Let’s do a quick quiz for team leaders and brokerage owners to test how well you know your agents. This is essential for agent retention. While recruiting is critical, retaining your agents is just as important—if not more so. Retention is all about re-recruiting your agents consistently: every week, every month, every year.

Here’s the key: friends don’t leave, and friends refer friends. Your agents—your customers—need to see you as more than just their leader. They need to see you as a friend. And that kind of relationship only happens when you invest time in them and approach your interactions relationally, not transactionally.

Many brokerage owners and team leaders make the mistake of thinking transactionally. They view agents as numbers in a model—hiring 10 new agents a month and watching eight leave. It’s a churn-and-burn approach that feels like a meat grinder.

That’s not how you build a strong company.

A successful brokerage or team thrives on community, culture, and relatio...

If I were to walk into your office right now and put my hands up in the air, asking, “What do I feel? What’s the energy in the room?”—you might think that sounds a bit new agey, especially when it comes to running a real estate company or team. But it’s true.

You can feel the energy in a room.

Let me give you an example. How many of us have been to a concert? You can feel the energy, right? A better example is a sporting event—you can feel the waves of energy when a point is made or lost. The energy is palpable.

Now, who sets the tone for that energy? It’s the players on the field, the musicians—the people performing. They create the energy in the room.

As a leader, whether you're a broker or team leader, you are the one setting the energy in your office. You create the weather. And how do you do that? It’s through your positivity, your enthusiasm, how you carry yourself, and how you walk into the building.

If you walk in with your shoulders slouched, talking about your bad mornin...

If you're coaching agents as part of your real estate brokerage or team, which we all do, one of the best methods I’ve learned is the 1-3-1 Method.

When someone brings you a problem, start by asking:

First, let's clarify the problem: What’s the one main issue we’re dealing with here?

Not 55 different things—just the one big issue we need to solve.

Then, ask: What do you think are three viable solutions for solving this?

If they can’t come up with three, help them brainstorm.

Finally, have them choose: Which do you think is the most viable option for actually getting this resolved?

Encourage them to go out, try it, and see how it works.

As a leader, whether you're a team leader or a brokerage owner, make a note in your CRM to follow up with that agent in a day or two. Check if the resolution actually solved the problem. Sometimes they'll come back and tell you, but if they don’t, reach out and ask, "Did that solve the issue?"

By using the 1-3-1 Method, you’re teaching them to f...

If I were to sit down with you today and talk about why an agent should join your firm, what would be the top five reasons?

I do this all the time—teaching live classes and coaching brokerage owners and team leaders. This is a conversation I love to have. Often, I'll hear things like, "We're a family-oriented organization, we have a great culture, we do a lot of social events, we're really engaged with the community, and we're hyper-local. Staff is great, we have an open-door policy."

Those are all great things… But these are centered around what I call “soft value.”

Soft value is what keeps agents at your company. It’s important for retention—and trust me, you want to retain agents.

But if you’re going to move agents from one company to another, you need a different conversation, one focused on “hard value.”

Hard value moves agents, soft value keeps them.

So, what's hard value? It’s anything that helps me close more transactions in the next 12 months. When I'm sitting across fro...

If you're a brokerage owner or team leader, what's the number one reason someone would join your firm?

Often, when I talk to brokerage leaders, they say it’s all about commissions—that’s the driving factor.

But that’s not true. We need to move away from that outdated thinking.

What really drives agents to join a company or team is the potential to close more transactions.

It’s about transaction count, not commissions.

So, how do you build a company or team that focuses on generating leads and helping agents develop leads on their own? Your goal should be to increase each agent’s transaction count, making them one of the highest-performing in your market area.

Here’s an interesting statistic that might surprise you: 50% of all agents in America closed one deal or less last year.

Even if those agents are getting a high commission on that one deal, it’s not enough to support their families. They’re struggling and barely staying in business. What they need isn’t just a higher commis...

Here's an interesting question I was asked recently:

What is your unique genius in the real estate industry?

If you're a brokerage owner or team leader, I really want you to think about this. What's your unique genius? What sets you apart? What are you exceptionally good at? That specific thing is what you should lean into when it comes to recruiting and building your company.

Maybe you're great at investments and have built a large investment portfolio. Maybe marketing or social media is your strong suit. Perhaps you're an expert negotiator or a fantastic listing agent. Whatever it is, figure out your unique genius in this market and industry.

Then ask yourself: How can you leverage that strength to inspire others to join you?

What you're doing is creating a category of one—something you're so good at and so different in that people want to model it. This helps you create what Seth Godin calls the "purple cow." A purple cow is someone doing something completely different from eve...

How many agents have contacted you—called, texted, emailed—in the last 30 days to say they want to work for you? If that number is four or five, or even more, congratulations! You're in a position where you're attracting agents to your company. That’s a rare position to be in, and not many offices can say the same.

But if you're not attracting a lot of people, the question becomes: why not? There could be many reasons, but the number one thing we need to focus on is building a company that is attractive.

It sounds simple, but it's not. There are many factors involved. Agent productivity, the training and education you offer, and how your company appears from the outside all matter.

Do you have a great culture?
Are your agents engaged in the community?
Is your company active on social media?
Do you have a YouTube channel?
Do you have a great office environment?

Being a visible leader in the MLS and the market helps too. Your agents should be out there, talking positively about your ...

Want to know the number one mistake new brokerage owners and team leaders make?

Focusing on recruiting new agents.

When we enter this industry, we often have an ego, thinking we can coach and train people to be super successful. We have a passion for training and coaching, which leads us to believe we should direct that passion towards new agents.

But here's the problem:

There's an 87% attrition rate in our industry.

This means almost nine out of ten new agents you recruit will fail. You might think you can change that, but this number has been consistent over the last 30 years. It doesn't matter how good a coach or trainer you are, how good your brand, systems, CRM, website, or lead generation are. It's about what the new agents implement. No matter how good we are as mentors, some of them just won't take action.

All that being said, we were all new agents once. But those of us watching this today are part of a very small minority—the 10% who made it. And within that group, thos...

Hey guys, as a team leader or brokerage owner, there's one key metric that defines your success:

Per agent productivity.

This metric encompasses every aspect of your role as a brokerage leader. It includes your recruiting plan, retention plan, marketing, branding, technology, training, coaching, mentoring, staffing, and location.

Essentially, everything you do at your brokerage is reflected in what your agents produce on a per-agent basis.

When I come to you and say, "Let's open up the hood of your company," we'll look at the average agent production over the last 12 months. What does it look like? If your average agent is closing six deals, seven deals, eight deals, three deals—whatever the number is—you'll have a starting point.

Our goal is to raise that number over time. The higher we push that number, the more likely you are to attract more agents to your business.

The number one way to attract agents is by demonstrating that your system drives higher sales than your competit...

Did you hear the latest news from the Federal Housing Administration about financing ADUs, which stands for Additional Dwelling Units?

In the past, lenders couldn't consider rental income from these ADUs, making it tough for buyers unless they were all-cash purchasers. But here's the exciting update: Starting now, you can purchase these properties more easily. For ADUs that are either not built yet or in need of a complete remodel, you can use an FHA 203K loan.

The best part?

They now count 50% of the income from the ADU in your qualification. And if it's an existing ADU, they'll consider up to 75% of the rental income!

This means it's a lot more accessible to buy such properties.

So, if you know someone who owns an ADU, let them know it's now easier to finance and sell.

And for those of you with buyers seeking these types of properties, whether it's for a second family situation, this is fantastic news to share on social media and discuss with your clients. I hope ...