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Most agents light up when they hear the word system because it means consistency when that isn't always their best attribute.
Today we are going to light you up!
Meet Lars Hedenborg. Lars is the host of the Business Freedom Podcast and the founder of Real Estate B-School, an education and coaching program for top producing real estate agents looking to build sustainable, systems-driven businesses.
Lars’ career in real estate began in March 2007 when he left his work in the corporate world. In his first year, he hustled to close 71 sales but was working 80 hour weeks, leaving his family life suffering. This motivated Lars to scale his real estate business. He grew a team that consistently sells over $100M in real estate each year while working only one day a week.
Today, Lars is passionate about bringing real-world tools, systems, and strategies to top agents and team leaders so that they can achieve sustainable success and freedom in the real estate business.
Show Notes
Justin Stoddart 0:00
Welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, you know, oftentimes when I'm sitting down and meeting up with agents, I say the word system and they start to light up. And I think because real estate agents tend to be very excited about growth, very entrepreneurial consistency tends to be a weak spot of theirs. And so I'm more than excited today to have on a guest who is truly an expert, helping agents be consistent, put the systems in place to help them be able to have the life and business that they want. So I'm excited to welcome today, Lars Hedenborg. Lars first and foremost, before I give kind of a full bio on you, I appreciate you being on the show today.
Lars Hedenborg 0:37
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. This is the one thing you know, I almost see sometimes the opposite effect. When I mentioned systems to real estate agents, they, they feel a feeling of overwhelming almost like what's a system like I'm not a systems person, you know, like enlighten me as to what a system is. So I'm looking forward to the conversation today.
Justin Stoddart 0:56
Yeah, very good. So for those that don't know, Lars, let me just give a little background him large section in your first year of business, close 71 homes, yet that came to come at a price it came being away from his family realizing like I can't do this forever, I can hustle for a year and prove the fact that I can sell a lot of real estates. But at the end of the day, you were short on time. And you wanted the ability to have both right to have success and significance a great work life and great home life. Continuing on large scale his business to where now his team produces over 100 million dollars a year consistently. And he's found some tricks some systems, to say the least, that have propelled him and his business to the next level. As a result, he's actually developed a whole school around this real estate B school BB and just the single letter B. I'm going to put that up here on the screen now. So any that are curious about that. I'm gonna put that up here real estate B school. We'll talk a little bit more about that. But Lars, I want to thank you, again for being on the show today is on the think bigger real estate, is a big thinker yourself. And helping those of us in the audience think bigger. So thank you again, for coming on.
Lars Hedenborg 2:02
Yeah, for sure. And you, you nailed it in the intro in terms of 2002, 2007, 2008, you know,
I was married in October 2006. We had our first child in November 2007. And I realized early on that every part of a real estate agents job like 90% of it could be done via a system and a lower level person, not in an ugly kind of way lower level. But let's scale right? Yeah, systems were out of the gate, I was just like, well, if I want to make my number was $250 an hour, if I want to make $250 an hour, for a full 2000 hours a year, right, I wanted to make at least a half a million to me and the government, there was 90% of it, I had to build out a system and have someone else run it. And systems are everything in the business, like anything that you do more than once a month is a system. And a lot of times, agents don't like this, I think it's that simple. You know, if you're doing something personally, and you're the real estate agent, and you're doing it more than, you know, let's say let's start with the weekly stuff, you're doing it more than 234 times a week, you need to put that into a document and make it so someone else can do it. And that really, for me, that's been like 99% of everything we do. And I just have a consultant role in the business now.
Justin Stoddart 3:22
Interesting. There is definitely a lack of consistency. You know, and I think again, when you as I mentioned before when you work with entrepreneurial people, entrepreneurial people, I believe move the world has the ability to change the world. The downside is that they tend to be very easily distractible, and their high performers and can produce very significant results for short bursts of time and oftentimes lack the organizational skills to be able to do that consistently, which causes them to not have the long term impact that they want. Let's talk a little bit about the systems that you think real estate agents need to start with, or one of the few of the big missed systems that you feel like real estate agents could really implement and have the most amount of impact.
Lars Hedenborg 4:11
Yeah, so I'm going to give like a, probably more than 10 seconds, but real big the business is our ability to attract buyers and sellers convert those into face to face and clients deliver a differentiated service. And then there are a few things in scaling the business. You know, creating your future, knowing your numbers and growing your team. So it's a little bit more complicated in scale. But when it comes to attracting buyers and sellers, what got us here isn't going to get us there. So you know, you better make sure you have your database locked down, and you're actually doing something of value on a regular basis where, you know, we'll do 3.6 million this year and 1.4 1.5
from a database of about 1800 people will come from that part of it and we spend, you know, we'll probably only spend about $30,000 to generate that amount of GCI this year, and a phenomenal
and it's all because we just preloaded what we do for in terms of social in terms of content in terms of events and giveaways. And it's run by someone who makes about 20 bucks an hour. And it's only part of that person's job for the entire year. And so but it's all pre-loaded. So every little we have 93 social things that happen in a given year, we have 57 sorts of content pieces that go out, we do an E-newsletter, and she just pings me when she needs a video or a market update or a funny video for my family. She kind of gets some some some leeway in that. But that's a system that runs and then we feed the database. You know, we as team leaders, especially we forget that our databases are really valuable. You know, that's a million dollar year over year pillar in your business. And are you adding Do you have a system to add two new contacts a day to your inner circle database? super simple, but nobody actually does it. I've yet to meet a team leader that actually focuses on the database on a regular basis.
Justin Stoddart 6:12
I love how you simplified that Lars. And I think again, the brightest minds in the business have the ability to take the complex and turn it into something super simple. And what you said is attract the business, follow up with the business service, the business, right, those are three. And the fourth was just the kind of ancillary systems, you need to actually scale a business. As I mentioned, it was second to the fourth.
Lars Hedenborg 6:33
Yeah, so I mean, so when we start working with the new, a new, a new client in the coaching business, it is really making sure they have the attract, convert, deliver rock solid, but in a way where they're not in it. So we need to attract folks to the business, convert them, and then deliver an amazing service in a way where there's probably 12 to 18 core systems and just those three pillars. And once we do that, then the team leader can focus on scaling. And scaling is making sure you have a solid three-year plan, making sure you know your numbers, and making sure you know how to grow your team, the culture stuff, the attracting new talent and those sorts of things. A lot of folks want to scale their business, but the attract, convert deliver is a complete shit show. And it relies 100% on them to have that a CD, you know, AC DC, attract, convert, deliver, you know, and then get it to get a commission check. And you need to make sure that the core part is running systematically. And just ask yourself every day like what did I put my hands in today? That's a system I can create, do the systems work? Because that's worth $1,000 an hour and don't do the actual work?
Justin Stoddart 7:43
Interesting, because it's like working on the business as opposed to working in the business, right? I mean, first, that first book
Lars Hedenborg 7:47
I read when I, when I got introduced into real estate, was E-Myth. And that book, it doesn't teach you anything. Yeah, and it's but it has stuck with me the profound realization that you know if I'm working in business, it's, it's, it's never going to have a life of its own. So I need to make we as entrepreneurs, you know, the kiss of death is that we're really, we need to slow down to be managers, managers build systems, and have people run the systems until we can have other people manage for us, we need to be the manager, you know, and, and some of us, you know, just our comfort is in being the technician if I could just go out and take listings, you know, I'll sell 150 homes a year. And nobody really wants that seven-day life sort of existence. So
Justin Stoddart 8:31
what's interesting, that book, I agree with you, that book had a profound impact on me. And I see that showing up so much. And I'll come out of the general contracting world, I was a general contractor, high end, a luxury contractor for a number of years. And it was interesting how that was so common, right is you'd have people coming out of the trades, who were very good technicians. And they immediately thought because they were a good technician that they'd be a good business owner. And it's a totally different skill set. And like you said, there's a reluctance, oftentimes, when someone even has the opportunity to scale a business this is that they're there, they have a hard time letting go of the technician component, right? Like that. What I hear you saying is that in order to be a great leader, in order to be a great manager of the systems and designer-developer, the systems, you actually have to start to let go of the technician, you shouldn't have feet in both camps. Is that what you're saying?
Lars Hedenborg 9:19
Yeah, at the very least, if you want to have the semblance of a real business, in the world of real estate, it's something as simple as getting a showing agent, like there's no way any of us that want to scale a business should be working evenings and weekends, showing homes to buyers, there's like 100 agents in our market center. At worst case, we can hire our lead to do that, you know, will 3.6 million, but we're at a point this year where we have someone outside of our team helping us to show homes because we're a player short in that position. But we're so committed to our buyer agents and our lead agents not showing homes ever, that we're just going to, we're going to look to fill that position with anyone else. Because it's honestly a low-level task. It's not rocket science to open a door. And that's not really where the real value comes from. So yeah, it's just thinking about, like what you want for your business, if you want to make a half a million dollars, and you're gonna do all the production yourself, you know, you're never going to do it with life. And one more thing I want to mention. It's the real passion of these sorts of things and spreading, spreading the word is, as the measure of success to me and businesses time, money and stress. Where is your time your own? Do you have anything to show for your efforts financially? You know? And do you have a plan to create wealth around what you're doing? And then Are you stressed all the time? Or you're bringing that stress into other areas of your life? And, you know, just check yourself on that every 90 days time, money and stress? And is it getting better? Is it getting worse? You know, we've had guys in our industry think that suicide was a better option than then living the life that they had, you know, and how does that happen? Right, a guy at the top of his game, that thing, suicide is a better option than being in his life. You know, and so that that's the real passion is just make sure your time money, stress is in check. And if it's not, and you're growing, and it's out of control, just Stop the presses. just slow down. And it's usually a systems issue, that, you know, stuff's not happening, because you're doing everything because
you don't have systems.
Justin Stoddart 11:24
You know, and one thing that I think a lot of real estate agents come to the realization, or if they have it, hopefully, they will and hearing you speak about this, which is, it's different than having a high producing job than it is having a high producing business. And I think so many that they forget the fact that and some may want to high producing job, right, and that's the life they want, and, and you know, all power to you. But if you want a business, it looks different than a job. And I think what you're describing is the template and the mentality and mindset of producing a business that, especially in an industry that demands so much after hours, that if you want a business, you have to be able to work during business hours, and have other systems tools and people support the needs of the customers outside of those business hours.
Lars Hedenborg 12:10
Yeah, that's right. And don't overthink it. And don't overcomplicate it, you know, our theme this year, is to simplify to multiply. It's really basic, we want to meet with buyers and meet with sellers. And that's it like what are we doing every day to set those consultations and to actually get face to face and convert them into clients and then activate listings, there are only about four data points that we track in the business, to know that we're on track. And I think a lot of folks just complicated and they think it's something different than what it actually is. And it's not it's a really simple business. So but then, you know, I talked about attract, convert, deliver and deliver, you know, the game is changing, where you're not even going to be in the business, three to five years from now, or maybe even less, if you're not pushing real hard toward, in my opinion, high touch hi service, you know, look at a dozen other industries that have been this place with technology and changing business models. So what systems do you have in place to make sure your buyers and sellers when their clients, they get a world class experience. And those are checklists, it's simple.
Justin Stoddart 13:16
You know,
in the process right now, of finishing up an ebook on how to become more of an advisor than a salesman. And I totally agree with you 100%, as I've dug into the research of what profession, what people really respect and are willing to pay for when it comes to professional. And it's kind of what you discuss, there has to be a dedicated, intentional effort to produce higher value than what the standard is, and people will pay for that. And what we're seeing in the industry as a result of all these, this massive investment from venture capital and Wall Street to produce technology is that the general consumer base doesn't feel like real estate agents produce enough significant value, that it can only be done by human, therefore, they're trying to take it on or take it away from them. Yet, I strongly believe that there's going to be a very profitable space for those that push the envelope on creating new value for consumers and becoming more of an advisor than just someone who can open a door and sell people something.
Lars Hedenborg 14:14
Yeah, I've, I'm a big legal zoom.com consumer, I've set up a bunch of entities, and I've set up a nonprofit. But I've also paid $500 an hour for an attorney in the last two years. Yeah. So like, you know that there's just going to be a smaller pie available to true advisors. And the class action lawsuit right now against 20, the largest MLS in our country is proof that you know, that whole side is going away, if you can't sit down with a buyer and prove to them that you're worth $15,000 to represent them over the next 60 days, you're going to be out of the business. Yeah, or you're going to be irrelevant, or you're going to do whatever they'll pay you 15 bucks an hour to open doors, you know, so
Justin Stoddart 14:58
and you shouldn't be taking that kind of money if you can't prove the value, right? I mean, at the end of the day, the consumer is going to win, we live in an era where consumers have more power than ever before. And it's not just like a smoke and mirrors. Like if you actually don't provide more value than you charge, then like, there's a reckoning day,
Lars Hedenborg 15:15
right? And luckily, I mean, luckily we're in an industry where these little mini-monopolies these MLS is have protected us forever. And it's going to change. And I hope it doesn't, you know because I think there's just an awesome opportunity for folks that are really good at what we do. And you know, building I think the future, I think it is teamed either working for a really good team, then there's no shame in that all of our team members are world class. But I think there's a, I don't know, if you follow Matt Johnson, he had a podcast episode called the mushy middle. You know, there's going to be all the technology that is all the discount stuff. Yeah. And there's going to be the high-end service providers, and then there's going to be this middle, where it's going to be a lot of commission discounting and, you know, just not a lot of great stuff going on in there. So I don't want to be being there.
Justin Stoddart 16:03
It's going to be a bloody red ocean. Yeah. Let's final question, kind of signature question for the show Lars, which should be fairly easy for you to come up with, but that's something that you do on a regular basis, to intentionally think bigger, to expand your own possibilities and in the theme of what you're up to the possibilities of other people?
Lars Hedenborg 16:23
So something intentional, I mean, I've been really consistent with there are a few things come to mind. But my morning, what I do with my morning, you know, it's sort of a, an easy answer. But I get in, in the Bible, every day, I do a meditation on a scripture every day, I get my body moving every day.
That's the first thing that comes to mind. And then I'm constantly looking for, I'm constantly surrounding myself with people that are really helping me become the best version of myself. And that's, that's just something I'm really focused on. I think God has this awesome plan for me, and I just need to keep showing up as the best version of myself to help him realize his plan for me and not, you know, there's always turmoil, it feels like in business, and if there's not, you're probably not doing something right. And just to, to realize none of its related, like I have issues like eight different issues going on in two different businesses, and they're all not related to each other, you know, so just be the common the middle of it all. And then one last thing, just think Long, long game, you know, I'm 45 I'm probably going to be in business. Till 66 is my, my, my hope. And so there's 19, what, 21 years, at 21 years to be in this game. And the whole point of the game is to stay in the game. You know, it's not to grow next year for no reason whatsoever, like growth for growth's sake it's growing, grow to serve others, you know, so that's kind of some thoughts around that.
Justin Stoddart 17:59
It's powerful stuff, man, yours in my morning sound very similar, kind of bringing in a spiritual component, which gives me purpose and grounding and what this is all about. Right? So I could impact people for good. So I appreciate what you know what you share. I think it's super powerful. I'm gonna put you up on the screen, Lars, I know you're a busy guy and have to jump to your next commitment. So let me go and put up here. People wanna learn more about Lars I highly recommend you do he's got sold a real estate B school. He actually offers him a free business growth strategy session at REBSStrategySystem.com, I'll put that in the notes as well. Reach out to Lars he's a guy that if you're tired of your real estate job, and you'd rather have a business, you want to implement systems, whether it's the scale the level that he has, and or just simply to scale up so you get some evenings and weekends back. You start to think more like a business owner. This is a guy you ought to be following. He also has a podcast called the business freedom podcast. look him up. Obviously very bright guy with some big accomplishments. Lars wanna thank you for your time for being on the show and pouring into the think bigger real estate audience.
Lars Hedenborg 18:59
Yeah, awesome. Let me know if I can ever do anything for you, too.
Justin Stoddart
Okay, man. I really appreciate it. And we're going to sign off.
Welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, you know, oftentimes when I'm sitting down and meeting up with agents, I say the word system and they start to light up. And I think because real estate agents tend to be very excited about growth, very entrepreneurial consistency tends to be a weak spot of theirs. And so I'm more than excited today to have on a guest who is truly an expert, helping agents be consistent, put the systems in place to help them be able to have the life and business that they want. So I'm excited to welcome today, Lars Hedenborg. Lars first and foremost, before I give kind of a full bio on you, I appreciate you being on the show today.
Lars Hedenborg 0:37
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. This is the one thing you know, I almost see sometimes the opposite effect. When I mentioned systems to real estate agents, they, they feel a feeling of overwhelming almost like what's a system like I'm not a systems person, you know, like enlighten me as to what a system is. So I'm looking forward to the conversation today.
Justin Stoddart 0:56
Yeah, very good. So for those that don't know, Lars, let me just give a little background him large section in your first year of business, close 71 homes, yet that came to come at a price it came being away from his family realizing like I can't do this forever, I can hustle for a year and prove the fact that I can sell a lot of real estates. But at the end of the day, you were short on time. And you wanted the ability to have both right to have success and significance a great work life and great home life. Continuing on large scale his business to where now his team produces over 100 million dollars a year consistently. And he's found some tricks some systems, to say the least, that have propelled him and his business to the next level. As a result, he's actually developed a whole school around this real estate B school BB and just the single letter B. I'm going to put that up here on the screen now. So any that are curious about that. I'm gonna put that up here real estate B school. We'll talk a little bit more about that. But Lars, I want to thank you, again for being on the show today is on the think bigger real estate, is a big thinker yourself. And helping those of us in the audience think bigger. So thank you again, for coming on.
Lars Hedenborg 2:02
Yeah, for sure. And you, you nailed it in the intro in terms of 2002, 2007, 2008, you know,
I was married in October 2006. We had our first child in November 2007. And I realized early on that every part of a real estate agents job like 90% of it could be done via a system and a lower level person, not in an ugly kind of way lower level. But let's scale right? Yeah, systems were out of the gate, I was just like, well, if I want to make my number was $250 an hour, if I want to make $250 an hour, for a full 2000 hours a year, right, I wanted to make at least a half a million to me and the government, there was 90% of it, I had to build out a system and have someone else run it. And systems are everything in the business, like anything that you do more than once a month is a system. And a lot of times, agents don't like this, I think it's that simple. You know, if you're doing something personally, and you're the real estate agent, and you're doing it more than, you know, let's say let's start with the weekly stuff, you're doing it more than 234 times a week, you need to put that into a document and make it so someone else can do it. And that really, for me, that's been like 99% of everything we do. And I just have a consultant role in the business now.
Justin Stoddart 3:22
Interesting. There is definitely a lack of consistency. You know, and I think again, when you as I mentioned before when you work with entrepreneurial people, entrepreneurial people, I believe move the world has the ability to change the world. The downside is that they tend to be very easily distractible, and their high performers and can produce very significant results for short bursts of time and oftentimes lack the organizational skills to be able to do that consistently, which causes them to not have the long term impact that they want. Let's talk a little bit about the systems that you think real estate agents need to start with, or one of the few of the big missed systems that you feel like real estate agents could really implement and have the most amount of impact.
Lars Hedenborg 4:11
Yeah, so I'm going to give like a, probably more than 10 seconds, but real big the business is our ability to attract buyers and sellers convert those into face to face and clients deliver a differentiated service. And then there are a few things in scaling the business. You know, creating your future, knowing your numbers and growing your team. So it's a little bit more complicated in scale. But when it comes to attracting buyers and sellers, what got us here isn't going to get us there. So you know, you better make sure you have your database locked down, and you're actually doing something of value on a regular basis where, you know, we'll do 3.6 million this year and 1.4 1.5
from a database of about 1800 people will come from that part of it and we spend, you know, we'll probably only spend about $30,000 to generate that amount of GCI this year, and a phenomenal
and it's all because we just preloaded what we do for in terms of social in terms of content in terms of events and giveaways. And it's run by someone who makes about 20 bucks an hour. And it's only part of that person's job for the entire year. And so but it's all pre-loaded. So every little we have 93 social things that happen in a given year, we have 57 sorts of content pieces that go out, we do an E-newsletter, and she just pings me when she needs a video or a market update or a funny video for my family. She kind of gets some some some leeway in that. But that's a system that runs and then we feed the database. You know, we as team leaders, especially we forget that our databases are really valuable. You know, that's a million dollar year over year pillar in your business. And are you adding Do you have a system to add two new contacts a day to your inner circle database? super simple, but nobody actually does it. I've yet to meet a team leader that actually focuses on the database on a regular basis.
Justin Stoddart 6:12
I love how you simplified that Lars. And I think again, the brightest minds in the business have the ability to take the complex and turn it into something super simple. And what you said is attract the business, follow up with the business service, the business, right, those are three. And the fourth was just the kind of ancillary systems, you need to actually scale a business. As I mentioned, it was second to the fourth.
Lars Hedenborg 6:33
Yeah, so I mean, so when we start working with the new, a new, a new client in the coaching business, it is really making sure they have the attract, convert, deliver rock solid, but in a way where they're not in it. So we need to attract folks to the business, convert them, and then deliver an amazing service in a way where there's probably 12 to 18 core systems and just those three pillars. And once we do that, then the team leader can focus on scaling. And scaling is making sure you have a solid three-year plan, making sure you know your numbers, and making sure you know how to grow your team, the culture stuff, the attracting new talent and those sorts of things. A lot of folks want to scale their business, but the attract, convert deliver is a complete shit show. And it relies 100% on them to have that a CD, you know, AC DC, attract, convert, deliver, you know, and then get it to get a commission check. And you need to make sure that the core part is running systematically. And just ask yourself every day like what did I put my hands in today? That's a system I can create, do the systems work? Because that's worth $1,000 an hour and don't do the actual work?
Justin Stoddart 7:43
Interesting, because it's like working on the business as opposed to working in the business, right? I mean, first, that first book
Lars Hedenborg 7:47
I read when I, when I got introduced into real estate, was E-Myth. And that book, it doesn't teach you anything. Yeah, and it's but it has stuck with me the profound realization that you know if I'm working in business, it's, it's, it's never going to have a life of its own. So I need to make we as entrepreneurs, you know, the kiss of death is that we're really, we need to slow down to be managers, managers build systems, and have people run the systems until we can have other people manage for us, we need to be the manager, you know, and, and some of us, you know, just our comfort is in being the technician if I could just go out and take listings, you know, I'll sell 150 homes a year. And nobody really wants that seven-day life sort of existence. So
Justin Stoddart 8:31
what's interesting, that book, I agree with you, that book had a profound impact on me. And I see that showing up so much. And I'll come out of the general contracting world, I was a general contractor, high end, a luxury contractor for a number of years. And it was interesting how that was so common, right is you'd have people coming out of the trades, who were very good technicians. And they immediately thought because they were a good technician that they'd be a good business owner. And it's a totally different skill set. And like you said, there's a reluctance, oftentimes, when someone even has the opportunity to scale a business this is that they're there, they have a hard time letting go of the technician component, right? Like that. What I hear you saying is that in order to be a great leader, in order to be a great manager of the systems and designer-developer, the systems, you actually have to start to let go of the technician, you shouldn't have feet in both camps. Is that what you're saying?
Lars Hedenborg 9:19
Yeah, at the very least, if you want to have the semblance of a real business, in the world of real estate, it's something as simple as getting a showing agent, like there's no way any of us that want to scale a business should be working evenings and weekends, showing homes to buyers, there's like 100 agents in our market center. At worst case, we can hire our lead to do that, you know, will 3.6 million, but we're at a point this year where we have someone outside of our team helping us to show homes because we're a player short in that position. But we're so committed to our buyer agents and our lead agents not showing homes ever, that we're just going to, we're going to look to fill that position with anyone else. Because it's honestly a low-level task. It's not rocket science to open a door. And that's not really where the real value comes from. So yeah, it's just thinking about, like what you want for your business, if you want to make a half a million dollars, and you're gonna do all the production yourself, you know, you're never going to do it with life. And one more thing I want to mention. It's the real passion of these sorts of things and spreading, spreading the word is, as the measure of success to me and businesses time, money and stress. Where is your time your own? Do you have anything to show for your efforts financially? You know? And do you have a plan to create wealth around what you're doing? And then Are you stressed all the time? Or you're bringing that stress into other areas of your life? And, you know, just check yourself on that every 90 days time, money and stress? And is it getting better? Is it getting worse? You know, we've had guys in our industry think that suicide was a better option than then living the life that they had, you know, and how does that happen? Right, a guy at the top of his game, that thing, suicide is a better option than being in his life. You know, and so that that's the real passion is just make sure your time money, stress is in check. And if it's not, and you're growing, and it's out of control, just Stop the presses. just slow down. And it's usually a systems issue, that, you know, stuff's not happening, because you're doing everything because
you don't have systems.
Justin Stoddart 11:24
You know, and one thing that I think a lot of real estate agents come to the realization, or if they have it, hopefully, they will and hearing you speak about this, which is, it's different than having a high producing job than it is having a high producing business. And I think so many that they forget the fact that and some may want to high producing job, right, and that's the life they want, and, and you know, all power to you. But if you want a business, it looks different than a job. And I think what you're describing is the template and the mentality and mindset of producing a business that, especially in an industry that demands so much after hours, that if you want a business, you have to be able to work during business hours, and have other systems tools and people support the needs of the customers outside of those business hours.
Lars Hedenborg 12:10
Yeah, that's right. And don't overthink it. And don't overcomplicate it, you know, our theme this year, is to simplify to multiply. It's really basic, we want to meet with buyers and meet with sellers. And that's it like what are we doing every day to set those consultations and to actually get face to face and convert them into clients and then activate listings, there are only about four data points that we track in the business, to know that we're on track. And I think a lot of folks just complicated and they think it's something different than what it actually is. And it's not it's a really simple business. So but then, you know, I talked about attract, convert, deliver and deliver, you know, the game is changing, where you're not even going to be in the business, three to five years from now, or maybe even less, if you're not pushing real hard toward, in my opinion, high touch hi service, you know, look at a dozen other industries that have been this place with technology and changing business models. So what systems do you have in place to make sure your buyers and sellers when their clients, they get a world class experience. And those are checklists, it's simple.
Justin Stoddart 13:16
You know,
in the process right now, of finishing up an ebook on how to become more of an advisor than a salesman. And I totally agree with you 100%, as I've dug into the research of what profession, what people really respect and are willing to pay for when it comes to professional. And it's kind of what you discuss, there has to be a dedicated, intentional effort to produce higher value than what the standard is, and people will pay for that. And what we're seeing in the industry as a result of all these, this massive investment from venture capital and Wall Street to produce technology is that the general consumer base doesn't feel like real estate agents produce enough significant value, that it can only be done by human, therefore, they're trying to take it on or take it away from them. Yet, I strongly believe that there's going to be a very profitable space for those that push the envelope on creating new value for consumers and becoming more of an advisor than just someone who can open a door and sell people something.
Lars Hedenborg 14:14
Yeah, I've, I'm a big legal zoom.com consumer, I've set up a bunch of entities, and I've set up a nonprofit. But I've also paid $500 an hour for an attorney in the last two years. Yeah. So like, you know that there's just going to be a smaller pie available to true advisors. And the class action lawsuit right now against 20, the largest MLS in our country is proof that you know, that whole side is going away, if you can't sit down with a buyer and prove to them that you're worth $15,000 to represent them over the next 60 days, you're going to be out of the business. Yeah, or you're going to be irrelevant, or you're going to do whatever they'll pay you 15 bucks an hour to open doors, you know, so
Justin Stoddart 14:58
and you shouldn't be taking that kind of money if you can't prove the value, right? I mean, at the end of the day, the consumer is going to win, we live in an era where consumers have more power than ever before. And it's not just like a smoke and mirrors. Like if you actually don't provide more value than you charge, then like, there's a reckoning day,
Lars Hedenborg 15:15
right? And luckily, I mean, luckily we're in an industry where these little mini-monopolies these MLS is have protected us forever. And it's going to change. And I hope it doesn't, you know because I think there's just an awesome opportunity for folks that are really good at what we do. And you know, building I think the future, I think it is teamed either working for a really good team, then there's no shame in that all of our team members are world class. But I think there's a, I don't know, if you follow Matt Johnson, he had a podcast episode called the mushy middle. You know, there's going to be all the technology that is all the discount stuff. Yeah. And there's going to be the high-end service providers, and then there's going to be this middle, where it's going to be a lot of commission discounting and, you know, just not a lot of great stuff going on in there. So I don't want to be being there.
Justin Stoddart 16:03
It's going to be a bloody red ocean. Yeah. Let's final question, kind of signature question for the show Lars, which should be fairly easy for you to come up with, but that's something that you do on a regular basis, to intentionally think bigger, to expand your own possibilities and in the theme of what you're up to the possibilities of other people?
Lars Hedenborg 16:23
So something intentional, I mean, I've been really consistent with there are a few things come to mind. But my morning, what I do with my morning, you know, it's sort of a, an easy answer. But I get in, in the Bible, every day, I do a meditation on a scripture every day, I get my body moving every day.
That's the first thing that comes to mind. And then I'm constantly looking for, I'm constantly surrounding myself with people that are really helping me become the best version of myself. And that's, that's just something I'm really focused on. I think God has this awesome plan for me, and I just need to keep showing up as the best version of myself to help him realize his plan for me and not, you know, there's always turmoil, it feels like in business, and if there's not, you're probably not doing something right. And just to, to realize none of its related, like I have issues like eight different issues going on in two different businesses, and they're all not related to each other, you know, so just be the common the middle of it all. And then one last thing, just think Long, long game, you know, I'm 45 I'm probably going to be in business. Till 66 is my, my, my hope. And so there's 19, what, 21 years, at 21 years to be in this game. And the whole point of the game is to stay in the game. You know, it's not to grow next year for no reason whatsoever, like growth for growth's sake it's growing, grow to serve others, you know, so that's kind of some thoughts around that.
Justin Stoddart 17:59
It's powerful stuff, man, yours in my morning sound very similar, kind of bringing in a spiritual component, which gives me purpose and grounding and what this is all about. Right? So I could impact people for good. So I appreciate what you know what you share. I think it's super powerful. I'm gonna put you up on the screen, Lars, I know you're a busy guy and have to jump to your next commitment. So let me go and put up here. People wanna learn more about Lars I highly recommend you do he's got sold a real estate B school. He actually offers him a free business growth strategy session at REBSStrategySystem.com, I'll put that in the notes as well. Reach out to Lars he's a guy that if you're tired of your real estate job, and you'd rather have a business, you want to implement systems, whether it's the scale the level that he has, and or just simply to scale up so you get some evenings and weekends back. You start to think more like a business owner. This is a guy you ought to be following. He also has a podcast called the business freedom podcast. look him up. Obviously very bright guy with some big accomplishments. Lars wanna thank you for your time for being on the show and pouring into the think bigger real estate audience.
Lars Hedenborg 18:59
Yeah, awesome. Let me know if I can ever do anything for you, too.
Justin Stoddart
Okay, man. I really appreciate it. And we're going to sign off.
Creators and Guests
Host
Justin Stoddart
What is Think Bigger Real Estate?
The road to success for real estate agents is well-marked. The road to significance is not. Here, we help you to Think Bigger than just your business. We inspire you to seek success AND significance, income AND impact. We do that by interviewing the biggest thinkers and highest achievers in the real estate industry, extracting the secrets to having it all.