Get In to Get Out
The Exercises.
Ten exercises from the book. Interactive calculators you can fill out in your browser, save your answers, and print as a PDF. Work through them in order the first time. After that, come back on your own cadence.
A Real P&L
Most agents have never seen another agent's income statement. Below is The Brooks Group's actual P&L from 2016 through 2018, plus the 2019 projection. Three full years of a real team scaling from 66 units to a $1M revenue business. Use it as a scale reference for your own numbers, not a template.
What a real P&L looks like
Below is The Brooks Group's actual income statement from 2016 through 2018, plus the 2019 projection. Three full years of a real team scaling from 66 units to a $1M revenue business. Use it as a scale reference for your own numbers, not a template.
| Line Item |
2016*
Year 1
Solo Agent |
2017
Year 2
Solo Agent + TC |
2018
Year 3
+ Buyer Agent + ISA/OSA |
2019 Proj.
Projected
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Units Closed | ||||
| Units | 66 | 74 | 143 | 200 |
| Revenue | ||||
| Revenue (GCI) | $301,000 100.0% |
$556,059 100.0% |
$1,005,989 100.0% |
$1,464,500 100.0% |
| Cost of Sale | ||||
| Cost of Sale (brokerage splits & fees) | $44,000 14.6% |
$32,690 5.9% |
$38,391 3.8% |
$40,000 2.7% |
| Gross Profit | $257,000 85.4% |
$523,369 94.1% |
$967,598 96.2% |
$1,424,500 97.3% |
| Operating Expenses | ||||
| Education | $5,575 1.9% |
$24,833 4.5% |
$49,557 4.9% |
$47,700 3.3% |
| Lead Generation | $19,753 6.6% |
$42,391 7.6% |
$94,128 9.4% |
$141,472 9.7% |
| Payroll (Admin, ISA, CEO salary, taxes) | $0 0.0% |
$39,448 7.1% |
$95,070 9.5% |
$150,000 10.2% |
| Professional Services | $8,891 3.0% |
$39,192 7.0% |
$29,481 2.9% |
$27,000 1.8% |
| Technology & Phone | $4,843 1.6% |
$11,607 2.1% |
$15,711 1.6% |
$11,321 0.8% |
| Supplies & Equipment | $8,375 2.8% |
$17,037 3.1% |
$14,580 1.4% |
$21,000 1.4% |
| Meals & Entertainment | $3,082 1.0% |
$8,497 1.5% |
$7,622 0.8% |
$7,800 0.5% |
| Client Gifts & Events | $1,769 0.6% |
$2,761 0.5% |
$2,429 0.2% |
$16,400 1.1% |
| Health Insurance, Licenses, Misc. | $885 0.3% |
$6,534 1.2% |
$5,556 0.6% |
$2,000 0.1% |
| Total Operating Expenses | $53,174 17.7% |
$192,300 34.6% |
$314,134 31.2% |
$424,693 29.0% |
| Net Income | $203,826 67.7% |
$331,069 59.5% |
$653,464 65.0% |
$999,807 68.3% |
Your MUST & Freedom Numbers
Two big numbers you have to know to make it in any business. Your MUST Number is the profit your business must make to stay above water. Your Freedom Number is the income that lets you leave it if you want. Work backward. Every blank is a guess you are paying for.
The 4P Framework
Four decisions that define your lane. Each is a boundary. Boundaries make compounding possible. A quiet Tuesday where everything on the calendar is right is what a defined lane feels like.
The Lead Engine Tracker
Map every closed transaction to its actual source. 80% of your business comes from 20% of your sources. Track until you know which 20%. Then stop doing everything else.
| Source | # Closings | GCI ($) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Totals | 0 | $0 |
The Media Gameplan
Organic social media is one of the largest, most powerful lead generation levers in the business. But it only compounds if you treat it like a system. Pick the assets. Define who they reach. Set the cadence. Connect them to the funnel. The version below is the actual playbook Momentum runs every week. Use it as a reference, then build your own underneath.
What a real media gameplan looks like
This is the actual content distribution matrix Momentum runs. Nine channels, three goals (buyer/seller referrals, agent leads, ad fuel for long-form). Two people own the calendar. Everything flows into the same funnel.
| # | Asset | Who | Audience (TAM) | Cadence | When | Time | Goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Assets | |||||||
| 1 | YouTube LF | Toni | Buyers / Sellers / Investors | 1x Tue, 1x Live Fri | Mon / Fri | 12:00–2:30 PM | Buyer & Seller Referrals |
| 2 | Substack | Jon | Agents, Investors, Broker/Owners | 2x / week | Tue / Sat | 5:30 AM | Agent Leads |
| 3 | X | Jon | Buyers / Sellers / Investors | 10x / day | Daily | Every 2h, 8 AM–10 PM | Connect with big X players |
| 4 | Jon | Agents, Investors, Broker/Owners | 1x / day (alt reel/text) | Mon–Fri | 8:00 AM | Agent Leads | |
| 5 | Jon | Agents, Investors, Broker/Owners | 5x / week | Mon–Fri | 8:00 AM | Agent Leads | |
| 6 | YouTube Shorts | Toni | Buyers / Sellers / Investors | 2x / week | Tue / Thu | 8:00 AM | Ad for long-form |
| 7 | Website | Jon | Agents, Investors, Broker/Owners | 1x / month | 1st of month | — | Agent Leads |
| Secondary Assets | |||||||
| 8 | Threads | Jon | Agents, Investors, Broker/Owners | 1x / day | Daily | 8:00 AM | Agent Leads |
| 9 | TikTok | Jon | Agents, Investors, Broker/Owners | 1x / day | Mon–Fri | 8:00 AM | Agent Leads |
DMs
Download or Buy
Long-form
Every post on a short-form channel is fuel for the next step in the funnel. The flow ends at the long-form content where someone actually decides whether to do business with you. Build the chain. Then make each link better.
Use the playbook above as a reference, not a template. Your audience, your time budget, and your strengths are different. Define your own primary and secondary assets, who owns each, what cadence you can actually keep, and what each one is for.
Database Health Check
Your database is the number of people who know you, trust you, and remember you when real estate comes up. Run this check at the start of every quarter. If the referral rate is below 20%, silence is almost always the cause.
What a real touch program looks like
This is the actual database touch calendar the Brooks Group ran in 2019. 171 past clients. 41 planned touches across the year. $16,400 budget, about $96 per client. Mix: low-cost monthly mailers and bomb-bomb emails as the rhythm. Three big events as the connective tissue. Notice the cadence, three to four planned touches per month, every month.
Actual count, 100+. The 41 in the title is the calendar. The real number was more than double because each touch carried sub-touches inside it. A "Top Golf Event" line item is one row on the calendar, but in practice it triggers an evite, two reminder emails, RSVP follow-ups, the event itself, thank-you texts, and a thank-you mailer to no-shows. The discipline is in the planned 41. The relationship strength comes from the 60+ that happen because the planned 41 are happening.
| Date | Type | Activity | Owner | Cost | Hrs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Totals · 41 touches | $16,400 | 154 | |||
- · Three to four touches per month, every month. The rhythm is the program.
- · 41 planned, 100+ actual. Each line item triggers sub-touches (event evites, reminders, RSVPs, thank-yous). Plan the 41. Execute the 100.
- · 70% of touches are low-cost (email + mail). The remaining 30% carry the relationship weight (events, drop-bys, calls).
- · Three events anchor the year: Top Golf in April, Movie Night in August, Holiday Party in December. Vendors contribute when possible.
- · Two "Letter from the Heart" mailers, one mid-year, one year-end. Personal, not transactional.
- · Every touch has an owner. No floating tasks. If nobody owns it, it doesn't happen.
The 7C Diagnostic
Score yourself 1–10 on each function. No sevens. Seven is comfort. Give yourself a six or an eight. The gap between your current score and your target score is the work.
| Function | Diagnostic question | Current (no 7s) |
Target | Explain the Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Create | Can you consistently generate new opportunities? | |||
| Capture | Do you convert every conversation into data? | |||
| Curb | Do you eliminate misaligned clients? | |||
| Cultivate | Do you systematically nurture trust over time? | |||
| Convert | Do qualified prospects commit to working with you exclusively? | |||
| Close | Do transactions move cleanly to completion? | |||
| Customer Touch | Do you remain present and valued after closing? | |||
| Average | — | — | Gap — | |
The Margin Curve
Every stage trades margin for scale. That is a trade to be understood and made on purpose. Before moving to the next stage, ask: does this move take me closer to the exit I defined, or further from it?
The economics of going solo vs going team
Adapted from the 1,000-Unit Economic Model. Enter your numbers below. The calculator runs the full chain: appointments → conversion → listings → sales → GCI → costs → net income. The Net Income card on the right shows what changes when you operate solo on both sides versus when you split commissions with a Listing Specialist and Buyer Specialist. That delta is the margin curve.
The 90-Day Sprint Planner
Ninety days. One or two specific gaps. Nothing else competing for that attention. Long enough to see whether what you're doing is working. Short enough that you can't pretend you're still warming up.
Understanding is not the variable. Execution is.
For years Jon and Brittany kept a freestanding whiteboard in the middle of their kitchen with the quarterly goals and the daily "one thing" written on it. After three kids, it got downsized and moved to the pantry door. The board changed; the ritual didn't. Most agents who read a book like this one can explain every principle in it. Their businesses still look almost identical to those of agents who never thought about any of it. The difference is whether you actually do the things on this page, then check the page every morning.
Capital Architecture
Every profitable operator needs to think about their money in four distinct layers, each with a different job. If a layer is blank, it is a gap the next market shift will find.
One conversation can change the trajectory of your life.
Jon was 28 when he met a man at a party in Austin who passively earned more than $500,000 a year from real estate and businesses he no longer ran day to day. Twenty minutes of conversation, a book recommendation, and a referral to a peer group. Six years later, that one exchange had produced a mortgage branch, a title company, property management, private lending, and Momentum Realty. The point is not the assets. The point is the shift in how Jon thought about money. Income announces itself with every closing. Capital is quiet. It works in the background and only becomes visible after enough time has passed for compounding to show up.
Once you understand that, you stop asking how much you made. You start asking these four questions instead.
Before your margin buys luxury, it should buy time. Specifically, the hours currently consumed by tasks that require your hours but not your judgment. The "I can do it all myself" approach is a liability dressed as a virtue. Check what you have already leveraged. Anything unchecked is eligible.
Jon brought his third child home from the hospital and the next phone call was about a real estate investment going sideways, one he had not properly vetted because he got caught up in the flash and the group-think of operators he trusted. He has thought about that call more than any other in his financial life. Due diligence is not the step before the real work; it is the work. Run every commitment through this list before signing anything.
Discipline is not enough. Discipline without structure is exposure. The cost of building good legal and tax architecture is high. The cost of not having it is far higher.
The exercises are the map.
The mastermind is the guide.
Jon and Brittany answer questions live inside the free Facebook group. If you get stuck on an exercise, can't figure out your MUST number, or want to pressure-test your 4Ps, this is where to bring it. The group is full of agents running the same plays. Want deeper accountability? The paid mastermind at thinkbigquestioneverything.com goes further.