The Elevated Agent’s Exit Strategy

Imagine you’re 80 years old right now and still working full-time as a real estate agent because you can’t afford to stop selling houses. 

Every day you wake up a little more sluggish than the day before.

The passion and zeal you once had for serving clients has slowly eroded with resentment because let’s be honest you don’t want to have to be working anymore. 

It would be one thing if it was your choice because you just love the work so deeply that it would be too painful for you to fully retire.

But that’s not what this is. This wasn’t what you wanted for yourself at this stage in life. You want to be sitting by the pool, traveling and making the most of every moment with your loved ones. 

But instead, you’re still chained to the phone.

You’re still waking up to put out fires with emotional clients and complex contracts.

You’re still required to keep up with tech and AI as it evolves at a compounding rate. 

You’re still trying to convince people they can trust you which gets harder and harder the older you get.

At night, you lay awake terrified of what is going to happen to you when you can physically and/or mentally no longer work at all.

If you don’t have a solid exit strategy and retirement plan based on developing your business’ assets, this horrifying future is what you’re headed for my friend. 

I spent years working in geriatric healthcare, specifically in assisted living facilities before writing my first book on how to place someone you love safely into a facility that won’t abuse them. During that time, I became acutely aware of the shocking costs of needing care as you age. Right now, you can expect to pay approximately $7K/month just for your rent in an assisted living facility before you receive any care or medication. That means you need to make sure you will have a bare minimum of $10K per month of purely passive income to live and care for yourself as you age.

But don’t panic because today, I’m going to give you The Elevated Agent’s Exit Strategy including:

• The Mindset Shifts Required to Sell Your Business for 7 Figures in 5 Years

• The Formula for Calculating Your Current Company Value

• My Method to Productize & Package Your Passions for Passive Income

• Revenue Diversification Ideas To Increase The Sale Price of Your Company

Up until now, your exit strategy probably wasn’t on your radar. But now that you know what’s at stake you’re at a crossroads…

Are you going to ignore the problem; only to have to face yourself as you suffer through your golden years?

Or will this be the moment you stand up and make a change for yourself? The moment that you get laser-focused and intentional about leveraging your real estate license for all it’s really worth without requiring yourself to work for every dollar you bring in?

Let this be the moment you stop operating like an employee and start leveraging your expertise to create a diversified portfolio of business assets that fund the life you always imagined you would live in your retirement. 

3 Mindset Shifts Required To Sell Your Business for 7 Figures in 5 Years

My goal for you and all of my clients is to be able to sell your real estate business for at least 7 figures to fund your retirement investments. To reach that valuation you’re going to need to open your mind and begin rethinking your entire business model.

Here are 3 Major Mindset Shifts You Need To Sell Your Real Estate Business:

1. From Employee to Entrepreneur: Most agents behave like employees in their own business. You need to be focused on empowering the business to profitably operate with precision, at full-steam, without you present, for long periods of time. That will require a combination of systems, strategic partners, and diversification which won’t be possible if you continue operating like an employee with a job.

2. From Active Revenue to Passive: The more your business depends on you the less desirable and valuable it is to potential business brokers and buyers. Therefore, you need to partner with someone like myself that can convert your services into products that can be sold at scale online; removing the traditional physical limitation for real estate customer bases. For example, if your niche is downsizing seniors moving into facilities, I can create for you an entire product line to rival Hallmark Media that marries real estate with entertainment targeted at that audience.  

3. From Local to Global Business Owner: That brings me to the most profitable tactical shift you’re going to make today. If your real estate website is basically just an IDX and some random generic real estate content, its just as worthless as you probably think it is and it will prevent you from selling the business one day. That’s because you’re only publishing information that has been commoditized by Zillow, Realtor.com, etc. so the website holds no real value until you start developing an evergreen library of completely original, human-generated content that is SEO-rich but speaks to readers first. Beyond the SEO-powered blog, you’re also going to build a catalog of niche digital products proven to be bestsellers on platforms like Insight Factory to start generating passive sales and revenue from a global customer base. 

These three mindset shifts are foundational to you reshaping the business to create compounding resale value until you’re ready to sell from a place of strength; not desperation. 

A Business Broker’s Advice for Building a 7-Figure Real Estate Business That Will Fund Your Retirement 

I’m no expert in determining the value of a company so I called badass business broker Wayne Carson, who I spent years working with and trust implicitly on the topic. Wayne was generous enough to hop on the phone with me for an hour to discuss the nuances of selling a business vs. selling a property and what agents need to do now to get their company ready to be sold. 

Trying to sell a real estate business has always been a challenge for agents because they position themselves as the sole product in that business. In other words, that entire “book of business” or clients only exists because they want to work with that specific agent and when that agent leaves, so will they. Therefore, determining a black and white valuation for a real estate company presents many challenges.

That is where a portfolio of digital assets like that website actively selling niche products plays such a pivotal role.

When business brokers like my client Wayne Carson (Realtor-turned-badass-business-broker) sit down to determine the value of a digital asset like that, they have an actual formula they can rely upon.

Professional business brokers like Wayne (follow him to further empower your exit strategy) and online marketplaces typically value a business as a multiple of its average annual net profit, or more specifically, its Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE) or EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortization). The sale price is a direct function of this profitability multiplied by a specific market multiple.

Several factors drive this multiple, all of which are within the agent's control: 

1. A higher multiple is awarded to businesses with a strong growth rate, predictable recurring revenue.

2. A higher multiple is also awarded to websites and digital products with diverse traffic sources.

3.  A business that can run smoothly without the owner's constant involvement (through automated systems and scalable products) is also significantly more valuable. 

Wayne said when you go to sell your business, there will be an underwriter performing due diligence and a very black and white formula for determining the value based primarily on your books.

So just like you want to show income on your personal tax returns to establish your buying power in residential real estate, you want to show tax returns for the business that prove how insanely profitable it is. Get ready to hand over your P&L and all of your other financials as well because they play a key role. 

Wayne also told me that beyond the financials lenders, business brokers and potential buyers of your business are going to assess the systems, the employees, the vendor relationships, etc. All of which determines the sale price of your company.

The Formula For Calculating Your Current Company Value

As you can see, the very strategies that create a diversified, passive income stream for an agent are the same ones that make the business attractive to buyers and command a higher valuation multiplier. This dynamic creates a powerful feedback loop: building an automated business for personal financial freedom is the same as building a valuable asset for a high-figure exit.

The following table presents typical and premium valuation multiples from a leading online business marketplace, offering a clear benchmark for what an intentional, well-built website can achieve.

Online Business Valuation Multiples and Examples

Business Type	Average TTM Multiple	Example Monthly Profit	Example Sale Price Calculation
Typical Businesses	27.7x	$3,000	$3,000 27.7 12 = $997,200
Premium Businesses	31.1x	$1,500	$1,500 31.1 12 = $559,800
$1M+ Businesses	42.8x	$15,000	$15,000 42.8 12 = $7,704,000

Note: Multiples are calculated as the sale price divided by the average monthly net profit of the trailing twelve months (TTM). The calculations above are for illustrative purposes and do not account for all factors influencing a final sale price.

As shown in the table, a website with a modest average monthly profit, when multiplied by a typical market rate, can easily lead to a high six-figure or even a seven-figure sale price. For example, an online content business generating $3,000 in average monthly profit can be valued at nearly $1 million. A "premium" business that has demonstrated fast growth and is in high demand can command an even higher multiple. These valuations are not hypothetical; they are based on thousands of historical sales from established, transparent marketplaces.

10 Steps To Productize & Package Your Niche Expertise for Diversified and Predictable Passive Income

As we just learned, the more predictable and passive your revenue, the more you will be able to sell your company for when you retire. Therefore, we need to be super intentional about creating digital products that will accomplish those goals based on what’s already proven to have consistent demand.

The last thing I want you to do is start allocating resources into creating digital products at random that will never sell or increase the value of your business. I spent 5+ years studying this sector of e-commerce and it requires that you be extremely intentional as you develop your product line. That said, here is the process I use to create the digital product stores my clients use to monetize their website.

1. Define Your Niche & Target Buyers

2. Perform research to see what products consistently sell in that niche

3. Perform competitive and gap analysis to create product plan based on bestsellers

4. Create the brand guide for the product line

5. Create the products in order based on the product plan

6. Build additional upsell opportunities into the product

7. Package the product & prepare it for delivery on platforms like Etsy

8. Create listing images, description, and marketing materials

9. Publish evergreen content like blogs that promote the product, its value and use cases

10. Collect and incorporate user-feedback to improve products and profits as you go

Reflect On Current and Past Offers

The most important part of this whole process is that you be open, honest, raw and real with yourself as you answer the following reflection questions about your current and past offers. Anyone can brainstorm with a list of digital product ideas but only you really know your clients on an intimate level and truly understand what works for them, what they REALLY want, need and will pay for.

Use these 6 journaling questions to reflect on your most profitable and popular services:

1. Are there any areas that your clients keep getting stuck over and over?

2. Are there any questions that keep coming up?

3. Are there any programs or offers that seem to be a favorite?

4. Do you regularly find yourself referring out because your prospects aren’t quite ready to work with you yet?

5. Are there any offers from your competitors that come up in conversation with clients?

6. Is there anything your clients ask for that you don’t currently offer?

Your Elevated Exit Strategy Starts Here

If you take away one thing from this post, let it be this: your real estate business is more than just a vehicle to generate commissions, it can be a sellable, scalable, seven-figure asset that funds your retirement.

To get there, you must:

• Shift your mindset from employee → entrepreneur, active → passive, and local → global.

• Track and optimize your company’s value by focusing on predictable revenue, strong systems, and a business model that doesn’t rely on you.

• Productize your expertise into digital assets that diversify your income, build authority, and increase your sale multiple.

• Plan ahead with intention, so you can sell your business from a position of power, not desperation.

The agents who thrive in their golden years will be the ones who stop treating real estate as a job and start building it like an empire. Your future self will thank you for starting today.

FAQs About Building Your Exit Strategy

1. Can a solo real estate agent really sell their business one day? Yes, if you build digital products, systems, and assets that make your company profitable without relying solely on you. Buyers aren’t buying you; they’re buying predictable cash flow.

2. What’s the first step if I feel overwhelmed? Start with one mindset shift: move from “active revenue” to “passive revenue.” Even one small digital product can plant the seed for a business that grows beyond you.

3. How long does it take to make my business sellable? With the right strategy, you can build a business worth seven figures in as little as five years. But every day you wait is a compounding opportunity lost.

4. What if I love real estate and don’t want to retire completely? That’s the beauty of this strategy! You can still work as much as you want, but you’ll never have to. You’ll have the freedom of choice.

5. How do I know what digital products to create? Research your niche, listen to your clients’ recurring questions, and create solutions that can be packaged and sold online. Start small, refine, and expand strategically.