This is the season of open houses. We should be doing more open houses than ever. When you’re hosting them, think about incorporating curiosity questions into your conversational strategy. Curiosity questions can unlock the door to continuing a relationship after someone leaves your open house.

Let me give you an example. What if I said, "Hey, feel free to walk around the house. I’ll answer any questions you have and point out some unique features. But one quick question for you— the seller has authorized me to give anyone who’d like a copy of the CMA we used to price the property. The comparative market analysis—it's almost like an appraisal. Would you like a copy of that?"

This is catnip to most buyers. They usually can’t resist wanting it. Often, they’ll say yes. I’ll respond, “Great! I can text it to you or email it to you—what would you prefer?”

Now I’ve gotten permission to continue the relationship.

Of course, before I make this approach, I would’ve cleared it with the selle...

Okay, guys, here’s some great language to use with buyers who are on the fence. When you’re following up—because we should all be following up—you can say something like this:

“Hey, I just wanted to touch base with you and let you know I’ve been thinking about you. Now that we’re in a new year, I wanted to talk to you about all the new listings starting to hit the market. February, March, April, and May are when we see the most listings, which means the most opportunities. In fact, we have 10% more inventory on the market this year compared to last year. So, I wanted to reconnect and see if we could start looking at some properties together.

“Now, I know you might have some concerns about pricing and finding the right value. Here’s the key message: When you work with me, we’re not buying the market—we’re buying a specific home. My job is to ensure you get the absolute best pricing and value on the home that fits your needs.”

You can also add a personal story to connect with them, li...

What if your next transaction is embedded in your current transactions? This is such an easy concept but often overlooked by many agents. Every escrow you have is a pathway to more escrows. Let me share three key strategies to help you leverage this opportunity.

First, introduce every single person you're in escrow with to your VIP program. You might say, "I don’t have a VIP program." Well, you need to start one. A VIP program simply means telling your clients:

"Now that you’re my client and we're closing this transaction, I’d like to invite you to my VIP club. Here’s how it works: If you hear someone thinking about doing real estate business and refer them to me—even if they don’t close—that act alone makes you a VIP. As part of the VIP club, you’ll get access to special events throughout the year, quarterly prizes, and a grand prize at the end of the year. Plus, for every referral you send, you’ll receive a small gift from me."

Your VIP program can look however you like, but the k...

Do you ever judge somebody when you meet them for the first time?

The answer is, we all do. We can't help it. It's human nature. In fact, there's a scientist, Daniel Kahneman, who recently passed away. He was an expert in this field. He pioneered the idea of heuristics, or the ability to quickly make decisions by rapidly processing millions of pieces of data.

Some of us benefit from the "halo effect," which means people make a positive judgment about us based on how we present ourselves. Others don’t benefit from this phenomenon.

So, how do you present yourself?

There's something I like to refer to as the "million dollar—or maybe in today's world, $5 million—standard."

This means if you got a call today from someone asking you to list their $5 million house, would you be ready within 10 minutes to walk out the door and do it? Or would you be struggling, thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm not ready for this. I have to get a million things put together."

This standard of practice is about ...