Everyone wants to be a top real estate agent, but not many understand that building a real estate empire requires you to shift the ENTIRE way you do business.

I used to think I had a successful real estate business.

But I didn’t.

I had a successful hustle. 

Everything in my business relied on ME.

If I didn’t answer my phone, deals didn’t happen.

If I wanted to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon, the day was shot.

If I got sick or burnt out, the business would crumble.

The Biggest Difference Between A Real Estate Business And A Real Estate Side Hustle

The biggest difference between top real estate agents running profitable businesses and people who have a real estate hustle is this…

A real estate hustle is entirely dependent on one agent. 

If you’re not hustling and putting in hours – the business doesn’t bring in revenue. 

Everything must go through you. 

You become the bottleneck of your business very quickly. 

I still vividly remember the exact moment I decided I needed to stop settling for a real estate hustle and start building a freedom-focused business.

I was on a much-needed date night with my husband and we were deep in conversation, eating spaghetti, and my phone starts to buzz.

Without even thinking, I spit out my spaghetti in a napkin, pick up my phone, and walk away from my lovely husband to answer the call. 

I walk out on my husband only to answer a call from a lead who’s telling me he’s not interested. He was one of the 200 calls I’d made that day.

When I walked back into the restaurant and looked at my husband, he looked broken.

I couldn’t blame him. 

What was I doing?

I realized something needed to change. 

I knew I needed to get serious about my business model if I wanted to make time for the things that mattered most in my life. 

Here are the biggest shifts I made to go from a hustling agent to a TOP real estate agent with a scaleable, freedom-filled business. 

Shift One: Manual Vs. Automation

I honestly believe SO many agents are not using the tools available to them.

When I think of my mom, who’s been an agent for 35+ years, she didn’t have access to tech or automation.

CRMs, were, for the most part, the old-school version of Top Producer only.

It was literally client management and nothing else.

Systems were checklists. 

Virtual assistants didn’t exist. 

If people had an assistant, they were paying them a lot of money to come into the office every day.

Real estate agents were operating in an entirely different era. 

One of the biggest shifts I made to become a top agent grossing 7 figures sustainably was to implement systems and automation wherever possible.

The rule of thumb is to eliminate, automate and then delegate. 

Don’t pay someone $25/hour for a basic task that software could do for $25/month.

And before you think to yourself…

“Won’t automation hurt my client experience?”

It won’t.

Systems and automation make you a better agent and a better entrepreneur. They create a white-glove experience for your client where nothing gets missed. Everything is streamlined without key details falling through the cracks.

Trust me, it’s a win-win all around.

Shift Two: Attraction Vs. Chasing

The next shift I made was in my mindset and strategy for getting business.

Instead of constantly spending hours chasing new clients, I started thinking about how I could get them to come to me.

If you’re in chase mode, you’ll always hit a plateau with how many potential clients you can reach.

• There are only so many cold calls you can make in a day
• There are only so many hours you can spend on manual prospecting
• There are only so many networking events and opportunities you can attend 

(And not to mention, all of that is exhausting. Especially if you’re an introvert like me!)

So what’s the solution?

If you want to be a top real estate agent that closes deals left, right, and center – it’s time to switch from a 1-1 model to a 1-many model. 

Yes, real estate is a relationship-based business.

You need to be having conversations with your ideal clients.

But not every conversation needs to be one-to-one. 

You can leverage your online content and marketing automation to consistently have conversations with your ideal clients and develop relationships at scale. 

Shift Three: Solopreneur Vs. Real Estate Team

In the past, I always identified as a lone wolf in business.

This mentality kept me trapped in my business.

The thing that took me from a hustling agent to a top real estate agent with a booming business wasn’t working “harder” or doubling my output.

It was by investing in people who were smarter than me.

When I talk about how to build a real estate team, a lot of people think I just mean hiring an assistant.

And that’s certainly a good place to start.

But, I actually saw the most growth when I started delegating outcomes to people on my team. 

It’s not enough to simply pass tasks off to team members.

You need to cultivate a team of leaders who will help make decisions for you.

Otherwise, you will always be the bottleneck.

Once I understood this concept, I was able to quickly double my business. 

I still remember the exact moment when I realized I’d built a high-performing team. 

After 10 years of being in real estate and constantly hustling, I finally booked my first REAL vacation.

It was a Mediterranean cruise.

I remember pulling into our first port and connecting to my hotspot after two days without internet.

I signed on and I was waiting for the fires to be put out, for the influx of emails and messages from my team…

…but there was nothing. 

My team had it under control.

They were doing deals, all the paperwork was going in, and leads were being handled. 

I remember looking at my husband, and saying:

“Oh my gosh…they don’t need me!”

It was a revelation. 

I got to close my computer and joyfully eat spaghetti in Italy with my husband (this time, without spitting it out into a napkin because I had to return a phone call to a lead).

It was fantastic.

All of the work I’d done automating, systematizing and delegating was finally paying off.

And that’s what I want for you too.

For so long, we’ve glorified the hustle.

We’ve told ourselves it’s sexy to hustle and grind, to constantly be busy.

When in reality, true sexiness is spaciousness in our schedule.

If you want to be a top real estate agent, you have to break out of your side hustler mindset.

You have to stop doing everything on your own.

You have to stop cold-calling like it’s 1994.

You have to take the time to build systems and automations that allow you to remove yourself. 

What got you here won’t get you there. 

If you’re ready to break free from the six-figure hustle and build a multi-6 or 7-figure real estate business that offers you true freedom…let’s chat.

Apply for The Listings Lab here and book a call to speak with our team to see if the program is right for you.