Improve My Life

It looks like the Grinch is bringing lawsuits this season. Should you be worried you could be next? I don’t know. However, make no mistake, our industry is changing and that process can be messy. You need to pay attention and take some action to protect yourself. In my view, we will likely see agents, […]

We have a reputation problem. The various lawsuits tell a story – the public doesn’t know what we do, doesn’t understand how we get paid, and doesn’t see the importance of the structures we have in place to do business (MLS/NAR). I have three ideas to help. Change the aspirational nature of the business by […]

It’s time to plan for 2024. This is not an optional activity if you’re serious about your business. So how do you go about this? Schedule a half to full day off-site Planning takes different energy than execution so I recommend you schedule a half to full-day off-site meeting with your team. Everyone on your […]

We have all been subject to numerous social media posts and webinar invites to discuss the Sitzer/Burnett class action verdict that occurred on Halloween. We thought we’d weigh in on the topic and let you know just how we think it will affect your business moving forward. Before we dive in, just a reminder that […]

I review dozens of P&Ls (and a lesser amount of balance sheets) of top agents and brokers every month.  This is the time of the year when they should all be looking at their P&Ls and determining what money needs to be spent where next year – i.e. a budget. The following are the top […]

This week we had the first meeting of the Alchemy of Money advisory board. Taking my own advice of getting out of the jar to read the label, I decided to form an advisory board to ensure we’re getting a fresh, well-balanced perspective as we grow. I was very pleased with our first meeting and can’t wait […]

“You’re not growing unless you’re failing!” “Fail forward!” “You don’t learn unless you fail!” I could go on. The problem is catchy quotes are little comfort when you’re in the middle of failure. So what can you do instead? Last week I wrote about my 3 year $500K failure at my farm in Maryland. It […]

In late 2018 I decided it was time for me to sell my business with no plans as to what I would do next. It took a while to execute that change and, as I suspected at that time, it was a big consequential decision. Thanks to excellent coaching and mentorship, last year I made […]

Every week I speak with dozens of real estate agents around the country about their finances and in almost every conversation they ask what I’m hearing from other agents. There is ONE THING I notice that differentiates realtors who are succeeding from realtors who are not. Successful real estate agents and teams accepted the reality […]