Sometimes, our biggest enemy in growing our businesses and success is ourselves. And it can be tough to change our thoughts, beliefs, and actions—it will take time, and it might be painful, but it will be worth it.

In this session of Brilliant Talks, our free weekly coaching program for real estate agents, Mark, Jacob, and I picked up where we left off last week.

What are some of the reasons you are stuck in the $100,000 GCI range? And how can you break through that slump?

Business Plan

If you are just starting, it is okay to have no business plan. In fact, most of us jump into business without a clear-cut business plan—we just sort of pick it up and develop it along the way. But it is still essential to have some form of strategy in place to run your real estate business.

Getting started is the biggest first step—what does it look like if you are jumping in? Usually, banking on our strengths is a great place to start. But as you build your business and aim for growth, you need a business plan to serve as your blueprint. How do you start building out your business plan?

You can use business plans as your template, but the common mistake most of us make is taking these readily built plans to the letter. The best thing to do is take these business plans and tweak them. Make it your own. Adjust it to your strengths and your lifestyle.

Some of your biggest challenges in creating a business plan are just jumping in—we often overanalyze and overthink these things. You can overcome this by looking to the people you look up to that you want to emulate in the business. Analyze what they are doing and how you can adopt it and make it your own.

Some key elements of your business plan are:

• Mission/Vision—what do you stand for, where do you want to go, and how do you plan to get there
• SWOT Analysis—what are your strengths and weaknesses and how can you bank on your strengths and reinforce your weaknesses
• Competition—who are they, what are they doing, what are they not doing, and what are your opportunities to stand out from them
• Services—what are you already offering, what value are you providing, and what more can you offer your current and potential clients

Whatever you create leads you towards something. If you don’t have a business plan, you don’t know exactly where you are going.

“Business plans are crucial, because how do you know what you are shooting for if you don’t know your target?”—Mark Rader

But it is also important to take your interests, strengths, skills, resources, and lifestyle into consideration and scale them according to your goals and values when building out a business plan that is custom fit for you.

“The Guilt Trip”

Not everyone goes through this, but we’ve seen it before—sometimes we feel guilty about our success, and it often comes from a sense of unworthiness.

Some of us did not come from a place of money, and suddenly earning tens of thousands of dollars per month feels wrong. We sometimes think, “This is too much money; I am not worthy of this.”

Other times, when we hit success, we feel scared that we cannot replicate it because “we just got lucky”—and then we feel guilty when we do not hit the same level of success because it feels like regression or proof of our incompetence. 

When we get too inside our heads, thinking we aren’t deserving of our success for whatever perceived reason, we end up psyching ourselves up to fail. Just know that you do deserve it. Stop sabotaging yourself by sticking to this irrational guilt.

You worked hard for it, and no matter how much “luck” played a part in that success, that doesn’t discount the hours of effort you put into learning the industry, getting your license, putting what you learned into practice, and having the courage to step out into the field and show up as the Realtor® or agent that you are.

The people you surround yourself with also have a great impact on who you become. If you want to live a healthier lifestyle, hang out with people who eat well, exercise, and have great healthy habits. If you want to be successful in your business, surround yourself with like-minded people who can motivate you and pull you up.

Find mentors and coaches who can help you get out of that guilt trip and redirect your focus on your goals. We’d love to help you with that. Check out our one-on-one and group coaching sessions on our website or join us here at Brilliant Talks every week.

The Reaction-Based Realtor®

Being drawn in by the heightened emotions of your clients and the individuals involved in a transaction is simple when you work in the highly emotional field of real estate. It is quite simple to be in reaction mode and feel pulled in all different directions when we are emotionally charged.

When assisting our clients and collaborating with them during the transaction, our ideal approach would be to be more deliberate and impartial. Realistically, it isn’t always easy.

There will be plenty of distractions. You could be in the middle of your prospecting time when a phone call, text, or email comes in, and you feel like you have to immediately jump into this and put out imaginary fires. This could lead to you losing out on valuable prospecting hours when, in fact, the issue could wait.

Other times, it could be the fear of missing out. We think that if we don’t pick up this call, we might be missing our next big opportunity or the chance to provide the best service possible to our clients. There is a fear that others will think poorly of us if we aren’t available 24/7 for them. But most of the time, they don’t care as much as we believe.

Being stuck in reaction mode can be exhausting mentally, physically, and emotionally, leading to burnout—and that is something we want to avoid.

We can become more intentional by taking charge of our schedule, knowing our priorities, and honoring our time as much as we respect our clients' time.

We lose nothing by telling them something as simple as “I’m currently at an appointment. Let me get back to you after X amount of time.” In fact, your clients will respect you more for it. 

Time and energy are valuable and limited resources, and we need to allocate time for reenergizing ourselves as much as doing our work and addressing our priorities. There is a need for some flexibility in case of unexpected emergent situations, but we also need to be more intentional about knowing our priorities and honoring our time.

Burnout

Sometimes, we need to grind in order to grow our business. But when we overwork ourselves and forget to take some time to pause, rest, relax, and recharge, we will burn out.

Burnout is a prolonged state of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion that is hard to recover from. It takes a lot of time to get back in there and be in peak condition to show up at a high level—not just for work but for yourself and the people you love.

When we are constantly tired, it could result in poor results and poor performance, so you need to set aside time to take holistic care of yourself. Get proper sleep and nutrition. Exercise. Find time to do things you love and things that bring energy into your life. Spend time with the people who matter to you—your family, friends, and loved ones. Set aside time to learn and work on bettering yourself.

If you are running on empty, you can’t be the best agent that you can be; you can’t show up as the agent that your client needs and deserves. It is a disservice to them, and it is also a disservice to you.

So, if you don’t want to stay stuck in business and if you are aiming for growth, make sure you take care of yourself and get ahead of burnout.

B.S.

This last one is pretty simple. We have a lot of limiting beliefs that we hold on to, such as saying:

• I am not good enough.

• I don’t have enough resources or the right resources.

• I don’t have enough time.
• I don’t have the sphere to grow my business.

This “lacking” mindset—It’s all B.S.

We’ve said this before, and we will say it again: It is not about your resources. It is about your resourcefulness.

What you lack in skill and resources, you can always make up for with strategy and action. If you feel like you don’t have a big enough sphere, then go out there and grow your network. How can you maximize the efficiency of the resources you have so that you can get your business growing? 

At the end of the day, our biggest enemy is ourselves. We can overcome these limiting beliefs by adopting a limitless mindset. 

Spot your opportunities, get creative, and continue working on yourselves.

Have an awesome day!