Every agent knows the cycle: A closing hits, the commission lands, and then…nothing.
And the longer that nothing stretches, the harder it gets to make confident decisions about the business.
At BAM Fest 2026, Sharran Srivatsaa brought that problem into the open during a fireside chat with Leila Hormozi. If you missed it, the full replay is now in BAMx.
Sharran put it like this:
“I think the significant portion that a lot of people don’t understand, especially in a Realtor’s business, is that their income is not predictable. And so it goes up and down based on the homes that you sell.
“And so they’re like, ‘Hey, based on that, I can’t really invest because I’ve got episodic income.’ And as a builder of teams and managing assets accordingly, it’s very easy to say, ‘Well, I’ll just wait till I get more money to invest.’”
Once that thinking takes root, it sets up a knee-jerk rejection of any growth opportunity that requires a financial investment.
Agents hold off on hiring because the next deal isn’t a sure thing. They pull back on marketing the moment things feel shaky. They stop committing to long-term systems or putting real effort into building a brand. Every dollar starts to feel like something to hold onto for dear life.
Episodic income goes from being a mere fact of the business to feeling like a ceiling on it. Cautious logic feels sensible in the moment, which is what makes it so hard to push back on.
Leila reframed the whole thing:
“Well, it’s funny because I think for this group, everyone being in real estate, it’s episodic, but…there are so many professions that under a certain size, revenue is always episodic…
“I would tell you the biggest agents on this call that have teams…they probably have pretty predictable income. They can probably predict what they’re going to be able to close one year and the next.”
This is where tracking and measuring come in. But Leila takes it even further:
“You talk to somebody that [has] a seasonal business where they only have revenue coming in in the winter, and they don’t have it coming in the summer. But they learn how to predict what the revenue’s going to be after enough summers and winters have gone.”
Before the income gets more predictable, the mindset behind the business has to change. And Leila’s mindset doesn’t frame episodic income as a barrier.
The Real Constraint Is Emotional, Not Financial
Episodic income creates pressure. And pressure has a way of working itself into decisions before you notice it. A slow month hits, and everything feels tighter. A big closing comes through, and it gets tempting to ease up.
Leila sees a pattern in how people behave when things feel uncertain. For her, the money is beside the point.
“…that’s irrelevant to me. What is relevant is that you need consistent inputs if you want to get faster, consistent outputs. It’s the biggest thing that we saw when we had our company Gym Launch…gym owners would always promote and put money into their brand and ads.”
“And then the moment that their gym was getting closer to full or they were at fuller capacity, then they would just completely turn it all off. And then they would say, ‘Oh, my revenue goes up and down, up and down.’ I was like, the thing is, there’s never a complete sweet spot.”
It’s a familiar cycle. When business slows, effort ramps up. When deals start closing, effort pulls back. It feels like a reasonable response in the moment, but it’s what keeps the rollercoaster going.
Underneath all of it is something more personal. Leila points straight at it:
“And you have to ask yourself, ‘Do I trust myself to that degree?’ And I find that most of the time when people aren’t willing to make those investments, it’s because there’s some lack of trust within themselves. That when things are hard or when things are unpredictable, they’re not sure how they’re going to act.”
The hesitation comes from not knowing how you’ll respond when things get uncomfortable. If you’re not sure you’ll push through, you hold back before things even get hard.
Leila doesn’t sugarcoat where that leads:
“I think that that goes deeper than this, but it is definitely, I think, more of an emotional problem than a practical problem. Because practically speaking, that’s just how business goes. From an emotional standpoint, if you are reactive to every influx in the business, you’re never going to get a bigger business.”
Why Waiting to Invest Keeps Agents Stuck
Waiting feels like the responsible thing when income isn’t steady. Close a few more deals, build a nice cushion, then make the move.
In practice, though, this turns into a loop that’s near impossible to break. Growth keeps getting pushed out because the right time never quite shows up.
Leila reframes the sequence most agents follow. Investment doesn’t come after stability. It’s what creates it.
“When people ask me, ‘Well, I don’t have predictable income. How do I hire somebody?’ I’m like, ‘Well, if you don’t hire somebody, you probably will have less predictable income because you have less stability or infrastructure in the business.’ So it’s always a chicken or egg problem.”
Hiring feels risky when income fluctuates. But holding off keeps everything dependent on one person. Capacity stays capped. And income stays tied to personal output.
The same pattern shows up in how agents handle demand. When opportunities increase, systems often can’t keep up. When things slow down, there’s no consistent pipeline to draw from.
Leila points out that even at scale, no business captures everything:
“We have massive waste in our lead flow. I mean, it’s insane, but it’s also like, okay, well, if you were to capitalize on all of it, it would be an operational nightmare on the backend. So you can only do so much.”
Trying to time investments perfectly only makes the swings worse. Consistency means committing even when you know some of it won’t pan out.
Leila is direct about what it takes to move forward anyway:
“You kind of have to bet on yourself. I know at the end of the day that I’ve got my own back and I will freaking figure out a way to make it work. And if you are that type of person, I think it makes it easy to bet on yourself.”
Some inefficiency shows up when you grow. Some leads don’t convert. Some capacity goes unused. All part of the less shiny side of building something stable.
Leila doesn’t leave room for the idea of perfect timing:
“That is a cost of doing business. You are never going to have it at the sweet spot where you just have it one-for-one where I put a dollar in here, and I’m going to capitalize on every lead I get from that. It just does not fucking exist. And so I think we have to get rid of that.”
Waiting for the clean moment keeps the business small.
Investing before it feels comfortable is what starts to smooth out the volatility agents are trying to escape.
Sharran and Leila covered a lot more ground in this conversation. BAMx members can watch the full BAM Fest replay here.
Stay tuned for more highlights from our BAM Fest speakers in the days to come.
