Excerpt from The Lazy Realtor

• You will need to look at:
• Fixed Monthly Personal Expenses
• Fixed Monthly Business Expenses
• Fixed Monthly Personal + Business Expenses

Once you are fully aware of these NUMBERS, you will know how much you need to produce, in order to create a profit. That is, after all, why we are in this or any other type of business; to make a profit.

The Secret: Stop running after bills

Taking the time to work out budgets and to be aware of your expenses is important. One of the keys to my career success was for me to know exactly what my personal and business expenses were each month. Every month, I would write myself a check for those expenses and pay them, thus eliminating them right at the beginning.

Paying my personal and business costs in advance allowed me to focus on my business. After that was covered, I could concentrate on being the best salesperson I could be, and on my production, rather than on lingering expenses and wondering how and where those expenses were going to be covered.

I can’t emphasize enough what it does to your self-esteem and to your personal life when, at the beginning of every month, both your personal and business expenses are met. This frees you up to do what you do best; helping people buy and sell Real Estate.

Put yourself first

Another success strategy I developed was to pay myself the same amount of money at the beginning of each month. For years in my career, I would just write myself a check for after-tax dollars corresponding to the same amount of money, month after month. For several years, I would still pay myself and live on that same amount of money. Then, at the end of the year, if I had had a better than normal production, I would have a surplus. It was this surplus that allowed me to invest, pay taxes, buy assets, buy real estate, and increase my personal net worth. 

Banks, parents; just keep it safe…

You have to imagine that I was 21 years of age, when I started in the Real Estate industry. Back then, the idea of making a six figure income in Real Estate was completely foreign to me. I had never made more money than a regular restaurant waiter or an encyclopedia salesman. I quickly realized that I had no control over my new found earnings and I needed to put an accountability mechanism in place. Certain prosperity and wealth advisors suggest you should have separate bank accounts at different banks; separate accounts for business, chequing, and savings. My idea was much simpler: I just gave all my earnings to my parents. You are going to laugh at this, but I am humbled to say that I had to ask my parents, for the first 8 years of my Real Estate career and then my office manager for the next 5 years, for my own money to spend. At the time, I didn’t realize that the simple accountability system I had devised would, over the next 13 years, build me a fortune.

Therefore, do take the time to create business and personal budgets and know exactly what those numbers are. Know exactly what your minimum survival budget for each month is going to be. Then, you need to understand the concept of paying yourself first every month. But, more importantly, write yourself checks for your business and personal expenses at the start of the month, which will allow you to focus on your business. This will give you the necessary confidence, self-worth, and clarity to be strong, focused sales professional. Not to mention that, over a period of time, it will also help build your net worth.

Financial prosperity has a universally accepted principle: it is critical to pay yourself first, before you pay your other bills, so that you can think of yourself as a creditor.

The lesson behind this financial wisdom is that, if you wait to put money into savings until everyone else is paid, there will be nothing left for you. The result is that you will keep postponing your savings plan until it’s too late to do anything about it.

Buyer & Seller Cycles

Your next strategy should be to understand the cycles of Real Estate; namely, the math of production and what we want to produce. There are two distinct cycles in Real Estate. The first cycle is the buying cycle of property and the second cycle is the selling cycle of Real Estate.

Seller Cycle

You begin by prospecting and looking for the seller. Once you have found the seller, you present your sales proposal to them and list their property for sale. The marketing begins next, when you attract interested buyers to write offers. With due negotiations, the sale is clinched to the satisfaction of both the seller and the purchaser. After the sale, those sellers become your satisfied clients.