In real estate, there’s 2 governing philosophies. Earn more by selling more or buy back time and treat it as a business. In simpler terms - microwave money vs. crockpot money. You’re either cheating by taking more listings or seeking ways to earn money without being at the kitchen table. If you’re the one actively doing the work everyday, you’ll never get to buy your time back and pursue other opportunities outside of selling homes.  Unsurprisingly, most brokerages want us doing the former, but like athletes, many of us are starting to wake up to how valuable our brands are. Brokerages have known this for ages - why do you think they are willing to pay top producers to stay?  Maybe, just maybe, we’re more valuable than our caps. Maybe we have intrinsic value through our relationships and reputations, and that’s something we can leverage. How do we really leverage our influence? How do we actually treat this as a business? Chris Bowers joins me to talk about the thing most agents are starting to realize that brokerages have known it for ages.  Quotes  There are no business issues, there’s personal issues that lead into your business. -Chris Bowers  We committed to not let our income be dependent on sitting in someone’s living room. -Kevin Kauffman   If you keep an open mind, there’s people that can teach you something everywhere. -Kevin Kauffman   Once something changes your life, you feel like you’ve got to go out and stream it. -Chris Bowers   When you align incentives with human behavior, you get the things you want more of. -Kevin Kauffman   Influence is a currency, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you have good intentions. -Chris Bowers  Key Points   A real estate rude awakeningWhen you listen into a lot of real estate conversations, you discover how very few of us actually treat this thing as a business. Most people cheat growth by taking more listings, instead of building a machine that we can step out of and still make money from. We were willing to make less money in order to build that machine and it has afforded us an enormous amount of free time and opportunities outside of real estate sales.  The value of our influence For athletes, there was a moment when it clicked that they are a brand, and that the influence they yield is something worth paying a lot of money for. That’s when they started getting into bigger business deals. In real estate, the same awakening is taking place. Agents realize they have influence and that influence is valuable. Brokerages have known it for ages, but it’s starting to really hit agents like a ton of bricks. Influence is a currency, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you have good intentions.   Crockpot money vs. microwave moneyThere’s 2 modes in real estate - crockpot money and microwave money. In microwave money mode, we’re thinking of the next deal and commission check that will help us pay our bills. In crockpot money, we’re thinking of those long-term slow burn ways to make money. Now don’t get us wrong, the microwave mode is important, we need it to get going, but we can’t stay there forever. The problem with this industry is people don’t make the switch, they get trapped into next month’s deals forever, no matter how much money they make and they never plug into crockpot mode.   I couldn’t get over not wanting to swipe my friends’ credit cards The thing about eXp is that it’s like picking a board of directors for our business without swiping your friends’ credit cards every month. We’re incentivized to be each other’s go to guys - whether we need 30 seconds or 40 minutes. We get to have high level advisors in our businesses for free, and because of how it’s structured, we all benefit from that.   Follow @chrisbowers_realestate on Instagram and listen to agentXcel on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.   CTA ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

Whether we know it or not - all human beings have an internal thermostat, a certain level of abundance, joy or success we’re calibrated to. If we’re not careful, that level can make us blow up our lives and self-sabotage when we get everything we’ve always wanted.  Call it your comfort zone, your average or your upper limit problem, this internal temperature gauge runs our lives, and often runs us into the ground if we don’t do something about it. Our comfort zones are wrapped up in our identity, and anytime we have to assume a new identity, our brains can fight us and ratchet us down to the standard they are used to.  It’s how we can lose all the weight and then start eating junk food, or how we can achieve a financial goal and then make a bad decision with money. Without fixing this problem, we’re doomed to create unnecessary drama in our lives, constantly sabotage ourselves, taking 2 steps forward and 5 steps back.  How do we become aware of our own upper limit and start to raise the temperature? Real estate leader, entrepreneur, coach, speaker and Head of Industry at PLACE, Vija Williams talks about how a season of intense personal growth helped her break through her upper limit problem and become 100 times lighter emotionally.  Key Points   How to identify an upper limit problem A sure sign of having an upper limit problem is sabotaging yourself when you’ve succeeded at something or got what you want. You hit your weight loss target and immediately binge on junk food. You make money and then go and spend a ton of money unnecessarily. In real estate, it’s having a really great listing appointment but procrastinating and failing to follow up. All these are signs that we’re trying to ratchet our lives back down to an underlying identity.  Crossover self-sabotage Upper limit problems don’t always manifest in the same place. Instead of sabotaging your weight loss results by eating a bunch of junk food, you could lose weight and then go and needlessly spend a bunch of money. You can actually cross-sabotage ourselves without even knowing it by blowing your life up in a completely different area.  Intense Clusters of Growth Personal growth can happen gradually over time, but sometimes we go through intense clusters of personal growth that concentrate the learning and also concentrate the results. Often we’ll feel that we’re gaining momentum, and no one sees it, and that’s the hardest part of the journey. If you’re still going through the process, and it seems like no one’s seeing it, keep going. If you keep your eye on the prize, the change in you will become very obvious on the surface.  The right question, not the right answer Asking ourselves questions is one of the most powerful awareness we have. When we’re aware enough of what’s going on in our lives, we can ask ourselves high quality questions that move the needle. In coaching, a session should end with the right focusing question, not the answer. Then someone sits down and unpeels the layers to get to the right thing for them.  Sneaky ways your upper limit problem creeps up on us Another sneaky way an upper limit problem presents itself is avoiding taking risks to create or maintain stability. It’s having all the money to buy an investment property and just not being able to pull the trigger. It might also manifest in an inability to celebrate big wins, or having an unquenchable, undisciplined pursuit of more.   For more information, follow @viavija on Instagram. You can also send an email to vija@place.com.  CTA ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

From an average home to an ultra-luxury mansion, there are 5 buckets of listings agents can go after. For many of us, the idea of breaking into the luxury niche is intimidating as hell. Agents will wait years to take a higher price point listing, or worse - talk themselves out of opportunities because they don’t think they can go for high net worth sellers. Breaking into luxury is a lot easier than we think. You don’t have to live in a fancy zip code to become an authority in that niche. You don’t have to live in a mansion, drive a Maserati or even be with a luxury brokerage.  We tend to overthink the luxury niche, but there’s a lot of opportunities for the taking right in front of us. Ultimately, overthinking keeps us on the bench and away from the best opportunities.  How do we actually define a luxury property - is it anything that’s a $1 million up? What steps can we take to go after luxury? Real estate agent, leader and luxury specialist, Michael La Fido shares how to break through the mindset barriers to selling luxury real estate.  Quotes  Generalists get paid, specialists get wealthy. -Michael LaFido There’s no easy button to break into luxury, but when agents continue to grow their knowledge, their confidence will grow. -Michael LaFido Key Points   How to succeed from day 1It’s hard enough to get started and successful in real estate, even when you’re full time from the jump. What really stands out about Michael is that he started part-time and did really well. Because he had the base income from his day job, he could put extra money towards coaching and marketing, which gave him a huge advantage.  Defining luxury Many people think a luxury property is anything from $1 million up, but markets are so vastly different that what’s considered luxury won’t be the same. Luxury isn’t just in the big pockets and big cities - it’s all over the US. Michael’s definition of luxury is a home that’s 3x the average sale price, and then there’s uber-luxury which is a home that’s 10x the average sales price.  How to get your first luxury listing In luxury listings, trust counts a lot more than experience. For upper price points sellers, their decisions will often be based on a referral. Getting more luxury listings is as simple as getting into that circle of trust and building solid relationships.  Guest Info Michael LaFido is a real estate consultant and top-producing Realtor with over twenty years of experience in the real estate industry. Michael’s marketing has been the featured cover story in Crain’s Chicago Business and highlighted in Forbes and FOX News Chicago Business Hour. He is also the author of the books “Luxury Listing Specialist”, “Outside The Box”, and “Marketing Luxury”.Michael has created the nationally recognized luxury designation for real estate agents which is known as Luxury Listing Specialist (LUXE). This designation establishes an in-depth and detailed set of standards for agents that represent luxury homes and is currently offered for Continuing Education (CE) for real estate agents in Texas and Georgia. The training is based on the same principles Michael outlines in his book, “Luxury Listing Specialist” that he teaches to agents across the world. For more information, head to https://luxurylistingspecialist.com/ and buy Michael’s books here.  CTA ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

We’re all equipped with natural strengths, abilities and things that come easy to us. Those things are powerful clues to our calling. Unfortunately, when we go through the journey of unearthing that calling, imposter syndrome walks right beside it. There’s that voice that says, “you’re not worthy of this, so don’t even try,” and more often than not, we buy into it because of a story that’s been living in our brains for a long time.  In our moments of greatest revelation, our old stories and patterns come out. That’s how we can experience the clarity of knowing what we’re meant to do, at the same time as the imposter syndrome that we have no right to do that thing. If we don’t do something about it, we’re ultimately giving ourselves an excuse not to fulfill our dreams.  What blocks us from our next level isn’t tactics and strategies - we know what we need to do. The problem is the stories we tell ourselves, the mindset patterns that block us from our next level. Even incredible coaches and leaders go through the journey of discovering these stories and overcoming them. Peak Performance Coach, Kamille Rose Taylor shares her own journey to finding her calling and what blocks us from our next level.  Quotes  Don’t underestimate what comes easy to you because oftentimes, what comes easy to you may be the very strength someone else is looking for. -Kamille Rose Taylor There is something for you in this world based on the very unique set of skills you have, you don’t just have to fit into the marketplace. -Kamille Rose Taylor If you learn to harness the power of your focus, you win. -Kamille Rose Taylor Success is 10-20% strategy and tactics and 80-90% the psychology of the individual. -Kamille Rose Taylor The reality is, even people that are doing great aren’t doing great everywhere. -Kevin Kauffman  In your moments of greatest stress or revelation, your old stories and patterns come out. -Kamille Rose Taylor  Key Points   Ask yourself better questionsThe question “what’s wrong with me” is really dangerous. Think of your brain as a Google search engine - it will just follow your prompt and provide the result you requested. Asking what’s wrong with us is an inefficient way to get to the solution. Instead, we have to learn to make better prompts and ask our brains higher quality questions.  Uncovering the story The beliefs we have and stories we tell ourselves have a lot of power. When we have an underlying story that makes us feel unworthy, it’s going to come to the surface when we discover what our true calling is. If we’re going to answer the call God has for our lives, we have to find out what that story is so that we can change it. Stop comparing down, start comparing up Comparison is one of the biggest barriers to our next level, especially when we compare up instead of comparing down. When we compare down, we look at what other people have done, and we disparage and belittle ourselves. When we compare up, we look at what other people have done and get inspired and use that to see what’s possible for ourselves.  There’s no peak performance when you’re distractedThere are so many distractions, so many shiny objects especially in real estate. We could spend all our time analyzing things, and that keeps us from our next level. The environment we’re in is no longer the information age - we’re way past that. We’re in the attention age, where we’re going to drown in information without even looking for it. It becomes more critical to focus our time and energy on what truly moves the needle.  Focus in 2 easy steps There are two key aspects of focus - clarity and simplicity. First, we need to have a hyper-clear, high definition vision of what we want, then we have to seek simplicity which is ultimately the elimination of what isn’t necessary.  CTA ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

In today’s episode, I’m really pumped to finally have my friend and business partner, Bob Sophiea on the show. I’m really happy to have him in the hot seat, pepper him with questions and find out how he thinks about business. One thing I really like about Bob is that he uses his deep awareness to constantly work on the next level. He’s never been afraid to tinker and change things for the sake of getting better. He truly gets what it takes to build a successful sales business, and today we discuss how he rebuilt this business after a down year, and why we need to see growth differently in this market.    Bob Sophiea is the founder and CEO of New Home Collective which was established in 2014 with a mission to revolutionize the real estate industry. Since its inception, Bob has sold close to 2,000 homes and garnered over 800 5-star Google reviews, cementing his reputation as a trusted real estate expert. Clients and professionals alike choose to work with Bob for a variety of reasons, including his expertise, social media presence, and innovative approach to the market. As a skilled negotiator, he ensures the best outcomes for his clients, while his commitment to transparency and communication fosters strong relationships. Punctuality, collaboration, continuous learning, and self-awareness also contribute to Bob's success. Under Bob's leadership, New Home Collective continues to redefine the home buying and selling experience, providing exceptional results through dedication, innovation, and client satisfaction. For more information, visit https://www.nhcnow.com/ Follow @nhcnow and @rpsophiea on Instagram.   In this market, it’s not surprising that some of the most productive and capable teams have seen a decline. For many people in real estate, this can easily be seen as failure.  But the truth is: in a bad market, staying stagnant while everyone backslides or quits is actually a win. Part of our businesses getting better in a down market is other people quitting and our ability to outlast them. This is why it’s important that we adopt adaptive persistence. We have to be nimble - we can’t be married to one way of doing things, but we also have to be stubbornly committed to continue down the road, even if it zigzags a lot. Even moving forward in mere inches is massive growth when we’re in a shift, and that mindset is what allows us to take market share while everyone surrenders.    CTA   ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla  

In today’s episode, Chris Bowers returns for the third time. The last time he was on the show, it was when the market was starting to look different from the highs we saw in 2020/2021. As someone who constantly challenges himself to “break his business model” to make it bigger and better, Chris is going to share some of the changes he’s made in his life and business over the last 18 months. He shares how the showing agent model has transformed his team, what “stacking wins” means to him and why working more hours shouldn’t be our default answer when we want to earn more money.    Chris Bowers is a Realtor, Investor and owner of the Bowers Team, and the host of The agentXcel podcast. Chris has been in real estate for over 16 years, but he has been an entrepreneur since his teens. Today, Chris and his wife run a successful team selling over 140 units with half of those being Chris’ personal production. He has also built a solid rental portfolio that continues to grow to this day.    Ask most business owners what they need to do to earn more money, the default answer is: work more hours. That’s the lazy answer. Some of the most massively successful people actually work a lot less. They don’t cheat by working more hours, they extract more juice out of their few working hours and let leverage do a lot of the heavy lifting.    Once we take “work more hours” off the table, we’re one step closer to breaking down some barriers to a true way to grow. We’re able to break our business models so that we can build bigger and better. We’ll also learn how to be more productive within a tighter number of working hours. That leaves room for hobbies and other pursuits because our sometimes creativity ruins the simplicity of this business.    Follow @chrisbowers_realestate on Instagram and listen to agentXcel on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.   CTA   ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Travis Crow and Veronica Morrow, two real estate professionals who have come together to create an amazing program for lead generation and business growth.    Not everyone in real estate is built for the grind of door knocking and cold calling. Many agents succeed doing it not because it’s their natural behavior, but because they are just hardworking and hard headed. As a result, that success weighs heavily on you because you’re doing business against your own grain.    What’s awesome about real estate (and equally challenging) is that there’s a lot of ways to do business. The key isn’t following what everyone else is doing. It’s not giving up until you find the thing you’re willing to do day in and day out.   When Travis Crow stopped trying to do business like everyone else and found his thing, his business quadrupled. Now he and coach, speaker agent and loan officer, Veronica Morrow have partnered to provide a similar solution to other real estate professionals.    Guest Info   Travis Crow is a real estate agent and co-founder of Market Master Agents, a business-in-a-box solution for real estate agents.    Veronica Morrow is a coach, trainer, speaker, real estate agent, loan officer and co-founder of Market Master Agents.    CTA ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

In today’s episode, our bookkeeper, and friend , David Pittiglio returns to talk about a project he has been working on with Real Trends, the Streamlined Benchmark Report. As a bookkeeping service that serves 850 clients in real estate across the country, and across revenue brackets, David has his eyes on a lot of data that we can use to better our businesses. All that information is now being compiled into a quarterly report packed with valuable insights, and we’re going to go through some of these findings today.     David is the founder president of Streamlined Business Solutions, LLC A highly recommended, nationwide Bookkeeping, Tax and Payroll firm currently managing over 850 monthly bookkeeping clients. An amazing and talented staff of 40 continues to support our ever growing client list by providing accurate financial statements that can be utilized as a tool when operating a business. Their goal is to provide accurate information that can result in decision-based results. SBS hopes to improve the financial literacy of business owners and assist them in making business decisions based on facts, not the average daily bank balance.   When it comes to financials, so many team leaders suffer from the Fear of Finding Out. But knowing our numbers isn’t always about what’s wrong or where costs need to be cut. It can also allow us to find opportunities we otherwise wouldn’t have seen.    As entrepreneurs, we’re always tinkering with our businesses, and we need data to make the best decisions. We need to know the true amount of money we’re spending, where we can get an extra return if we spend a little more money, and how our peers are doing.    CTA   ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla  

In today’s episode, our favorite pilot turned team leader, turned real estate coach and entrepreneur, Nick McLean returns to the show for a third time. This time, he has a book and new real estate platform to share with us. Sitting down and writing a book is not an easy task for most people. In fact, Nick calls it the Grand Canyon of creation. The story of how the book came about is a lesson in and of itself, and along with that Nick shares what he believes it takes to survive in this market, and the new platform he’s using to help real estate teams.    Nick is an entrepreneur, coach and founder/CEO of the Nick McLean Real Estate Group, and author of Million Dollar Agent: The Proven Playbook To Build a Real Estate Empire. The former pilot uses knowledge in systems piloting and applying the same techniques he learned from the aviation industry to build a successful real estate business.    Nick McLean is an executive-level real estate broker. His team sells more than 500 homes and produces over $250,000,000 in sales volume annually. Through his years of trial and error and high-value education, he has discovered what it takes to build and maintain his position as an industry leader. He not only passes on his knowledge as an elite real estate coach with Jon Cheplak's Select Coaching, but he also provides his own team with training sessions each morning and numerous opportunities to expand their credentials and professional development. Nick McLean is also a former wildland firefighter and trained commercial Boeing 747 pilot. He prides himself on clocking out at 11 a.m. so he can be a devoted father, husband, and Competitive XC Mountain Bike Racer. Nick wrote "Million Dollar Agent" to share his business acumen with everyone. https://www.theringer.com/plain-english-with-derek-thompson-podcast   CTA ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla

In today’s episode, I’m excited to have my buddy and host of GSD Mode, Josh Smith back on the podcast to talk about what he’s been up to, and how he’s preparing for what’s coming in the real estate market. Josh is a brilliant marketer and entrepreneur, and he’s a huge giver to the real estate industry. After taking 8 months off and thinking of leaving real estate (he was thinking of buying a farm), he’s returned with a bigger motivation to pour gas on what he was doing in the industry. Today, he shares what this journey looked like, what he learned from walking away from other business ventures, and what he’s aiming to accomplish in this market shift.    For Josh, stepping off the hamster wheel of meetings, clients, putting out fires in the business, and getting away from the noise and having time in solitude was necessary, but uncomfortable. There are times where we need to step away from what we do so well to not just reignite our passion for it, but to land at the fact that you want to do a better version of what you’re already doing. Guest Info   Josh Smith is a Realtor, coach, serial entrepreneur and host of #1 Real Estate Podcast, GSD Mode. He is one of the top Realtors in the world along with running many other very successful companies. He has been voted the 30th Top Realtor In America By The Wall Street Journal, he’s an NAR's "30 Under 30" Finalist, and he’s also co-owner of a real estate software company "Perfect Storm". Josh successfully coaches/mentors over 1,000 Realtors yearly all over the US and Canada.   For more information, head to https://www.gsdmode.com/.  CTA   ​​Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla