Profit Dropped $40k

Spencer and I dropped 10,000 feet

Author

Mark Brower
August 23, 2025

That's an ‘L’

My business dropped $40k last month. Here's what I learned about wanting more instead of playing it safe.

That's a big swing. Has that ever happened in your world? You're trucking along and the P&L is feeling pretty steady and then out of nowhere there's a significant/dramatic shift?

This one month shift in income is not really a failure, it's just an annoying fluctuation. We did not have a mass-exodus of clients, we did not hire for 3 new positions in the company. We paid out a total $6k on Platinum Plan coverages for owners, we were at seasonal peak vacancy for the year (we don't charge management fees on vacant units), and we had some non-recurring expenses hit. Perfect storm.

In the early years this kind of fluctuation would drive me totally nuts. Not so much now.

I started a residential property management business for consistent, steady income. My prior work was in commercial real estate as a land broker. That was going really well until it wasn't. In 2008 I had 3 kids and we would eventually have a 4th. I jumped off the feast/famine commercial real estate roller coaster for steady eddy income in the (not so) glamorous world of residential property management. I wanted predictability and I wanted freedom. Aside from the occasional wild swing on the P&L I got both from the business. I'm very grateful for it and happy I spent the last 14+ years working on building the business to the point it's at now.

Here's a few W's (in the last 2 weeks)

  • I hired a strategy consultant. Literally (I know I'm using this word incorrectly but I don't care) one of the smartest business minds I have ever encountered.

  • I read 2/3 of 10x is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy. LOVE this book! I'm hosting a book club in Crane about it this coming week. Can't wait!

  • I reviewed the first group of candidates for the COO role and have started doing some preliminary interviews.

  • We created a framework for our PM's on dealing with the roughest clients, providing them with tools to have the necessary relationship conversations.

Reflecting on and celebrating wins keeps us in the ‘gain’ increasing our happiness, confidence, hope and motivation. What was one of your W’s in the last 2 weeks? Also let me know if you want more info on any of the above and I'll try to share more.

What Do You Want?

Dan Sullivan talks about the importance of wanting: of not feeling bad for wanting and for not justifying wanting, just wanting. He suggests that tapping into what we want without excuse or justification gets us closer to our Unique Ability. There's something here for me I need to learn. I've started journaling about what I want. It kinda feels like I should be recoiling from the exercise, like it's selfish but I'm not. I'm enjoying writing out what I want in list format, multiple times per week.

This week’s summit put on by Strategic PM (Rentscale) was really great: fantastic speakers, excellent content, and exercises where we applied the learning to business building. But something kept coming up for me while I was taking in all the ideas… Ideas, strategies, and tactics collected at an event like this don't change a business. This reality hit me hard: my business will never outgrow who I am. Becoming is the ultimate business leverage. Lack of becoming is the ultimate constraint.

That's what made this event, and Tony Cline's recent Onyx retreat so special. I was next to and interacting with people I want to become more like. There's something special about just being around incredible people in an intimate setting. Spending time rubbing shoulders with exceptional thinkers wears off on you. And when you change, the business can't not change. I'm going to try to keep showing up and having the magic rub off on me. I want to become. That's what we're doing here. It's a wild ride. Part of becoming requires letting go of 80% of what we used to do, the stuff that got us here but that is also holding us back from getting there.

And that requires courage, clarity and confidence. I'm glad I got some Russian stick therapy a few weeks ago. I'm glad Spencer took me skydiving for the first time ever. I'm glad I shared the stage this week with $40k keynote speakers (which was the most nerve-wracking of the three by far). I hope these things are building my courage for the 10x transformations that lie ahead!

Two questions for you: What are you not wanting because you think wanting it makes you selfish? What 80% of your current work needs to die so the real you can be born? What were your wins the last 2 weeks?