Imagine having the perfect land on which to build your dream home 🏡
Now imagine having all of the building materials stacked on that piece of land.
Without organizing all of those materials into a house, this doesn’t actually help you 👎
Now, compare that to your career.
You have the perfect land on which to build your dream business (the real estate industry).
You even have many of the materials needed for building your dream business (skills, networks, knowledge, etc.) 🤩
You’re so close!
Yet, without organizing those materials through the right business systems, you’ll never actually get your dream business 👎
In this week’s podcast episode, I go deep on this concept and even list out over a dozen key business systems that are necessary for your business to become what you want it to become.
👉This 1-minute survey will tell you what these key systems are and give you the opportunity to identify which ones you’re missing and which should be your first priority. Access the survey HERE👈
When you’re ready, here are 4 ways I can help you…
1. Join my free mastermind group: Think Bigger | Real Estate. Everyone wants to work by referral but what do you do when your goals outpace the quantity of your warm referrals received? Join us to learn how to scale up your referral-based business. —> Click here.
2. Subscribe to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show:
Don’t miss my interviews with the industry’s biggest thinkers and highest achievers. —> Click here.
3. Get the Audiobook + bonuses of my best-selling book, “The Upstream Model”:
Replace your pursuit of golden eggs (commissions) with a systematic approach to attracting golden geese (professional partners that send you monthly recurring warm referrals).—> Click here.
4. Schedule a 15-minute call to explore what it looks like to work with me directly:
I help top professionals create a 7-Figure-Funded Significant Life, growing a wildly successful enterprise without losing focus on what matters most (body, mind, heart, spirit and legacy). —> Click here.
FULL AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION:
Justin Stoddart 0:01
So the big question is this. How do we those of us in the real estate industry with crazy amounts of ambition? How do we think bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously see success and significance, income and impact? My name is Justin Stoddard. And this is the Think bigger Real Estate Show. What is up everybody, so excited to be with you all, Happy Wednesday. appreciate everybody’s a slight pivot. And when I normally from what I normally do these live streams, but if you’re here, please let me know you’re here. If you’re if you’re watching live, put live in the comments.
We’d love to see you and interact with you, and help you apply some principles that are going to help you take your business to the next level. Let me begin by saying right now my wife and I are in the middle of some remodel work, some of which we’re doing ourselves, our laundry room, some of which we are subcontracting out. And I’ll tell you, it took me back to my homebuilder days. Many of you may know many others don’t that I was a general contractor in a previous life built luxury custom homes. And in the process of building luxury Custom Homes, I realized that it was it was a very enjoyable experience to get to the end and see the finished product, the finished work this beautiful home, someone’s dream is really brought to life. And yet the process of getting there could either be enjoyable, or it could be a bit strenuous. And, and the way that it went from strenuous to a great experience depended on how organized I was how organized. The clients were. In isn’t that true? For all of us? Hey, everybody, this is join in. And by the way, thank you. If we got the harder it is, and you I did forget how hard it was. That’s a great. That’s a great reminder. Yes, yes, very hard that I want to talk today about how each and every one of us can create a beautiful business. If we have number one, the right elements, the right components.
And we have systems to organize those elements. Same thing is true when it comes to the home building process that you can have the home of your dreams, right if you have the right resources. And and if you have the the right elements, right, the right components, organized in this in a systematic way. I’ve been impressed by the individual that we’ve hired to help us with our kitchen. She’s fantastic. Maybe some of you know her. If you’re looking for recommendation in the Portland area to someone who who remodels kitchen, she’s amazing. But she sent over a schedule of exactly what needed to happen when which subcontractors came in and all the reasoning as to why. And again, thinking about our business, I want you to think here for just a second about how exactly how you want your business to perform. Like what you want it to do for you. Think about that for a sec. Now, if you have not had the chance to go through that Think bigger blueprint planning session with me. Please reach out to me just put schedule planning session I would love to spend some time and or even just direct you to the resources to where you can go through it yourself. Because it really helps to get some clarity on the vision that you’re creating for yourself
as to what you want your business to look like, if you don’t clarify that it’s a lot less fun. And you really aren’t filled with purpose when you have to do the hard work. I know for me and my clients is we embarked upon a luxury customer product project, we had a clear vision in the form of a blueprint of this clear idea of exactly what we were building. And there were some unknowns as far as what they were going to choose in different areas and what was going to happen, you know, with with concrete material and lumber pricing, there was just some unknowns. But we had, again, a vision of what we were creating. And we had the components in the elements and those properly organized those systems right that I had developed and implemented, including the right suppliers, the right subcontractors, all of that organized in its proper form, created some absolutely stunning homes.
Absolutely beautiful homes. I look back to this day I drive my kids to those neighborhoods to a different state. But when I when we visited and driven through his neighbors like, Dad, you built that home. I was like, Well, me and a lot of other people but yeah, it’s something really quick and look back upon. I want for everybody listening to this today for you to be able to have a vision in your mind of the business that you want to build the income that it produces for you and your family. The indeed the independence that it gives you to go and do travel and engage in in things that are important to you, and the impact the lives that it touches. So those three income independence and impact, I want to think about, ideally, what you’d want your business to look like and how you want to impact other people, what you wanted to do for you and your family. With that clear purpose in mind, then we can embark upon, okay, I have some of the elements that are going to be needed to build this, I’m going to need to probably get some some additional elements. But ultimately, I’m going to need to get organized.
Okay, I’m going to need to organize myself. Now, I don’t want to get into a religious debate here. But for those of you that are listening, that believe that the Earth was created, right, that there was a time of there was organizing elements, there was taking kind of chaos and matter and turning that into something beautiful. Now, if you don’t believe that you can at least lean on, you know that the what Christians believe, okay, around that concept. But you take something that was as disorderly, maybe as you know, elements of the universe and organized into a beautiful world that spins on its axis to allow for human life to live, it’s pretty miraculous. So on that note, whether you’re creating an earth or whether you’re creating a painting, or whether you’re building a home, you need great elements. And you need to have some organization, you need to have some systems in place, in order for you to understand and get what you ultimately want, but know how to get there.
Okay. So today, I want to talk about what some of those systems are that I believe you need, as I’ve evaluated and work closely with both real estate professionals, real estate agents, title professionals, lenders, and other business professionals outside of the real estate industry, I’ve noticed that there is oftentimes amazing talent, absolutely brilliant people, many times they have a great personal sphere, they’ve got great talent to be able to talk to people, they’ve got some, some inside track on being able to get business in some certain way. And yet, they their goals don’t turn into reality. And I believe a large part of it is simply because those elements, right, those components are organized properly to create something beautiful, just like a big stack of lumber, big stack of stone, big stack of Windows doesn’t really do anybody any good until a builder comes in organizes that, with the right subcontractors with the right schedule with the right timelines, the right expectations and quality standards, until those systems are applied to that pile of materials. You don’t get the beautiful home, you just don’t. And so my request of you is to contemplate as I read through some of these systems that I believe you need to have is to contemplate Yes, that would be a system that I need to implement. Okay, now, listen over here, this is not a comprehensive list. But I am going to be putting in the link here after the fact a link to a quick survey, I would ask that you go through and fill this out to say which of these systems Am I missing in my business.
And I also want you to at the end, I’m going to ask you which of these are the most important, I may very well be creating something in the background that is going to help you with this. So it’s super important that you’re honest with yourself. Because this is not meant to overwhelm you. This is not meant to cause you to to be like oh my goodness, I just realized everything that’s wrong with my business. No, just the opposite. These, this survey and these, these lists of systems that I’m going to go through ought to inspire you to be like, Wow, what if I were to organize that chaos? Right? I do have a lot of the right elements. What if I were to organize that chaos into something amazing, like to where it can work without me. And it can work at a higher standard than maybe even I currently have like how would that be? So awesome. appreciate the comments here.
Yes, so many good ingredients, not yet organized and systems. That my friends is what we’re here to talk about today, which is success systems. So let’s get right into this. These can obviously be lumped into larger categories, right? Some believe that business is most simply defined as a three legged stool, a three legged stool, right, which is get the business sales and marketing, perform the business operations and account for the business account, right? That’s kind of a very broad
group of three categories. You could put these into. Now I won’t do that for you. That’s maybe something that you and I can work on after the fact. But I will say that the successful agents that I’ve seen and observed they have Not all of these systems, but they have some of these systems. So I’ve kind of picked all a cart people who I really admire, who have built great businesses. And I looked at, boy, they have that system in place. That’s why that runs so smoothly, or that’s why they get such consistent results is because they don’t have to think about it. They don’t have to put any like willpower behind it anymore. You don’t have to like, like, be sure that gets done. Like it just happens. Okay, whether it’s automatically, right through automation, or whether it’s through key people, key personnel, but it happens and we all know that consistent inputs, the right consistent inputs, create the right consistent outputs. So with that being said, I believe that one very important system that you need to have in place is to be communicating with your database. Okay, so system number one to talk about is to be emailing. Okay, emailing your database, at least twice a month. Okay. So I want you to think of that as a system. What would it take to be able to do that to where it’s, we’re not talking about stock, regurgitated stuff that isn’t actually your voice or your content. But stuff that’s true to who you are true to where it’s like, oh, I think I think Justin wrote that. I think those are his words. Okay, do they actually feel like they’re, they’re getting something from you, not just forwarded from you. Okay, so two times email, what does that look like? Okay, number two, being consistent at posting on social media. Okay, like actually being present, they’re delivering content that’s aligned with your brand and your unique value proposition, those that work closely in some coaching circles that, that that I’m in know that I help you to create what’s called a remarkable, quantifiable end result, which helps you to define very clearly what makes you different from every other agent and elevates your value proposition above other people that they’ve spoken with, do what you do for a living. So being consistent on social media aligned with that uniqueness
that is you that uniqueness you bring into the marketplace, okay, that’s another system. How do you do that? How is that done consistently towards you. But maybe you’re not pulling all the levers and turning all the wheels, that is a system that I believe you need to have to excel in today’s digital marketplace. The third one that I wanna talk about is actually being consistent at engaging on social media. Yes, you can speak into the universe all day long. But if you never actually engage on your own comment on your own posts, or the posts of other people, it’s not going to matter. People don’t love being talked at. They love being in conversations and engagement. So do you have a system of engaging with the people that you are interacting with on social media, of actually creating relationships know that the goal of social media is to create connections, and then eventually conversations? If you have any other purpose, I think you’re missing the bigger point, the bigger purpose of social media, which is to get to create, ultimately conversations which come through comes through connections, which comes through content which engages, okay, so that’s an entire system in and of itself. Who does that? Now, it needs to be you. But are there ways to where you don’t get sucked into the black hole of social media? Yes, there are. And there are systems for that. Okay. Let’s talk about some other things that would fall into that first category of sales and marketing, right? Get the business kind of the first leg of the three legged stool. client events? Do you have a system in place for client events? And I’ll just ask you this? Do you already have them on your calendar? Do you already know who’s coming to your clients? No one these are they on your clients calendars? Is it turnkey? Is it set up? Do you have the checklists in place? Do you have the people in place to be able to do this? Or is it going to take a Herculean effort, and you might just talk yourself out of it. Okay? Once you do it once, if you if you’re doing it properly, you can create a system the first time you do it to where you don’t have to recreate the wheel every time even if you do a different event, the bones of it are still the same. Okay, client events needs to be a system in your business. Okay. What about just ongoing lead and referral generation? Do you have a system for that? Like when do you do it? Who are the priority of the people that you’re talking to talking with? And what? Like, what’s that process look like? Is
it happenstance is it like, well, I just, I just wait for the phone to ring. My clients love me and I just keep, send the notes and they just call. I hope that’s working out for you. But if you want some more consistency in your world, write some more consistency as to how that house goes together, leaning back on my previous metaphor, that having a consistent system will create more consistent leads and referrals coming into your business. Okay. What about follow up? Many times people are good at the first contact, but you and I both know the statistics are the people don’t make a buying decision until multiple attempts after that. like multiple up to up to as many as eight 910 I believe, like there’s a lot of oftentimes follow up that needs to happen is people just aren’t ready or they’re just too busy at the moment, how many opportunities are missing, maybe because you just don’t have a system in place for following up. Now, again, I know that oftentimes, this is difficult for people because they don’t have a system. It’s like, I didn’t fall for that person. And all of a sudden, all this attention and willpower is thrown over at this section of their business, like I gotta follow up. And it all of a sudden, other things start to suffer because you’re like, Oh, shoot. I was supposed to be doing this, but I was following that, right. But what’s the system? If you have a system in place, you don’t have to overthink it. Okay. What about home anniversaries? Okay, this is a great marketing opportunity, one of the best out there is to let people know that hey, can you believe this? It’s been six months. Hey, so excited for you. It’s been a year. By the way, here’s a current market analysis of your property. That’s what’s happened over the past year, let’s celebrate. You just made $40,000 By living in that home. Isn’t that exciting? Right? That’s some good news to deliver. You don’t have that every year. But what if you had a system to where again, your calendar or somebody or some tool told you call so and so it’s time they it’s their one year anniversary, or they did it a couple weeks before and automatically triggered? Something they got sent, and somebody created a CMA and your only job was to follow up from call? How would that be? That’d be pretty cool, wouldn’t it? Imagine the amount of conversations that you would be in with people who are going to be either referring and or using you in the future? Okay. What about client birthdays, if you have a system in place where maybe a cupcake or even just a thank you card, happy birthday card, or $5, Starbucks card shows up saying, Hey, I appreciate you, I want to recognize you. This world’s better because you’re in it. Have you birthday? Right? How would that be for a system or process? How about lunch and coffee meetings with people that you are in your sphere, even key upstream partners, those of you that have read my book, know what that’s about? Right? That there are certain people to whom with whom you can spend more time and it creates an exponential result? Right? You don’t have to have this massive database. If you have the right upstream partners, do you have a system in place for spending time with the right people, not just the comfortable people that makes us feel like we’re working. But the people who, from their endorsement can send you potentially a dozen referrals a year, right?
We’ve helped clients create that in their in their businesses? So do you have a system in place for doing that? What about? Let’s move into maybe the operational side here a little bit? Okay. Or let me add one more client gifts, you might say that’s kind of operation. So that’s maybe a nice segue. Do you have a system in place for client gifts? To where you don’t have to think like, Oh, my goodness, what should I get them? Now? Maybe you really love the custom gifts? I just asked you, is it working? And how much time is it taking you maybe you can think this out a little bit and get a system in place for even making a customized gift? Or maybe you say, look, I already know what I want to give everybody. And here’s what triggers that and so and so does it and it gets delivered to this person at this time. And here’s my role. And my role is this. Okay, the goal is not to give you more jobs for all these systems, systems create consistency. And ideally, they remove you from the equation, so that the business can operate at the same or even higher standards when you’re not present. That’s what creates increased income and independence is when you can start to have systems that work at at the highest levels, even when you’re not directly involved. Okay, so do you have that in place? Let’s talk about let’s see, what’s what would be another operational one. What about buyer scripting? Right. You’ve heard the term buyers are liars. My belief is that typically that points right back to the people that say that is that they didn’t properly prequalify that it properly set the right expectations. You don’t have to work with everybody. You chose to work with that person. Okay. I don’t mean to be harsh, but I do think that the proper system, the right conversation up front can save you a lot of time. I think why don’t have time to create a system. Well, a system takes maybe one conversation, whereas a not creating a system is going to is going to cost you a lot of like a lot of time a lot a lot of time. Okay,
do you have a a process for what that first conversation or ongoing conversations looks like with buyers? Okay. What about sellers? Do you have a a script for sellers again, the idea here is that at some point you may want to remove yourself even if just on a vacation. Right so where you’re not present and the listing agreement gets signed, how would that be? Or at least maybe at some point you may even say look, I’m gonna I’m gonna bring in somebody to help run my company. I have some other interests. I want to focus more on the real estate investment side or maybe the commercial real estate side or I just want to build my my brokerage like I want other people they can continue to perform at the level that I’ve performed. Okay, so all of having that cellar script in place allows the high standard to stay even when even when you’re not present. Okay. Let’s, what about having as you move through the transaction? Let me see here. Let’s do. What about this system? I’ve got a whole list of here. So I’m just hand picking kind of the the top ones. Okay, do you have a system for increasing your price point? I can I’ll kind of move in a little bit here to the third stool, right? The three legged stool third would be in accounting. Do you have a way and part of this is sales and marketing, right?
There’s some overlap here. But to where you’re getting clients who have more expensive properties, y’all know that that is makes it an easy way to increase your price point, have a meeting with agents here for the past several months, and like, boy, I got a pay increase and actually sold less homes. That’s kind of fun, right? What if you were intentionally, like had a system around getting into those conversations with different kinds of properties that were more expensive? What about having a system for increasing your profit margin? Do you have a system in place to where you can sit down in a listing appointment and demand a higher price point because of XYZ, and you feel 100% comfortable saying I charge this? As opposed to? I’d like to turn to that. But I don’t know how just that when everyone else is charging less. Now, if you have the right system in place, and the right verbage in the right value proposition, then then you can just like people know, they’re going to pay more money for a new Mercedes than they are a new Hyundai, right? That it’s because there’s just more value there. Of course, you’re gonna pay more everybody knows it. What if you had that system in place where you knew exactly what to say, to be able to get a higher margin, right to be able to charge more and feel very comfortable like you were doing your clients a great service by doing so? Do you have that in place? Do you have a system in place for reviewing your finances? Right? Is this kind of QuickBooks and you’re, you’re doing it on a napkin? Hopefully, we’re all past that. Right? But do you have somebody who’s watching the numbers? Now maybe it’s just you once a month? Maybe you have a professional that you can talk to to say, How am I doing? How’s my power? My margins? Right? What are some other ways that I can I can save on taxes? Okay, that’s kind of part of the financial review. Am I putting myself in trouble by by earning this much? How do I? How do I kind of defend against that? Not to where I don’t earn less, but I make wise tax decisions, to where I can begin to not have to pay someone to taxes? Okay, wisely, legally, of course. Okay. What about do you have a system in place for hiring and training support staff? Like, do you have that in place like, we are going to grow this year, and I don’t want to be working more hours than it did in the past? So do I have a system in place that when I need somebody, this is what happens. Okay, that’s a great system to have. What about recruiting to your team and or brokerage? I know some of you belong to brokerages that give you incentive to bring other people to that brokerage Do you have a system in place to create those ongoing conversations, to be able to to, to build an organization, something that will pay you long after you stop selling real estate? Maybe those of you maybe some of you are listening, actually do own your own brokerage, and it becomes about recruiting to your personal brokerage? Do you have a system in place for that? Okay, attracting and keeping good talent. Once you have good talent there? Do you have a system in place for rewarding them for thanking them for being sure that they feel appreciated so that they want to stay and that they see that the
best opportunities are with you? Do you have a regular like a system of kind of a cadence if you will, every week, this is our weekly meeting. Here’s what we’re going to cover. Here’s the KPIs, the key performance indicators. And here’s what we’re going to watch. And this is what that looks like. These are all ideas. I’ve got several more here. Again, I’m going to put in the comments. Inside this group, I’m going to put a link to a survey, I would encourage you to go through and mark the ones that you would like to have in your business number one. And number two, the follow up question that is which which one, like two or three of these would be the most impactful for you to implement right away? Okay, once you kind of realize that, you can go back to my metaphor of the house. If you have all of these elements and you know that if they’re put together properly, they’re going to create a beautiful home and it’s just a matter of organizing it. Then you’re going to need some help with systems, you’re gonna need some help to put all of these systems in place. So that again, you can have the high standards, without you always having to be the one, pulling the lever, turning the wheel, okay? That’s the goal of all of this is to help you to create something absolutely beautiful the business that gives you the life that you want. And to help you to realize that you have so many of the components and elements already in place, the only thing you’re missing is organizing those properly. Once you start to organize those properly, then you begin to receive the benefit of what business was designed for right was which is should be designed for which is to create a great life. So if this has been valuable, just put value in the comments here.
Would love to, to see that and see that this has been helpful for you really appreciate you joining in. For those of you that are listening to this via podcast, I just got to make this this week’s podcast episode. I would encourage you to reach out to me if you’re interested in learning more about how you can get help implementing these systems. And even saying, Okay, here’s all the systems I could possibly have this one or two or three are going to be probably the ones that I should start with right away. Okay. If you find yourself in that spot, reach out to me find me on social media. And let’s have a conversation about how may be able to help you do that. So, again, thank you everybody, for tuning in. enjoyed spending some time with all of you.
And my final request of everybody listening here today are these three simple words and they are go think bigger. Thanks my friends talk soon. I want to thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Think Bigger Real Estate Show If you found value here, I asked three things number one, give us a review. Number two, go to Facebook and in groups search Think bigger real estate and apply to join. Here you will find a community of big thinking professionals that will help you grow your income, your independence and your impact. And my third request is go think bigger