I was 22 years old when I got my license.
I had no clue what to expect. I’d never had a sales job. I hadn’t spoken with any realtors, and I basically decided to get into it because a friend of mine was doing well and she said I should check it out. I was so unaware that I actually thought the brokerage gave you clients when you got started.
During my first week in real estate, I interviewed 10 brokerages, borrowed a few thousand dollars from my dad to buy a cheap car and got started!
For the first few years, I tried everything under the sun. I did giveaways, created campaigns, created programs inside my brokerage, hosted events… I had a new scheme every month for the first 5 years in business.
It was exciting! It also barely moved the needle.
I was spending 80% of my energy on creativity, thinking I was going to “find a better way”. The reality was I was getting almost all of my business from simple classics like hosting open houses.
Five years in I was burnt out.
My business was a roller coaster. All the creativity left me totally confused. I didn’t know what was working and I didn’t even really know what I should be doing day to day.
I knew I needed to change.
I decided to start taking courses and implementing things people had seen success with. I loved the opportunities to learn and started attending everything I could find. I quickly learned that there were only a few thing I needed to commit to in order to completely change my business:
1: I needed to time block my calendar
2: I needed to commit to prioritizing lead generation
BOOM. It was like a firehose hit my pipeline. I came close to doubling my business every year for about 4 years. I had a huge team of people working for me, my business was measured and predictable and, best of all, I was incredibly proud of what I’d achieved.
On the surface it looked great. But knowing what I know now, you couldn’t give me that business today if you offered it to me.
I’d build this impressive machine with 15+employees and 10+ salespeople, but most of them were barely making a dent in our goals and we were constantly struggling with attrition and team culture.
Even worse, it was nowhere near profitable. I had one year where my team earned $1,485,000 and my tax return showed I had netter $62,000. The most depressing part was that I knew it wasn’t true, I’d probably kept even less, I’d just lost the receipts.
I was building my business so it could be something great someday, but I’d lost sight of where I was right now.
I kept trying to get it to work but eventually I just ran out of time. My business was costing me $60,000 a month to run, I had completely filled every line of credit and card I had and I owed $300,000 in overdue taxes.
There were weeks when I was barely able to pay for groceries, yet somehow I had about 30 people working for me. True story: My wife also happened to be 9 month pregnant at the time.
It was an ugly moment.
Looking back on this moment I honestly feel like I had a guardian angel looking over me. It’s like someone knew I had to be taught a lesson, but also wanted to keep me going because they liked me.
I had this little building I’d bought for the team a few years earlier. I was able to tidy it up, list it a week before Christmas, negotiate a deal before the new year hit and delay the tax payment until the property closed.
After everything was settled, I was left with exactly zero dollars. But I was debt free.
Here’s the weird thing: During all of this, I had 3 coaches and I was attending more training than almost anyone I knew.
How was this possible? How hadn’t anyone caught this?
I decided to take a break from all the mentorship I had and just get grounded.
I went back to basics and did the one thing I knew worked: I generated an absolute shit ton of business. But this time, I made my #1 focus to protect my money.
A year later my team closed $1,512,000 and we netted 48% with a team ⅕ the size.
Over the next few years I spent a lot of time reflecting on what had worked and what hadnt.
I’d had a lot of really excellent coaches, but somehow I felt like I was missing a few things.
For one, I never really took the time with my coaches to figure out WHY I wanted to build this huge business. I traveled and saw huge teams being highlighted and I got caught up in the excitement of it all.
Was it going to serve me living the best life possible?
Did it serve my personal goals financially?
Would it fulfil me?
A larger business looks great from the outside but growth is costly and the bigger it gets the more a business needs to do every year just to stay alive.
Secondly, while we were always focused on doing more, we rarely focused on getting more for what we did.
I’ve come to realize that you more your personal financial needle a lot further by improving yourself rather than spending more time working. Something simple like scripting for 20 minutes a day will create exponential returns but you can go a lot further than just scripting. Investing in your offering, your reputation, your personal brand and your differentiators takes some extra work up front but it makes every other aspect of your business easier.
“Work hard on your job you’ll make a living, work hard on yourself you’ll make a fortune” - Jim Rhone.
I’ve come to realize that the most important thing you can do is invest in YOURSELF. If you do that repeatedly everything else will either be easier to reach or you’ll be so attractive that it will come to you on it’s own.
The last piece is actually far more important than the rest. Time Freedom.
Most coaches want to help you grow your business because that’s how they measure their own success. But most of the time what happens is you grow your business through what I call “Blunt force trauma real estate”. Basically just running around hammering everything until something starts to happen.
It’s exhausting and here is the truth: it is possible to have a thriving and growing business without sacrificing your family life and relationships, your health and your personal satisfaction you get from your life.
I’ve been able to have it in my business, I just had to figure it out.
These three principles are the foundation of why I started coaching and they are the foundation of my foundational breakthrough program CHARGE:
Understanding where you are going and why
Helping you focus on being more valuable instead of working harder
Mastering your time by using the 6 C’s of Time freedom
I’m madly in love with business. To me, it’s the ultimate game. There are no rules, the playbook is written in math which is a universal language, and the game pieces are the incredible people you get to build your network from.
It’s absolutely the most fascinating and immersive journey.
The sad thing is that most people get lost, burn themselves out, or lose sight of living the life they set out to attain.
My mission with Endgame is to change this. My team and I are all centered around one unified vision to see our partners take charge and move with confidence towards their goals, living the best life while on the journey.
We want to support you, we want to see you win, we want us all to win.
To bigger and crazier dreams,
Sean
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