Boost Your Profits in 2023 with These 3 Game-Changing Strategies

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About This Episode

In this unpredictable market, there are things you can still do right now to predict a successful 2023. This week on The Walkthrough, Master Coach Verl Workman of Workman Success Systems shares the strategies and systems that will grow your business and increase your profits in 2023.

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Links and Show Notes

• Link to My Perfect Week Scheduler & Daily Success Habits Tracker
• Workman Success Systems Website
• Verl on LinkedIn
• Verl on Instagram
• Join our Facebook mastermind for The Walkthrough listeners
• HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center
• Follow and listen to The Walkthrough: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

Full Transcript

(SPEAKER: Lisa Johnson Smith, Host)

Lisa: Can you believe that we are actually a quarter of the way through 2023?

[sound effect: clock ticking increasingly louder]

Time is ticking away every day while you work hard to meet your 2023 goals. And this year has been somewhat unpredictable. But guess what, there are ways you can actually predict your future success.

[sound effect ends]

Verl: I believe that greatness is predictable. It is not accidental. And that I can look at what an agent does in their day, and I can tell you whether or not they’re going to have an average result or an exceptional result.

Lisa: That was the voice of Verl Workman, CEO and master coach. You heard him. He believes that greatness is predictable. And when you implement the game-changing strategies you’re about to hear on this episode, you’ll be able to predict your own greatness and meet or even exceed your goals for 2023. This is The Walkthrough.

(INTRO MUSIC)

Hey there, I’m Lisa Johnson Smith. Welcome to The Walkthrough. This is a weekly show. New episodes come out every Monday. This is the show where you learn what’s working right now from the best real estate agents and industry experts in the country. At HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. We’re here to explore how great agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable.

Today, I’m talking to Verl Workman of Workman Success Systems. You’ve probably heard of him. He’s one of the top coaches in the industry, with over 100 coaches across the country. And for more than 20 years, he’s been coaching others to astronomical levels of success.

On today’s episode, Verl’s gonna talk about what you can be doing right now to get business and make money in 2023. You’ll hear us talk about the only three things you should be doing in real estate, the time-blocking system to get you more business, Verl’s Four Pillars of Income, and the exact formula to use to build a million-dollar business. So get your pen, your paper, phone, laptop, sticky notes, whatever it is that you use to take notes on because you’re going to need it. Here’s my conversation with Verl Workman.

(BEGIN CONVERSATION)

Well, let’s get right into it. The real estate market has just become, really more competitive, more complex, and it’s requiring agents to be more skilled and more adaptable than ever before, especially since the last few years of just this crazy run in real estate. So, let’s talk today about what we can do, what agents can do to create opportunities in 2023. The floor is yours.

Verl: Okay. Well, there’s so many things. And I think that the way you started is that you started by saying, “You have to be more skilled, and you have to be better at the game.” And I think that really it’s not about real estate. I think the consumer’s demanding it. I think the consumer…I mean, think about last time you got anything done. I went and had shoulder surgery last year. And so, first, I went to an orthopedic doctor, and the orthopedic doctor says, “Oh, yeah, I also do shoulders.” And I was like, “I want someone who just does shoulders.”

And so I went to the next level. And then I found someone who did not just shoulders but did my specialty of rotator cuff bicep tears. And every time he does it, he does it over and over and over. He’s just really good at it. Yeah.

Isn’t that how you think when you need anything done? Like, we have eyelash specialists, and we have somebody different who does our hair and nails. We are all of a sudden in this world of specialty. We even have grocery stores…I mean, I didn’t know I was shopping at a Half Foods until they came out with a Whole Foods. I just thought I was getting good groceries. And then all of a sudden, now they have specialties.

Well, in real estate, we’ve been really good for all these years at being generalists. We do buyers. We do sellers. We use a little bit of commercial. We do all the admin work, transaction processing, and we’re a generalist.

But the consumer today is saying, “You know, I really don’t want a generalist anymore. I want an expert. I want someone who’s gonna do what I need for this specific time in my life, for this specific type of real estate.” And as a result of that, it’s caused the industry to…and you’re seeing a lot of teams come up, but it’s because of specialization. It’s causing the industry to level up because people want specialty.

And it’s really interesting. And I don’t know if you know this. We did a team study last year. And in the team study, we found that 85% of the agents that go in as a team when they compete for a listing or for a buyer contract believe that being on a team gives them a competitive advantage because of their specialization.

Lisa: Really?

Verl: I’m more likely to win a listing if all I do is listings. I’m really good at listings. I’m good at pricing the home. I’m good at staging the home. I’m good at getting the marketing on the home done. I’m good at negotiating multiple-offer situations. And so, as a specialist… and just, so, Lisa, think about this. If you did what the average agent does, what, seven transactions a year? A good listing agent will list 60 to 80. So, if you do it 60 to 80 times a year, you’re just gonna get better at it. You just get better at it.

Same thing with working buyers. If you work with buyers- average agent’s doing 7, but you don’t even get to be on a Workman coach team unless you’re doing 24- you’re gonna have to do 24 minimum transactions to be on the team. So, buyer’s agents earn more money at a lower commission because they do more sides and they become specialists. And when they become specialists, it gives the customer a better experience because you’re dealing with someone who’s just better at that part of the transaction.

Yeah, and there’s this…Okay. Now, think of another whole thing. So now, all of a sudden, as just a general agent, I’m a real estate agent. I’ve done it for 10 years. I’m good at buyers and sellers. All my business is referrals.

What happens is we start selling ourselves as generalists. “Hey, when you call me, you get me.” The problem with that is it causes our lives to get out of balance. And so now, when we’re with our family, we’ve told our clients that when they get us, they get us. Then we’re taking our calls. We’re texting, We’re on our phones. We’re not really engaged.

When you’re good at the business and you’re good at what you do, it attracts more opportunity. And so, when you’re good at what you do, now, all of a sudden, you decided you become a specialist at the real estate, you’re good at it. Now you’ve got more business coming in than you can even handle, so something has to give.

And what usually ends up happening is we give in one of the areas that’s actually more important than money. We give in family or faith or friends or fun or fitness. And we say, “Oh, I’m doing it for my family.” Well, that’s just a bunch of bull crap because our families don’t need our money. They need parents. Our country’s screwed up because of lack of parenting, not because we’re not making enough money. We’re a wealthy country, but we’re not developing the next generation very well because we’re focused on working.

So, I say that no other success can compensate for failure in the home. And we wanna be great at the business and create lots of opportunities by being good at the real estate, but then create leverage by having great systems and technology, and then other people to help us. And that’s what allows us to have a great balance in our lives. And I’m probably making your brain hurt. I don’t, you know…

Lisa: No, no, you’re not at all. But, I mean, let’s dig deeper on the specialty. So, how do you decide whether you’re going to be a buyer specialist or a seller specialist, or whatever you’re gonna specialize in?

Verl: I don’t even care. I don’t even care. You just gotta pick. Do whatever you love. What part of the business do you love the most? I think that we spend so much time doing things we don’t like. So, I think that when you first get into real estate, it’s easier to work with buyers, and so it’s a great way to learn the business. So, I think that it’s a great place to start.

And you should do everything in the beginning. Be a buyer specialist for a year. Do lots of deals. Learn the inventory. Learn the market. Learn what people are willing to pay for properties. Learn how to get your deals done. Screw up a few times. That’s part of the business.

And then focus on listings the next year. Be really good at listings. I don’t think you should ever be an admin. You should never ever, ever, ever, ever…let me make sure we’re clear on this. I don’t think you should spend any time ever doing tasks that you can delegate for $20 an hour.

We have empowered champions and these administrative assistants who are my favorite people in the world because they allow me to do what I love. They can’t go to sleep at night when you hire the right person if their checklist isn’t done.

I sleep great, and I need somebody on my team that thinks that way to make sure I never drop the ball. And I keep all the commitments that I make and all that happens. Most agents do it, but it’s not their natural happy place, so when they focus on those areas that aren’t natural for them, they do it at a high level of stress and anxiety. They don’t even like it anyway.

So do buyers and sellers. Do commercial. Do investment properties. Do what you love. Do new construction. I don’t care. Just pick something. Become an expert at it, and really get in that lane and be great at it. When we talk about how to be great right now, I’ll give you two or three things. So, I believe that greatness is predictable. It’s not accidental. And that I can look at what an agent does in their day, and I can tell you whether or not they’re gonna have an average result or an exceptional result. How crazy is that?

Lisa: Yeah, it is crazy.

Verl: And so, I’m gonna take you kind of through a thought process. So, let’s just say that every business is either accidentally created or it’s intentionally created. And so, if on Sunday night- you’ve heard of time blocking- we use a thing called the My Perfect Week Scheduler. And I’ll give you a link, and you can give it to everybody that listens to the podcast. And the way that My Perfect Scheduler works: It’s a Google Drive spreadsheet, and it has all the things an agent does in a day.

And what I want you to do on a Sunday night or Saturday morning, whatever your biological primetime is, I want you to get up, and I want you to plan what your perfect week would look like in advance. You start by putting in your non-negotiables. Date night with my wife. Friday night, you call me to look at a $10 million house. I have a date. I don’t care. We just have date night. And so, I’ve been married 37 years, and we’re happy, and we have date night. That’s just part of the plan. And so, it’s not negotiable.

Now, I have kids that have ballgames, and I might have some charity work or whatever. You do your non-negotiables first. Start with family. And then, I do my non-negotiables in business. What is the time you’re gonna spend prospecting? What is the time you’re gonna spend showing houses? When are you gonna do your CE classes? You know, whatever the things you need to get done.

So we block what our perfect week would look like. Now, when you think about this, Lisa, if I blocked 10 a.m.-noon for showing houses on Tuesday and Thursday and 1-4 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to show homes.

Now when somebody calls and says, “Hey, I wanna go look at a house.” I say, “Great. Do you wanna go in the morning or afternoon?” And they say, “Afternoon.” I say, “Great. I can do Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.” They say, “Friday.” I go, “1 or 3 p.m.?” And I start to intentionally put people in time blocks that I’ve set aside to show homes.

You know what most Realtors® are? Pop-Tarts. “We want to see a house.” They begin to pop out of their chair. “Yep, let’s go look at a house.” And it sends this really clear message that they’re not making any money, and they’re not that busy. But when, “I can do Monday or Thursday. You wanna do morning or afternoon?” “I wanna do morning.” “I can do 1 p.m., 11 a.m., or 9 a.m.” So, you put them in time slots that you’ve blocked.

When you start being intentional about when you do things, what happens is you realize you can get a lot more done in a day. I would venture to guess- and I wish we were doing a poll- if we did a poll, and we asked everybody, “How much of your day would you say you spend doing dollar-productive activities?” Lisa, well, how do you think people would respond? What do you think most Realtors spend in actual activities that generate income?

Lisa: Maybe 50%.

Verl: Yeah, that would be the high achievers. I would say 10%, maybe 20%. Most people spend 70% to 80% doing stuff associated with a transaction that has nothing to do with creating new opportunities. And a lot of them- don’t tell anybody- they spend all their time doing “fake work.”

Lisa: What is fake work?

Verl: Fake Facebook. It’s the pretending of being busy without actually doing anything. It’s that you leave your home and you go to the office, and you dink around five hours, figuring out who you’re gonna go to lunch with, check a little social media, watch some YouTube videos, and hope the phone calls, wish-marketing. And wish-marketing doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work.

Fake work is… Man, and I don’t mean to be harsh, but it’s when you stop living with integrity. When you leave your family, and you make them think you’re going to work, but then you don’t actually do anything that generates any new business. You’re just lying to them.

You’re better off just staying home instead of pretending like you’re doing work. And you should smile with me as I say this, because when people… No one would actually intend to lie to their family, and they wouldn’t do it with intention. But our actions speak a lot louder than our words. Most people don’t…

There are only three things you do in real estate. Everything else is fake work. We prospect. We list and show houses. We negotiate contracts. That’s it. Everything else: Delegate it or stop doing it. Nothing else matters. Prospect is defined as “looking for new business.” You wanna really help everybody that listens to this podcast?

Lisa: Yes.

Verl: Get ’em to make a commitment to prospect one hour a day. It will be life-changing because they don’t even do one hour a week. They do everything but look for new business. They do lead follow-up. They call their sphere. They might pop by some people, but they’re not doing activities to generate new business. Okay, so how do we do that? So, how do you get the new business? You want some of that stuff?

Lisa: Absolutely.

Verl: All right. I’ll give you whatever you want, Lisa. Okay. So, the first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna be intentional, and we’re gonna block time for looking for new business, okay?

Lisa: Right.

Verl: The second tool, or the second thing we do, is I want people to start tracking what you actually do every day in 30-minute increments.

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Verl: A lot of people hire coaches because they want accountability. And I think accountability is a bunch of crap.

Lisa: No way. Come on.

Verl: And I own a coaching company, right? Nope, accountability is crap. Lisa, here’s the deal. And let’s, you and I, have an honest conversation with each other.

Lisa: Okay.

Verl: Can I get you to do things you don’t really wanna do, like, really?

Lisa: No.

Verl: If you don’t wanna do it, you’re not gonna do it. So why do we put this facade up that I’m gonna be your accountability partner? So how about we do this instead? How about we track everything we do in 30-minute increments?

And then we ask the question, “Are these activities consistent with our goals?” And if they’re not, when you see what you’re doing is not giving you the result you want– you’re a smart, intelligent woman– you’re gonna make course corrections because you’re driven, and you wanna have a good result. But you’re just not aware of whether or not what you’re doing is giving you the result you want. So you keep doing it.

Accountability is awareness. It’s not something someone does to somebody, but it’s an environment you create that they become aware. And I really do believe most people wanna succeed. They’re just not aware of it. They’re not aware of what they’re doing.

So we start tracking, in 30-minute increments, everything you do for 30 days. And then we realize how little time we spend doing dollar-productive activities. And then you just make course corrections. And we start just getting a little bit better.

Having a great coach is someone who’s gonna help you make course corrections and just help you make the right choices. “Instead of doing this, how about we do this instead? And if you do this, let’s see if it gives us a better result. And if it does, we’ll reinforce that positive behavior with income. And when you’re making more money, then next time you’re asked to do a course correction, you’re more likely to do it.” Accountability is a choice you make. It’s not something someone does to you.

(SHORT MUSIC TRANSITION)

Lisa: Hey, this is Lisa Johnson Smith. How would you like to have a say in future episodes of The Walkthrough? How would you like to ask my guests your own follow-up questions and connect with other listeners to help them and learn from them? Well, you can do all of that and more in our Walkthrough Mastermind community on Facebook. Just go to Facebook, search for “HomeLight Walkthrough,” and it should be the first group you see. Click “Join” and come be a part of our community.

Now, let’s get back to the conversation. Any particular type of system you use for tracking?

Verl: Yeah. Okay. So, I use what’s called the Daily Success Habits Tracker. Do you want me to give you that too?

Lisa: Yes.

Verl: I’ll give you one of those too. Okay.

Lisa: Awesome.

Verl: All right. If I talk about it and you want it, I’ll just give it to you.

Lisa: I love it.

Verl: And I’ll give it to all your listeners. I just wanna give it to you. Here’s what I… And do you know why I give everything away?

Lisa: Why?

Verl: Because I’ve learned that people will copy everything but the hard work. What’s really cool about Workman Success is we have hundreds and hundreds of seven-figure teams. We help people make a million dollars in real estate, and success leaves clues.

And so we track, we do a Perfect Week, and then we do Daily Success Habits where we track in 30-minute increments what we do. And on the Daily Success Habits Tracker, there’s 61 points. And you only get points for doing dollar-productive activities. And the goal is to get 61 points a day.

Let me give you an example. So every time you make a call, that’s a point. If you have a conversation, you put a hash mark in it. That’s another point. When you set an appointment, you get 10 points for that. When you go on a listing appointment, you actually go on the appointment, it’s 10 points. When you get a buyer agreement signed, it’s 10 points. And the goal is to wake up every day and just get 61 points. However you get it, I don’t care because all of the things that give you points are dollar-productive activities.

So 61 points a day doing dollar-productive activities is called Daily Success Habits. And here’s what I know: When all of these teams and their team members and everybody puts it into our Workbench, which is our coaching platform, we know it takes 230 to 260 points to have a closing. It’s predictable. So every 260 points, we’re gonna do another transaction. So you wanna close more transactions? Do more of the activities that got you the result you need. I can tell you that it takes 211 listing appointments to get 55 listings.

Lisa: Oh my goodness.

Verl: And that when I have 55 listings, I’m gonna close 110 buy-side transactions. So, if I focus on 55 listing appointments or the 211 listing appointments to generate the 55 listings, I know that I’m gonna do one and a half buy-side, so 70, 75 buy-sides, which gives me 125 total transactions. And I just built a seven-figure business. Most people get way out of their heads, and they try and figure out what it is, but you know what the real answer is? Two hundred and eleven appointments.

So, how many dials does it take to get an appointment? And when I figure that out every day, then I just make the calls. It’s just a number. It’s just a game. I gamify it, and I just get on the phones and make the dials. People say, “No. I don’t care. They weren’t gonna use me anyway. The worst has already happened.” So we just call. And you can call for sale-by-owners. You can call expired. You call your database. You can call around.

I love a company that’s called Redx. What Redx does is for sale-by-owners, expireds, notices at default. They give me for-rent-by-owners.

I can pull up a house that I can buy all of the numbers of the closest 200 houses around it, and then I can just call, saying, “I’m holding the house open. If you know anyone who lives in the neighborhood, shoot them over. Oh, by the way, if they don’t like that house, and I get you top dollar for yours, you wanna sell yours?” Everything we do is marketing. Everything we do is lead generation. So, anyway, those are… I just rattled off a whole bunch of stuff right there. Take a breath.

Lisa: Well, and over what period of time are you saying this 221 calls…is this over a period of a year?

Verl: It doesn’t matter. You wanna do it in a month. You wanna do it in a year. Here, let’s just do the math on it for a second. Okay? So, if it takes 211 appointments, let’s say you did 211, and you divided it by 12 months. That’s 17 a month. And so if you divide that by four weeks, that means you have to go on four appointments a week.

So, if, as an agent, you become intensely obsessed with activities that create listing appointments, and you don’t do anything else, and you go on four a week, I’ll show you how to build a million-dollar…you’ll build a million-dollar business. You’ll end up with three buyer’s agents. You don’t go look at buyers. So, Lisa, what if I told you this? If I told you, “I’m gonna give you a million dollars at the end of this year?”

Lisa: Okay, I’ll take it.

Verl: Or the option is: I’m either gonna give you a million dollars, or I’m gonna give you zero. And all you have to do is get four listing appointments a week, and I don’t even care if they list. If you hit four a week, you’ll get a million dollars. If you don’t, you’ll get zero. How would you behave differently?

Lisa: I’d get those four listing appointments every week.

Verl: Do you really believe that?

Lisa: Absolutely. I mean, I’d do whatever was necessary to get them.

Verl: Yeah, right. And I think most of your listeners would too. But they’re not that clear on what activities give them the result that they want. And so they do everything else instead of that laser focus on that single thing that’s gonna give them exactly what they want.

Lisa: So, you mentioned that prospecting is a hugely important part of that. What are the other things that will lead to getting those four listing appointments a week?

Verl: Nothing else.

Lisa: Just prospecting.

Verl: Prospecting. Hunting for new listings. Now, if you wanna dig deeper, the question would be, “How? What am I doing to prospect? What are the ways to do it?”

Lisa: Yeah.

Verl: All right. So, I’ll tell you how I think about it. So, the way that I think about business is like this. It doesn’t matter if you’re a real estate agent, or you’re a franchise business owner, or a professional speaker. Whatever business you’re in, these principles apply. And so, if your goal is to do 55 listings this year, it means you need four appointments a week. What we do is we build what we call Four Pillars of Income.

And so, I’m gonna ask everybody to draw on their…just grab a notepad, and on their sheet, draw four pillars, four bars. And on those four bars, I want you to write the number four over each one of them. Because that represents the four appointments you need out of each pillar.

And so, let’s just pick one. I’m gonna say, “Open houses.” And so, out of one pillar, if I’m gonna do open houses, and I’m gonna knock all the doors around an open house with the goal of generating an appointment, I’m gonna make that a pillar. I’m gonna build a whole pillar. I’m gonna build a marketing plan. I’m gonna do door-knocking. I’m gonna do direct mail: just listed, just sold cards. I’m gonna put a marketing engine around every open house to generate an appointment. So, every time I get one open house, I generate one more listing appointment. I have to do four open houses in order to get my four. Make sense?

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Verl: I’m gonna figure out the number, and I’m gonna do open houses. I’ll give you another one. Another one, let’s just say, is gonna be your sphere of influence. Your sphere of influence, your database, your social media, I’m gonna put that in a pillar.

So, “How many conversations, how many contacts do I need to make with the people in my database in order to get four appointments a week?” And I’m gonna figure out what that number is, and then I’m gonna have a time block in my Perfect Week where I focus on that one pillar.

Now I’m gonna have a third one. I’m gonna say if it were me and I were going after listings, and I did this, I would go after small builders because one appointment with someone who lists 10 houses a year is way better than someone who does one. And so, you could do investors. You could do builders. You could do for-sale-by-owners, expired listings. You could do a geographic farm. You could buy online leads.

So, there’s a variety of different ways to do it. But with all of my clients, they have to give me four pillars. And then we do an action plan of all the activities they’re gonna do. And each pillar has to show me how it’s capable of hitting 100% of the goal.

So, I’m gonna go after four appointments a week four ways. And so if two of them fail, and two of them work, I end up with eight appointments, and we blow away our goal. Now, this is a little bit different. Most people don’t think about pillars this way.

But this is how we blow people away. This is how we go from $250,000 to $500,000 to a million in 3 years in income is because we set our goals way beyond what we believe is possible. And then we have four different ways of achieving it, and we go after all of them as if it’s the only thing. And that way, we end up with massive growth. I call it failing up.

If you’ve always hit your goals, you’re not setting them high enough. Like, I never hit my goals. But man, we grow like crazy. We make a ton of money because we set goals way beyond what we believe is possible. And when we fail, it’s awesome.

Lisa: Well, I mean, that sounds like an amazing way to think about all this, but it’s one of the things that you say your coaching strategies do is free up time for the people. So, it just sounds like it’s a lot more work. How is it that it’s freeing up time?

Verl: Okay. So, let’s just use this example that we’ve been talking about. So, you’ve made the decision you wanna make a million bucks. You gotta list 55 houses, right? Okay. And then you’re gonna be intensely obsessed with it.

As a matter of fact, if you put a buyer in your car, I’m gonna lose my… Let’s make a deal. Every time you put a buyer in your car, you write me a check for $10,000. So, not only do you not get your four appointments, but you lose $10,000 every time you work with a buyer. Is it pretty safe to say you’re gonna stop working buyers?

Lisa: Yes.

Verl: Okay. So, here’s why you get more time. Because you make the decision that it’s not worth it for you because your time is focused on listings, we’re going to have to delegate that to somebody else. So, we’re gonna put a buyer agent on the team. We’re gonna put them on a 40-60 split. They get 40, you get 60 on the first two deals they do in a month, 45-55 for deals three and four, 50-50 on five plus, and it resets every month.

Lisa: And you’re feeding them those buyers.

Verl: No.

Lisa: No.

Verl: I’m teaching them. Nope, that is the biggest myth of teams. You wanna screw your team up? Hire people and tell them you’re gonna give them leads. That is the dumbest thing you can ever…that’d be like telling your children, “You know what? I don’t care if you really go to school or ever get an education. I’ll always take care of you. You can live here as long as you want. Play some more video games.” Right? You’ll raise entitled children that don’t make a contribution to the world. And nobody wants to do that.

Well, no, when you hire a buyer’s agent, you tell them, “Every day you’re gonna come in. We’re gonna do a daily huddle. We’re gonna roleplay scripts and dialogues and practice what to say. Then we’re gonna get on the phones. We’re gonna practice as a team. Your job as a buyer agent is to prospect, show homes, and negotiate contracts.

And if you do all those things, then I’ll turn on lead distribution, and you’ll be entitled to leads on the team.” So, yes, I’ve got plenty of leads, but I don’t start with that. I don’t lead with that. They have to do the activities that earn them the opportunity to be on lead distribution.

Lisa: So, some agents would say, “Well, what’s the benefit of me being on your team if you’re not providing any leads?”

Verl: And I would say, “Well, you did seven deals last year, and you made $42,000. You’re not gonna be on my team unless you do 24 deals and make $100,000.

“So, what’s more important to you? Being able to focus on the one thing that will take $100,000 to your family, or continue doing the same thing you’ve always done and make $42,000, qualify for the highest level of Obamacare, and continue to live in poverty? Doesn’t matter to me. My life’s gonna be good either way. Do you wanna take more money home? Or do you want a really big split you can talk about?”

Lisa: Right. So, you’re telling them to do the same thing that they’re essentially doing. Just focus on this area, free up your time, and you’ll be able to make more money.

Verl: When you come on the team, what happens is we take everything off your plate except prospecting, showing homes, and negotiating contracts. When you get it under contract, you give it to a transaction coordinator. They handle it. When you need marketing, we do the marketing. When you wanna do open houses, I’ve got five agents that will do it.

I mean, we create this environment where when you wanna go on vacation, it’s no problem. I’ve got another buyer agent. They’ll step in. They’ll close your deals, and you still get the commission. And all they ask is that when they go on vacation, you have their backs.

When you come on a team, we help each other create these amazing lives and make a lot of money. So, we create this synergy that is so positive. And when we’re all in the boat together, and we’re rowing the same direction, we get there faster.

And so, we create an environment that allows people to have great lives by being part of a team. That’s why teams matter. Besides the customer getting a better experience and dealing with a specialist, you get to have a better life. So, if you can go from $50,000 to $100,000 this year and work less, are you okay with that?

Lisa: Absolutely.

Verl: That’s what it means to be on a team. And not any team. There’s a lot of teams that are very, very dysfunctional. They don’t develop their people. They overpay them, so it creates the wrong incentive so that the team leader won’t even give them their A leads because they overpay the team members. There’s a right way to do teams, just like a right way to do real estate.

And by the way, when I talk about a team, there’s no difference between a team and an individual agent. The only difference is who does the task. The same thing needs to be done, right? So, either you do it all, or we have other people help you. And why don’t people do it? I don’t know. So, people don’t like to delegate, and they don’t think anyone can do it as good as them.

Okay, so I don’t wanna hurt anybody’s feelings, but do you really, really, really think you’re that great that there’s nobody else on the planet that can show houses as good as you? Like, I think we’re all God’s children. I don’t think He made any mistakes. And so now, so, why do we think we’re better than somebody else?

And so what’s in your head and what’s in your heart is what makes you great. And so, if we can take that and create a system around it, so other people can deliver things well, now, all of a sudden, you can serve more people without actually having to do it yourself. So, our job changes from Realtor to business development, people development, and we change people’s lives in the process. And now all the consumers get a lot better experience because they’re working with specialists anyway.

This isn’t about teams. It’s about living a great life. And if you want to live a great life, you have to create leverage. And leverage means you understand what the problem is. Then you move towards it. That’s how leverage works. Let me give you another way to generate some income. I know you wanna make money, right? Our listeners want to make money. They wanna make income.

Lisa: Absolutely.

Verl: And hopefully, they’re on the podcast. They’re putting hearts up, and they say, “Preach.” I’ll preach. Okay. So, I’m gonna give you a system now, and I’ll give this away too. So this one, I’m going to call 86/50/1. I’m gonna give you an exact system on how to close 86 transactions a year, working with 50 people, one hour a day.

[sound effect: vinyl scratch stop rewind]

Lisa: Ah! For that, you’ll have to wait till next week’s episode because that was Part 1 of “Boost Your Profits In 2023 With These 3 Game-Changing Strategies.”

Well, if you’d like to connect with Verl, you can reach him @verlworkman on all the socials, and I’ll leave links to those. And remember those free links? All you have to do is go to pages.workmansuccess.com/thewalkthroughpodcast. Fill out your name and some information, and you’re gonna receive free links to the My Perfect Week Tracker and the Daily Success Habits Tracker. And, of course, I’ll leave links to all of that in the show notes.

Now, let’s do our takeaways segment. There were so many takeaways from this episode, but I’m gonna do my best to try and give you as many as I can. So, here’s what stood out to me from Episode 115, “Boost Your Profits In 2023 With These 3 Game-Changing Strategies.”

Takeaway number one: Today’s Realtors have got to be specialized. Clients are demanding it, and it doesn’t matter what it is. Just pick what you love, and focus solely on that, nothing else.

Takeaway number two: There are only three things you should be doing as a real estate agent. Number one: prospecting. You should be prospecting one hour a day, every day. Number two: listing or showing houses. And number three: negotiating contracts. Verl says, “Everything else, stop doing it, and delegate it.” And one thing, in particular, he says to never ever do is admin work. Find the right person to do the things that you can delegate for $20 an hour.

Takeaway number three: In order to be successful, you have to be intentional about your day. Time blocking is first and foremost. Verl recommends time-blocking your day in 30-minute increments every single day. He says to start with the non-negotiables with your family, and then the non-negotiables with your business, and planning around that. Then plan out your perfect week using his Perfect Week Tracker, which is included in the show notes and links.

Takeaway number four: Work towards the goal of getting four listing appointments per week. You’re gonna use the Four Pillars of Income to do this by going after four listings four different ways. And he says if you do nothing else, you will build a million-dollar business. Verl gave us three of the four in the episode. And those were one: Open houses. Two: sphere of influence. And three: listings. The fourth can be up to you. But you’ll wanna check out the episode to hear the details about this because it’s a lot of information.

Takeaway number five: Always set your goals way beyond what you believe is possible. This way, you will fail up, as Verl says, which means you will exceed your own expectations.

And those are your takeaways for this week. In Part 2 next week, you will hear all about Verl’s 86/50/1 system. That is his exact method to close 86 transactions a year, working with 50 people 1 hour a day. Plus, you’re gonna also hear Verl’s roleplay script you can use to get buyers off the sidelines.

Well, if you have any questions or feedback, you can send an email to walkthrough@homelight.com. You can also find me in our Facebook Mastermind group. Just search “HomeLight Walkthrough.” Oh, and please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And hit that Follow button so you can get all of our future shows automatically.

Well, that’s all for this week. Thanks to Verl Workman for joining me, and thank you for listening. My name is Lisa Johnson Smith, and you’ve been listening to The Walkthrough. At HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. We’re here to explore how great agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable. Now, go out there and make some moves. I’ll talk to you again next week.

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