A quick question for you brokerage owners and team leaders out there: do you eat your own dog food?

What do I mean? I mean this: that you're using the same systems that you're providing your own agents. So if you're giving them a certain CRM, if you're giving them a certain platform to use, if you're giving them a follow-up program, you're telling them to use social media, you're telling them to do video, you're telling them to have a YouTube channel, etc.

You have all these systems at your office. But are you using the systems that you're providing, and do you know them like the back of your hand? Can you train them on these tools? Are you an expert in it because you're eating your own dog food every single day?

When you do this at a high level, agents respect you because they want to be led by somebody that's at the front. They want to be led by someone else using the same systems.

And number two, you're going to be able to help them grow their own businesses.

The worst thing I'...

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.

Hey guys, as a brokerage owner or team leader, with the holiday season coming up, I want to encourage you to think about what your company is doing to give back to the community.

Giving back has so many benefits. It’s a powerful team-building and retention tool. It also shows potential recruits that your company isn’t just about profits—you genuinely care about people and the community. And for buyers and sellers in the market, it demonstrates that you’re hyper-local focused and committed to giving back regularly.

Here’s what I encourage you to do: pick a charity the whole team can get behind. It doesn’t have to be housing-related.

One year, we did a project giving kids shoes during the winter. Many kids were going to school with holes in their shoes, and their feet were getting wet. Another year, we focused on coats for kids.

Every year, we put together a charitable event during Christmas. We’ll do Thanksgiving-style turkeys and then a big Christmas dinner, along with toys for kid...

Hey guys, as a real estate broker, we all know we should be recruiting every day. But sometimes we get caught in a mental trap—thinking that being overly assertive or aggressive with potential recruits is the way to get results.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to recruit.

The right way is by creating relationships, building value in your conversations, and genuinely developing friendships with agents in the marketplace. When you do this effectively, making calls, sending texts, or emails doesn’t feel “salesy”—it feels natural because you’ve built a connection.

The wrong way is sending cold texts, emails, or voicemails repeatedly without making any meaningful connection. Eventually, people shut down, and you hit a brick wall—you’ll never break through.

Start from a position I call “no recruiting.” Don’t start with a recruiting pitch. Build a relationship first. The worst thing you can do is try to sell too early.

We’ve all experienced it—walking into a car lot or furniture stor...

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...

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...

If you're a brokerage owner or team leader, I want to talk to you about something that's kind of outside the box—and that is what we call “adoption rates.”

What's adoption? Adoption means you bring in technology, a system, a tool, or maybe a training program into the company, and you watch as only 20% of the people utilize it—and 80% do not.

That's the rule of thumb: The 80/20 rule.

So you start to wonder why the heck you would bring anything into this company? You feel tempted to cut everything: the technology they’re not using, the training, the mentorship program—this, that, and the other.

Well, remember there's also an 80/20 rule in production too:

20% of the people are doing 80% of the production.

So when you cut these things, you might actually be hurting the people who are supporting the company the most.

But I want you to rethink the 80/20 rule for a second.

When we measure whether we should cut, keep, or add something to the company, don’t just look at whether people a...

As a brokerage owner or leader of a real estate company, you probably remind your agents every week that the best way to grow their business is by engaging their Sphere of Influence (SOI) and consistently asking for referrals.

But are we holding ourselves to the same standard?

We should be asking our own agents for referrals and recommendations about who we should be talking to in the marketplace.

Questions to ask regularly:

1. “Who are the top agents you’ve worked with in the last six months that would be a good fit here?”
2. “In that last transaction, how did Bob do? Would he be a good fit for our company?”
3. “Is there anyone I shouldn’t talk to—any red flags in the marketplace?”

By engaging agents consistently and requesting their generosity, they start to understand the importance of referrals—just like our clients do when we ask.

Agents aren’t conditioned to send referrals unless we ask. The best time to ask is right after you’ve helped them like after:

• Solving a problem
• H
...