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I watched two agents start their businesses the same month in the same market. Same brokerage. Same training. Same opportunities.

Agent A hired an assistant within 60 days. Posted constantly on social media. Worked 70-hour weeks. Made sporadic income – $15K one month, $3K the next. Burned out and quit real estate after 18 months.

Agent B spent her first six months building systems. Documented everything. Created step-by-step processes. Built automated follow-up sequences. Then hired help to execute what she’d already perfected.

Guess who just closed a $200,000 month?

Here’s what Agent A didn’t understand: hiring people to fix chaos isn’t leverage. It’s expensive chaos with more moving parts.

Most agents think leverage means getting help. They’re wrong. Leverage means multiplying your output without multiplying your effort. And there’s only one way to do that right.

Let me tell you what happened to one of my coaching clients that’ll make you rethink everything you know about scaling your business. She built what I’m about to teach you – properly, in the right order – and had a $200,000 month. Not year. Month.

Most agents would kill for that kind of success, but when I ask them about their systems, I get blank stares. When I mention building structure before hiring help, they tell me they don’t have time. When the market shifts and their income drops to zero, they blame everything except the one thing they can control: how they built their business.

The Reality Check You Need to Hear

Frustrated that leads are taking longer to convert? Feeling like business is scarce and the market’s to blame?

The market conditions change. They fluctuate. This is part of being in business, part of the entrepreneur’s journey.

But what we’re seeing now is a revelation that agents never took the time to actually build a business. When the market was hot, everybody was closing deals not because they were skilled at business, but because it was just easy to convert leads.

Now that things have slowed down, it’s exposing gaps in our businesses. We can’t keep blaming the market. We have to take responsibility and start looking at the backend systems of our business and build so that when the next slow market comes (and it will come because that’s part of business – it ebbs and flows), we’re prepared.

The Fatal Mistake: Activity Over Strategy

Walk into any real estate office and you’ll see the same scene playing out. Agents hunched over their phones, making calls. Frantically posting on social media. Running from showing to showing.

They mistake being busy for being productive. They choose activity over strategy.

They’re too busy chasing closings – focused on the activities that bring closings – that they don’t think long-term strategy. How do I build something I can walk away from and still have closings coming in?

This mindset is what keeps agents trapped in the hustle cycle. One month they make $10,000, the next month they make zero. Unfortunately, my bills don’t fluctuate with market conditions. These people still want to get paid on the first and fifteenth every month. They come like clockwork.

What Building Actually Means (Hint: It’s Not Hiring Someone)

Most agents don’t realize what building actually means. They think hiring someone is building. They think posting more on Instagram is building. They think working harder is building.

Let me break down what building actually looks like, starting with the foundation of everything: systems.

Building isn’t about adding more activity to your day. Building is about creating structure that multiplies your output without multiplying your effort. Building is about creating something that works even when you’re not working.

The Knowledge Gap That’s Killing Your Growth

Here’s the thing about leverage that most people get wrong. Leverage is not about getting help. Leverage is about multiplying your output without multiplying your effort.

Translation: get more done in less time. Get more done without having to be a slave to the clock. Get more done without having to hustle, keep time away from your family, keep time away from the things that you love.

This is why the first step to real leverage is systems. You cannot have people leverage unless you’ve already created, tested and executed at a high level the systems lever first.

The Leverage Triangle: Systems, Tools, People (In That Exact Order)

Most agents think about leverage backwards. They start with people, then wonder why everything falls apart. The leverage triangle has three parts in a very specific order: systems, tools, people.

Systems: Your Step-By-Step Playbook

You don’t build a business off vibe. You don’t build a business off hustle. You don’t build a business because you got the gift of gab and know how to talk to people.

Systems are your SOPs – standard operating procedures. They remove decision fatigue from your business and create consistency. Your business is going to grow and you’ll make more money if there’s less confusion, more consistency.

For example, when a lead comes in, you should not be trying to figure out how you’re going to call, when you’re going to call, what you’re going to put them on. That should already be defined. Leads come in, they get put in a database, they get put on this smart plan, they get a call on this day, they get a text on this day, they get emails on this day.

This is why it’s dangerous to hire people before systems. The people are who you bring in once you have the systems dialed in. The people are who you bring into execute, never bring in a person that doesn’t have your vision to create systems for you.

Tools: The Gasoline for Your Systems

Once you have the systems in place – and only then – tools help you execute a system more effectively. They help you amplify, automate, execute.

Most agents chase tools like they’re chasing shiny objects. They keep changing tools because they don’t like the current one. Well, you don’t have a system. That’s why you don’t like that tool.

You don’t know what you need until you have a system. Tools help with efficiency. Think CRMs, automation, schedulers, templates. If you have to send a follow-up email in three days to every client that you meet with, that should not be something that you do by hand. That should be automated and you should have a tool for that.

People: The Power Players (When You Give Them a Play to Run)

People are the third part of the leverage triangle – and sometimes you don’t even need this part. But what we do is start with people, thinking that if we’re struggling in our business, we need to hire a person.

You need a system. You need a tool. People are last because they execute the play.

People aren’t leverage if they’re duct taping your business together. They’re leverage when something is in place and they can carry the torch to the next level.

The Biblical Foundation for Building During Slow Seasons

The third reason agents don’t build systems connects to something biblical that most people ignore. They think the fast market, the boom, will last forever. They ride these waves and totally ignore the importance of stability.

The Bible says there’s a season for everything under the sun. You’re going to have good times in business, but you’re going to have some not-so-good times. Wouldn’t it be good when you have the not-so-good times to have something prepared?

Let me give you the example from Genesis. Joseph was given a dream interpretation. A king asked Joseph to interpret his dream, and Joseph said, “You’re going to have seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.”

When Joseph interpreted this dream, he was able to help the king prepare for the seven seasons of famine. What happened? In the season of plenty, they put some aside and started preparing. We call that preparing for a rainy day.

That same concept works for us as entrepreneurs because I have bills. Unfortunately, as the market fluctuates, my bills can’t do that.

The Two-Pillar Foundation That Actually Works

Real estate is nothing more than relationships and conversations. If you know how to have conversations that convert – meaning you’re skilled at that, you practice that, it’s something you’re learning daily to get better at – and you know how to build relationships, you will be successful in business.

But the reality is that success in building relationships for realtors is in the follow-up. That’s why your funnels have to be in place. That’s why your email campaigns have to be in place. Your touch points have to be in place so you can systematically build relationships that convert over time.

This week, I got five referrals from my referral system. I ended up taking two listings from systematized emails that went out to clients, and they replied back: “Hey, give me a call. I want to list my house.”

These systems you build – the solid database and referral network – are evergreen systems that can continue to grow your business even if you’re working full-time and have to spend the day at another job.

Why Most Hires Fail (And How to Avoid This Costly Mistake)

The number one reason people quit or get fired is lack of clarity. Systems give you clarity. Systems clear up chaos.

Give people a role, not a rescue mission. We’re hiring people to come in and be MacGyver to our business and duct tape all the bad things that we failed to implement on our own. That’s not how people work. And that’s why people hate their jobs – because they’re constantly having to fix things that somebody should have given them a system for.

You don’t hand chaos to your VA. You don’t hand chaos to your assistant. You don’t expect them to run it. They can’t. You are setting them up for failure.

When she has a system to execute, she can take the system to the next level. And then that’s exponential growth.

Long Money vs. Right Now Money

My brain always thinks long-term strategy. I very seldom focus on short-term activity because short-term activity gets you paid now, but I’m interested in long money. Long money.

I had an agent on my team who built a referral system for her clients. Her clients refer most of her business. She made $200,000 in one month. People are still doing this. I was so proud because everything I told her to do for her business, she did it.

I’m not talking to you about something I’ve read or studied in a book. I’ve lived this. I’ve done this not just in real estate, but in health insurance when I was doing that, and in other industries. This works across businesses, any form of sales.

Your Building Season Starts NOW

When the market is slow, this is your time to build. Why? You don’t have a hundred thousand showings and a hundred thousand clients.

This is the time to build. Use that time wisely. Don’t just sit in fear. Take action. Insulate yourself. Prepare for the market ahead because what’s going to happen is the market is going to be great again.

I believe it because real estate goes up and down. But when it gets great, you’re going to be too busy to build. Then you’re going to keep going through this cycle – one month you make $10,000, the next month you make zero.

My bills just can’t do that.

The Investment Reality Most Agents Avoid

Sometimes building means you need consultation. If I was building a house right now, I would call an architect. I’m not going to try to lay out the blueprint for my house myself.

The cost of not having systems is always higher than the cost of building them. Every month you delay building proper systems is another month you’re leaving money on the table and burning yourself out.

Leverage is why rich people are rich. Because they don’t waste time figuring out stuff that they can pay somebody that’s already got a blueprint to do. I don’t want to spend 35 hours trying to figure out how to create a lead generation system. Somebody’s already figured it out. I’m going to pay for it.

Stop Winging It. Start Winning.

The leverage triangle – systems, tools, people, in that exact order – is what separates agents who build empires from agents who stay stuck in the hustle cycle.

Systems give you structure. Tools help you scale. People allow you to step away.

That is the purpose of leverage.

Most agents skip this foundation because building systems takes time. They’re stuck in PTSD from being poor, so all they’re thinking about is money. But there are certain things you have to sit down and build. You can’t fly this plane blindly.

The chaos exists in you until it doesn’t. The systems help remove the chaos. If you will take the time to build the system, you won’t be confused in your business. You won’t get up every day not knowing what you’re doing.

If you want to leverage the triangle that will transform your business from a hustle into an empire:

Book a 1:1 Strategy Session with me today. We’ll audit your current systems (or lack thereof), identify your biggest leverage opportunities, and create a custom action plan to build your business the right way – with systems first, tools second, and people third.

Because building systems is the key to your leverage. It’s the foundation that everything else is built on.

Systems. Tools. People. In that order. That’s how you build a business that works without you.

That’s how you win, friend.