I want to share one of the best strategies I’ve heard from a top agent in years. This story comes from my friend Dan, who had a client searching for a specific type of property.

Dan started making calls and came across a duplex owner. While driving by the property, he saw the owner outside mowing the grass. He introduced himself:

"Hi, I’m Dan. I have a buyer interested in multifamily properties, and I was wondering if you’d consider selling these units."

Her response? "No, I think I’m going to hold onto them."

But here’s where Dan worked his magic.

Dan didn’t stop at the first “no.” Instead, he asked a follow-up question:

"Can I ask why you’re holding onto them?"

Her answer? "I think I’m getting a good rate of return."

Dan responded: "That’s great! And if you are, you should definitely keep them. But if I could find you something with a better rate of return, would you consider selling these?"

That opened the door to...

Every year, NAR studies home buyers and sellers and compiles the data into a report called the NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. It examines metrics like how buyers and sellers behave, how they find agents, and what technology they use.

I pulled out some key insights today that are especially relevant to lead generation.

First, let’s talk about how sellers find their real estate agent. Any guesses? Here’s the data: 77% of sellers find their agents through a referral or repeat business. That number is increasing, not decreasing. Last year, it was 69%, and now it’s up to 77%.

Despite predictions that online leads and new technologies would reduce this percentage, that hasn’t been the case. Referrals and repeat business remain the dominant ways sellers find agents.

Now, how many agents do sellers typically interview before hiring? You might think there’s a lot of competition, but the reality is this: 81% of sellers interview only one agent. While we...

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...

Have you ever had someone in your company say, "Geez, I can't believe how great it is here. I wish I had made the move years ago"? This has happened to me so many times as a brokerage owner. It often took years to recruit them, and once they join, they're like, "This is amazing. Why didn’t I do this sooner?"

It’s frustrating for us as brokerage owners and team leaders, but there’s something we can do about it.

The strategy is called “presuasion”—not persuasion, but “presuasion.”

What does that mean? It’s about taking a more casual approach to recruiting, in some ways, and showing people what they could experience if they joined you.

How do you do that? The easiest way is through testimonials from your agents. But not just from the agents who’ve been with you the longest—the best ones come from those who have joined most recently. When new agents say, "I wish I had joined six months or two years ago," grab that...

Want a stat that'll blow your mind?

The millennial generation is wealthier than my generation and the one before me. They're wealthier than the last two generations at the same age.

You might say, "What? That can't be true."

But it is.

And here's why:

A lot of this has to do with buying a home, and this is great news for us. Many millennials bought homes pre-COVID or at the beginning of COVID, and they had to stretch to do it. We often don't give them enough credit, but a lot of them gave up their lattes and stopped ordering from Instacart and DoorDash. They really stretched and bought a house before or at the start of COVID.

Back then, they thought prices were high and that they were stretching too much. But they made it happen. Then, what happened with prices? Prices skyrocketed during COVID. So now millennials are benefiting from this huge equity build over the last few years. That equity makes them more affluent than the two generations before them.

So why am I bringing this up?...

Hey guys, did you know that only 5% of REALTORS reach out on the one-year home anniversary after selling someone a house?

Isn’t that crazy? Just 5%! And even fewer do it for the second, third, fourth, or fifth year.

But if you’re one of the 95% who haven’t done this, here’s your opportunity. Go back — not just this year, but 2, 3, 4, or even 5 years — and load up the contacts you’ve forgotten about. Give them a quick call today and say, “Hey, I just wanted to wish you a happy belated one-year (or two, three, five-year) anniversary on your home purchase.”

And by the way, take a couple of minutes to run an updated equity analysis for them. Say, “Here’s how much money you’ve made on your house in the past few years. I’m sending you the report so you can check it out.”

If you start doing this every year with all your past clients, your business will boom. This simple gesture can unlock so much potential....

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,...

So, how are you going to communicate your buyer agent commissions now that the MLS policies have changed?

We can’t list them in the MLS anymore, and agents and offices are coming up with different approaches. I want to share one of my favorite ideas that I’ve seen a few offices implement.

One office is using a Google Sheet—a live, online spreadsheet. The Google Sheet lists all their property addresses in one column and the corresponding buyer agent commissions (BACs) in another. It’s simple but effective. Since it’s a live document, you can update it in real time. The sheet generates a URL, so anyone with that link can access it and see the current BACs.

Now, here’s the cool part: With that URL, you can create a QR code using any free online generator. Attach the QR code to your marketing materials, and when someone scans it, they’ll be taken directly to your Google Sheet with all the BACs. As you add or remove listings, the document updates...

How many of you are using cold emails to reach out to neighborhoods or farm areas?

If you’re not doing it yet, it’s something you might want to add to your toolkit. You don’t need to send thousands of emails—maybe just 50 or 100 at a time. Keep it manageable.

You might be wondering, “Jim, where do I find these email addresses?”

There are plenty of places to find them. One of my favorites is REDX. They often have email addresses for homeowners in certain neighborhoods. They might not have them all, but they have a surprising number. Once you have those email addresses, you can send out emails to solicit listings or at least start a conversation about potential interest in selling.

Here’s an idea: use the same script you’d put on a postcard or mailing and adapt it for email. Then, take an integrated approach—send both the physical mail and the email. You can also add “layers” by sending a text and running a social media...

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...