Work Less, Earn More (Yes, in Real Estate)

Real estate has sold us a lie: if you want to earn more, you have to work more. Longer hours. More clients. More availability. More hustle.

In this episode, Lindsay Dreyer breaks down why that belief leads straight to burnout — and how the agents who earn more with less stress aren’t working harder, they’re working smarter. This is a practical, honest conversation about restructuring your real estate business so it supports you instead of draining you.

If you’re tired, overwhelmed, or questioning why success feels so exhausting, this episode is your permission slip to do less — on purpose.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why working more hours doesn’t automatically lead to more income in real estate
• The biggest time, money, and energy leaks agents don’t realize they have
• How low-margin clients quietly drain your business
• Why boundaries actually improve your client experience
• The difference between effort and effectiveness
• How structure, systems, and repeatability increase profit
• Where most agents should stop over-customizing and start simplifying
• How to protect your high-value time as a real estate agent
• Why ease is efficiency — not laziness

You don’t need to work harder to earn more. You need a business that works harder for you.

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Chapters

• 1:08 Welcome And Intentions
• 1:48 Dismantling Hustle-Only Real Estate
• 3:08 Redefining Success Beyond Production
• 5:32 Money Responds To Structure
• 7:25 Find And Fix Energy Leaks
• 9:39 Boundaries Improve Client Experience
• 12:40 Ease Is Efficiency, Not Laziness
• 14:33 Rule One: Simplify Before You Scale
• 17:29 Protect Your High-Value Time
• 19:44 Design For Repeatability

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Hey there, friends. This is Lindsay Dreyer, mom of three, which I'm feeling really hard right now, burger donor and real estate coach. And I honestly just believe that your business should feel really, really good. If this is your first time here, welcome. I hope you enjoy binge listening. And if you are a return listener, welcome, welcome. I love that you are here and I hope that you get so much value out of each episode. If you could take a moment to rate the show, that would mean the world to me. Or write a review. You are the best. Without further ado, let's dive in. So there is this belief in real estate that I kind of want to just like take out back and get rid of is that you have to work more to earn more. Longer hours, more clients, more availability, more of that bullshit hustle. So if you are tired, overwhelmed, or hate your business, the solution has to be to push harder. I can't tell you how many real estate coaches tell you to push harder. I am sure you see it out there all the time. It is that masculine energy that does not work for a lot of women. And honestly, I don't think it serves men either because when you are pushing so incredibly hard, you do not have time to recharge and reset and rest. In this episode, we are going to talk about how you can work less and earn more, not by doing nothing, because obviously we can't just like manifest our way into a magical year or manifest into wildly unrealistic goals. But we're going to restructure your business so it is actually supporting you. It is giving you energy instead of draining your energy. Now I'm going to get on my soapbox a little bit. And if you've been here, you have heard this before. But our industry is built to be a burnout machine. Everything, all of the carrots that we chase are meant to do more, more, more. Real estate rewards production. It rewards gross commissions. It rewards visibility. So all of the reinforced behaviors are reinforcing our hustle culture. It's reinforcing doing as much commission income as possible. And because of that, it is enforcing constant urgency, which means that you are always on. Everything is an emergency because if you miss a single closing or a single client or a single lead or a single dollar, you are failing. Agents are confusing busy with productive. And yes, there is a difference. They are confusing availability with their value. Again, totally false. And they are confusing stress with success or busyness with success or dollar amount with success. You are not going to get a medal for being the busiest agent. Honestly, you're probably just going to get a heart attack. Sorry to say it. And honestly, I don't know why our industry, like it's so frustrating. I don't understand why they cannot just get off the horse. Like at my brokerage, we don't do production awards. We do like what you're proud of awards. And that's what it's about. It is so different. Each of the agents at my brokerage, they are all proud of something different in 2025. And that is what success is to them. And some of them are personal, some of them are work-related. But there is no one definition of success. And that is the problem in our industry, is that we have one diff definition of success. It is your sales volume and it is your gross commission income. And honestly, with like the downlines, it could be like how many agents are in your downline or how much passive income you're receiving. And no offense if like that's part of your business planning, that's great. But like these metrics are basically what are becoming success. And honestly, it is totally the wrong point of view, in my opinion. So getting back to doing less and making more, I know that it is scary to slow down and do less because we have been trained that our business is going to implode or business will disappear if we do that. And most agents, honestly, like they, I think all agents can do less. And I think that the reason that they are not is because, first of mindset, but I also think it's because they don't have the structure and the systems and the plan to make them feel safe in doing less. So here's how I want you to think about this. I want you to think of that money doesn't respond to your effort. It responds to structure. It responds to the system that you are running. The agents who are earning more with less stress, they are not just like magically more disciplined. They don't necessarily like do more in the day than you do. They have just designed businesses that waste less energy. I see so many real estate agents waste their energy. And your energy is your precious resource. It is how you can show up for your business, show up for yourself, show up for your family. Those energy leaks in your business are costing you so much. This isn't about effort. This is about effectiveness. This isn't about your volume. This is about your profit. And this isn't about necessarily your actions. It is about your traction. So I want you to just tell whoever says do more reps to F off, honestly. This is about fixing your form, if we're going to use their metaphor. This isn't not about doing more reps, it's about doing better reps. I want to get into where you are leaking time and money because I see this really frequently. So common leaks for your time and your money. Low margin clients. These are the clients that consume a disproportionate amount of your energy. And we all know who they are, right? It's the people that want an update every single day. You've communicated to them that you have a process and that you give updates every week, unless there is something really important. Those are low margin clients because they are taking your time and your energy. That is the key, is that they're draining you because even when you're not dealing with them, you are thinking about them and you are worrying about them. Those are horrible clients. Those are your low margin clients. The other area is that you have no boundaries around your availability. You are responding to text messages and calls at 10 p.m. at 5 a.m. You're there's like literally no boundary around when you have time to yourself or when you shut off. That is a massive, massive problem. The other is that you over-customize everything. This could be housewarming gifts. This could be your client experience. It could be your presentation for every listing. Like you're just, you are doing the most and you do not need to be doing the most. And lastly, you are doing 25 hour,$25 an hour work with a$250 an hour brain. You are getting in the weeds and you are doing low-dollar work and you should be focusing on the work where you get paid the most, where you have the highest return on your energy invested. We have all had the client who text 47 times, and we've all been there where we're rewriting emails from scratch every time when we know it should be a template, or that our deals are blowing up for the same reason every single time. I really don't believe that you need more clients necessarily, but you do need fewer leaks in your time and your money and your energy. There's a misconception out there that working less means that you care less. And it really does not. If you have to prove your value through being exhausted and going above and beyond what you really should be giving, that is not giving an amazing experience. That is just pouring from an empty cup. And we know where that leads. That leads to you burning out. So I personally believe that boundaries actually improve your client experience because everyone wants to know what to expect. And it also helps you weed out the clients who are not a good fit. So if you're communicating to your clients that you are only available on Saturdays, you take Sunday off, and that you are available from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. and they are not okay with that, then they are not a client for you. And that is why those boundaries are so important to have up front and communicate. That is the key, is we need to communicate them that really will save you so much heartache. And then the challenge is you just have to stick to them, which is incredibly hard, I know, but there's so many tools out there now. I've been like retargeted for that brick thing, like over and over again. Um, but luckily I can do do not disturb. And I'm like, I can handle that. But if I ever get to a point where that does not work for me, I will be bricking my phone. Also, consistency beats overworking every single time. And that's how you do last is that you choose what matters and you do it consistently instead of just overworking and doing all the things. And honestly, a rested, regulated real estate agent makes better decisions. And that is so important. The most successful agents I know are rested, regulated, and they take care of themselves because you are the tool. You are the moneymaker, you are the person who is going to bring in the income in your business. So take care of yourself. Like you have to take care of yourself and you have to set up an environment that is going to make you successful, that is going to maintain your health, your energy, like your time. Like you need to protect yourself because if you're not protected, you are just going to get trampled all over. And I don't want that for you. It is hard because you have to reframe that like ease and doing less is not laziness, but it is efficiency. And through efficiency, you can do so much. Like I know it was really hard for me when I first like grasped this concept. Um, and it was honestly when I went out of production, was that I was doing less to make money because now I was managing a team, I was managing people. I wasn't necessarily like boots on the ground with clients at this point in my career. And it was a hard mindset shift for me because I felt like I was being lazy. And honestly, I wasn't being lazy. I just wasn't working like 60 to 80 hours a week or like I didn't have those like crazy sprints because I now had a team that was supporting me and that I was supporting them. And so it's a hard mind shift mindset shift to overcome. But once you realize that doing less is the best thing you can do for you and your business, it is a complete game changer. And yes, I hate that word because Chat GPT has totally ruined it. So I want to give you some rules because I think like rules or like, you know, some tangible takeaways is always what I want you to get out of this podcast. So the first one is simplify before you add anything else. So simplify before you scale, before you add anything new, simplify what already exists. So it could be that you work only with lists with listings. You might only work with buyers, you might decide to stop doing rentals. I know for me, I went from being a buyer's agent and a listing agent to then just a listing agent to then just running a brokerage. Um, and now I'm back in production in New Hampshire, but like that was a way of me simplifying to scale. The next example is fewer marketing channels. So I know for me, I was on like everything. I was on YouTube, LinkedIn, and I'm talking about with the podcast. And what I realized was I actually it wasn't like gaining traction really for anything. So now I just do my guest interviews as Instagram reels. And that is my fewer. So is there less marketing that you could be doing? Um, and could you be investing more in the marketing channels that actually work for you? And then another example is are there fewer ways that clients can access you? Like this is another one, which is maybe you start setting some boundaries on like how people communicate with you. So I know one agent says to their clients, if it's urgent, please text me. If it is not urgent, I need you to send me an email. And a lot of people are like, well, they're not gonna follow those instructions. And it's like, well, you know, you could at least try. And it really is just about like creating the structure and the systems to help you simplify things because complexity kills your energy and your profit like faster than anything. It is all about simplifying things before you add more to what already exists. So make sure that things are running really well before you add anything else. The next tip I have for you is you need to protect your high value time because not all hours are created equal. I want you to identify your highest leverage activities. For most agents that's doing buyer presentations, listing presentations, um, sometimes home inspections, again, I think you can outsource some of that. Going to closing is important. Um, showing property, you might need a showing agent, but figure out where you deliver the best value and the highest leverage in your business. Then you are going to block out time for your money making and for your decision making. That's another thing that a lot of people don't think about is that a high leverage activity is being the CEO of your business. No one else can do that for you. That is a massive, massive leverage point. So looking at your profit and loss, looking at your pipeline, looking at what lead generation is being effective. So being the CEO is so important to protecting your high value time. That is high value time being the CEO. And then if you can start outsourcing or automating, I'm God, there's so many ways you can automate now. It's like wild to me, especially with AI. So outsourcing could be hiring a VA, it could be getting a showing assistant, it could be partnering with a junior agent to team up with on your buyer leads, whatever it is. It does not have to be hiring a full-time or part-time assistant. It does not. You could have somebody on Upwork do your newsletter for you. It could be someone who you outsource your listing presentation, like package to prep. It really like anything is protecting your high value time. So that is crucial, is start operating where you are the most profitable. The next is design for repeatability. And this is where I'm like obsessed because I love a good system. I know we throw around the word system a lot in real estate, but a system is basically something that is repeatable and organized. Like literally, that's pretty much it. So examples could be you have your monthly marketing rhythm. You have the things you are executing every single month and they get done consistently every single month without fail. Um, it could be that you have a standardized client process. So from onboarding to contract to close to post-close nurture, you have that locked and loaded and it is executed on a consistent basis. It could be that you have clear yes or no criteria for clients or leads or opportunities. So if you have your onboarding meeting, so your listing presentation or your buyer presentation, and they do not pass the criteria to work with you, you can say no. Um, so like having those things set in stone are really, really great ways to save you time and energy. Repeatable businesses are more easeful. You can work less and earn more, and they're more profitable. Like they are honestly the gold standard of real estate businesses. Like you having good systems is crucial. So simplify before you scale. Do not add anything else until things are buttoned up, protect your high value time, and then design for repeatability, get those systems in place. You are allowed to want an easeful business. You are allowed to want a business that leaves room for you and your life. And you are absolutely allowed to stop glorifying being a burned out agent as a requirement for success. I, that is my hope for 2026 and beyond, is that we are just done with this burnout bullshit. I am just over it. I know that most people's goal is to earn more while seeing your family or spending time with your friends and remembering why you chose this career. Like, I hope that you're just done with the nonsense because that is the type of business I want for all of you. And that is the type of business I help all of my coaching clients design because you want to be in your real estate career 20 years, 30 years down the line and still love it. I am. I'm going on year 22. And I still absolutely love the career that I've built and it has ebbed and flowed, but you have the power to work less and earn more. So I want you to ask yourself, where is your business asking for structure instead of more effort? Where is it asking for boundaries instead of more effort? And I think that that is going to be a key to where you can probably do a little bit of work. I just want you to know you do not need to work harder, but you do need a business that works harder for you because ultimately it is all about you. I hope that you enjoyed today's pep talkslash episode. And until next time, stay happy.