You're More Than a Real Estate Agent

We get so caught up in the day-to-day and the minutia and all of that that we forget that we are genuinely running multi-million dollar sales organizations. I want to talk about something that I think is really missing in our industry. Running your business as a business. Hey, my name is Chance Brown, the broker owner of CB&A Realtors and I make video content like this because I'm passionate about helping Realtors build great businesses. And that is our topic today is really building your business as a business. It's difficult. I get it. You're a oneperson show. Maybe you have to be accounting and marketing and human resources and all of the things, but you also have to do all of those things or you have to outsource them and find people who will do them for you. And it's important for a number of reasons. First of all, a system will only create what a system is designed to create. My very first business coach told me that.

And if you create a system that only does this for your business, this is what your business will do. But if you create systems that are scalable and build out, you can build a greater business. You can have people that can help you with all those things that you don't like doing. So the first thing we have to do is we have to approach the business from the mindset of business owner and not real estate agent. You are a real estate agent, but maybe you come from it every day when you wake up as this is my business. What does my business need? We talk sometimes about the difference between working on your business and working in your business and splitting the days up accordingly. So maybe in the morning you're working on your business and maybe in the afternoon you're working in your business. You're a business owner in the morning, you're a real estate agent in the afternoon. That's how we train it here at our brokerage and that's what we want others to follow too because it gives you the opportunity to take care of the things that are going to help you grow for the future. So at CVNA when we sit down with agents especially new lenses we want them to start from day one building a business not building a real estate practice. And that starts with goal setting. It starts with mindset. It starts with the financials.

Like for example, what I would love to see every real estate agent, and I've talked about this before in videos, I'd love to see every real estate agent pay themselves a salary. Stop getting your commission and that's my paycheck for the month or whatever. No. Put that money into a bank account and actually pay yourself a salary out of that. Now, if you're brand new, that might not be realistic, but if you've been in the business and you've got recurring business, that is the best way to build yourself a long-term business. Talk to your CPA and set yourself up to where you're paying a salary. In addition to mindset, to goal setting to financials, you have to have systems in place for your marketing. You have to have systems in place for recruiting and retention. And when I say recruiting and retention, I don't necessarily mean team members. I mean clients. Like you've got to have prospecting systems set up. You have to have retention systems set up, aka referral systems. And so if you're looking at it from the structure of a Fortune 500 company, all of those big departments, you have to be that or you have to have systems created. There's never been a better time to let ChatGPT or some sort of AI help you create those systems and streamline those processes to save you time. But you have to sit down and do it. You have to actually build that out. And so what I'm hoping is that as we kick off 2026 and we move forward, we do so from the mindset of, hey, I'm a business owner. Because if we just do it from the mindset of I'm a real estate agent, we'll never be anything more. Hey, if this was valuable to you, I would be honored if you would subscribe, follow, like, share with one of your friends. And if I can ever be of service to you, please don't hesitate to reach