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...

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...

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...

As a brokerage owner and team leader, I have a question for you: when’s the last time you fired someone?

That’s a big one, isn’t it? Have you ever actually fired someone, or do they just leave on their own? A lot of brokerage owners and team leaders don’t have the strength to say, “This person isn’t working here anymore.” But avoiding that creates roadblocks for recruiting.

Sometimes one agent creates what I call the “bad apple syndrome.” They’re so difficult—dramatic, gossipy, toxic—that potential recruits won’t join your company because they don’t want to work with them.

Think about your roster right now. Maybe everyone is fantastic. But maybe not. Maybe you’ve got someone with barnacles—someone others don’t want to work with.

And here’s another question: how many people on your roster haven’t closed a deal in the last year? You might have five, six, eight, even ten agents producing nothing. Why are they still on your roster? They’re dragging down your company’s production number...

Brokerage owners and team leaders — I have a question for you: What problem are you solving for agents?

If you're not solving a problem for them, there's no reason for them to come work for you.

The number one problem you can solve is helping them unlock the door to more transactions. Most agents are struggling here, so giving them a roadmap, tools, strategies, and techniques to close more deals should be your top priority.

But there are other problems we often overlook. Maybe they’re struggling with time management, technology, client management, building out a CRM, or having a reliable way to evaluate potential listings.

Agents have many challenges, and if we’re not addressing them, we’re giving them no reason to join our company.

All great businesses — especially industry disruptors — solve problems.

Think about the great companies you do business with today. They’ve solved a problem.

You need to be the problem solver.

Take a moment to reflect on your market. What are four o...

Hey, brokerage owners and team leaders. I’m going to do a quick role play with you right now.

Let’s pretend you’re an agent who just had a failed transaction with one of my agents. I’m going to call you—not text you, but call—and say:

"Hey Jim, I just wanted to reach out. I know you had a transaction with Bob that didn’t come together this morning. I got the bad news, but Bob told me you were an absolute pro throughout the process. This has nothing to do with you or your client—sometimes things just happen. I just wanted to say thank you for your professionalism. We look forward to working with you again in the future. And if there’s ever anything I can do to help, I’m here."

Now, imagine making that kind of call after every failed transaction where the other agent handled things well. What do you think is going to happen on the other end of the call?

Do you think that agent will appreciate it? Absolutely. No other broker is making that kind of call.

What you’re doing is laying a ...

Brokerage owners and team leaders, how do you establish trust with agents in your market area?

The number one way to build trust today is through social media. Specifically by recording video daily. The most effective way to build trust is by letting people get to know who you are.

Thanks to video, people can now get a real sense of your personality, your energy, and your overall vibe.

Think about an agent who’s never seen you on video and hasn’t met you in person because everyone’s so busy. All they know is that you're the owner or leader of XYZ Company. You’d be surprised how many agents feel intimidated. Not because you’re intimidating, but because of your title, experience, and success. They might think that they could never talk to you, let alone calling or texting you.

They don’t know you because you haven’t made the effort to show up.

And the way to break down those walls is to consistently show up on social media and post videos daily. Post them to your personal page. Frie...

What is push-button recruiting?

If you're an office leader or team leader, you might be tempted to say, “I want to recruit, but I don't want to spend the time doing it. I just want to plug into a system—a CRM, AI platform, or some kind of tech—that will do the work for me. It’ll send emails, send texts, and every day it’ll do the job automatically.”

Then, like magic, people will just start calling, wanting to work for you.

Well, I wish that were true. That would be nice.

Another version of this is hiring virtual assistants overseas to make a thousand calls a day.

I'm going to tell you something you might not want to hear:

These systems, by and large, do not work.

On the rare occasion they do set an appointment, it’s usually with the lowest-hanging fruit—the kind of agent you don’t want anyway. These are people who’ve changed companies five times in a year.

Why doesn’t it work?

Because it’s not personalized recruiting.

Imagine you’re on the other end. If you're getting a gener...

If you own a brokerage or you're a team leader, I’ve got a question for you:

How much of your time each day is spent recruiting? And why is recruiting such a high priority for the top offices and team leaders in America?

The reason is simple: top leaders understand that at the end of the day, we don’t actually sell real estate—the agents who work with us do. What we do is provide the environment, support, administrative resources, marketing, and tools necessary for agents to succeed.

We don’t sell real estate—we help people who sell real estate.

That leads to a big mindset shift. If we’re not serving buyers and sellers directly, who are our customers?

Our customers are the agents.

When you reframe your business like that, it changes how you grow. Just like your agents grow by serving more buyers and sellers, you grow by serving more agents. That means recruiting more agents is how you scale your business.

One of the biggest mistakes office leaders make is this: They think that i...

I've got a question for you as an office leader or team leader:

Do you have a recruiting website?

Most of the people I coach—office leaders and team leaders across the country—don’t. It's just not something they've thought about.

But having a recruiting website is important.

When someone starts to consider joining your company, they’ll do a little Google search. They’ll check out your website. They’ll look to see if it looks professional, if it feels like a good fit, and if it reflects who they are.

Now, if you also have a recruiting website—or at least a dedicated recruiting page—they can dive into the value your company offers without needing to talk to you just yet.

That’s powerful. A lot of agents are nervous about making that first contact. They don’t want to jump on a call right away. You can make it easier by creating a recruiting page on your website—or even a separate website entirely—dedicated to recruiting.

The most important part of that page?

Outlining your entire ...