Overwhelming Fear.

Once I was on my own and without a paycheck, I was terrified.

I didn’t sleep for the first six months and I had no choice but to succeed. I was NOT going back to being a W-2 employee and working for someone else. I could no longer accept feeling trapped and depressed.

This fear was a gift because it drove me to take an insane amount of action.

I had confidence knowing that even if I was really bad at selling real estate, I could out-hustle and out-work any agent in my office, and probably even the entire marketplace.

I didn’t care what I had to do. I didn’t care if I liked to do it. I didn’t care how hard or annoying it was to do. I would get the job done and the job done right.

That was the largest gift investment banking had given me: a relentless work ethic regardless of circumstance.

Be Relentless.

I first realized that I needed money immediately as I only had three months to prove myself. The fastest way to make immediate cash was to fill rental properties. So I took any rental lead I could get. I manned the front desk of my office and took inbound calls. I also called rental leads and worked to turn them into buyers.

My brokerage’s leadership team at the time also taught us to bring in property management accounts with the allure that it would bring us steady pay. I liked the idea of this, so I did that too.

So, after filling rentals to get money for gas and food, and calling through the rental leads, guess what happened…

NOTHING.

Massive Action.

I became desperate.

The desperation led me to take more action. I realized quickly that I grossly miscalculated how much action I needed to take to get started.

So I started asking for any list of phone numbers from agents in my office. I would call anyone on any list and talk to them about real estate. Then I started knocking on doors around the house I had just purchased in Sutton Lakes to see if anyone in the neighborhood wanted to sell their house or knew anyone else looking to buy a house (I was told door knocking doesn’t work anymore).

Then I decided I would be man enough to call my prior bosses at Deutsche Bank, the company I had just quit, to see if they wanted to buy a rental property and I could manage it for them. They were, after-all, the only people I knew in Jacksonville on a first name basis other than my girlfriend.

So… A really fascinating thing happened when I started consistently taking massive action over a period of time:

1. No Shame, Call Everyone. My prior boss purchased a $113,000 rental property from me. This sale gave me about $2,500 after splits to give me one more month of runway. It also allowed me to eat more than just a $1 Costco hotdog that month, although not complaining, those hotdogs are an excellent deal.

2. Farm a Neighborhood & Do Open Houses. I got a listing after 60 days of door knocking my neighborhood - for approximately 2 hours a day on weekdays totaling 1,200 doors. The listing I got was a rental where we had to evict the tenant, paint the house, and get the smoke smell out. No problem, I can handle that easily (even though I had no idea how to do any of it - thanks JD for giving me a shot!).

   I quickly realized that the primary benefit of getting listings is that I could do open houses each weekend. I did four open houses every weekend for 8 weeks or for as long as I could on each listing.

   I saw that listings were the opportunity to plant billboards in my neighborhood to get more customers… for free… It was a no brainer to target listings and maximize them.

   I saw that I can acquire many more customers… for free… from open houses. So from open houses I earned two more buyers and another seller. These “wins” then gave me confidence to just keep doing them every weekend. After each listing sold, I would subsequently door knock around the neighborhood to get more sellers to list with me.

3. Take On All Customers to Learn & Provide Excellent Service. A $70,000 buyer lead came through during floor duty.

   This buyer complained no other agent would make time for her due to her price point. I took her on and helped her. After about 30 houses, 7 of which fell through due to condition, we found the perfect home and closed.

   Later, this customer sent me multiple referrals in the $350,000+ price point.

   I wasn’t just getting to help this one person, I got to tap into her entire network to grow my reputation! This business is amazing! Plus I got to learn basically everything about foreclosures, inspections, and what would and would not be insured on a property.

   I got a first class education in real estate just by serving this one customer! Free education sounds good to me.

4. The Lead List Doesn’t Matter. I Do & I Showed Up Early. One of the rental leads I called from weeks prior called me back and said that God sent me to him (yes He did!) and that I must come to Fernandina Beach to sell his pool home.

   Sold it in 2 days with multiple offers.

   Showed up early to put the sign up and talked with a neighbor walking her dog.

   Sold her a house cash 3 days later for $200,000.

   Used that money to buy Brittany an engagement ring! Real estate is amazing!

From there, I was hooked. I was waking up at 6:00am, prepping my lists of people to call, calling from 8:30am to 12:00pm/noon and then door knocking for 2 hours in the afternoon (getting my exercise in!) and going on appointments and showings for the rest of the day.

I was on cloud nine.

To put things in perspective, keep in mind this was in 2016 when the average days on market in Northeast Florida was 87 and the average sales price was $197,000.

Two Lessons.

NO MATTER WHAT, I would continue getting new business each day, regardless of how many customers I would be serving at any one time. That way, I would never be without a paycheck.

NO MATTER WHAT, I would answer the phone. It always surprised me that people would go into a sales profession and then not answer their phone. It’s like saying no to business and admitting you don’t care about service. I didn’t care about when I received a call. Call me anytime. I’ll jump out of the shower or get off the pot.

People are still surprised today that I actually answer the phone, anytime of day. I’m always open to opportunity.

Today I do have a system for the phone to get answered, just not by me.

The Results & Big Ego.

By the end of my first year, I was blown away. I had sold a handful of properties and actually had money coming in.

Brittany couldn’t believe it — and neither could my family. They had stopped laughing.

As Brittany watched me call through rental lists late at night, she couldn’t believe that other agents weren’t taking advantage of making a massive number of calls to literally anyone to get business.

Who doesn’t want to talk about real estate? What were these other agents doing with their time? Are they treating real estate like an actual job?

By the end of my first year (2016) I had looked up after working my butt off and saw that I had sold $12,000,000 in volume for 66 units and I was outperforming the top agent in my office by a 3x multiple.

I knew at that point I needed two things:

1. to switch brokerages so I could learn how to build a team and get leverage as I was hitting my natural ceiling of achievement (i.e. running out of time), and

2. to start tracking my numbers more closely and come up with a long-term financial game plan.

After all, I had never had money before, what was I to do with it?

The Financials. Where’d the Money Go?

That first year, in 2016 I generated $300,000 in revenue, gave my brokerage $44,000 in splits, and spent $66,000 on all my other expenses, bringing home a net profit of $200,000 - nearly 4x more my W-2 income from investment banking. AND - I was now the OWNER (thanks Jean!) and worked the way I wanted to. This is the greatest business opportunity of ALL TIME!

The first thing I did: paid off my student loans and car loans.

The second thing I did: buy Brittany an engagement ring.

The third thing I did: invest the remaining money back into my growing business. Don’t miss this note. From studying business, I knew that my growth rate would be directly proportionate to how much I invested back in my business.

Brittany and I continued to live affordably, on less than 15% of our combined income. This allowed us to save up cash to look for our next property to purchase.

FYI - Living affordably for the last ten years is what allows us now to do epic shit for the rest of our lives. It’s NOT because we made money, it’s because of what we chose to do with it.

Trophies Are The Enemy.

Now, with all these sales came lots of trophies and awards and my ego got big quick…

My ego got so big, in fact, that other agents didn’t like working with me. I thought I knew better than them just because I sold more than them.

In many cases, I thought I WAS better than them. This couldn’t be further from the truth and I had many agents put me in my place.

Getting more sales awards from my company was the last thing I needed.

I needed a coach. Someone who could humble me and help me grow as a person, not just an agent.

I had to reinvent myself.

So, I hired a coach and attended seminars and industry conferences any chance that I could get.

The race was on! Could I build something bigger than just myself? Could I shed my ego and become something more than just a top-producing sales agent?

Stay tuned for Chapter 3: Escaping My 2nd Job.

In the meantime, watch this awesome video: Just Do It - Art Williams.