As a brokerage owner or leader, are you treating your current agents as your own personal SOI—your sphere of influence?

As an agent, you were trained to do this. You’ve heard it repeatedly from gurus, speakers, and podcasters: work your sphere. You need 20 to 50 contacts per year with your sphere to generate referrals.

But are you applying that same principle to your own agents?

Most brokerage owners and team leaders don’t. Then they wonder why recruiting is so hard. Recruiting feels difficult because they’re not getting referrals from their own agents.

The number one recruiting strategy for every brokerage owner in America should be this: your agents are so impressed, enthusiastic, and in love with what you do that they’re shouting from the rooftops, telling every agent in the market to work for you.

If that’s not happening, it’s because you’re not treating your agents with the same intensity and intentionality as your SOI.

So let’s change that. Treat them with the same respect ...

As a real estate agent, one of the challenges you face is creating engaging social media posts that spark genuine conversations with others.

I want to share a strategy that’s simple but highly effective. I call it the “This or That” strategy.

This strategy works because people love to give their opinion. When someone asks for our opinion, we feel valued—it’s an ego boost. And the same happens when you ask your audience.

Here’s how it works: Say you’re taking a new listing and had professional photography done. You’ve got four options for the lead photo. Post them on social media and ask, Which one should I use—A, B, C, or D?

People love that.

Another example: if you’ve virtually staged a room, show two different versions and ask, “Which do you prefer? This or that.”

It’s simple, but it drives high engagement.

You can also personalize this strategy. Send it as a text to your top 25 clients or include it in an email blast. There are many ways to use it.

Here’s the psychology behi...

Garrett Maroon built a top 1% real estate team in Southeast Virginia, closing over 650 homes in just eleven years—entirely through relationships, not leads. But behind the accolades and closings, eighty-hour weeks and burnout nearly cost him everything he loved.

In this episode, Garrett shares the turning point that forced him to ask: What’s the point of success if the people I love most aren’t in it with me? His story is a powerful reminder that real success means building a business without sacrificing faith, family, or health. You’ll discover how to create your own definition of success, use Garrett’s PDA Formula to design a Predictable, Dollar-productive, and Aligned business, and reclaim time, peace, and purpose while still growing income and impact.

I just interviewed my good friend Garrett Maroon, who’s going to be on my podcast soon. Garrett shared a powerful concept called, “The Recipe Approach.”

Here’s how it works:

We all probably have a mom, grandma, aunt, or someone in the family who’s a great cook. They make delicious meals because they have a recipe that works. For example, when baking a cake, they use the right mix of eggs, chocolate, flour, salt, and so on. They follow the recipe, put it in the oven, and after a set time, they get a delicious result.

Top real estate agents operate the same way.

They’ve each figured out a recipe for success. For some, it may be like baking a cake. For others, it’s more like muffins, pies, or cookies. The point is: they’ve found a formula that works for them.

Once they have it dialed in, they keep baking the same cake over and over. Why change something that works?

Of course, when people start out, they don’t have their own recipe. They experiment, make mistakes, or follow someone e...

If you're a real estate broker, I want you to do something the next time you're in a grocery store. Look at the shelves and notice how many products say new and improved.

Now apply that to your own real estate company. Ask yourself: What about my company, what I'm offering to agents in this market, is new and improved?

If you can’t think of anything, neither can your current agents—and certainly no one outside your company can either. But this is the secret sauce.

We often think recruiting is all about commission splits. It’s not. If the lowest split was all that mattered, then the operator with the lowest split in your market would have every agent working for them—and we know that’s not true.

So what is attracting agents to join one company over another? It’s the tools, the technology, the services, the support, and most importantly—which company they believe can help them close more transactions at the end of the day.

Here’s the challenge: What can you roll out every quarter th...

If we went through your SOI—your sphere of influence—I bet we’d find several people active on LinkedIn.

First question: are you on LinkedIn, and are you active there? You should be. But let’s set that aside and talk about what you can do on LinkedIn to really make an impact.

One of the easiest things you can do—something that takes just 10–15 minutes a week—is endorse a couple of people’s skills. LinkedIn makes this simple. You can say, “They’re great at marketing,” “They’re a strong presenter,” or “They provide excellent service.”

Whatever you truly believe they’re good at, endorse them.

Once you’ve endorsed their skills, let them know. Send a quick text or LinkedIn message:

“Hey, I took a minute today to endorse a couple of your skills. I’m doing this for a few friends. Just wanted to let you know. Hope you’re having a great day!”

That’s it. No ask. No expectation. Just a feel-good connection and a little gift they weren’t expecting. You’re being the Go-Giver, leading with valu...

People often ask me, “Jim, what’s the secret to recruiting?”

Here it is: spend one hour a day recruiting—just like your agents are expected to spend one hour a day lead generating. We tell agents to prospect daily; as a brokerage owner or team leader, you need to do the same thing with recruiting.

I call this the “Five by Five” system. It’s a proven strategy we use in our company and with our brokerage coaching students across the country to drive performance and success.

Here’s how it works. Within that one hour of recruiting, you commit to:

• Making 5 calls
• Sending 5 texts
• Sending 5 video texts
• Writing 5 personal notes
• Doing 5 social media touches

If you hold yourself to that standard, you’ll start unlocking new opportunities.

The next question is: what do you say? What should you be texting, saying on calls, writing in notes, or posting on social media?

The key is natural, authentic conversations that resonate. Great recruiting isn’t about pushing for an appointment eve...

Virtual showings. Let’s talk about them:

First, what is a virtual showing? When the National Association of REALTORS surveys buyers, they ask: “How many homes did you look at before purchasing? How many weeks did it take?”

For years, the average has been about 8 to 10 properties over 8 to 10 weeks.

What’s interesting is that of those 8 to 10 properties, about half are now virtual showings. Buyers perceive they’ve “seen” the home just by taking a virtual tour online. That’s a big generational shift. Roughly half of showings today are in-person, and half are virtual.

We need to explain this to sellers—and we need to offer it as a service to buyers.

Here’s what I recommend. When you meet with buyers, include this in your presentation:

“I offer virtual showings. That can mean one of two things. First, many listings already have a virtual tour option—like Matterport—where you can walk through the house online. Second, if you’re really interested in a home but can’t make the schedule w...

As a recruiting coach, one of the things I hear most often is, “Jim, I’d love to recruit experienced agents every day like you recommend, but I just don’t have the time. My schedule is already stretched too thin.”

I get it. As brokerage owners and team leaders, we’re all busy. But here’s the truth: We can’t control time. If we could add two hours to the day, that’d be great. But since we can’t, the real focus has to be on self-management, not time management.

And self-management comes down to priority management.

The number one priority for every brokerage owner in America should be recruiting experienced agents every single day. Until you gain control of that, your company won’t grow.

Here’s the magic of self-management: if you want to start doing something important—like dedicating one hour a day to recruiting—that means you have to stop doing something else.

So the real question is: what are you willing to stop doing that isn’t leading to results?

Recruiting daily is the singl...

We’ve all heard of a listing presentation and a buyer presentation. Hopefully, you’re already doing those. But let me give you another spin on that—what I call a success portfolio.

Think about when you hire a photographer, architect, or wedding planner. They always have a portfolio to show their previous work. A photographer might showcase wedding or graduation photos. A wedding planner highlights past events. An architect shows their plans and finished projects.

Why not do the same thing as a REALTOR? Every year, go back 12 months and highlight your successes. Showcase the buyers and sellers you worked with, the marketing strategies you used, and the testimonials you received.

For example:

• “These buyers thought they wanted this, but we ended up finding them that—here’s how we guided the process.”
• “This seller wanted to market the home a certain way, but we introduced fresh ideas, highlighted a unique feature, and positioned the home around its million-dollar view.”

That beco...