itself brings. Not opening a door, not not those basic elements, it's the oh shit. It hit the fans. Yeah, now, what do we do? Yeah, no problem.

Speaker 3: 1:35:34

I'm.

Speaker 1: 1:35:35

Those are the calls that I love from my yeah so that, guys, man, that that was damn near two hour podcast. Nice, gentlemen, I want to thank you for uh, sharing all of your knowledge that you have today. I'm sure this will go very, very far. Um, I'm sure this will be one that people will stop, rewind, go back, take notes etc. And then I hope and pray that those listening actually take what we've given you and put it into action Again.

Speaker 1: 1:36:08

Lastly, I'm going to say it again, like share, subscribe dammit, yeah just keep sharing this with people, because it's making a person that you feel needs to hear this absolutely, and and uh, what it's doing is allowing me to continue to bring guests like this to the show, um, and allow them to be Comfortable with being very transparent with you, guys, um. So I I want to say this is, uh, another episode that was definitely needed, especially this time of the year, and I'm hoping that we can kick this 2024 right in the teeth. Man, amen, yeah. So that being the case, guys, thank you for tuning in. Um, I hope you have a great start to your 2024. Get with me. If you are looking to uh create your simple business plan, I'll have a link in the description for this, um, but, that being the case, we will catch you on the next one.