How to Grow from Part-Time to Full-Time in Real Estate

Can you really grow a real estate business part-time—especially when you’re also a full-time mama or have another full-time job? Absolutely. In this episode, Lindsay Dreyer shares the honest truth about what it takes to build momentum on limited hours without burning out or beating yourself up.

You’ll learn how to:

• Reframe part-time as a strength, not a weakness
• Manage your time and energy to focus on income-generating activities
• Delegate smartly (without breaking the bank)
• Integrate lead generation into your everyday life
• Navigate childcare, family dynamics, and the big decision of when to go full-time

Whether you’re balancing kids, another job, or just the season you’re in, this episode will give you the clarity, strategy, and permission to keep moving forward.

*****************************************************

Let's stay connected!

💼 Coaching with Lindsay – happyagent.co/coaching

Get personalized strategy, support, and mindset shifts to scale your real estate business without sacrificing your joy.

🎓 Happy Agent Academy – happyagent.co/academy

Your go-to resource for freebies, on-demand courses, templates, and tools to help you grow a thriving real estate business.

📩 Join the Happy Hustle Newsletter – happyagent.co/subscribe

Weekly insights, strategies, and real talk to help you build wealth, lead boldly, and create a business you love.

📲 Connect with Happy Agent Co. on Instagram or Facebook – instagram.com/happyagentco

📲 Connect with Lindsay on Instagram or Facebook – instagram.com/lindsaydreyer...

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Mindset Shift
• 3:49 Time Management and Setting Expectations
• 5:31 Delegation and Support Systems
• 6:56 Effective Lead Generation Strategies
• 9:21 The Child Care Conversation
• 13:54 When to Go Full-Time

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

Hey there, I am Lindsay Dreyer coach, real estate brokerage owner and mom of three, and I am so happy you are here. If you do not follow me on Instagram or Facebook, please find me Lindsay Dreyer on Facebook and lindsaydreyer on Instagram. Today we are talking about something that I feel like affects so many real estate agents in the business, which is being part-time, and how do you grow your business into full-time. You do not need 40 hours a week to build momentum in your real estate business, but you do need a plan. You need a clear north star and if you didn't listen to that episode, go back a few. It's a good one and a strategy that fits your life right now. So I personally didn't start part-time, but I have coached agents who have, and I've seen firsthand what's possible when you stop waiting for more time and just start working with what you've got.

Speaker 1: 1:31

In this episode we're going to dive into time management, strategic lead generation, how to know when to delegate and what to do about child care and, ultimately, how to know when it's finally time to go all in on real estate, quit your day job and go full time. Let's dive in to some keys to success. The first is we need to own the season that you're in, and that can be really hard, especially for those type A perfectionists out there, because you want to be doing more, and it is hard for you to not be going just balls to the wall, because that is just your like state you just love to go all in. So I know this seems counterintuitive, but you can reframe your part time identity as a strength, not a weakness Like this is actually great that you are working the hours that you have and not the ones that you wish you had, and that is enough. So comparison will kill your momentum. So you need to focus, stay in your lane and you are not behind, but you are in building mode. So be real with yourself. You don't have to beat yourself up, but you are just working with what you have, and that has to be enough.

Speaker 1: 2:44

I find that this mindset of I should be doing more, I should, should, should I know you've probably heard like you should all over yourself, so like you're probably shoulding all over yourself, like I should be doing this, I should be doing that, I should, should, should. But a lot of times you're shooting yourself against full-time agents or against people who have staff, or against people who've outsourced or against people who, honestly, are just lying on social media. So you need to stay in your lane and focus on what you can control. And what can you control? Time management, that's a big one. So, really knowing what is your actual availability to work in your real estate business this is a hard one, especially if you have children but really knowing where can you find five to seven really focused hours for your lead generation and for client service. So what not to do and this is where I see a lot of people just like go down a rabbit hole is you should not spend your best hour designing your logo, but you should be spending your best hour prospecting and calling your warm leads or hosting an open house or doing something that's going to actually make it so you generate income. That's the key is that you need to generate income, like focus on the things that are going to make you money, because that is the flip. That needs to happen is you need to find what works for you to generate money, because that is going to allow you to make the switch from full-time in your other job to full-time in real estate. So how do we set these expectations to clients. I am available evenings and weekends and I check messages twice a day, at noon and at 5 pm. I'll make sure you're always updated, or it's just I am available via text. If we need to do a phone call, I can do that at noon or at five. So just setting expectations can be a really, really crucial part of being a part-time agent is setting expectations with your client on when you are available and when you are not.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Another piece of being a part-time agent is you have to delegate. You're not going to necessarily be able to do this alone unless you have just a massively flexible full-time job, which some of you do. So big ups. But I know a lot of the part-time agents I've seen do not have that flexibility. So, while you don't need to go and hire full-time help because you probably can't afford it, you may want to have a transaction coordinator. You may want to have a showing agent who can be there for showings or inspections when you're not available, and you probably want to have a strong process or system that you are running your clients through, which includes templates for the different phases.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Honestly, huge fan of AI, so, like chat, GPT saves me a ton of time on client communications. But I want you to really start thinking about where can you not show up in your business and then building support around that. So maybe it's marketing help, maybe it's that TC, but just really thinking about I'm building my business with these limited hours and I want to stay in the zone of genius, like where I spend the best time and is the most valuable to my business. It's going to bring in the most coins, honestly, and most of the time that's client facing stuff. So just really making sure you're honing in on that.

Speaker 1: 6:22

The next piece is lead generation, which I know is probably a struggle for every single real estate agent out there, but I feel like it's even more of a struggle for part-time agents because you have limited hours and limited budget. So really focusing on sphere marketing low-cost, high-return activities that are sustainable, activities that are sustainable. And I believe that life integrated activities are the best ones, because you can go about your full-time job, you can go about being a mom, a dog mom, whatever bucket you're in, but you're basically integrating your real estate into those life activities. So you could sphere market at the PTA, it could be at a mom group, it could be on the weekends, it could be at your kids sporting events. So really starting to think like, how can I market myself where I'm already showing up? Because that is the lowest hanging fruit and a lot of times it's people already know you, they already like you and they already trust you, so of course they're going to transfer that into real estate.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Also, when you are out and about doing your life stuff, it could be like texting some people from your school pickup line. It could be handwriting notes during your practices for your kids' sports. It could be email batching your newsletters for the entire month on like a Sunday night, or maybe it's just a short video update from your car. But what you want to avoid is building a super complicated marketing plan or funnel when you really aren't even texting your database or your sphere or your past clients. One of the biggest struggles is people come to me and they say I don't have a sphere, I don't have a database, and that's a challenge for you to really tackle. And again it goes into these life activities. So it could be like hey, I'm growing my real estate business and putting together a list of people I want to stay in touch with. Can I add you to my monthly updates and then get your monthly updates out. So really just getting out there any way you can in ways that are low cost, high return and sustainable. Those are the keys.

Speaker 1: 8:37

When you are part-time because you don't have the budget, you don't necessarily have the time and you need to do things that are consistent or easy to do on a regular basis. This whole episode would be incomplete if we did not talk about the child care conversation. You cannot build a business without support if you have children. Period. Real estate is not magically flexible and it really only works if you have a real child care plan, and this obviously depends on how old your children are. Mine are four, seven and 10. So I have been through it.

Speaker 1: 9:14

I understand the baby years and budgeting for child care was so important for me to keep my real estate business running and I've seen a lot of moms just not give themselves enough support when it comes to child care. It is so hard to focus when you have kids around you. I don't care if they're watching Bluey or they're reading a book or they're playing Legos, but it is hard to focus when you know you're going to be interrupted at any moment. Just I can't do it. That's why I have the office outside of the house, like I just can't. So your schedule needs to be real. Where you're working needs to be ideal and you just have to be realistic with yourself. So what can you budget for child care as an expense? Who can you ask for help unapologetically, like we need our village in this instance, and then also just consider creative solutions. Maybe there's another real estate agent who has kids that you guys could do a kid swap, babysit each other's kids, take turns could be shared babysitters with other moms in your office.

Speaker 1: 10:23

I know the YMCA was a huge one. You can pop in and work from there and it was like three hours of childcare Heck. Yes, there are sometimes aftercare, preschool, daycare centers, just co-op programs, actually through rec departments. Get creative and I know so many of you feel guilty because you're like I'm not going to pay for childcare if I don't have any money coming in. But this is how you invest in your career and this is how you build that path to becoming a full-time real estate agent. The other thing is that mom guilt sets in, which is I'm choosing work over my kids. But I challenge you to reframe that, which is you're not choosing work over your kids. You're choosing long-term stability for your kids. That requires focused time to build. You are going to be building a career and a wealth plan and a wealth journey. That needs your focus.

Speaker 1: 11:21

I know this is really hard if you don't have a partner who is fully on board. I remember I knew an agent who was making like $150,000 to $175,000 a year and she had her first child and she had this discussion with her husband about putting her daughter in daycare and he said absolutely not. And I was talking to her and I'm like you make enough money to pay for yourself. Like why? Like this is crazy. And she was like he won't let me. I'm just going to have to be a stay-at-home mom. And it was really sad for me because it was clear she loved her real estate career and she did not have a supportive partner and he basically had her give up on her career. Like she gave up her real estate career to become a stay-at-home mom, which is totally fine, like if that was her choice, I'd totally support it. Like we need moms, obviously, but this wasn't what she wanted. Like this wasn't what she wanted, this wasn't her dream and it was just really sad because we don't oftentimes understand that we need to also have our partner on board when we flip the switch to going full time.

Speaker 1: 12:27

So really understanding what your family dynamic is going to look like and talking through it with your partner is another crucial step. Not only the financial implications, but the time and schedule implications and the mental load implications of who's going to need to be available on nights and weekends and who's doing the laundry, who's cooking dinner and all of that. So I've seen that not only cause some really severe problems, I've seen it cause divorce because women basically build this massively successful real estate business, but they didn't take their partner along for the ride with them. So that's another consideration. It's not just childcare, but also how is this going to shape your family in the future and having a plan for that and making sure that your partner is on board with it. So, lastly, I want to talk about when can you flip the switch and go full time?

Speaker 1: 13:20

So there are some signs that you might be ready. You are consistently closing one or two deals every other month. You have three to six months of savings. You're financially have those in reserves. You have that emergency fund, because it does take time to ramp up and you have systems and a lead generation rhythm that is actually working for you. And the probably the most important sign is that you're actually turning down business because of your job, because of your limited capacity. So I know it can be hard sometimes, but it's okay to tell yourself that I've built the systems, I've saved the cash cushion and I've proven I can do this. So now it's time to take a bet on me.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Now, if you're in the boat where you want to stay part-time, you can still win, and not everyone wants to go full-time and that's okay. Real estate can be a powerful income stream and identity identity even if it's not your nine to five. But I think that there's four things you need to have if you are going to stay part-time you need to be clear about your availability with clients. You need to be consistent in how you show up. You need to be visible with your sphere and then be honest about your capacity For all you part-timers out there.

Speaker 1: 14:33

I want you to hear this as we wrap it up you are not behind, you are not doing it wrong and you're definitely not less of an agent because you're building your business part-time and honestly. You might even be building it smarter than some agents, because you're being intentional with every single hour, every single client and every single decision that you're making. The path can absolutely be messy, especially if you're raising kids, working another job and doing both, but you don't have to wait for the perfect moment to go all in, and I hope this episode opened your eyes to that. You just really need a plan and you need permission to honor the season that you're in while you're still moving forward and making progress. So, whether you stay part-time for now or decide to make the leap soon, I hope that this episode gave you some clarity and, hopefully, some confidence to trust where you are and that you are on track to build something sustainable. I am 100% cheering you on and I will see you next week.