When you're sitting with a seller for the first time, I like to have what I call the “Red Flag Conversation.”

I'll say, “Hey Mr. and Mrs. Seller, one of two things is going to happen now that we've listed the property: either we’re going to get showings—or we won’t. That alone gives us valuable insight. If we put your house on the market tomorrow like we're planning, and we get a surge of activity, that tells us something important.

“It means that the backlog of buyers—hundreds of buyers waiting for the next listing—have turned and looked at your property. If they like what they see online—the photos, the condition, the price—they’ll come see it in person. So if we see a surge of interest, a spike in calls and showings, that’s a signal we’ve nailed the price and did our job right.

“But the opposite can happen too. If we don’t get much activity in the first week or two, that’s a red flag. It’s the market telling us we probably missed the mark on pricing.

“There’s also a third scenar...

Is it a buyer's market or a seller's market in real estate today?

If we look at the nation as a whole, we have about four and a half months of inventory. What does that mean? It means if every REALTOR stopped taking listings tomorrow, it would take about four and a half months to sell off the current inventory at the current sales pace.

Is that healthy? Is that where we want to be? Generally, a balanced market has about six months of inventory. So being slightly under that means sellers still have a bit more power overall. When a seller prices their home correctly and it's in good condition, they can still get plenty of showings and, in some cases, multiple offers — even in today's market.

This is also why home prices continue to rise, despite higher-than-normal interest rates and an economy that appears to be nearing a recession.

The limited supply keeps pushing prices up.

However, it's crucial to understand that real estate isn't just one giant national market. Real estate, like...

Here’s a question I get almost every day from people who think they need to start recruiting to grow their business.

As a real estate brokerage owner or team leader, the only way to grow profitability is by increasing the number of agents working for you.

You have to switch hats. Many of you are coming from being top-producing agents, where your focus is on personal production. But when you move to the brokerage side, it’s no longer just about your production—it’s about where production comes from.

Production doesn’t come from one, two, or even ten agents. It comes from a team of agents working under you. Your customers are no longer buyers and sellers. As a brokerage owner or team leader, your customers are agents.

If you want to grow, you need more customers—more agents. If you stay stagnant with the same number of agents, you won’t just fail to grow; you’ll become less profitable over time. Inflation is constantly eating away at your profit margins. It’s grow or die. Expanding y...

You might’ve had a call where you had a great conversation with a potential recruit—someone you thought would join your company—and then suddenly they went cold. They didn’t join.

What happened?

Well, it’s not about your offer. It’s not about you, what you said, or didn’t say. It’s about their timing. Timing is unique for every agent. Every agent has a runway—that is, the time it takes for them to join your firm. Some have a short runway, some a long one, and others a really long runway.

It’s not about your timeline; it’s about theirs. And here’s the key: the fortune is in the follow-up. But you don’t want to apply pressure.

Here’s what the worst recruiter does: “Jim, we’ve got to get you over here. Let’s make it happen!”

That approach is all about your needs, not theirs.

People often have legitimate reasons they can’t make a change right now. They may have things going on in their world—deals, listings, personal matters—that make it logistically impossible. If you make it about ...

I've heard this so many times over the years: "My market's different, Jim." When it comes to recruiting, people say, "We're in a tiny market, a rural market, a niche market, or a very cliquey market. People here don’t make moves like they do in big cities. Recruiting doesn’t work here."

Let me tell you something: I come from a small town with a population of 25,000. I’ve worked in big cities, small towns, medium-sized cities, and even cliquey ones. Here’s the reality: the numbers behind recruiting aren’t something I’m making up. These are national statistics.

The average agent in America moves every five years.

Look at your entire database of agents in your market and think about this: every single one of them will likely move in the next five years.

Statistically, some will move sooner, some later, but overall, they’re going to move.

The question is: where are they going to go?

Think about your own career. Did you stay at one company forever without ever making a move? Probably ...

Hey guys, what is your power base number? This is an essential number that every REALTOR should know. Your power base number is simply this: if I take my database size — and you should know your database size, whether it’s 195, 232, or 182 — you should know that number. If you don’t, you’re not in control of your business (which is a whole other conversation).

Let’s assume you do know it. Let’s say your database size is 232, and you closed 22 transactions last year. If I divide one into the other, 232 divided by 22, it tells me that for every 10.5 people in your database, you’re averaging one closed sale.

That’s your power base number.

You can use that number in a few ways. For business planning, you can say, “In 2025, I don’t want to close 22 transactions; I want to close 30." Since you know your power base number (closing one transaction for every 10.5 people), you can calculate that 30 times 10.5 equals 315.

Now, you can say, "I currently have a database of 232, but I need 315 t...

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...

When recruiting agents, you'll hear "no" 90% of the time, if not more.

Many brokerage owners and team leaders stop recruiting because they dislike hearing "no." We may not be accustomed to it, especially if we've been successful in lead generation. This rejection can make you think recruiting isn't for you, leading you to wait for agents to come to you, which is not effective.

Your brokerage will fail if you don't actively recruit.

To start getting yeses and change your mindset about recruiting, understand that recruiting isn't about getting a yes today. It's about opening doors and creating relationships. The worst recruiters aim to close immediately, treating all agents the same—new agents and experienced agents alike. This is a mistake.

Recruiting a new agent is relatively easy, but recruiting an experienced agent doing $10-20 million in transactions is like recruiting a professional athlete. It starts with relationship building and opening doors.

How do we open doors?

We crea...