Utilizing Leadership in Real Estate to Think Bigger, Act Now, and Build a Life That Matters with Verl Workman
Key Takeaways
- Verl Workman teaches that predictable greatness comes from consistently performing the right activities instead of measuring success only by closings, revenue, or outward appearances.
- Building true wealth requires thinking bigger, creating multiple income pillars, protecting net profit, and eventually directing business profits into assets that can create long-term financial freedom.
- Success should support health, family, relationships, purpose, and freedom, which is why Workman challenges entrepreneurs to measure their return on time as carefully as their return on investment.
United States Real Estate Investor®
The REI Agent with Verl Workman
https://youtu.be/GjmJM0YYuoUUnited States Real Estate Investor®
Value-rich, The REI Agent podcast takes a holistic approach to life through real estate.
Hosted by Mattias Clymer, an agent and investor, alongside his wife Erica Clymer, a licensed therapist, the show features guests who strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.
You are personally invited to witness inspiring conversations with agents and investors who share their journeys, strategies, and wisdom.
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What If Real Estate Leadership Success Was About More Than Making More Money?
For Verl Workman, success has never been simply about selling more houses, building a bigger company, or chasing another impressive revenue number.
His journey reveals something far more powerful. A great business should create a great life, not consume it.
As the co-founder of Workman Success Systems, a longtime entrepreneur, speaker, coach, and real estate professional, Workman has spent decades helping high-performing teams grow. Yet some of the most important lessons he shares on The REI Agent Podcast have little to do with transactions.
They are lessons about health. Family. Failure. Time. Courage. Profitability. Preparation. And the willingness to think far bigger than the circumstances surrounding a person today.
His philosophy is rooted in a simple belief: extraordinary results are not accidents. They can become predictable when the right actions are repeated consistently.
"I believe in my core that greatness is predictable."
That belief has been tested through business failure, financial struggle, personal reinvention, entrepreneurship, family life, and decades of helping other people transform their businesses.
The Transformation Started With a Different Definition of Health
He Did Not Want to Watch Life From the Sidelines
Workman openly shares that he once weighed around 400 pounds. About 20 years ago, he underwent weight-loss surgery and rapidly lost approximately 180 pounds. But the physical transformation did not immediately create the internal transformation he expected.
Over time, much of the weight returned.
More recently, he approached his health differently. Working with his regular doctor, using medication under medical supervision, training personally, and bringing his trademark competitiveness to what he jokingly calls full-contact pickleball, he lost around 100 pounds and kept it off for more than a year.
But his motivation was no longer appearance.
At 62, after 40 years of marriage, with six children and 11 grandchildren, Workman began thinking seriously about the kind of grandfather he wanted to become.
"I wanted to be a participant in the lives of my grandkids instead of a spectator."
He did not want to sit on the sidelines while everyone else lived. He wanted to surf behind the boat, play with his grandchildren, participate in family adventures, and remain physically capable of enjoying the people he had worked so hard to provide for.
That distinction changes everything.
Health becomes more than weight. Wealth becomes more than money. Success becomes the ability to participate fully in the life a person has built.
Authenticity Requires Living the Lessons Being Taught
Workman also confronted an uncomfortable contradiction. He was standing on stages telling people to believe bigger, establish ambitious goals, and take control of their futures while avoiding one of his own most obvious personal goals.
That realization forced him to consider how authentically he was showing up.
It is a lesson that reaches far beyond health. Anyone can teach principles. The greater challenge is allowing those same principles to confront the teacher.
For Workman, transformation meant becoming increasingly aligned with the message he had spent years delivering to others.
Before the Success Came the Collapse
The Satellite Dish King Watched His Market Disappear
Long before Workman became known for coaching real estate teams, he was an entrepreneur selling satellite dishes and hot tubs.
He was good at it. He enjoyed selling. He built multiple stores and believed he had created a successful business.
Then the market changed.
Smaller satellite dishes entered the industry, and margins that had once been around $1,000 per sale collapsed to roughly $68. His stores carried substantial monthly overhead, and there simply was not enough volume available to overcome the change in economics.
The business failed.
Workman and his wife sold their larger home, moved into a smaller property, and did nearly everything they could to avoid bankruptcy.
It was a frightening season, but it also became the doorway into the next chapter of his life.
A $10,000 Act of Kindness Changed the Direction of His Life
During his going-out-of-business sale, Workman had sold several home theater systems to Mike Holmes, a homebuilder in Utah.
Later, Holmes unexpectedly invited him to his home and handed him a check for $10,000.
There was no complicated agreement. There was no demand attached. Holmes simply appreciated what Workman had done for his family and wanted to help him through a difficult period.
Workman remembers calling his wife with tears in his eyes.
A few weeks later, Holmes invited him to another meeting and told him something that would redirect his career. He believed Workman was too talented at selling to be struggling and wanted him to sell homes.
Workman agreed under two conditions. He needed enough monthly income to pay his bills, and Holmes needed to pay for real estate school.
Holmes agreed.
Workman completed school quickly, entered the business, became the builder's number one salesperson within months, and sold more than 100 homes during his first year.
What looked like the destruction of one career became the beginning of another.
Failure Is Not the Opposite of Wisdom
Sometimes Failure Is Where Wisdom Comes From
Years later, Workman would experience another major restart. He says he was fired at 50 and had to begin again.
Rather than hiding those moments, he now sees them as part of the education that made him capable of making stronger decisions.
"I got fired at 50. I started over at 50."
His point is not that failure automatically creates success. Failure creates experiences. Those experiences can create judgment. And good judgment can dramatically improve the decisions someone makes when the next opportunity appears.
"I think what most of us have that are self-made at any level is that we've failed enough to have wisdom."
That perspective also shapes Workman's view of artificial intelligence. He is enthusiastic about AI and says he is heavily invested in it, but he sees an important limitation.
Technology can process enormous amounts of information. It can provide answers. It can improve efficiency. What it does not possess is a lifetime of lived experience, failure, instinct, inspiration, and judgment.
Those human qualities still matter.
Stop Thinking Small About What Is Possible
Four Income Pillars Can Completely Change the Goal
One of Workman's most memorable financial concepts is his four-pillar approach to income.
Instead of building several small income streams that collectively reach one financial goal, he encourages people to think much bigger. Each pillar should eventually have the potential to produce 100 percent of the desired income.
For a real estate professional, one pillar might come from a geographic farm. Another could come from referrals and past clients. Another might come from investments. Others could involve property management, commercial transactions, new construction, or another specialized area.
The exact pillars are not the point.
The size of the thinking is.
"That's how people end up becoming wealthy as they think a lot bigger."
Workman recalls speaking with a financial advisor about a hypothetical retirement goal of $50,000 per month. Instead of asking how to build investments that collectively generated $50,000, Workman wanted four separate pillars that could each eventually produce $50,000.
To him, it became a mathematical problem that could be reverse engineered.
The philosophy challenges the assumption that goals must be constrained by what initially feels realistic.
The Wrong People Can Shrink a Great Goal
Workman saw this principle become personal when one of his sons struggled academically.
A teacher encouraged his son to lower his expectations and establish more realistic goals. Workman strongly disagreed.
He did not believe the teacher's job was to convince the child that the goal was too ambitious. He believed the job was to help the child discover how to reach it.
That experience reinforced a philosophy that runs throughout his approach to life and business.
"Why don't we just decide right now that we're gonna do something extraordinary, regardless of how we grew up or the environment that we're in."
People are constantly receiving messages about what they supposedly cannot become. Social media comparisons, childhood experiences, economic circumstances, educational struggles, and other people's expectations can quietly become ceilings.
Workman's message is to stop accepting those ceilings without question.
New Agents Do Not Need to Prove They Can Do Everything Alone
Learn Inside an Environment That Produces Results
When asked what he would tell a new real estate agent, Workman's response is direct.
Find a high-producing team led by someone whose values match the life and business they teach. Then enter that environment and learn the business through repetition.
Instead of struggling through a handful of transactions each year while trying to discover every system independently, he argues that an agent can accelerate development by working inside a proven organization.
"You'll make more money at 50% than you will at a hundred percent of a nothing."
That statement challenges one of the industry's most common obsessions: commission split.
A larger percentage of a weak opportunity may be worth considerably less than a smaller percentage inside an environment that creates skills, systems, transaction volume, mentorship, and future opportunity.
Workman also rejects the idea that truly great performers succeed alone.
Even an individual athlete such as Michael Phelps competes with coaches, nutrition experts, physical trainers, mindset professionals, and other specialists around him.
Greatness may look individual from the outside, but it is often supported by an entire ecosystem.
Greatness Becomes Predictable When the Activities Become Predictable
Winning the Day Cannot Depend on Closing a Deal
Workman's coaching philosophy focuses heavily on measurable activity.
If an agent defines winning only as closing a transaction, that person may psychologically lose most days of the year. Instead, Workman teaches people to identify the daily activities that eventually create transactions.
For him, a successful day might mean getting face to face with two people who want to buy or sell a home.
That is controllable.
A closing often is not.
"If we do the right activities consistently, we will get a predictable result."
This is the foundation of what he calls predictable greatness.
The concept is not motivational fluff. Workman believes activities create outcomes with enough consistency that he could review someone's schedule in 30-minute increments and estimate that person's income based on how the time is being used.
Fake Work Can Feel Productive While Producing Nothing
Workman also warns against something a former coaching client called fake work.
Fake work is activity that creates the feeling of being busy without meaningfully moving the business forward.
Email. Minor administrative tasks. Endless tweaking. Low-value tasks that could have been delegated. Social media activity without a clear business purpose.
Workman's standard is demanding. If an entrepreneur wants to build a million-dollar business, spending prime working hours completing tasks that could be delegated for $20 per hour becomes incredibly expensive.
The issue is not whether the work needs to be done.
The issue is whether the business owner should be the person doing it.
Your Numbers Reveal Where the Business Is Leaking Money
More Leads Are Not Always the Answer
Workman tracks the relationship between calls, conversations, appointments, signed agreements, listings, leads, and transactions.
That data allows him to reverse engineer growth.
He teaches that every listing should create multiple additional opportunities. A listing should not simply be placed on the market and forgotten. It becomes permission to market.
Open houses can be promoted aggressively. Nearby homeowners can be contacted. Online and offline marketing can create attention around the property. Follow-up systems can nurture prospects who are not ready to transact immediately.
Before spending more money buying additional leads, Workman looks for the income already leaking from the existing business.
Often the opportunity is already there.
The system simply is not capturing it.
The Market Changed, So the Activities Must Change Too
Yesterday's Formula May Not Produce Today's Results
Workman and his company track what they call daily success habits. Their data shows how dramatically the effort required to produce a closing has changed.
He explains that activity levels that produced results several years ago may require significantly more effort today.
That means agents cannot simply repeat the same playbook indefinitely and blame the market when results decline.
Consumers change. Interest rates change. Political uncertainty changes behavior. Lead sources change. Conversion rates change.
The professional has to adapt too.
"You have to do three times the effort to get the same result."
The lesson reaches beyond real estate. A strategy should never become sacred simply because it once worked.
In a Crowded Market, Specialists Win
Consumers Want to Know Exactly What Someone Does Best
Another major shift Workman sees is the growing importance of specialization.
Consumers regularly seek specialists throughout life. They may use different professionals for hair, medical procedures, legal needs, financial matters, or highly specific health conditions.
Yet many real estate professionals still describe themselves as someone who handles everything.
Residential homes. Commercial property. Investments. Multifamily. New construction. Land. Retail.
Workman believes that broad positioning can weaken the very thing agents are trying to communicate: expertise.
His own company is intentionally specific. Workman Success Systems specializes in high-performing real estate teams.
People should know what someone is exceptional at.
Being remembered for one valuable specialty can become more powerful than claiming competence in everything.
Return on Time May Matter More Than Return on Investment
Time Away From Family Needs to Be Worth Something
Near the end of the conversation, Workman offers three major principles for listeners.
The first is a metric he calls ROT, return on time.
Business owners routinely calculate return on investment. Workman wants them to consider another resource that cannot be recovered once spent.
Time.
"Am I getting the highest return on time away from family?"
If someone claims to be working long hours for the family, Workman believes that time should produce meaningful results.
Spending hours away from the people who matter most while performing low-value tasks creates a terrible return on time.
The idea is deeply connected to his broader philosophy. The point of building a business is not to lose the very life the business was supposed to support.
Find the Money and Put Yourself in the Middle of It
Stop Fighting a Market That Is Telling You Something
Workman's second principle is unapologetically practical.
"Find the money and put yourself in the middle of it."
If transactions are not happening in one niche, professionals need to understand where activity is occurring and adapt their focus accordingly.
He points to different clients operating in the same broader market but producing dramatically different results because they serve different consumers and depend on different lead sources.
Effort alone does not guarantee a strong outcome.
Effort has to be directed toward opportunity.
Sometimes persistence means staying committed to the goal while changing the strategy.
Revenue Is Impressive, but Net Profit Builds Wealth
The Number That Matters Is What Remains
Workman's third principle cuts directly through the temptation to impress others with large production numbers.
"The only number that matters in your business is net profit."
Gross commission income may sound impressive, but it does not reveal whether a business owner is actually building wealth.
"Stop running around telling everybody how much your GCI is because nobody cares."
What matters is what remains after expenses are paid.
Profit creates options. Profit provides stability. Profit provides capital that can eventually be invested into assets that generate long-term wealth.
Workman encourages professionals to become their own best clients. Agents can spend careers helping other people acquire properties and build wealth while reaching retirement without having accumulated enough assets of their own.
That does not have to be the story.
A profitable business can become the engine that finances a larger wealth-building strategy.
Preparation Is What Makes Fast Action Possible
Opportunity Rewards the Person Who Was Ready Before It Appeared
When Mattias asks Workman about a favorite book, Workman points to Og Mandino's classic The Greatest Salesman in the World, a book he first read in high school and still gives to clients.
He is especially drawn to the principle of acting now.
But Workman's interpretation contains an important distinction. Acting quickly is not the same as acting recklessly.
A person can move decisively when preparation has already happened.
"Prepare now. So when the opportunities arise, you can act without hesitation and that's how you become wealthy."
Mattias connects the idea to one of his own property investments. He and Erica were approaching the birth of a child when an investment opportunity appeared. The timing was uncomfortable, but because they had prepared financially and understood what they were looking at, they were able to act.
The project became one of their strongest deals.
Preparation had created the ability to move through fear.
The Bigger Goal Is Building a Life Worth Living
Greatness Is Not Just About What Someone Earns
Workman's story contains plenty of business accomplishments. He built companies. He became a top producer. He became a professional speaker. His coaching organization grew to include dozens of coaches. He has spent decades helping teams increase production and profitability.
Yet the thread connecting the entire conversation is not money.
It is intentionality.
Workman wants to remain active with his grandchildren. He wants his children to do work they love. He wants entrepreneurs to stop wasting irreplaceable time. He wants agents to build profit instead of merely announcing revenue. He wants people to learn from failure, prepare for opportunity, surround themselves with great teams, and stop allowing other people's expectations to dictate the size of their future.
Most of all, he believes people can expect more from themselves without sacrificing everything that makes achievement worthwhile.
"I'm a big believer that you can have it all."
The Life Someone Wants Is Built Through What They Do Today
Verl Workman's journey is a reminder that success rarely follows a perfect path. Businesses collapse. Markets change. careers restart. Health requires attention. Fear appears at inconvenient moments. Strategies that once worked stop working. And sometimes the people who are supposed to encourage bigger dreams recommend smaller ones instead.
None of those circumstances have to become the final chapter.
Greatness becomes more predictable when people consistently perform the activities that move life forward. Wealth becomes more attainable when businesses create real profit. Opportunity becomes easier to seize when preparation happens before the opportunity arrives. And success becomes more meaningful when family, health, faith, relationships, fun, and personal fulfillment remain part of the equation.
Workman's challenge is ultimately simple but demanding: think bigger, prepare now, focus on what actually moves the needle, and build a business that serves the life instead of consuming it.
Because the most meaningful measure of success may not be how much someone produces.
It may be whether that person still has the health, freedom, relationships, resources, and courage to fully enjoy the life all that work was meant to create.
Stay tuned for more inspiring stories on The REI Agent podcast, your go-to source for insights, inspiration, and strategies from top agents and investors who are living their best lives through real estate.
For more content and episodes, visit reiagent.com.
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Transcript
All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.
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