How to Escape the Plateau and Skyrocket to Success

May 23, 2019

If someone was describing you, would you rather be “good and consistent” or “great and amazing”? Easy choice, right? But here’s the thing: Sometimes when you’re creating good, consistent results, it’s easy to overlook the fact you’re not creating great, amazing results… and that more is available to you. Take Robyn Burdett, for example. This 31-year real estate veteran spent the first 24 years of her career achieving what most everyone would consider good, consistent results. But then she learned how to get off that plateau and skyrocket to huge success. Virtually overnight! This is her story. Come along to find out how she did it.

Robyn’s Career-Defining Revelation

For nearly two and a half decades, year in and year out, Robyn averaged 10 home sales in her Northern Virginia marketplace. She made a decent living in the process.
Then Robyn had a revelation.
“I saw so much opportunity out there, I realized I was living my 24-year career extremely small,” she says. “Selling 10 homes a year is really sad after 24 years.”
So she decided to shake things up.
She joined Tom Ferry coaching and started implementing the things she and her coach discussed.
In her first year in coaching, she jumped to 26 closed transactions!
By 2016, she’d brought on a buyer’s agent and together they sold 78 homes and earned over $1 million in GCI.
What allowed such drastic change?
“Most of it was mindset,” Robyn says. “I went from being transaction-focused to being the CEO of my business. It was a complete shift that I had a business plan and that I was tracking and measuring the things I was doing.
“I had a whole process, and I’d never had that before. I’ve been coached by almost everybody that’s out there, but nobody gave me that idea that I’m a CEO. In fact, my business card now says that I’m the CEO, and that’s what I am.”

A Business Run on Systems, Not Whims

So changing how she looked at her role and her business as a whole was the first step of Robyn’s transformation.
Powerful as it is, mindset alone isn’t going to take someone from 10 deals a year to 78.
Robyn had to start doing things differently as well. Let’s dig in and take a closer look at two areas of her business where Robyn and her coach changed how she operates: Systematizing her entire business and diversifying her lead generation.
First up: Systems. Even though Robyn was formerly a trainer for her company, she says her coach introduced her to systems and processes she never knew existed.
Those included everything from lead generation to lead conversion to client servicing.
“Now, every time we have a listing, I know exactly the processes, and we have them nailed down,” Robyn says. “Everything that happens – when they get this card, when they get this phone call, and so on. I used to be just like, ‘Oh, I haven’t spoken to the seller in a few weeks.’”

How Robyn Eliminated the Fear from Lead Generation

Another aspect of Robyn’s business that took a turn for the better since she joined coaching is lead generation. She’s diversified her approach and now has multiple pillars she relies on:

Her geographic farm
Zillow
Realtor.com
Other online lead sources
Facebook ads

Here’s the kicker, though… What Robyn loves most is that she was able to take on these additional lead sources with full confidence that they’d prove effective.
Why, you ask? Let her explain:
“There’s no fear, absolutely none because I have so many people in the ecosystem who are tried and true and testing things. So it’s easy for me to take advantage of their knowledge, and then R&D (rip-off and duplicate) to make it happen.”
That’s the power of being able to exchange ideas and insights with thousands of like-minded coaching members in the private Facebook mastermind groups.

Business is Better. Life is Better.

It’s not just Robyn’s business that’s been impacted by her newfound approach. She says her life as a whole is a study in contrasts “before coaching” and “after coaching.”
“I used to run around like my head was chopped off,” she says. “That’s the reason why I only had time to sell 10 houses.”
Now, everything’s different. Robyn has a written job description for her assistant and programs they use to implement their pre-determined strategy.
“I don’t even think about it anymore. I just know things will get done because we have checks and balances and all sorts of processes that we’ve learned,” she says.
In fact, even with her vastly increased client load and production, Robyn is enjoying her life more than ever!
“I have more time now – even selling how many houses I am – than when I was selling just me before,” she says. “I took an actual vacation last year, and before I was lucky to get to the beach.”

She Even Started Over… And Is Still Succeeding

In 2017, Robyn made some big changes in her business, but it didn’t slow her down.
She switched companies, bought into RE/MAX and decided to revert back to operating only with an assistant rather than a team of buyer’s agents.
Thanks to her built-in systems, and despite all that transition, she still closed 58 transaction sides.
Then toward the end of 2018, a surgery cut her production back to 32 deals, and her inability to “set the base” for early 2019 got her off to a slow start this year.
But with encouragement from her coach and a clean bill of health, she’s back in her groove and on pace to close 50 deals in 2019.

Treating It Like A Business Made All the Difference

Looking back on her journey, Robyn recalls sometimes thinking, “Why am I doing this, banging my head against the wall and never achieving anything?”
Then when she shifted her mindset, redefined her role and started actually treating her career like a business…
“It was so much more fun,” she says. “I had results, and I made money, and I had satisfied and happy clients. I got reviews on Zillow with all these people telling me, ‘Hey, you’re doing a great job.’ And that’s not something I ever had before.”

Making an Impact and Not Slowing Down

Throughout her 31 years in the business, Robyn estimates she’s helped approximately 1,500 buyers and sellers. Knowing she’s impacted so many lives keeps her as excited about her business as she’s ever been.
At last year’s Success Summit, someone approached her and explained that someone from our office encouraged him to call Robyn to hear her story when he was considering joining a coaching program.
“He was thanking me because his family has time and money and he’s even a coach now!” Robyn says. “That almost felt like I sold 10 houses. This stuff works. It just works.”
Looking ahead, Robyn has no plans to slow down. In fact, she’s even growing her business and seeking new ways to reach more people. She recently started her own video blog to keep buyers and sellers informed and further establish her identity as the “knowledge broker” in her marketplace.
“People ask me ‘When are you going to retire?’ and I say, ‘Am I supposed to?’ I don’t see why I would. Every day I get to help people with a huge financial decision and have fun doing it.”

What about you? Are you living your career smaller than it should be? Are you stuck on a plateau and struggling to get off it? If anything from Robyn’s story struck a chord and you realize you could use some help, let us know. We’d love to discuss how we can help you fulfill the greatness within you.