KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Build a Bulletproof Business Plan: Agent to CEO Freedom Formula

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Summary:This episode provides a tactical blueprint for real estate agents seeking to transition from being a transactional salesperson to a successful CEO. Coach Randy Byrd outlines the need for discipline, emphasizing a shift of focus to "Above-the-Line" income-producing activities3. Agents will learn the non-negotiable elements of a bulletproof business plan, including utilizing a powerful CRM (the 200 Contact Rule)4, building accountability systems, and leveraging high-value tactics like unsolicited CMAs to generate consistent leads and achieve true professional freedom.

Seven-figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO. Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcast Experience. This is your host, John Kitchens. You're ready to think bigger and transform your business into a path to lasting freedom. What is up, Honey Badger Nation, man? Thank you guys. Tune in to another episode of Expert Mentors Live. This is episode 292.

And for the rare occasion, I get the opportunity to just hang out with you by myself. And so coming off of being in the middle of rally season for EXP, which is a shift over the last couple of years, EXP used to host two main events, right? EXPCon and EXP shareholders. And a couple years ago, they made the adjustment to stop doing shareholders, but start to open up regional rallies, right? Just a little bit easier for folks to get to all over the country. There's a couple dozen rallies held every year.

And I had the opportunity to head out west for me, head out to Seattle and be a part of the EXP rally in Seattle hosted by Jacob and Elizabeth Weaver. Just first class, incredible event, not only being able to navigate and work with them on the event, but also able to present. And so I thought just from a timely, you know, just where we're at in the calendar and just has what's happened, I thought it would be kind of cool just to maybe share my presentation with the Honey Badger Nation. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to dive in. We're going to walk through the presentation that I shared in Seattle last week. Hopefully you guys can get some nuggets, get some value from it.

And here we, here we go. So for most of you guys know John Kitchens coach and been a part of the Honey Badger Nation since day one back in 2017 when we started everything. And so this will be a refresher for those of you that do know. And then this is a great introduction for those of you that don't, haven't had the opportunity to connect since the Honey Badger Nation is growing exponentially, one of the largest organizations within EXP. we can only track about 13 to 14,000. I think there's about 14,000 of us inside of the Honey Badger Nation Facebook group, but that's only what we can allow in

and what we can see. So I know there's many, many more Honey Badgers roaming out there. So I want to just introduce myself if you guys haven't had that, if we haven't had the opportunity to connect. So I want to kick us off with this, because this is a slide that I've shared

on multiple presentations really for over the last couple of years because it's so relevant, especially what we went through in 24, one of the toughest markets that we've ever experienced. Lowest home sales, what, since 95? I graduated high school in 95. So lowest home sales that most of us have ever seen in our careers. And this is just a great reminder. You know, the picture here of the American bison as the only animal that it just instinctively turns and faces the storm.

The way it's built, just intuition, whatever it is, it just knows when the storm is coming to turn and face and head into the storm. Because I can promise you, every one of us is at some phase

of either coming out of a storm, knowing that we're heading into a storm, or we're just dead ass in the middle of a storm. What I promise you is that another storm is coming. Another storm will always be coming. That's why we have seasons. We have seasons of our market,

seasons of our business, season of our life. And this is always just a great reminder when that storm does hit that the action is to face it and tackle it head on. Right. This is why one of my favorite books

from Ryan Holiday is the obstacle is the way. Right. And whatever the situation is, the faster for us to overcome it is if we face it, it head on. So I always like to just kind of set the stage of any conversation, any presentation around understanding that, hey, I get it, right? Like I, I mean, personally, I'm in a storm business-wise and have been throughout different seasons of our life. There's, like I said,

there's always a storm and we're best off just facing it head on. My goal and intent, sharing this with you guys, obviously, like I said, Honey Badger Nation, this was. was a presentation from the Seattle rally last week. And really the goal and the intent of this presentation was to create a level of awareness of where you're at and knowing the next steps of where it is you want to go. Right. So, you know, the presentation is kind of the agent to CEO freedom formula. It's the philosophy. It's the process that taking clients through in a one-on-one capacity over the last 13 years, something, you know, that we've developed and been a part of and just kind of how we operate.

over the last 20. And so I just want to be able to give you guys this framework and understanding. And stay till the end. You have access to be able to download one of the most important tools that we ever developed. In fact, I think it is the most important tool that we've ever developed as it creates such a level of awareness and kind of a roadmap for what to do next. And you know what?

Worst case, give you guys some confidence to be able to. just strut around in your market like this guy. Like, listen, I don't know why I think this is the funniest dang slide. I've had this in every presentation I've done for the last three years. I don't know. Maybe it's even funnier now than what it was then. But it, anyways, I love it. I get a laugh at it every time I see it.

So who the heck is John Kitchens? Like I said, most of you guys, Honey Badger Nation, know who I am. For those of you that don't, system process coach to agents that really want to be become the true CEO of their business. And man, I'm, I get to say this now. I'm a Hall of Fame Coach's kid. You know, I grew up in, you know, Hall of Fame coach's home. My dad was in the public school system for over 40 years, which is just absolutely remarkable. And, you know, what that meant in Lotton, Oklahoma is that you had to coach everything to make, to make ends meet.

So grew up on the football field, grew up on the hardwood at the golf course. course and then we were at the facilities during the summer because my dad took care of the facilities right they're doing everything to make ends meet so you know just when you are a circumstance of environment right it's just kind of hardwires into you kind of that DNA at your core and you know that's just hardwired to coach and when you're in that environment it creates certain belief systems and you know my belief system is I just I believe everyone on the planet needs a great coach in their life needs multiple great coaches in their lives I also believe that a great coach in your life, your life will be better.

And if you really are truly committed to make your business better, you have to become better. So when you have this belief system, it starts to form why you do what you do. And for me, it's just to inspire and challenge you, inspire and challenge people to think bigger. I know doing this for in the one-on-one capacity for the last 13 years, 20 years in this game, it's the number one constraint that I see is people think to, small. They don't think big enough. That's the number one constraint is, is the size of their thinking. And so I want to push you and challenge you to think bigger because that's where the transformation comes. That's where the transformation in your life and the transformation in your business happens.

Backstory, college drop out. You probably know these cast of characters. The gentleman next to me in the blue, that's him and I go way back. We're junior high, high school days together. We played, we played golf together. We were actually first roommates in college. That's a whole other conversation. If you want to know a little bit about that, DM me, that'll be a private conversation. No, just incredible time of our life. And, you know, I was there. I was supposed to be going to school to play golf. And instead of being on the golf team, I was on the drinking team. And long hair and a Harley. and my aunt said, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing?

You're a loser. So come out here. And so I did. I went out to California and that was my schooling. She got me a job there at Ridgemark Golf and Country Club in Hollister, California. At the time, it was at the pinnacle of what that place ever was, 36 whole, you know, semi-private membership and, you know, members and public. So got to understand those.

the fascination of dealing with the members and dealing with the public. And, you know, she forced me to spend time in all of the areas to really learn business and from an operational standpoint and how, you know, operational excellence and operate at a high level. And it served me well, right? When I got sucked back to Oklahoma from with some, you know, childhood, you know, junior high school friends growing up together, serial entrepreneurs and being on that ride with them through, you know, different business entities, ideas, execution, profitability, and sold. We sold our last business in 03 waste management company, and we were jobless. We had nothing to do.

And, you know, the worst thing to have is idle time. And so we thought it would be a great idea to start a bar. I can tell you that's probably one of the worst ideas. However, it was a green light, 128 straight days, right in the 130 day range. I was like, yeah, something's got to give. And Mr. Michael Reese found out, caught wind and made the introduction to Kinder at the end of 2004 in October of 2004. And guys, over the past 20 years, being able to be a part of some amazing, you know, companies and businesses that we built in a lot in Oklahoma, Frisco, Texas. Getting into the one-on-one coaching side of things with the guys back in the NAA Mastermind Days 13 years ago in 2012 started down the coaching.

one-on-one coaching path. I updated this right before this call, 16,870 one-on-one coaching sessions next month. Everything in the calendar unfolds, we will hit 10,000 hours of one-on-one coaching, which is pretty dang, freaking remarkable. I've had an opportunity to work with some of the best of the best, not only in this game, but also best human beings. And, you know, we're not slowing down. So here's what I want to, I want to you know, take you guys through today. Here's what's on the agenda. We'll take you guys through the trap, the shift, and the path.

Okay, so I want you to be kind of thinking through this as we go. It's going to be a little tough to follow. It can get really overwhelming. I get that. I understand. That's why it's recorded. So you can go back and watch it. And also being able to have a download for you guys at the end.

So here's the thought exercise, right? as I was preparing for this, preparing for this session, working with Jacob, I said, what do you want me to, what do you mean to go? What do you mean to do? What do you mean to touch on? Because my just unique perspective, I can, I can go a bunch of different ways. And he said, listen, I want you to take us through the stages. And I said, gotcha. I can take you through the eight stages. I said, how about I come from the angle as if I was coaching us 20 years ago? I said, love it. Okay, good. Because I did do this thought exercise at the end of the year, thinking about reflecting over the past 20 years because October was 20 years licensed in January of 05.

so January was 20 years licensed in the game. And thinking through, how would I have coached these two 27-year-old knuckleheads from Lottin, Oklahoma? And I'm going to tell you guys, I wish I had me as a coach for us 20 years ago. You know, we were definitely on the obsessed side of things. but we were we were fixated and focused on the wrong on the wrong goal um you know there's stages right there's there's levels that you move through in life and you know the first level is survival

um you know survival will get you then you get out of survival if you stay in survival it'll get you then you get out of survival which we all can get ourselves out of there just by showing up. But you get into the next level, which is status. And status for whatever ego driven. And like I said, you know, a couple 27-year-old knuckleheads. Listen, listen, boys, let's get out of this level. And let's focus on getting to the next level or even the level above that.

And the thing was status. is that if you hang out in status too long, it'll set you back decades, not years. It'll set you back decades. And, you know, for us during that time, the status play was number one. We wanted to be number one. And, you know, young, 20-year-old, you know, competitive.

Of course, right. We always want to be number one. but we were focused on the wrong thing. And that should have been freedom. If we were focused on the next level and doing everything we could to get to freedom, I think number one would have came a lot easier. We landed at number two in the world for Caldwell Banker.

And we were still number two in our market as we went head to head with the top 10 remax team on the planet every freaking day, which sharpened and made us who we are. I mean, I mean, without Lott in Oklahoma, the price point, the competitiveness, the small town mentalities, just everything that comes from, a town that only has 4,000 total home transactions per year. On average, that's on a good year.

You know, you learn a lot. You become very disciplined. Eyes dotted, T's cross, details matter. And I could say wholeheartedly that without that market and those market conditions, I wouldn't be on this call with you guys today. So it's definitely a green light situation for that market in what it taught us and shaped us to who we've become. And, you know, looking back at that next level, right, what is freedom? What does freedom look like?

And for me, freedom is two things. Real simple. One, what is my perfect day? And if you guys have not gone through the perfect day exercise, I want you to if you're listening to this recording, I want you to pause it. I want you to go to YouTube. And I want you to just search Frank Kern Perfect Day. Now, that seven minutes section that will come out, that video that's about seven minutes long comes from a longer presentation, which is like an hour and a half longer, which is core identity. And that's really what, you know, your perfect day is

just really pulling about who you are at your core. It's the, you know, ground. dog day, typical Tuesday, because you can't do anything that's going to kill you or anything that would put you in jail. So it's just like a typical Tuesday, groundhog day. You have to live it over and over and over again from the moment you wake up to the moment you go asleep. The exercise is to just think through every emotion sense. Like, what do you see? What do you feel? What do you smell? What do you hear? Like the moment you wake up, who you're laying next to, your feet is on the floor. Is it hardwood? Is it tile? You look out the window. Do you see water? Are you in, you know, are you in the city? Are you, you know, up in up in the mountains? Are you, where are you,

right? And you go through the whole day. Are you having lunch? What are you eating? Who are you having? What conversation are you having? Are you working? And in truth be told, everybody that does this exercise honestly, everybody works, two to four hours. And during that time frame, they're solving certain type of problems with certain type of individuals. And then it goes throughout the day and what's the last thought you have before you go to bed, before you fall asleep. And it just becomes a filter. And it's like, okay, you catch yourself.

You're at lunch and you're like, I would never eat this on my perfect day. I would never have these type of conversations on my perfect day. Then why are you? I would never work with this type of person on my perfect day. Then why are you? Right. So it becomes awareness. Now you have a choice.

And that's where the perfect day is because now it's, a decision-making filter to where you can start moving closer to your perfect day instead of further away. The second component of freedom to me is you have enough money coming in that you're not trading time for dollars, right? The reality is that most of us are dancing bears. And meaning by that is that if we don't dance, we don't get paid. And we've got to be able to create enough, you know, revenue streams coming in to where we don't have to trade those time for dollars. Although, like I said, everybody in their perfect day works a couple hours a day. That's because they want to, not because they have to. And so everybody has a number. And so, you know,

the exercise I always take clients through is the absolute financial freedom formula from Tony Robbins. Six steps, walk through it, just answer the questions and your number pops up. So it's those two things. Frank Kern, perfect day, ask yourself the question, do the exercise. And then the second component is what's your freedom number? How much money do you need coming in per month that you're not trading time for dollars. And that's what we work towards. And we work towards that. And so I wish I had me coaching us 20 years ago because that's all we would have been

focused on. Focused on getting to our perfect day, focused on building enough wealth through all the different avenues to where we don't have to trade time for dollars. So hopefully that's helpful for you guys because that's what we have to be working towards. Right. We have to be working towards something. And it matters, right? Freedom of time, freedom of money.

freedom to think, freedom to lead, and more importantly, freedom to live. So talk about these three levels of these mindset, survival status, freedom. Remember, there's always another level. So beyond freedom is legacy. But for the sake of this conversation, we're just going to touch on these three levels. And here's the first piece, right? This is the trap. The trap is survival.

because sometimes when we're in survival, it feels like we're building something until Christmas and another Christmas or another birthday or another birthday or another birthday and nothing is actually changed. You're just busy, right? And you're just stuck doing deal after deal after deal. Guys, that's the transaction treadmill. You've got to get off the dang transaction treadmill. But you can't, right? And you mistake activity. transactions for success. And that's just not true. It doesn't, it doesn't equal that. And, you know, I know we're in a massive shift. We have been for the last couple years. That's not going to kill your business. Staying reactive will kill you and kill your business. So we've got to

make the shift to being proactive instead of reactive. So the question is, right, John, I hear you, but how do I get to that next level? And that's where the shift starts to have. happen, right? We want to get out of the trap. We're going to start making the shift. We want to escape the grind, right? We want to get off that damn transaction treadmill and you're going to sell better, right? We need a bigger vision, right? Without a vision, the village will perish. Where are we going, right? Step out of survival and step into freedom. And it moves us from a hustling to building and we know we're building towards something. Okay. That's where we just have to make the shift.

the first shift has to happen like that in our minds. Okay. And it's the whole thing, right? If you can't see it here, you can never speak it into existence. But listen, there are so many examples, right? Even within this Honey Badger Nation,

there are examples after examples after examples of people that just got off the damn transaction treadmill, stop fighting for survival and moved in a path towards freedom. But it happened in their mind first. And so, guys, listen, it's all about two things. It's all about getting from where you're at to where you want to go. It's the whole A to B concept. And it's funny that this is on a lateral line here, right?

But no, it's probably more like this, right? Uphill. Because everything that we do worth in our life is always uphill. But B is the destination. Now, we have a lot of A and Bs along the way. But if you were to zoom out, It's where are we going, but even more importantly, where are we at? Right? Where are we at? That's the most important thing. And that's really about evaluating your current reality. Listen, I'm going to say this twice.

All progress begins with telling the truth. Okay. All progress begins with telling the truth. When we start going through the phases and the stages here in a minute, the question, you have to constantly ask yourself is, okay, who do I have to become to be able to achieve what I'm wanting to achieve? Because what got me here won't get me there. And also, what rooms do I need to be in? What type of advice? What type of perspectives do I need to be sourcing that I'm looking for? But more importantly, making sure that I'm open and willing to receive this type of information and this type of advice. So three types of people. the interested, the committed, and the obsessed.

I'm not saying go out there into the obsessed category, but at a bare minimum, guys, you've got to figure out, even if I'm interested, how do I become committed? And I like to think about this in percentage within the industry. So let's go off in NAR statistics coming out of 24. I think what do they report close to, just round numbers just for simplicity sake. You'll get the understanding.

1.2 agents NAR reported NAR members. I know there's more than that, but 1.2. So let's say the interested are the top 20%, top 220,000 in the industry. Those are six figures, right? I mean, if you're interested in this business, up to this point, okay, I'm going to throw a little caveat out there. Up to this point, being interested could get you to six figures. But if you wanted to go beyond that and become the one percenters, you got to be committed. And so 1.2, 1.1, 1.2. Committed 1 percent? That's only 11, 20. That's only 11, 20.

12,000 agents, okay, to be able to get to that point. But if you want to go to the 0.1%, the 11,200 in the United States, you ain't getting there unless you're obsessed. I'm just telling you guys right now. We were obsessed. We were obsessed. And when you become obsessed, there is no balance, right? I like switches and dials when it comes to balance.

And it's never around. It's never round. Maybe for you, relationships is a six. Your obsession with your craft is a 10 and your health is maybe a four, right, given the season that you're in your life. You can be full on and balanced to. the level of the dial that that's stretched to, but it'll never be tens all the way around. Never will. Never, never, never will.

And especially never will for the obsessed. So I want you to kind of gauge where are you at? Are you even interested? Or are you committed? Or are you one of those crazy few that are obsessed? Who are you? What are you? Because you're going to receive different type of information differently as we move through

the next couple talking points. and that becomes the path. So listen, guys, if you want real freedom, more time, more money, more control, you can't just work harder, right? You have to stop the surviving. You've already made the shift, but get on the path to build with intention. And it's not found by accident. It's built on a proven path.

And this is what I'm going to give you guys. I'm going to take you through that proven path. And this is not like, oh, we think this is the hypothetical. No, we lived this. and we witnessed this through helping thousands of agents over the last 20 years. And it's like I said, it's probably the most important tool that you can have in your tool belt because it's a reminder for you, but also the folks that you're helping, right, the agents you're recruiting that people you're talking to.

This is the cheat. This is cheat code. You know where they're at, what their next moves are based upon where it is they're wanting to go. So where are you at in this process? Let's start with you. Remember, current reality. Where am I? All progress begins with telling the truth. Where am I? And we already know where we want to go, but where are we? What phase are we in? What stage are we in? So, like I said, this can get a little confusing. There are three phases and there are eight stages. All right. So I'll try to keep up, but just want you to know as we move from phase to phase to phase, there are stages in between. So first phase, This is the traction phase, right? This is zero to six figures, okay? Zero to six figures.

This is all about getting traction. Where you have to focus, okay? You have to learn how to sell. You have to build basic disciplines, right? Discipline doing what you know the necessary required actions, even when you don't want to do it at a basic level. And you're starting to figure out what works. What's working?

What's not working? What do I need to keep doing? what do I need to stop doing? But at a fundamental level, I need to know how to sell. I need to build basic discipline. And then my enemies that I want to avoid during this phase are just freaking bad habits, right? Not showing up on time, not showing up at all, right? I'm not even worried about my fitness.

I'm not trying to be a good human being. I'm not pouring into my relationships. I, you know, I eat terrible. I drink too much. I may do drugs that I shouldn't be doing. Those things. Bad habits, right? Just stay away from bad habits and you can get to six figures.

Find structure. You know, I always tell folks, agents coming into the business or if you're in this phase, get on a team that has great structure, great leadership, great core values, great behavior, right? Values plus behavior equals culture. They've got a great culture. They've got great structure. They've got great training.

And they're going to help you put a plan and play. place. Right. How many of you guys have gone through atomic habits? In the case study there with the workout, right? The group that performed the best, duh, clarity in a plan, right? Clarity in a plan. We got a plan. This presentation is giving you some clarity, but get into an environment that's going to change your habits, that's going to give you structure, that's going to help you build a plan. that's going to help give you basic ability, basic skill set of how to sell. It's going to hold you accountable to be disciplined. And you're going to figure out what works.

That's what this phase is. And the stages are, you know, stage one and stage two. There's two stages within this phase. It's our solopreneur, right? Your pain points, you don't have clarity. You need clarity. You need some leads. You need some opportunities.

You don't have any experience. You're going to gain it. And you need guidance and a mentorship. Right? And the X factor here is just in, environment. Environment is greater than willpower. Environment drives the way you think, the way you feel, the way you behave, and the results you achieve, right? Environment is everything. It's one of my favorite quotes, nipsy hustles, right? Right, if you look around the people in your circle,

they don't inspire you. If they don't inspire you, hold you accountable, you don't have a circle, you have a cage, right? Environment matters. If you hang around 10 broke dudes, you're going to be the 11th broke dude. So get into the environment. That's the number one shift you can make that will exponentially change everything in your life. And you already made the shift. You wouldn't be here in the honey badger nation if you didn't make that shift. So understanding the importance of environment on a daily basis. The second stage, it's kind of in that seeker, right? You're still don't have quite enough leads. Maybe you're starting to spend money on things that don't work, inconsistent in your income, right? Maybe you still don't have that plan. Confidence is low because

You don't even know how to build confidence. And I got to learn how to be a good human. I got to have strong people skills in this, you know, to be able to move out of this stage into the next phase into the next. Now listen, collapse time. The shortcut here, right? The shortcut is get on a team.

Get on a great team if you're in stage one or stage two. And if you're struggling with, how do I find a great team? DM me. Like, I will jump on a call and walk you through the things to look for in a great team. to help you through these stages. So stage two, Seeker stage, remember, three phases, eight stages, traction, solopreneur, Seeker, moves us into the second phase, right? This is all about momentum, right?

We've got traction. Now we're going to build some dang momentum, right? We're going to get this train rolling. And this is agent to CEO, guys. This is six to seven figures, right? This is the six to seven figure phase. We're building consistency. We're locking in proven solid routines.

Now we're learning how to attract, right? We're becoming attractive. We're not just chasing. And the enemies that we have to avoid are, is the SOS, right? Shiny Object syndrome. We got to stay away from the shiny objects that aren't proven. Right? Like, show me the results.

Show me the testimonials. men lie, women lie, numbers don't, right? Words talk, number screams. Show me the math because business is just math. Show me how this is going to help me solve my problem and not create a bigger problem, right? Stay away from lack of direction. And remember, it's not about being busy,

it's about being productive. Hopefully y'all understand the difference. If you're not getting results, you're just being busy. If you're getting results, you're being productive. That's the difference. Okay. So phase two, it's all about building momentum.

This is the six to seven figure, all right? And you get into kind of this phase. And there's something cool that happens during this phase. And it's going to happen in stages four and five is kind of where it starts to happen. But in here, you've got consistency, you know, in the revenue. It's not, right? We're still on the real estate roller coaster. Probably don't have enough qualified leads.

We can get a bunch of leads. we probably just don't have enough qualified leads. Investing in lead generation, we're making investments in things in systems that are not working, right? We do it all the time. We're stuck in creating the sale, then service the cell, right? I pedal really fast.

I do a really good job. I get a bunch of people. And then I feel like I got to go service them. And then it's like, oh, no, my pipeline is dry. Well, I just closed a bunch of deals. Now I don't have anything, right? We're in that vicious real estate roller coaster. we've all, whatever different analogies to be able to paint that picture.

And it's like, what do I do? What do I do next? Okay. Here's the answer, right? Here's the answer. Just focus on getting motivated sellers, right? This is the jump because that's the best return on your time in production is focused on getting listings, motivated seller listings, not just any listings, not like, I'd be nice to.

No, it's I have to and focus on those type of, those type of opportunities. The next stage, this is where the game starts to change a little bit, right? It really happens in between here and the next stage. So in this phase, there's three stages. So this is stage three, this is stage four. And our pains is we still don't feel like we have enough leads. I would go to the caveat. We don't have enough qualified leads.

We feel like we're doing all the work. We still are holding on. We're not letting go. we're lacking the proper systems and processes. Our follow-up is somewhat existent, non-existent. It happens whenever it may happen. There's no set system or process to our follow-up. And we know we need help.

But who do I hire? How do I hire them? How do I pay them? How do I hold them accountable? What do they do? That's kind of our pain points as we start to make this kind of transition in the game. And, you know, the thing is getting those low leveraged activities off your plate, right? You're never getting the seven figures doing, doing, you know, $15, $20 an hour work.

It's this, the math is impossible to be able to get to that point. We have to focus on high leveraged activities. And that's, you know, articulating your value and being able to get people to agree to do business with you, really around sales and marketing activities at the highest level, right? right, you know, the administrative, the servicing, the follow-up, the fulfillment, not so much, right? Traffic and conversion is where we're at in this, in this part of, in this part of the game as we're progressing. But here's where it changes.

When we move into stage five, it's the old, the game changes, the board stays the same. We're stopped playing checkers, now we're playing chess. And the reason is that we need to, we need specialized playing checkers everybody can do everything right we got everybody's a utility player nobody's specialized in in in one certain thing that they're able to to do um and so it's bringing on talent right bringing in um bringing in the in the right type of talent um is so so key and and really here what we want to focus on is our brand presence um what that means is what is our reputation. Do we have a reputation for doing the right thing? Do we have a reputation for

getting results, right? Do we say, you know, can we back up what we say? Can we do it? And so I think that's a something to really be thinking about, but it's really hard to go the level that we need to at this point without great people around us. Remember, the game changes at this point. You can't play checkers. You have to play chess when you move into, move into this point. So get to that seven figure your mark you this is this is the big distinctions that you have to make okay so last phase and this is CEO phase okay this is seven figures in a book beyond this is when you're building um you're building and unlocking other opportunities you're either focused on you know building an organization you're unlocking you know other um you're unlocking other business opportunities you're doing

certain other things and and guys right you have to focus on hiring talent It's not just hiring bodies, right? Anybody with the pulse, it's hiring the right people specialized. And you're building those foundational systems and you are protecting your time. The struggle here, right, that you have to fight up against is complacency and contentment. See, I believe you're either growing or you're dying. That's why, you know, from A to B is always uphill.

And, you know, if you're if you're if you're coasting, comfortable, I hate hearing that word, right? Because when I hear comfortable, I know you're not growing. And there's no middle ground. It's binary. Either growing or you're dying. And when I hear, when I hear I'm comfortable, I know you're, I know you're dying. And so the other, the other thing here is ego, right? The other thing here is ego. And remember, it's not about being right. It's about getting to right. That's outcome over ego. And so you have the false confidence of, oh, man, I made it. remember there's always another level and remember there's always somebody there that's dunking on you just like what we found even being as high up in the world as we were you know

Caldwell banker was a big deal back then and and you know we were getting dunked on every day and so it kept us humble but that's one of the false the false confidence is something really really important to pay attention to so the final stages up to this point is like I said, hiring, hiring talent, losing talent, knowing that, you know, great agents are going to come and go. Now, the beautiful thing with the brokerage model that we're in is that they might come off your team, but they can stay in your organization. Then you can help them build their dream, whatever that is. Always systems, always improving on systems, making sure that we're spending money on things that actually work.

We've got great tracking, great visibility, you know, making sure that conversion for at this point, we've done a great job at acquiring up being able to acquire opportunities or create a bunch of contacts leads so we might have a conversion problem at this point and then just juggling a lot of

tech stack just just a bunch of just stuff so at this point it's absolutely critical that you develop leaders and this is the whole leaders creating leaders type of concept you need you need somebody to be a buffer

with the sales organization You need somebody to be a buffer with the operation side of things. You need that integrator type role. You know, you need key people. This is where you've got to really start focusing on building really talented people around you. You know, the next stage seven as we're progressing out of here, right? It's, man, I'm struggling recruiting, recruiting talent. They don't see value in what we're doing.

They always want to talk about our splits, right? You're having that conversation. You're losing top talent. And maybe you're getting sucked back into production, right? That's a pain here. And so the thing to look out for is making sure that our business model is, is dialed in. Listen, the agent to CEO philosophy is vision, business model, strategy, people. And business model is just really, how do we create, deliver, and capture value?

That's it. That's really what business model is. And the beautiful thing is that we're trying to put a, you know, we're, we're trying to to put a moat around our business model the beautiful thing is that we have the xp because it does help us put a moat around around our business and our business model so we're always tweaking we're really trying to figure figure this out at the highest level in that last that last stage and listen you can you don't have to have a massive team in doing you know hundreds and thousands of transactions if you built an organization especially here at expe you do have tons of agents you do have tons of

transactions, okay? But at this point, right, when you get here, it's all about adding value to other people's lives, right? Creating other opportunities for other people when you get to, when you get to this point. And it's just building a tight team, great talented team, people that you just love being around. It's super important at this stage. So, so important at this stage. And so, listen, building the discipline. that builds the life, guys, we don't get to freedom by working harder. We earn it by becoming the person who leads differently, thinks clearly and executes without excuse. So if your business isn't where you want it to be, then you've got to become a better

version of you who can get it there. There are no business problems. There are only leadership problems. And the first rule of leadership is lead by example. So here it is. This is A stage is, as I walked you guys through it. It is the most important tool that you guys can have in your business. It's the most important thing that we ever create it.

It really walks you through. all the stages. I gave you the phases, right? I gave you the traction phase, momentum phase, and the CEO phase. So be able to go back and kind of piece in there and what our focus is and then what we need to avoid. What is our enemy in those phases will really help to progress in who you have to become in order to move to that next level. So you grab a copy of it. You can hit the QR code if you're watching the video here or you can just go to the eight, the number eight Stages.com. The T-H-E-8, the number eight, stages, S-T-A-G-E-S-D-S-D-C-C-E-S. And you can download and get a copy of that PDF there.

And I'll leave you with this. So, geez, it's been about eight years ago now. I had just finished my first, my first marathon. And it was a really big deal for me at the time because up to that point I had only ran, you know, the 5K-Fund, beer runs. We did it as a team culture thing. And I was about to turn 40 and I wanted to do something hard for me, you know, my hard because I lost my mom when I was 11. She was two months shy of her 40th birthday.

So I went into that thinking about her, ended up coming out of it about my dad. And it was a great, great experience. Went to New York City, ran the New York City Marathon. It's the only time. Took my dad. It was the only time that he had ever been to New York City. and we're a few months later we're out in LA at the last content in commerce put on by

the traffic and conversion guys and it was the very last one that they were doing they told everybody was the last one and they had they went all out they had they had one of the best keynote speakers I've ever seen in my life and he you know when you're in an audience of 4,000 people yet you feel like the, like the speaker is speaking to you. That's what happened to me. And it was Jesse Yitzler was the speaker. And if you guys haven't had a chance to catch Jesse live, do it. If you get an opportunity to go do it.

He's one of the best speakers from stage. And he said something that really resonated with me. He said, you know, as human beings, one of the worst things that we could do is accomplish a major milestone and then not immediately reset the goal. Right. So I had accomplished a major milestone in my life, ran a marathon, you know, purpose behind it, everything. And I hadn't reset the goal. And in typical Michael Reese fashion, you know, a few weeks later, I get a, I get a text message with a link to

10-year anniversary of Iron Man, Florida. And, you know, typical Reese fashion, bro, what are you doing? Like, are you doing this? What is this? What does this mean? No response. And so I don't believe you commit and figure it out. I believe you figure out what it is that you're wanting to accomplish reverse engineer and what is it going to take for that to be true. And I had done that, right? Like I had no clue what Iron Man was before, right? Two point four miles in the water, 112 miles on the bike, 26.2 run. Ah, I knew what that was, right? Because I had just finished running my first marathon. So I knew what that was. And so I did some homework, right? Just like all of us, right? I get curious.

2.4. What's that going to take 112 miles? And what I came to the conclusion is that I was going to need to train for about 13 to 14 hours a week. That's just training. That's not prep and that's not recovery. Just train. So I had to take a hard look at the calendar. I had to have conversations with those closest to me and be like, listen, you know, I'm going to have to give up this.

I can step in here and do this. Do I have the capacity to be able to do it? And the realization and what we figured out was the answer was yes. So then I could commit. Then I could commit. So I started down the path, start training. And I had that in the mirror moment. And we were about two months out from the event.

And I was like, dude, I'm lost. I don't know how to get my, how do I get my bike there? Like, what do I wear? What's the nutrition? Like, what's a transition? I mean, what, what? I had that in the mirror moment. And I was like, dude.

dude, you're the biggest idiot on the planet. Your dad's a Hall of Fame coach. You coach people for a living. And yet you're trying to do this on your own. See, one of the biggest mistakes that we can get into is a false belief that we can accomplish something because we found success in something else. See, I figured out how to train and run a marathon on my own.

No coach, no guidance, no training program. I just downloaded something from the internet and followed it. And I thought I could do the same thing with a full Ironman. Like, what an idiot, right? And I had that aha. And I got a coach right away. And we were able to, Iron Man, Florida was delayed because of Hurricane Michael.

So it gave us about six months of training with the coach to then run our first, run our first full Iron Man. and, you know, that was a massive success. And it's been a massive success for three full Ironmen. And we then thought, you know, hey, Iron Man wasn't tough enough. We needed to do something a little tougher. And so we start down the 100 mile race path, which we've got four under our belt. And at the time, I'm telling you guys this, we're off to back to the Keys.

The picture here from Keys from two years ago. We're back to the Keys next week. So we're going to be running the Florida Keys again. So hopefully all goes well. That'll be 100 mile finish number five. And we're going to keep going. We've got bigger goals in mind. So these are just part of the steps along the way.

And I want to share it with you because without a great coach, I know none of this would have been possible. I think I could have figured out and ran my first Ironman, but I wouldn't have done another one. And I definitely wouldn't be running 100 mile races without a great coach. And so if you've got anything that you're wrestling with, anything that you're struggling with, I'm just going to tell you, don't try to figure it out. Go get a great coach.

That's one of the biggest lessons I've learned in my life. Growing up in a coach's home, being a coach myself, is that if we want to collapse time and have what we can't see, which are our blind spots, what we reveal we can heal, we need a great coach. So thank you guys for letting you guys. letting me share that that session with you and hopefully find some value. Hopefully you guys go and download the eight stages, have that as a tool with you. It'll help you where you're at, but it'll also help, you know, those that you're trying

to coach and mentor and lead, attract, recruit, whatever, you know, identify where they're at and who they need to become and what they need to do to get to the next phase and the next stage of their business and more importantly the next stage of their life. So awesome guys. Any questions that you guys have? Feel free to reach out. It's what we're here for. And I can't wait to see you guys again on the next episode.

Take care. That's a wrap for today. I hope you got something valuable from this episode. If you did, hit follow and visit johncitchens.coach for more ways we can work together. See you on the next episode.