Above: Team leader, coach and author, Andy Allen, at RISMedia’s 37th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange; Photos by AJ Canaria
As anyone who’s achieved a modicum of success in residential real estate can tell you, getting there involves a lot of blood, sweat and tears: demanding clients, demoralizing cold calls, heartbreaking deal-breakers, nail-biting negotiations…all before you ever see a dime.
But then there are people like 35-year industry vet Andy Allen—superstars who seemingly broke the code and found a way to have it all: a fulfilling family life, rewarding personal pursuits, physical and mental well-being, and yes, mega success in real estate sales.
This past September, Allen—the founder and team leader of the Austin, Texas-based Andy Allen Team with Keller Williams, and author of “The 80% Project”—took the stage at RISMedia’s 37th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange to talk about attaining a goal that remains elusive for most real estate professionals: “How to Become a Top-Producing Agent Without Sacrificing Your Life.” Allen shared his playbook for achieving great financial success without compromising the other components of a fulfilling life. His message, in short: You, too, can have it all.
To put some details around Allen’s success, in one year, his team of 11 agents clocked 566 transactions, which means each agent closed 4.25 transactions per month, on average, for the entire year. To put that in perspective, according to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), the average agent who is a member of NAR closed 10 transactions in 2024. Even though 2024 was another brutal year for real estate, according to Allen, the difference between what’s typical and what’s possible—in any market—is drastic.
“I believe in very high-level real estate sales,” Allen told the crowd of some 300 brokers and top agents gathered for the event in Washington, D.C. “I’m not big on ‘go with the flow’ because I believe we are in the greatest industry that exists. If you guys could see the life that I get to live…I’ll put it this way, it’s shocking to me.”
According to Allen, a former competitive body builder, the life he leads today is one he could only dream about as a kid—the life of a celebrity or superstar athlete. Although he emphasized that he has never been motivated by money, Allen gave the crowd a peek into what that life looks like—a huge house with electric gates, all the cool cars he could want, a 1,300-square-foot gym in the backyard. This was not to boast, he explained, but rather to underscore what is possible to achieve as a real estate agent.
“You guys need to understand it because that’s available to all of you,” he said. “There is no ceiling in what we do. If next year you want to double your income, you’re the only one who can control that. Other people have to go to their boss and say, ‘I really want a path forward. I need more money. I would love a raise.’ We don’t do that.”
With no corporation or employer holding the purse strings, the only thing standing in a real estate professional’s way of making seven figures in less than 10 years, said Allen, is themselves. What’s more, the abundance of agents flooding the residential real estate space only makes that goal more attainable.
“Everybody wants to make a pass through our industry, but this should give you incredible confidence,” Allen explained. “NAR says three out of four new agents will be gone within a year. This is your competition. People would ask me over the years, how have you done what you’ve done or succeeded at this level? And my answer to all these big crowds is the same. It’s because I compete against you. The reality is the bar is very low, which makes it really easy for us to be wildly successful.”
The life pie
It’s safe to say that for most real estate professionals, their lives are built around supporting their business. Allen says they have it backwards.
“Your business should support your amazing life,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where you are in your careers, it doesn’t matter if you’re just starting, it doesn’t matter if you’re toward the end. What I’m going to show you, start it now, because if you do, I promise you it’ll be life changing.”
The first step in achieving superstar-level success and an amazing life, is to get your priorities in order. Allen’s longtime priorities, which he has faithfully abided by for years, are God, family and business, in that order. During some of his highest-earning years, for example, he was also coaching or attending every one of his children’s sporting events.
The next step in creating a life that dreams are made of involves pie. As he explains in “The 80% Project,” each year, Allen creates a “life pie” composed of five pieces.
Allen shared the breakdown of his personal pie for the year ahead: Work, family, spiritual, personal, finance. Within each of those segments, he sets very specific goals.
“Those five pieces represent the five most important things in my life in the coming year,” he explained. “And then I set goals for those pieces. I create an action plan, I put it to a timeline, and I put it inside my phone. It’s on my calendar. I have lived with goals for every aspect of my life. Why? Because I’m not going to take a life that people just give to me.”
According to Allen, defining how you want your life pie to be divided, then creating goals related to each piece of that pie, helps create a system of intentionality, which can lead to realizing the full potential of not only your business, but every component of your life.
Walking the line
Of course, while determining priorities and setting goals often starts with the best of intentions, veering off course is a common reality. As Allen explained, while the shortest distance between two points (your goal and achieving that goal) is a straight line, it’s easy to get diverted, sometimes permanently, preventing you from reaching your destination.
“The shortest distance between two points—between where you are now and where you want to be in life or in business—is a straight line,” said Allen. “But it is impossible to live your business or your personal life perfectly, right? We’re trying to go straight, but we get a little bit off track. But if you have goals and you’re always paying attention, you correct very quickly.”
The other common saboteur toward achieving goals and life priorities is the victim mentality, which, given today’s burdensome market conditions, is easy to succumb to. But while others get mired in the role of victim, Allen seizes the opportunity.
“Every time there is a downturn, the rest of you crawl into a little hole,” he said. “You go, ‘oh my God, this is terrible. I’m not going to spend any money and I don’t want to talk to anyone because no one wants to do anything, and I don’t really know how to sell anything right now, so I’m just going to hope. I’m going to drive Uber for a while and then I’m going to come back.’
This is where we make money. This is where we have career changes in down markets. Why? Because when everyone else is pulling back, man, we are stepping up.”
Allen shared just one example of how he and his team strategically step up in a down market.
“As the market softens, fewer and fewer buyers at open houses have an agent that they’re working with. Why? Because they think the market’s crappy,” he said. “When they come to the open house, you tell them, ‘the seller’s requested we have everybody sign in and that we keep track of everyone who comes through. So I’m going to have you sign in here.'”
With this simple strategy, hosting two open houses a week and collecting just five buyer names at each one can help an agent build a pipeline of more than 500 prospects to market to. As Allen said, you have now, by default, become their real estate agent. When they’re ready to transact, you will likely be the first call.
A plan for the generations
While Allen’s strategies and philosophies are aimed squarely at achieving extreme financial success as well as personal fulfillment, he also believes that following his system will have an impact far into the future.
“If you live your life as I have from this point forward, saying family is more important than business, and your kids see you doing that, it will be normal to them,” he explained. “And though maybe you grew up a totally different way—dysfunction, poor, no food—it doesn’t matter, because it can stop right here. Because you control your fate. All of us, because we’re in real estate, have the ability to change that for generations to come.”
Allen closed with a reminder to redirect your primary focus away from your business and toward your life as a whole.
“Use the business only as the tool to let you live your unimaginable life,” he said. “This is the life that I have lived my entire time in real estate. And nobody can tell you you can’t do it.”
