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 ...

Let’s do a quick quiz for team leaders and brokerage owners to test how well you know your agents. This is essential for agent retention. While recruiting is critical, retaining your agents is just as important—if not more so. Retention is all about re-recruiting your agents consistently: every week, every month, every year.

Here’s the key: friends don’t leave, and friends refer friends. Your agents—your customers—need to see you as more than just their leader. They need to see you as a friend. And that kind of relationship only happens when you invest time in them and approach your interactions relationally, not transactionally.

Many brokerage owners and team leaders make the mistake of thinking transactionally. They view agents as numbers in a model—hiring 10 new agents a month and watching eight leave. It’s a churn-and-burn approach that feels like a meat grinder.

That’s not how you build a strong company.

A successful brokerage or team thrives on community, culture, and relatio...

How's your real estate business going?

When I ask some people this question, they seem to lack enthusiasm about where they're at with their business. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon as we've entered what I like to call the Real Estate Hunger Games, and here's what that means:

This year, we're projected to close about four and a half million transactions in real estate with around 1.6 million REALTORS. When we rewind the clock back to 2012, just about a million REALTORS were in business and we were still closing about the same number of transactions. With 60% more REALTORS doing the same volume of transactions, it's no wonder why it's more competitive than it's ever been in our industry.

So, the question is, how do you make sure that you're not market driven but strategy driven?

I'm going to share with you a simple strategy that's going to be so simple you might think it won't work, but it absolutely will work with your business in the next 30 days to completely t...

People ask me all the time, Jim, how do you retain amazing agents? You've recruited and retained some of the best agents in America. They've stayed with you for years. You took a company from a hundred million to 1.4 billion over 10 years, created a company from 39 agents to one of the top companies in America. How'd you do it?

Well, the answer is, I want you to think about the people that work for you. Just think about the landscape of people that work for you today. And I want you to ask yourself, how many of those people consider you to be their personal friend? And if the answer is, I don't think any of them do, you have a problem because you're looking at them transactionally. And that's the first mistake.

It's the same mistake agents make when they look at their clients and customers transactionally too.

I look at the top agents in America. The top agents in America don't look at their buyers and sellers as buyers and sellers. They look at them as friends. And when ...

Hey, you know what's interesting? The least interesting thing about you.

And you know what the least interesting thing about you is? That you sell real estate.

I know it's hard to hear, but that's the truth. When people look at you, if you're just one dimensional, and all you talk about is real estate pretty soon they're gonna get bored with you as a person. Why? Well, they're gonna relegate you to noise because every time they listen to you or look at your feeds, they're only gonna hear about real estate. And people get tired of it.

What people want is fresh, new, exciting, and different content. So I want you to think about the five persona strategy.

When it comes to your tombstone, what do you wanna be known for after we're all gone?

You're probably not gonna talk a lot about real estate. You might say you're a REALTOR, but what else was exciting about you? What else was different about you?

Could be that you're a mother, father, uncle, or grandma. Or that you e...