I Feel Stupid": Apartment Broker Stuck at $250K

0:00Unternehmer/Gast I sell myself to apartment owners to hire me to sell their properties. >> Okay. >> I'm an apartment broker. Um we do $250,000 in revenue. >> Only Taylor, yeah. >> Yeah. Uh I would like to be I added a zero. I said five in the practice. I'm going to say 50 million in revenue. >> Right. >> Uh this is what's stopping me. So, I've heard a ton of different opinions on my business model and how to improve it, pivot, focus points, all that stuff.

0:28I still don't feel like tomorrow morning 6:00 a.m. when I get in the office >> Yeah. >> that I know what the highest leverage action I'm going to be doing and the clarity on what I need to do to improve my business. >> Okay. I don't know. I have no context. I know that you sell apartments. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> What context can I help provide? >> So, what's stopping you?

0:54>> More people hire me to sell their buildings at a realistic price point. >> Yeah. >> Okay. How do you get customers? >> Right now, it's through cold calling. >> Okay. What stops you from doing more? >> Training, hiring and probably training, hiring, and data. >> Okay. So, what stops you from getting those people?

1:19>> [sighs] >> I have to do everything to keep the business going currently. >> Mhm. >> Uh while also then focusing on hiring those people, which in my experience the typical model is they bring a junior agent in. They become your your junior and 90% of them burn out within a year. >> Okay. >> So, there's a big turnover. It's a big time commitment for me, which takes away from the the main business of me keeping the lights on.

1:46>> And if you don't do it though you stay the same size. >> The problem I had is I was doing 2 million in revenue and uh in 2022 and like nothing's really changed. >> Yeah. >> And so I'm a little bit lost in terms of why. >> Well, the market was a little better then, no? >> No, it was a lot lot [ __ ] better. >> Okay. Well, that that would kind of explain something, right?

2:12>> Yeah. >> So, you you do have an idea why? >> Yeah, I don't want to blame the I can't control that though, so it's like >> I respect that. But, I mean like the doingness sometimes you have to do twice the effort to get the same outcome. >> I've I've Trust me. I've been uh >> Yeah. >> I think it's a I feel like I feel like stupid, if that makes sense. >> Sure. >> You know? >> Yeah, but the thing is is you said you've like we just walked through this pretty quickly, right? And it's like, okay, so I need to do this thing that's very clear that I need to do to grow my business, but I have this other stuff that I'm doing.

2:43Alex One of those things is more important than the other. >> Mhm. >> And also they're short-term, long-term, which is that am I willing to train a new salesperson? Um take my time to do so, so that I don't have to sell myself. In the period that I train the salesperson, my revenue would hypothetically dip during that period, but I'm making the investment that I would not have to do that long-term so that I could get that time back. And you trade 40 for two, right? 40 hours of sales for two hours of management. And you keep making that trade over and over again until you're in 40 hours of management and no doing. Then you say, "Okay, can I get somebody else and trade my 40 hours of management to somebody else's two hours?" And you just keep making that trade.

3:19But right now, you're you're in what we call the swamp, which is 1 to 3 million. Um and uh you guys want to know why monetarily it's the hardest part? So, if you Let's say you've got you're doing We'll we'll use your math. So, 2 million bucks a year, right? Or what are you actually doing now? What was it? >> 250. >> Okay. Oh, 250. >> Yeah. >> So, that's less than $2 million a year. Okay. >> Yeah.

3:44>> Um well, we're going to continue with this example for the moment because that's what I just started with. But, um let's say that you're running, you know, 25% margins on this, right? So, you got $500,000 left over, you know, in profit. Now, not necessarily cash flow, so call it you might want to keep 100 in the business, whatever. So, you might need a really good person to help you kind of get past this level. And so, the problem is that you have to make this bet where you're like, "Okay, well, you know, 250 that's there is, you know, my income and then the other 250 is, call it, the business's profit, right?

4:16So, I'm going to basically bet 100% of this profit that this person that I'm going to hire to help me is going to be good. That's why it's the swamp because you have two options and they both suck. One is that you just somehow work more than you currently are or work on things that matter more or you find somebody else who can help you and you basically bet all your profit on it. That's why it's so tough. Now, you're doing 250, which sounds like you've got stuff in between your ears more than something in the market.

4:43>> Yeah. I already [ __ ] up and hired someone and lost a bunch of money. I've been negative CAC if that's possible. So, um 6:00 a.m. focus on hiring people, is what you're saying? >> Instead of hiring people, hire somebody who's a stud that you feel like you would you have to get them. >> Does that include poaching people? >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] [snorts]

5:09Alex >> Why why run the risk? >> I guess it's what's the benefit of going and working with me instead of doing your own thing cuz killers typically, like it's a very independent business. You can do >> Brokerage. >> I mean, there's a gazillion brokers who have many agents underneath of them. I think you need to sell you on this. >> Mhm. >> Like you can't sell them cuz you don't believe it's a good idea.

5:37So, that's not surprising. >> Mhm. >> You're like, "I'm having trouble getting people to do something that I don't ethically feel good about doing." Okay. Well, yeah, that makes sense. But think about think about it from them. They get to learn from you, which is beneficial. You probably have some lead flow that they don't have. They probably get some brand, right? That they don't have. Um and you probably have some systems and back-end that have already been built out that they wouldn't have to build that they don't know how to build. It's like those are material benefits. >> Mhm.

6:05>> Cool. Okay, so basically everything that you're spending your time on you should just look at how much am I making from this activity and then how many hours would it take me to get this thing? And you just peel off the two or three or four hours a day that you're spending doing something that's not the thing that's going to grow the business. >> And just do that. >> Yeah. >> Cool. Thank you. >> Yeah, no problem, man. >> If you are a business owner and you are not growing as fast as you like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So, my team and I put together the $100 scaling road map, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through and more importantly, where they got stuck and how they got past it. And so, we broke it into these 10 stages and we made this little kind of quiz thing where if you put in your business information, it'll tell you where you're at and the most important part for you, what to do for each of functions of the business across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, human resources and finance. And so, no matter what you're struggling with, someone else has already struggled with it and solved it.

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