Last week I was looking at a P&L for an agent who did 3.2M in GCI last year, the kind of numbers most solo agents dream about and one line made me stop.
Lead generation: $47,000.
Portals, Facebook ads, tech stacks they don’t even use.
So I asked one simple question.
What happens if you stop paying that next year?
Silence, not the kind where someone is thinking, the kind where they already know the answer and wish you hadn’t asked. Because that 47K was not buying a business, it was the golden handcuffs that had become the sole pillar of her business.
The scariest part of this is when you’re renting a pipeline from outside sources and calling it a business, your entire livelihood relies on that source. The second you stop paying, you disappear, the algorithm forgets you and the leads go to whoever swipes their card next.
Owning your market looks different.
Owning is when people say “I have been reading your emails for months, you are the only person I wanted to call.” It’s when your market updates, your posts, your podcast, your Google presence and your name in local conversations all stack on top of each other. Someone finds you once and then binge consumes everything you have ever said. They share you with their friends and when they show up, they already trust you.
That is equity in a real business.
The agent with the 47K lead gen budget didn’t have that. She had activity and volume but she didn’t have something that would keep working if she decided to step off the hamster wheel for a year or worse if the lead source got cancelled.
So here is the real question I want you to think about:
If you stopped paying for leads tomorrow, what would still exist that belongs to you?
Not someone else’s platform, not a rented list, not a portal. Your authority where your name is top of mind for all of your ideal clients.
This week on GEO by HeyPearl, I break this down and talk about what it actually looks like to build something you own instead of endlessly renting attention and calling it growth.
If that $47,000 question hit a nerve, this episode is the one you should make time for.
Ready to own your market, reply to this email or click the link below and let’s talk about what it can look like for you to own your market.
