As a real estate broker, one of the things that we often focus on is recruiting, as we should. Recruiting is the number one way that we can drive profitability to our business over the long haul.

Yet what happens with a lot of brokers is their measurement of their success is misguided.

Let me tell you what I mean by that:

Often we would obviously say that we're successful if we're recruiting X number of people into our company in a given period of time.

But I'm going to suggest to you that is a poor measurement system. And here's why:

Because you're measuring the bottom of the funnel, not the top of the funnel. And the top of the funnel is what creates results. Just like with our agents, when we teach them to lead generate, we have to teach them that they have to fill the top of the funnel.

In other words, they have to go out and lead generate every day to ever hope to generate a listing, a buyer, or a closed escrow.

The same thing is true for us as recruiters.

We have to be fi...

Hey, brokerage owners and team leaders. I'm sure you've experienced this because I've experienced it a million times:

As a brokerage owner, later as you get a stream of agents coming into your office and they're always asking the same exact question. Like, "Oh, I got to ask you about this." And you're like, I've answered this like ten times this week. Drives you a little crazy, a little bananas.

But you go through and you do it again, and you think about that time suck of answering the same question over and over and over again.

Let me give you a solution for that.

And that is to create your own little mini university, right?

Your mini university just means you're going to create a recorded answer where you answer this frequently asked question, this FAQ question.

And now you push this out to your office and say, "Guys, I'm getting this question a lot. I just want to answer it en masse."

You put it on your Facebook closed group. Maybe if you had a YouTube channel, a private one,...

Brokers, owners, team leaders, office leaders, I’m going to give you a little tip for your next office meeting.

So sometimes we start office meetings… I’m going to give you one really good way to make these meetings come alive, and I’m going to give you a second good way to really make them come alive.

One is to have the “Genesis Conversation.” What is that?

Well, when you’re doing your “haves and wants,” people are talking about new listings, sales, closings, and so forth. I want you to follow that up and say, “Hey, tell me, where did that listing come from? What was the genesis point where the lead came from, in other words?”

And people say, “Well, it came from my sphere of influence,” or “It was an open house,” or “It was a sign call,” or “It was an internet lead.”

Great. And then you move on to the next person: where was the genesis point for you?

And everybody in the office is going to now really get tuned into where all the leads are flowing from.

80% of the time it’s gene...

Hey guys, if you are a brokerage owner, I’m going to challenge you to do something which I think would be very valuable for you, and that would be to create a value map of your company focused on the three T’s:

Training, Technology, and Tools.

If you’re going to take out a white sheet of paper, write down every piece of training you offer as a company, every piece of technology you offer as a company, every tool that you offer as a company. Write it down on one sheet.

Maybe it’ll take a couple of sheets.

Then take that list, put it in Canva, and have it create a nice checklist for you.

Bring it to your next office meeting and say this:

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“Hey guys, I created what I call a value map of the company, just showing off all the tools, technology, and training we’ve got.

“I just wanted to have everybody check it out and see if there’s something maybe you haven’t taken advantage of, that maybe you want to plug into in the next 12 months to help you create more transactions.

In fact, I’...

Hey brokers, team leaders, I’ve got a question for you: when was your last wow moment when it comes to marketing for your firm?

When did you roll out a piece of digital marketing — maybe a new sign design, new branding, new flyers, something fresh and exciting technologically? Maybe it’s a new website or a new social media skin. Something that wowed your agents.

If the answer is you can’t remember, or it was sometime last year, I’m going to suggest that you commit to doing this once a quarter.

Once a quarter, you should be rolling out a wow moment for your agents where they’re like, “Whoa, that is cool. That is really exciting.”

This keeps your company fresh. It keeps it exciting. It gives you a retention tool, and it gives you a recruiting tool at the same time.

Then the question becomes: what is it?

We’ve got to go in search of it. We’ve got to look for people outside of our company, ideas, strategies, marketing pieces, branding pieces outside the company, and be in tune and sa...

Hey, brokerage owners, team leaders, I’ve got a few questions for you:

First: What’s been your biggest sale ever at your company? Interesting question.

Second question: What’s been your biggest month ever for closing transactions, by volume and sides?

And then third question: What’s been your biggest listing month ever, by the total number of listings coming into your office?

Those three key performance indicators—you might call those your best records, right? Your highest achievements as a company are really a fun thing to measure your team against and say:

“Guys, I just did a little study.”

You’re talking to your team members in an office meeting.

“I just did a study. Here’s our biggest sale ever in the history of our company—and this is the agent who did it.

And then, “our biggest month ever at this company has been 32 transactions, 15 million closed.

“Our biggest listing month ever was this number.

“I want to set a goal for 2026, 2027 for us to hit a higher number—a highe...

It happened, you were able to set a recruiting appointment.

Now what do you do when you’re going to meet someone for the first time at coffee or lunch? Do you immediately launch into your pitch?

That’s the worst thing you could possibly do in your first meeting with a potential recruit.

The first thing you need to do is build rapport and trust. One of the best ways to do that is by understanding who you’re talking to — doing a deep dive and some intelligence research on the agent before the meeting.

What does that look like?

Obviously, you can Google them. You can look at their social media accounts. You can talk to other people in your office about what they might know.

But here’s an easy strategy most recruiters miss: dive into their current inventory.

Look at their listings. See how long they’ve been on the market. Look at their price points. Where are they focusing? Go back and look at the trajectory of their business. Are they up or down compared to last year at this time?

Hey guys, if you’re a brokerage owner or team leader, one thing we tend to do this time of year is say, “Okay, what are our production goals for 2026?”

And you should do this. You should know what you’re shooting for in terms of Gross Commission Income (GCI) and closed volume.

But one thing we often forget is what’s actually going to produce those goals—those transactions closed, that volume closed, that GCI. What is it going to take to create that?

Often, we get lost in this idea that all we need to do is motivate our current crew enough for them to create the production goals we’ve set for the team or the company.

But the reality is, that almost never works.

As someone who coaches brokerage owners, franchises, and team leaders across the country at the highest levels, I can tell you that almost never works.

Why?

Because what’s going to create higher production and higher GCI isn’t motivating your current team to produce more. Now, we want to do that—that’s absolutely a goal.

As a brokerage owner or team leader, one thing we often do—and we see agents do this a lot—is run into what’s called “The Einstein Problem.”

The Einstein Problem is this: we’re introduced to a new idea or concept, and we say, “You know what? I’ve heard that before. I’ve tried that before. It didn’t work for me, so I’m not going to do it again.” We stop listening to that idea, concept, tool, technique, or strategy. We say it doesn’t work in our market.

We’ve all heard agents do this, and we’ve done it ourselves. Let’s be honest.

One of the areas we commonly say this about is recruiting.

We’ll say, “I’ve tried recruiting. It doesn’t work in my market. I’ve tried going after top agents. They never come.”

Or, “I’ve tried experienced agent recruiting. I’ve emailed, texted, called, taken them to lunch, and it just doesn’t go anywhere, so I’m going to stop.”

But here’s The Einstein Problem behind that attitude—and this is true for your agents with lead generation as well.

I want you to...

Brokerage owners and team leaders, I have a quick quiz for you. How many social media posts have you put out in the last seven days?

I ask this because we’re constantly preaching to our agents about the necessity of being visible with their database. When we’re visible—highly visible—we’re more likely to create transactions. Visibility matters.

In fact, I would argue that visibility is more important than ability.

You can have an agent who’s fantastic at negotiating, marketing, working with clients, and solving problems—and they’re still not closing transactions. At the same time, there’s another agent in your community who’s terrible to work with, a poor negotiator, and yet they’re closing a ton of deals.

What’s the difference? Visibility.

This second agent is everywhere. They show up on every feed—Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube. They’re highly visible.

Meanwhile, the agent with great ability isn’t closing transactions because no one sees them. Visibility trumps ability. U...