Are you a global REALTOR or a local REALTOR now?

Most of us were trained to be a hyper-local REALTOR. We specialize in our market, in our state, which is a good thing, but we might be missing out on as much as 10% of our income by not telling people that we're actually a global REALTOR.

What does that mean?

That means that we can refer people to any other REALTOR in the country, and even in the world, if they're interested in buying in other states, in your state but other areas, or even internationally.

We can earn referral fees, but we're missing that opportunity.

Raise your hand if you missed a referral opportunity in the last 12 months from a friend or family member that told you after the fact that they have purchased a home somewhere else, or they're selling a home somewhere else, and you might have thought, "Well, I guess I just missed that opportunity."

But when you say that, it's really thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars you're missing out on, for no reason...

Hey, have you ever said to yourself, "I wish I was a better time manager"?

Who doesn't, right?

But time management is really a little bit of a misnomer because we can't manage time.

I wish we could. I wish we could add hours to the day, the week, the month, or the year, but we're not able to do that.

All we can do is manage ourselves within the time that we have.

So it's really not time management. It's self-management. And when we look at this, we ask
"How can I manage myself better?"

Because that's what it comes down to: Priorities.

The people who are the most effective "time managers" are not the people who have their schedule dialed in and color-coded. They're not the ones doing every single thing efficiently.

You can see people where it looks like a bomb went off on their desk, but they're still getting a lot done. The reason those people are getting a lot of stuff done is because they've got great priority management.

You need to reset your priorities around what really ...

I had a friend of mine tell me a strategy recently, and I thought it was a brilliant strategy.

He calls it the “3-1 Strategy” and it's a strategy that all of us can implement starting right now, today.

Here's what it looks like:

Every morning when you get up, quickly review three articles about real estate.

Now, you might use your AI to help you with this, whatever AI tool you're using. But you're looking for three quick articles you can scan through.

What you're looking for is one idea, one concept, one stat that jumps out at you about the real estate market.

It could be nationally. It could be locally.

When you've got that stat, now you've read three articles and you've found one stat.

I'm going to push this out to ten people in my SOI, either through a text, through an email, maybe through a video text, social media, or a strategy like a DM.

Or you could actually be posting and going big on social media with this idea and concept too.

The idea is I'm going to push this out...

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, you may not have heard of Kevin Kelly, but he was the editor at Wired magazine, and he wrote a really interesting article several years ago about having a thousand true fans.

So if you imagine yourself as an artist, maybe a songwriter, singer, someone who paints, a writer, his point of the article is that if you had a thousand true fans — a thousand people who really believed in you and bought everything you produced — you can make a really good living as an artist.

So does this apply to us as REALTORS? The answer is absolutely, positively it does.

Because if you have a thousand people in your sphere of influence, you can absolutely have an incredible income if you’re applying the strategies around managing that sphere of influence that are really critical.

And here’s the strategies you need to embrace: you need to be touching this database 20 to 50 times a year. You also need to have it organized in a CRM system, a client relationship management system of some kind.

Whe...

Hey guys, do you have a client party scheduled for spring or summer? If you don't, you're missing an opportunity. Why? Because the best agents in America generally are doing at least one client party a year, and a lot of them are doing two—the best times to do a client party: spring/summer and fall/winter. So those two types.

And ideally, I would say spring and fall are the absolute best times. Now what's the benefit of doing a party with your clients?

Well, first of all, the benefit is that you're going to treat them as friends. Remember: Friends do business with friends, and friends refer friends. And when you break bread with people, when you have a drink with somebody, when you relax in a relaxed environment, you become friendlier.

You have more conversations that aren't always business related.

So I'm going to give you a couple of tips, two or three ideas, about creating your best event possible.

First tip I will give you is this: it's not about the event size, it's about the...

As a real estate agent, you have something in common with every single business owner in your community. Everybody from carpet cleaners, to candy store operators, to toy store owners, to clothing store owners — every one of you has something in common.

Here’s what you have in common: you all want to do more business.

As a small business operator, what you can do is tap into that. What I would suggest to you is you go through your entire sphere of influence today and you take a yellow highlighter out — maybe print it out — and put a highlight next to all the small business owners that you know. You know more than you think.

When you have that highlighter out and you highlight all those folks, the next step is to call them, reach out to them, text them, or stop by their business if it’s convenient and appropriate, and say this:

“Hey, you know what? I want to support a local business every single week, and I’d love to do a collab with you if you’re interested.”

A collab — what’s a co...

Almost every week I have a new agent come to me and say, “Hey, I want to tackle a new area of the market.” Maybe it’s for sale by owner, maybe it’s expired listings, maybe it’s farming— all very valid areas to market to.

But my first question is always, “Let’s talk about your sphere of influence first. Tell me about that.”

A lot of times they’ll say, “Well, I don’t really have a good number on that.” That’s how I know they’re not really dialed in on their sphere. I’ll ask, “How many people are in your sphere?” And they’ll say, “It’s like 100… it’s like 200.”

They can’t tell me a specific number because they’re not actually in control of their business.

So the number one thing we have to do—before we chase rabbits, before we look for other business, before we search for something else—is get our sphere of influence dialed in.

Why? Because 70–80% of your business is going to come from this source. We have no business spending time, resources, money, and energy elsewhere when we have...

Hey guys, did you know that in the last 12 months there’s been an average 7% increase in homeowners insurance rates? When people are homeowners and paying insurance, premiums on average have gone up 7%. In a lot of markets, it’s probably much higher than that.

When we hear this, we might say, “That doesn’t impact me. I’m a REALTOR. I’m not selling insurance.”

But this is actually an opportunity.

Everyone in our database has homeowners insurance. Why don’t you reach out to our database today and say, “Hey guys, you’ve probably noticed your homeowners insurance rates have gone up. I just want to be a resource for you. I’ve got a great contact—an insurance professional here in town. If you’re looking to shop your rate or get a different quote, I’d love to refer you to them. Just give me a quick call. I’ll make sure they put you at the top of the list and give you exceptional five-star service.”

Now, why don’t you just give them the name of the person to call?

The reason is you want t...

Hey guys, if you want to have a fantastic phone call with everyone in your database coming into December and January—right at the end of the year and the beginning of the new year—this is what I call the “Real Estate Tune-Up.”

We take our cars in for a tune-up every few thousand miles. We need to do the same thing with our database. The way you do that is by being direct and asking one key question.

Here’s the question.

“Hey, this is Jim. How are you guys doing? I’ve been thinking about you. I’m talking to everyone I know as we head into the new year, just on the business side, and I wanted to ask: is there anything you have on the horizon, real estate-related, for 2026 that I can help you with?”

That’s it. You just put it out there.

“Do you have anything going on in 2026, real estate–related, that I can help you with?”

You’ll be shocked by how many people say, “Actually, yes, we do. We’ve been thinking about something.”

Remember, about 5%—one in 20 people you talk to out in the...