What Brokers Know That Agents Don’t: Crockpot Money & The Value of Our Influence w/Chris Bowers

In real estate, there’s 2 governing philosophies. Earn more by selling more or buy back time and treat it as a business. In simpler terms - microwave money vs. crockpot money. You’re either cheating by taking more listings or seeking ways to earn money without being at the kitchen table. If you’re the one actively doing the work everyday, you’ll never get to buy your time back and pursue other opportunities outside of selling homes. 

Unsurprisingly, most brokerages want us doing the former, but like athletes, many of us are starting to wake up to how valuable our brands are. Brokerages have known this for ages - why do you think they are willing to pay top producers to stay? 

Maybe, just maybe, we’re more valuable than our caps. Maybe we have intrinsic value through our relationships and reputations, and that’s something we can leverage. How do we really leverage our influence? How do we actually treat this as a business? Chris Bowers joins me to talk about the thing most agents are starting to realize that brokerages have known it for ages. 

Quotes 

There are no business issues, there’s personal issues that lead into your business. -Chris Bowers 

We committed to not let our income be dependent on sitting in someone’s living room. -Kevin Kauffman  

If you keep an open mind, there’s people that can teach you something everywhere. -Kevin Kauffman  

Once something changes your life, you feel like you’ve got to go out and stream it. -Chris Bowers  

When you align incentives with human behavior, you get the things you want more of. -Kevin Kauffman  

Influence is a currency, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you have good intentions. -Chris Bowers 

Key Points  

A real estate rude awakening

When you listen into a lot of real estate conversations, you discover how very few of us actually treat this thing as a business. Most people cheat growth by taking more listings, instead of building a machine that we can step out of and still make money from. We were willing to make less money in order to build that machine and it has afforded us an enormous amount of free time and opportunities outside of real estate sales. 

The value of our influence 

For athletes, there was a moment when it clicked that they are a brand, and that the influence they yield is something worth paying a lot of money for. That’s when they started getting into bigger business deals. In real estate, the same awakening is taking place. Agents realize they have influence and that influence is valuable. Brokerages have known it for ages, but it’s starting to really hit agents like a ton of bricks. Influence is a currency, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you have good intentions.  

Crockpot money vs. microwave money

There’s 2 modes in real estate - crockpot money and microwave money. In microwave money mode, we’re thinking of the next deal and commission check that will help us pay our bills. In crockpot money, we’re thinking of those long-term slow burn ways to make money. Now don’t get us wrong, the microwave mode is important, we need it to get going, but we can’t stay there forever. The problem with this industry is people don’t make the switch, they get trapped into next month’s deals forever, no matter how much money they make and they never plug into crockpot mode.  

I couldn’t get over not wanting to swipe my friends’ credit cards 

The thing about eXp is that it’s like picking a board of directors for our business without swiping your friends’ credit cards every month. We’re incentivized to be each other’s go to guys - whether we need 30 seconds or 40 minutes. We get to have high level advisors in our businesses for free, and because of how it’s structured, we all benefit from that. 

Follow @chrisbowers_realestate on Instagram and listen to agentXcel on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

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