KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Double Your Income: The 4-Part "RICE" Method for Business Growths

Episode Date: December 27, 2025

Summary:Host Mike Cuevas provides a simple but powerful strategic framework called the "RICE" method (Retain, Increase, Convert, Expand) to double an agent's income. This tactical episode breaks down the four key levers agents must pull to scale their business: retaining past clients for referrals, increasing their average sales price, converting more leads, and expanding their lead sources. Agents will get a clear, actionable plan to analyze their business and build a predictable growth strategy.

Yo, welcome back to the agent goldmine. I am going to cover in this episode something that I just learned from Dan Martel, and it's going to help real estate agents go from $100,000 to $200,000. This is a way to double your income by focusing on what is most important using this formula. And I'm going to share my screen. So if you're not watching this, verbally it's going to be, I think it's going to be very hard to describe. Watch this on YouTube, the agent gold mine, subscribe to this channel because we're starting to share a lot more stuff on video here.

So I want you to be able to follow along and instead of just listen. So let me share my screen here. Welcome to the agent Goldmine, the only podcast in the world, specifically for real estate agents who are stuck at five transactions a year to help them get to 20 plus.

Your host, Alligar Said, and Shelby Johnson, two EXP icon agents each do over 40 transactions a year and interview others who are crushing it. In this podcast, you'll receive the knowledge to help you scale your business using systems and processes with our interviews and monologues twice a week.

If you want to be a part of our community, reach out. Welcome to the show. The formula to help you increase double 3x your income. What I had previously been doing was very, very black and white. It was not this. What I had previously been doing was literally just the KPI tracker. If you don't already have a KPI tracker, reach out to us, Allie the agent, the Shelby Show. You need to be tracking every single source of where all of your,

leads are coming from. So how many are coming from? Instagram, Facebook, direct mail, open houses, door knocking, sphere, your work, et cetera, et cetera. Put all these into categories. And in our KPI tracker that we use at Five Pillars, we have like an intense one that we got from Glastby. And I love it. I love this one so much. So it like breaks down exactly month by month, the exact amount. It gives you a quarter summary and it gives you an annual summary. So I use this every single month at the beginning of the month. I do my audit for the previous month. How much did I spend on every single one of these channels? How many leads did that come that did that get me for the month? How many contracts signed? How many closings? How much? But I'm not sharing that screen

right the second. You'll just have to, whatever, message us for that. But it gives you like a very, very black and white. This is your ROI. But all that is taking into account is the financials. Like literally no shit. What is the ROI when it comes to money? Which is great. However, what I learned in this, I don't even know where I got this from some sort of podcast. But when you are taking account effort, that makes a difference. How much mental bandwidth does this cost you? So the black and white is great for financials only. But if it pains you, like emotional, and like mentally and it's super, super draining, that ROI is only numbers. So this formula will help you calculate and quantify how much of a headache each REO, each lead source is. So that way,

not only is it financially related, you'll have the KPR tracker for that, but then also you'll be able to see which one is going to be the lightest work for me, which one do I actually want to do forever and because that makes the world of a difference. So I just learned about this. It's called the rice method. And it's an acronym. So R stands for reach. How many people can each lead source, and this is where I'm sharing my screen here. On the left hand side, I have my sources, you know, shorts, aka Instagram and Facebook, maybe some stuff that I put on LinkedIn or TikTok. I've also gotten some clients from there too. The next lead source in, my case is long-form videos, aka my YouTube channels. The next one I put is mailers. I don't do mailers.

I have my own personal opinion, very strong opinion that I think mailers suck. But if mailers work for you, then put that in there, open houses, cold calling, et cetera. So put also your sphere on here as well. Sphere. So because typically that's the lightest one. But this is the formula. Reach times I, impact times C, which is confidence divided by the effort. That is a formula to help you decipher which one you should be putting all of your time, money effort into. And then which one should, you know, be a close second and a close third. So obviously, how do you quantify something like reach impact confidence effort? You can either, you can just put it on a scale of one to 10. So first I'm go into each one. So reach, obviously, how many people does my short form content reach?

Like, how many people are viewing it every single month? This is easy to do. You go on your Instagram, you go on the professional dashboard, you go on the insights, and it tells you how many people your short form content has reached in the last 30 days. So make that consistent throughout. Like within the last 30 days, my short form content is reaching 38,000 people. Great. How many people, if you have a YouTube channel, it's analytics right there. How many people have senior channels, the total reach amount for your long form? How many mailers are you sending out every single month? How many open houses are you doing?

How many not open houses are you doing? But how do people are going to your open house? Because if you're doing an open house like Shelby, you're going to have a fuck ton of people. And if you're doing open house like any other agent, you're going to have three. how many gold calls do you do? Do you have virtual assistance helping you cold calls? So that way you're like, you know, cloning yourself. Or is it just you? Do you have a whole team, et cetera, et cetera? So this is how you quantify the reach. In here, you would not put 38,000 people. Instead, you're going to put this on a scale of one to 10. So on a scale of one to 10, what is my biggest one?

My biggest one right now, it's pretty, it's tied. So it's 38,000 people for shorts and like 36,000 people for long form video. So in shorts, I would put 10. Let me just do this. I'm going to do, these are not my exact numbers. This is just off the cuff, kind of. My long form is my second highest. And so I'm going to put that as a nine.

Again, it's a one to 10 scale. Mailers, pretend I do that, pretend I send it to like, I don't know, 100 every single month. So whatever. That's going to be compared to my 38,000 people on short form content. And if I'm sending it to 100 home or 300 homes, let's do, that's going to be a three. Open houses. How many people attend my open houses? How many open houses do I do every single month?

Say I do an open house every single weekend. And each weekend I get about eight parties, eight times four. What the hell is that? 32. Oops. So 32 compared to the first. 300 homes that I send mailers to, that's not going to be a three. It's probably going to be closer to a one. And then cold calling. Is it just you? Or do you have a virtual assistant also helping you

cold call? Are you using a triple line dialer or using your iPhone or using a seven line dialer? All the things. Say, I do use a triple line dialer and I have someone else, a virtual assistant also calling from, you know, Mexico helping me, help me double it up. That's going to be about depending on how many hours they work. Let's just put a three there as well. If you are looking to change brokerages this year so you can increase your business and you want to join us at EXP Realty and would like either myself, Alligar said, or Shelby Johnson to personally sponsor you in. So that way you have access to two icon agents, text the word join to either my number 914-31849-48-18 or Shelby's number, 859-267-3849. If I sponsor you and you have access to the both of us and everything that's Five Pillars Nation, we have the checklist, the system. the process is to help you scale your business and don't take our word for it.

We've had agents switch brokerages to join us that were stuck making $300,000 GCI and they join us so they can scale. So text the word joined to those numbers and we'll take the next steps. Let's just put a three there as well. And then my reach for the sphere, which is my, one of my number. It's like all the three, top three are tied personally. But anyway, sphere, how many people can I reach out to from my contacts? Like from the people that actually already know me, every single month, it's not going to be 38,000.

It's not going to be 36,000 from YouTube. It's going to be significantly lower. How many actual conversations, like deep conversations, that's what I'm counting. Like, not just hello, how are you? It's, I'm so sorry about your grandmother's loss. You know, like it's like deeper shit. So I'm going to comparing that to my open houses, I think it's probably going to be about the same as open house, maybe a little bit more than open house. maybe a little bit more than open houses.

So I'm calling this a two. That's your reach. You have now quantified that one through 10. Now let's go to impact. It's not just a matter of getting in front of people. Is it actually impactful, you know? Are they actually looking to buy or sell? Are they actually looking to buy or sell within the next six months?

Or are you falling on deaf ears? So this is where it's a matter of getting in front of the people at the right time. So, Sphere, not everyone that I know is looking to buy or sell right now. So, you know, they say like typically 20% of your database is looking to buy or sell. So 20%, I'm going to put a, what's 20% for? Four? Shit, now. Let's do three.

I know three is wrong. But whatever. Now, shorts. Out of my Instagram reels and my Facebook reels and, you know, all my short form content, my text that I put on there, is everyone looking to buy or sell? Is it going to actually help everyone? Absolutely not. But will it help them at the right time?

Yes. So I'm also going to put a three long form content. This is where I think it's a little bit different because people that are finding you on your living in San Antonio channel aren't typically looking to see what it's like to move to San Antonio unless they're actually moving to San Antonio or thinking about it. So this is going to be higher than just. blasting your sphere being like, hey, you're looking at a virus out? So this is going to be higher. This is going to, I'm going to give this a six. Do this. Don't use my numbers, by the way.

Like, your sphere is different. This is just a freaking example off the cuff. So mailers, how many, this really, really depends on who are you setting mailers to? Do you know if they are the actual homeowners? Are you getting mailers sent back to you saying, hey, this, this address is, you know, not the owner no longer lives here. What's the quality? of the list that you were setting mailers to. This is going to differ. I'm going to do a, and then of course, if they are the homeowners, are they actually looking to sell? Or do they want to keep this property forever? If you're sending it to renters, are they actually ready, willing, and able to buy? So let's just go with a three here. Open houses. Typically, people that go to

open houses are actually going to be in the market. Yes, of course, there's some looky-lose. So the impact here is going to be higher. So let's give this a six. and cold calling, depending on the list, again, very, very similar to mailers. Are they actually looking to, are they receptive to your call? Do they even answer? Is it the right number? What time of day are you calling? What scripts are you using?

Are they actually, you know, do you set the appointment? Are they actually looking at it by herself? Let's do a 4. Now, the confidence, what the confidence is is how confident are you in this lead gen source, either from your own past transactions, do you know that you can make this work? And or from others. Say you have never done a YouTube channel,

but you hear it from others that it works for them. That's one thing, you know, social media points, you know, it always paints a, what's it? I don't know fucking phrases. It paints a great photo. Pretty picture, maybe. Rosie, rosy, I don't know. Rose-colored glasses.

Yeah, sure. Just keep going. What? Okay. So you may hear from other real estate agents that it works for them, ask them. You know, like, tell them to give you their numbers. Now, will they actually give you their numbers? Who are you to compare, you know, what kind of relationship do you have with them? But it's confidence that you have, that you know that this source works for other people and will it work for you. That second part, the comma and will it work for you is very subjective. So even if you find out that, yes, short-form content is working for a bunch of real estate agents,

the comma and will it work for you is my own personal add-on to it. Because you need, say you're scared of the camera. That might not work for you. Or is it something that you can just get the fuck over, take a shot, and then get in front of the camera and do it? So, like, that's where you really, really need to make sure that you're trying to look at this objectively instead of, oh, well, it works for them, but it wouldn't work for me because, and then insert limiting belief. So the, but like you, it may no shit be a reason that it may not work for you, but it works for others. I can't think of anything right now, but I'm sure that there are

some instances in which this is the case. So that's confidence. Again, making sure that you're getting actual numbers instead of just a people, instead of just seeing on social media, oh, YouTube works for this person. Oh, mailers works for this person. Open houses works for this person. Make sure that it's actually coming from, from like stats. So confidence that your sphere will reach out to you and list and help you, you know, you will help them list or you will help them buy. If you're a good person, I hope that that's high. And if you're a shitty person, it might be low. But I'm going to go with eight shorts. So this is where, you know, You can look at your past transactions.

How many have come from shorts already? How many are you seeing from other agents that they're closing from shorts and from long-form content? I'm going to go with just kind of, I don't know, off the cuff right now again, just eights down the line. Again, if you fast forward to this episode, to the end of this episode, and you see my final number, these are not the numbers for you. So do this, like, exercise on your own. Like, this is not, this is, yeah. So mailers, what's the confidence that you have in the mailers working for you with your

market or sphere or zip code that you're sending them to, that they're going to actually use you as an agent? So let's go with four. Open houses, people that are unrepresented or dual agency, if your state allows that, how confident are you in your ability to run the open houses? again, comma, or can I get better? Is there an opportunity for me to get better and what you've seen from others? Open houses are great.

I'm going with a nine on open houses. Again, and that's if you're looking to work with buyers. For Shelby, it might not be a nine because she doesn't want to work with buyers. So it may be lower. But it may be an opportunity for her to do dual agency. Should her state allow that if she ever wanted to because now she has a fuck ton of people in her list? cold calling. What's the confidence there? I'm just going to go with a five. This, okay, so reach

times impact, times confidence. In case you are not watching on YouTube, this is a graph, this is a chart right now. Now, you multiply each of those. You get a number. Now this is the most important part that the KPI tracker that we've been using doesn't include, which is the mental bandwidth. This is the effort. How much effort is it going to take you to reach out to your sphere? is it easier? Is it harder for you? And not just like does it feel good or does it feel light, but also what is the, what's the logistics behind it? Do you have to pick up your phone and dial every single phone number in order to call them? Do you have to make sure that you put it on your calendar in order to make sure you call them at a time that they're going to answer? What is

the conversation going to be like? So this is where a lot of the like, quote unquote, like feelings come in. So you want to make sure that you quantify this. as well. My sphere, everyone fucking loves me. I'm going with eight, nine. So now you divide, when dividing this by the effort, this don't get yourself tripped up here like I just did behind the scenes. One through 10 is going to be, so 10 is going to mean it is a lot of effort. So one is going to be, it is easy, peasy. I can do this all day and I know that I can do this lead source forever because it feels light and I like the actions of doing it. Or for cold calling, I like managing the virtual assistance to be able to help me cold call,

et cetera. So low is easy. A high number, like closer to 10 is it's a lot of effort. So with your sphere, it should be, I mean, I don't want to say should, but for sphere for me, it's going to be very, very low effort to talk to people, especially since I do a lot of text instead of phone calls. But say you're more of a phone caller, it may bump that up a number because that means you have to pick up the phone, if to dial the phone number, you have to see. if they respond, then you have to have a longer type of conversation. Again, how light is that for you or how heavy? So I'm going to go with the two because it's super light for me to send out a couple text messages. I freaking love it. I'd rather talk by text all day, every day. So I'm

going with the two. Yours may be higher or lower. Now short form content. How much effort does that take you? You have to have a content. You don't have to have anything. But in my opinion, you have to have like a content, like monthly strategy, what are you posting? Who is editing? Have you reviewed the edits, like quality assurance? Does it get the, the, is the timing up to speed, you know, like the actual end product? Are you, do you have an appropriate call to action? I think there's a shit ton of more effort when it comes to shorts. So for me personally, this is going to be a, uh, an eight because I want to, make sure it's every single day or that's what I did in 2023 and it was a lot of work. Did it pay

off? Hell yeah, but it was a lot of work. Now, long form effort, long form content. If you have a YouTube channel, you know, how many videos are you going to post? How many hours does it take you? Again, how light is that for you though? Maybe you love scripting. Maybe you love getting on camera and just, you know, either going through your bullet points or just shooting the shit and delivering the for buyers and for sellers. Maybe you love the whole process of, I hope you don't edit, but maybe you love editing, or maybe you love delegating that to someone else

and then reviewing their edits and it allows you to be more creative. So for me, this is going to be a six because I now have two good editors. Yay! Okay. Now, mailers, how much effort is this taking you? How much time out of your day? how much time out of your week, how much time out of your month? What are you saying? Do you have a

process? Of course, if you have a process or some sort of automation for all these, that's going to make the effort a lot lower. But mailers, I hate it. I don't like, I just, I personally don't like it. So this shit is a solid 10. Open houses, it takes your time, but you get in front of people. How much do you like it? It's low cost, which is great. You know, just bring a couple of mini water bottles are good to go. But do you like it? Do you like that in-person presence? Do you like the door knocking? Maybe that comes before that, et cetera, et cetera.

Assign this a number. I'm going to go with, you know what? I'm going to go with four because it takes up my weekends. I'm going to go with five. Cold calling. How much do you like doing this? Mental bandwidth. Are you getting beat the fuck up?

Do you have the appropriate scripts of what you're saying? Do you feel good? Does it give you a high? Like, who was it? Was it Ryan that we interviewed back in the day? There's a couple people who like totally. get a high off this shit. The parachuting dude,

anyway, whatever. There was someone that was just like, yeah, it was a thrill. I'm like, yo, we're crazy. That's crazy. So, yeah, cold calling. How much do you like it? How much effort?

Do you have to review the virtual assistance recorded calls to make sure that they're doing it in a manner that you like it, et cetera? So I'm going to go with a seven. And then this is where the math comes in. Now each row that you have, sphere, I'm going to multiply

to the reach times the impact, times the confidence, then divide that by the effort. Shelby and I just did the math. We had to pause and use the calculator. And so after you have done, reach times impact, times confidence, divided by the effort row by row, you're going to now have a black and white number that also includes the amount of effort and mental bandwidth that it takes you. So different from the KPI tracker. So in our case, our case, my case, the highest that I have is a 72 for long form videos. I love doing it. High is good. High is good. Yes. Thank you, Shelby. You're welcome. High is good. My lowest one, this is again, just mine in the way that I run my business, your numbers are absolutely going to be different. And I'm actually curious as to

what numbers you have. So if you're watching this on YouTube, throw your numbers in the, in the comment, because I'm very, very curious. Mailers was my lowest at a 3.6. So, again, we're doing one to 10 scale. So the highest could be 100. And the lowest would be, I guess, I guess zero, but probably one. So that's a big-ass difference. So now when I go, when I take this and look at my KPI tracker as far as the amount of money

involved with each, because this is just effort and mental bandwidth and like emotions, now I can actually see how much money am I spending on mailers with my personal return being a 3.6, you know, and then how much money should I take something out? Should I stop sending mailers because I fucking hate it? Or should I stop cold calling, which was an 8.6, not even a 10, because I hate it. And now as I'm reallocating my budget for 2025 or whenever you're listening to this, if it's just a new quarter or even just. start it now, delete the fat, you know, just eliminate the fat and then double down on what is working and what you like. So that is how you will go from $100,000 to $200,000 every single

year by deleting the shit that you don't like, but people have been telling you to do just to get your business done. And then doubling down on what you actually will be able to do forever. Drop mic, ladies and gentlemen. Be a bro and share this show. Let me know if you have any questions. Allie the agent, the Shelby show. Bye. I've been looking at that your sphere is actually sheer. And I just keep...

Every time... Like you... Thanks, Sally. Your effort, your confidence is an eight in your sheer. In your sheer. Anyway. Great things are right. Okay.

One eternity later. I just blanked. I did. Hold on. Have I been doing the one to ten backward? Confidence. Open houses. No, this is right.

Okay, okay, okay. Okay. Back in. A few minutes later. So now, divided by the effort. Wait, what the fuck did I just tell myself? What? Thank you.