A business plan built around where you’re going next
The Road to $50M
Dan, you’ve already proven you can build a real estate business.
You’ve sold 40+ homes in a year. You’ve built a listing-heavy business. You know how to farm. You’ve been the broker. And now you’re building a PPC system designed to create predictable buyer business.
The next step isn’t starting over.
It’s deciding what you want underneath the business you’re building next.
Build the cash-flow engine.
Build the listing engine.
Build the team.
What I heard from you.Not research. Just listening.
You’re not trying to figure out what kind of real estate business you want.
You already have a pretty clear picture.
And one thing was especially clear: you want to build something substantial without becoming the broker again.
That’s the business I’ve been thinking about since we got off the phone.
First
Build a predictable buyer engine using PPC, Follow Up Boss, and your ISA.
Then
Once the business is consistently closing around three buyers a month, use that cash flow to fund a serious geographic farming strategy.
Next
Turn the farm into listings, listings into open-house opportunities, and buyer demand into a reason to start adding the right agents.
Long term
Surround yourself with four or five hungry agents who can work the buyer side while you focus increasingly on listings, leadership, and building the business.
You’ve already proven the model.Your best year was built almost entirely on listings.
42
2022 credited units
$27.4M
2022 credited volume
$26.3M
2022 listing-side volume
That matters because the business you described to me isn’t a reinvention. You’ve already shown that you can build a listing-heavy business.
The opportunity now is to rebuild that model in a higher-value Orange County market, with a predictable buyer engine and a future team underneath it.
Current starting point
≈ $4.4M trailing volume
Plus roughly 150–200 PPC leads per month, Sierra Interactive, Follow Up Boss, and an ISA already in place. That’s the base we’d build the next number on.
The Road to $50M.Cash-flow engine, listing engine, team engine.
Stage 01
Rebuild to $25M
Buyer engine
You already bring Sierra Interactive, Google PPC, Follow Up Boss, an ISA, 150–200 monthly leads, decades of experience, and Orange County roots.
The immediate objective: enough consistency to produce roughly 2 to 3 buyer closings per month and build back toward $25M.
These are the numbers and systems I’d want to measure with you
Stage 02
$25M to $50M
Listing engine
“Before you spend $20,000 a month mailing anything, let’s identify where that $20,000 has the best chance of buying market share.”
- —Maintain PPC
- —Use buyer cash flow to fund farming
- —Analyze Orange County market share
- —Choose the right territory
- —Build a modern version of the farming you already know
- —Turn listings into open-house opportunities
- —Use First Team seller-side infrastructure to strengthen conversion
Stage 03
Build beyond your personal production
Team engine
You focused primarily on listings
Four to five buyer agents
ISA + PPC lead flow
Farming and open houses
Follow Up Boss team infrastructure
Recruiting support
First Team brokerage, legal, and back-office beneath it all
The goal isn’t for you to sell more houses forever. The goal is to build a business that eventually doesn’t require you to personally carry every transaction.
Keep what works.We don’t need to rebuild your business from scratch.
You keep
- Sierra Interactive
- Google PPC
- Follow Up Boss
- Your ISA
- Your database
- Your personal brand
- Your farming experience
- The business model you’re already building
We add
- Broker-paid Follow Up Boss
- Orange County market intelligence
- Legal and compliance infrastructure
- Offices throughout Southern California
- Listing-side marketing support
- Internal buyer-demand systems
- Recruiting infrastructure
- A strategic growth partner beside you
Your system. Your brand. Stronger infrastructure underneath it.
01
Keep the technology you already chose
You’re already building on Follow Up Boss. First Team can potentially take over that expense while you keep the platform, the workflows, and the structure you’re building around it.
02
Choose the farm with better information
The first question isn’t how to farm. You already know that. The first question is where. First Team market-share, local-market, and productivity data can help evaluate where a serious farming budget has the greatest opportunity.
03
Give the future listing business more firepower
Buyer Pipeline, Sneak Preview, listing activity reporting, market trends, First Impressions Concierge, branded CMA tools, and luxury and relocation reach — more ways to win, market, and retain listings once the farming engine starts producing opportunities.
04
Build the team without rebuilding the brokerage
Legal support, compliance, transaction infrastructure, accounting and back-office, recruiting capability, and an office network you don’t have to own. You’ve already experienced the part of brokerage ownership you don’t want; the goal is to keep the business-building upside without taking all of that back on.
Built to support businesses bigger than one agent.The brokerage doesn’t have to be the brand.
First Team already supports large team organizations operating with their own consumer-facing identities while the company provides brokerage, compliance, accounting, technology, recruiting, and operational support behind the scenes.
One example we discussed was Onyx Homes.
The relevance to your plan isn’t their exact model. It’s the fact that First Team has experience sitting behind serious real estate organizations without requiring the brokerage itself to become the team’s consumer brand.
That becomes much more relevant as you move from $25M producer to $50M team leader and beyond.
Not trainer and student.A strategic business partner beside you.
You don’t need me to teach you how to sell real estate.
My role would be much closer to a strategic business partner working beside you as you build the next version of the company.
- —Turning $25M and $50M into measurable milestones
- —Reviewing PPC and conversion performance
- —Helping structure FUB and ISA accountability
- —Evaluating Orange County farm opportunities
- —Building the listing-side strategy
- —Recruiting the right future buyer agents
- —Creating team standards and accountability
- —Using AI where it actually saves time or improves execution
- —Helping keep implementation moving
First Team provides the platform. I help you turn it into the business you described.
Proof — Marco Castilleja
A hardworking individual producer who shifted toward systems, brand, and team. He increased transactions, worked fewer hours, and started building something bigger than himself — from individual hustle to a business and a team.
Proof — Preston Wilson
An experienced agent whose talent was never the issue. Better structure and a strategy aligned around his strengths helped him go from roughly $1.5M to nearly $12M the following year.
The numbers still have to make sense.
A bigger platform only matters if it helps you build a bigger and better business.
On Friday, we can pressure-test the economics together and look at what First Team would need to help create for the move to make financial sense.
No sales pitch. Just the math.
If we decide this makes sense.What the first 90 days could look like.
First 30 days
- Keep Sierra and Follow Up Boss intact
- Align FUB billing where appropriate
- Review PPC lead flow
- Review ISA workflow
- Build a simple pipeline dashboard
- Begin weekly strategy sessions
- Establish Orange County market tracking
- Identify immediate opportunities inside your database
Days 31–60
- Review actual conversion numbers
- Tighten follow-up where needed
- Evaluate possible farming territories
- Study market share and turnover
- Build farming economics
- Strengthen Orange County listing positioning
- Define the ideal future buyer-agent profile
Days 61–90
- Select a farming market if the data supports it
- Build the first version of the farming campaign
- Build seller and listing systems around it
- Create listing presentation assets
- Begin recruiting the first buyer agent when lead flow warrants it
- Establish the milestone plan toward $25M
The details would change based on what the numbers tell us. The goal is direction, not bureaucracy.
Let’s pressure-test the plan Friday.Friday at 11:30 AM.
I’m not expecting you to make a decision from a website.
I built this because I wanted you to see that I heard what you’re trying to build and that I’ve spent some time thinking about how I could potentially help.
Friday, I’d like to dig into the assumptions, the numbers, what I think First Team can contribute, and where you think I’m right or wrong.
If the plan makes sense, we’ll talk about what comes next. If it doesn’t, we’ll know that too.
Friday, August 21 · 11:30 AM
Set by Zoom. If meeting in person is easier, the First Team Mission Viejo office is also available. Confirm, reschedule, or send a question before Friday.
Jacob Lawlor · 949-201-0899 · JacobLawlor@FirstTeam.com
First Team Real Estate · Mission Viejo Office