I Sold $21 Million in Real Estate and Realized I Had Built the Wrong Business

There are a million ways to do real estate.

And all of them work.

The question that changed my business was much more personal:

What is MY way?

By 2021, I had sold $21 million as a solo agent. I was in the top 2% in Washington. I had made nearly half a million dollars.

From the outside, it looked successful.

Inside the business, I was exhausted.

Financially, emotionally, in my relationships, and with my time.

I remember looking through my photos and realizing almost every picture of me was standing in front of another house.

I had nice things, but no memories.

That was hard to admit because I got into real estate for freedom.

I wanted control over my calendar. I wanted the ability to make more money. I wanted the freedom to build a life that didn't revolve around somebody else's rules.

But I had created the opposite.

So at the end of 2021, I shut the business down.

I called clients who were not active or pending and referred them out.

Then I rebuilt.

The first thing I changed was the client

For years, I had approached real estate the way a lot of us are taught.

Cold calls. Expireds. Bought leads. More activity. More transactions. Take the business that comes in and figure it out from there.

That approach worked.

It also created a business filled with people I would never have intentionally chosen.

One client screamed at me, dropped F-bombs on me, created constant anxiety, and eventually threatened to sue me after I fired them.

And the thing is, I knew they were the wrong fit. But I had kept working with them because I "needed the money."

Firing them was one of the first times I actually felt the freedom I thought real estate was supposed to give me.

That experience made something really clear.

When you try to attract everybody, your business starts to feel like it.

Your marketing gets vague.

Sales gets harder.

Your service grows around exceptions.

Your systems become harder to build or maintain because they are supporting too many different expectations.

I needed to stop building around every possible client and decide who I actually wanted more of.

I audited the people I had already worked with

I pulled roughly 50 past sales and looked at the names.

Then I paid attention to my immediate reaction.

Which clients made me smile?

Which relationships had felt easy, valuable, and worth repeating?

Only about five really stood out.

That was uncomfortable.

It was also incredibly useful.

Then I looked for what those people had in common.

I cared about three things:

Time. Money. Energy.

Did the relationship make sense in all three?

Did they value my expertise?

Did they respect my boundaries?

Did I enjoy working with them?

Would I happily do it again?

That became the foundation for the next version of my business.

Then I called them

I had around 15 conversations with people I considered ideal clients.

I asked about their fears.

Their frustrations.

Their objections.

What they had already tried.

What they needed to hear before they felt ready to move forward.

What they valued.

What they appreciated about working with me.

I kept going deeper.

What was the biggest fear?

What was keeping them up at night?

What would happen if the move did not happen?

What would that change for them?

Those conversations gave me language I never would have found by sitting at my desk trying to dream up content.

They also taught me what my clients actually valued in the service itself.

They cared that I heard them.

They cared that I understood what mattered.

They cared that I got the job done.

That gave me permission to remove work they didn't care about.

The client clarified everything downstream

I think about a real estate business in four parts:

1. Clients
2. Marketing
3. Sales
4. Operations

They all work together.

When I got clear on the client, the rest got easier.

The marketing became more specific because I knew exactly who I was talking to.

Sales conversations became easier because the person already felt understood.

The service got cleaner because I knew what mattered to them.

The systems got simpler because I was no longer trying to support every possible person, request, and exception.

That's why starting with "building systems" can create the wrong kind of leverage.

You can automate and delegate a lot of work that never needed to exist in the first place.

Start with the person the business is designed to serve.

Then build everything else around that.

My scoreboard is different now

This year, I am very proud to say I have sold 12 houses.

I have made well over 6 figures.

I spend less than seven hours a week on my real estate business.

And I love it.

That is the business I wanted to build.

Intentional.

Profitable.

Leveraged.

Filled with people I actually want to work with.

If your business is producing but you're exhausted, start here.

Write down the names of the last 10 clients you worked with.

Notice your immediate reaction to each one. Is it Joy? Anxiety? Guilt? Fear? Frustration? Happiness? Sadness?

Now look at the people you would happily work with again. Those that made you feel Joy or Happiness.

Pick up the phone. Call them. Ask what they had in common. Ask what they feared. Ask what they valued. Ask what they needed from you.

Then let those answers shape your marketing, sales, service, and systems.

I created the Perfect Prospect Worksheet to help you work through that starting point. You can grab it inside

the Million Dollar Agent Lab. So come on in and join us!

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