1. I don’t have time
2. I don’t have the money
3. I will try it next year
4. I don’t have enough data
5. I am too tired, skeptical, or biased
6. No one ever did it before
7. It’s too much work
8. I could fail
9. I will wait until I retire
10. It’s too risky
You can bust through too. One of my associates told me all of these “excuses” are rooted in some sort of fear, so really the top 1% are masters of fear.
Near-death by a car accident, boot camp, Kilimanjaro Summit day, Hellmecula, Snowmageddon, Spartan Beast, crazy markets, and so much more.
Some things are just hard, and you want to quit.
I’ve made it through some tough situations with this one strategy: looking only a few steps, tasks or minutes ahead.
“Doing the next right thing.”
At certain times tunnel vision is a good thing.
Consider this – the next time getting through a challenge that seems like it might be too much for you. Lower your gaze to whatever the next minute, step, or task is right in front of you. Then take it.
There are times when big-picture thinking is needed. Yet the moments when you doubt you have the strength or the desire to put one foot in front of the other isn’t among them.
Do the next right thing.
Focused Time. The top 1% know that less is more! Say what?
Who would you imagine to be more productive—someone who works 55 hours a week or someone who works 70?
If you guessed the latter, you’d be incorrect. Research done by Stanford showed that productivity diminishes after 40 hours and falls off a cliff after 55 hours. In essence, less is more.
Resource? Life on The Wire by Todd Duncan – in his book Todd challenges the status quo in search of a better, smarter way to work and live.
#100DaysOfSuccess
When you are inconsistent, nothing works at the optimal level.
Here’s what I know: recruiters, talent attraction coordinators, team leaders, managers, and real estate sales professionals who consistently set and attend appointments are producing more results, period. These leaders are consistent and disciplined in their daily prospecting and marketing routines.
Consistency… social media does not work if you are not consistent; geographic farming does not work if you are not consistent; repeat and referral does not work if you are not consistent; open houses will not work if you are inconsistent; online leads – a waste – if you are not consistent; recruiting and talent attraction is a roller coaster without consistency.
Show me something in your business that works when you are inconsistent.
Anything you are going to do, the more consistent you are with your mindset, attitude, approach, expectation, strategy, and tactics, the more predictable the result.
Bottom line: when you are consistent, everything works… when you are inconsistent, nothing works.
So my question is, what have you been inconsistent with?
What has that inconsistency cost you financially, emotionally, or physically?
I’d submit that the action we can all take is to be more consistent in creating, setting, and attending more new appointments.
We cannot control the market.
We can control ourselves, our thoughts, and our actions.
Next Steps:
#WinTheDay
Mark’s Note: This post was originally published in February 2023 and has been updated to include the Recruiting 8 D’s framework, market intelligence guidance, and a dual-audience perspective for both agents and recruiting professionals. If you read it before, there is enough new here to make it worth another pass.
“In the end, someone or something always gives up. Either you give up and quit, or the obstacle or failure gives up and makes way for your success to come through.” — Idowu Koyenikan
Let me be straight with you: if you’re not setting appointments every single day, you don’t have a real estate business. You have a hobby.
Appointments are the lifeblood of this business. Not leads. Not listings. Appointments. Because nothing happens until you’re sitting across from someone who needs to buy, sell, or in the case of recruiting professionals, make a career decision. Everything else — your marketing, your branding, your social media — is just noise until it produces that moment.
This post is written for two audiences. If you are a real estate agent, this is about setting more appointments with buyers, sellers, and the people in your sphere who need to hear from you today. If you are a recruiting professional, this is about getting in front of the agents who haven’t yet realized their next move starts with a conversation with you. The discipline is identical. The payoff is the same.
Here’s the good news: appointments are the one thing you can actually control. Not the market. Not interest rates. Not what your competition is doing. But you can pick up the phone. You can knock on a door. You can show up. That’s where your power lives.
Most agents — and most recruiters — define an appointment too narrowly. They think it has to be a signed listing agreement or a committed candidate to count. That mindset is killing your pipeline.
An appointment is any meaningful interaction that moves a relationship forward. For agents, that includes:
For recruiting professionals, it includes:
Every one of those counts. Every one of those matters. Start treating them that way.
People don’t wake up one day and decide to move — or switch brokerages — for no reason. Life events and professional frustrations drive those decisions. Learn to recognize them and you’ll never run out of people to talk to.
My good friend David Knox identified what he calls the 8 D’s — the life events that consistently drive real estate transactions:
When you understand David’s 8 D’s, you stop cold-calling strangers and start having real conversations with people in the middle of real life changes. That’s a completely different game.
Inspired by David Knox’s framework, we built a parallel set of 8 D’s specifically for recruiting — the eight forces that make an agent open to a conversation about their career. When you know which D is driving a specific agent, you stop pitching and start connecting.
That last D is the most important one for recruiters to understand. Dissatisfaction is rarely announced. It shows up in the questions agents ask, the frustrations they mention, and the calls they finally return. Stay persistent. Stay present. When Dissatisfaction peaks, the agent who has been hearing from you consistently is the one who gets the appointment.
1. Treat it like a non-negotiable. Appointment setting isn’t something you do when you have time. It’s the first thing on your calendar every single day — before email, before admin, before anything. Block the time. Protect the time. Work the time. For recruiters, this means proactive outreach is scheduled, not squeezed in.
2. Expand your definition of a win. Stop waiting for the perfect appointment. A solid conversation with a past client is a win. A property preview with a curious buyer is a win. For recruiters, a ten-minute call where an agent finally opens up about what’s frustrating them is a win. Volume and consistency build pipelines — not perfection.
3. Get your head right. Your mindset walks into the room before you do. If you believe you’re bothering people, your voice will sound like it. Use affirmations that reinforce confidence: “I provide real value to the people I talk with every day.” Say it until you mean it. You’re not selling — you’re serving. For recruiters: if you genuinely believe your brokerage offers agents a better future, reaching out isn’t an intrusion. It’s a service.
4. Work your CRM like it’s your business partner. Because it is. Every lead, every past client, every agent prospect needs to be in your system with a follow-up date attached. If it’s not in the CRM, it doesn’t exist. A great CRM is only as good as the person using it — so use it every single day.
5. Find your Automatic Shot and run it daily. Every great agent has one source that reliably produces. For most, it’s past clients and referrals. For others, it’s geographic farming or a specific niche. For recruiters, it might be a particular production tier, a competitor brokerage, or a geographic pocket of agents you know well. Whatever yours is, identify it and work it consistently. Don’t chase every shiny new lead source — master the one that already works for you.
6. Get sharp on objections. The difference between professionals who set appointments and those who don’t usually comes down to one thing: what happens when someone says no. Don’t memorize scripts — learn to listen. Ask questions. Understand what’s really holding someone back. When you lead with curiosity instead of a pitch, objections become conversations. If you want to go deeper on this, read Persistence Part 1 — it covers exactly how to turn resistance into opportunity. (hyperlink: https://winningtheday.blog/persistence-vs-pressure/)
7. Stay goal-focused, not outcome-attached. Your job is to set the appointment. That’s it. Don’t try to figure out if this person is going to list, buy, or make a move before you’ve even had the conversation. Focus on the daily number. Trust the process. The deals — and the recruits — follow the appointments every time.
Before any appointment — with a buyer, a seller, or an agent prospect — know your market. Walk in with something current and relevant that the other person hasn’t seen. This is where real-time market data from Altos becomes a genuine differentiator. Instead of showing up with a generic pitch, you open with: “I was looking at the data for your area this week and noticed something I thought you’d find interesting…”
That’s not a sales call. That’s a resource. And resources get appointments. (Insert your Altos hyperlink)
For a deeper look at how market intelligence connects to persistence and follow-up, read Persistence Part 2. (hyperlink: https://winningtheday.blog/persistence-is-difference-than-pressure/)
This business rewards the consistent, not the occasional. Every agent who is winning right now has one thing in common: they’re talking to people every single day. Not when they feel like it. Not when the market is good. Every. Single. Day.
The same is true for the recruiters who are building brokerages worth joining. Discipline over feelings. Consistency over intention.
That’s how you win the day.
To Team Or Not To Team
So, you want to start a team?
Or you already have a team and are now questioning that choice?
Maybe you already have a team performing at a high level, and you are looking for a boost?
You see, we’ve just about seen it all:
In the most successful teams we know, the leader assumes the CEO role of the team, and they always lead with revenue! And they understand this:
“A system will produce what a system will produce, nothing less, nothing more.”
Here are a few thoughts to consider as it relates to team leadership:
Team Requirement No. 1:
Do you have a clear and compelling value proposition?
Team Requirement No. 2:
You’re on Target or Ahead of Your Production Goal
Team Requirement No. 3:
You Have At Least 4 Successful Pillars of Lead Generation
Team Requirement No. 4:
You Have Lead Follow-Up Systems in Place That Create Raving Fans and Ensure a High Level of Service
Team Requirement No. 5:
You Have an Accountability Structure in Place That is Utilized Daily
Team Requirement No. 6:
You are on a mission to grow your leadership skills and serve your team members
Now that you’ve considered six factors for team success, I have a practical exercise to start the process.
There you have it; the opportunity is yours.
Consider this…
With all the plans, strategies, goals, innovations, business practices, and culture that make up your team, you are getting exactly the results your business systems and processes are currently capable of producing – nothing less, nothing more! Looking to be more outcome-focused? Read this blog from Mark Johnson, co-founder of CoRecruit.
To get better results, you must improve the design and execution of your business systems and processes—at the detail checklist level.
The law of cause and effect governs all business outcomes. To change an effect or result, you have to change the cause.
#WinTheDay
By design vs. by default with Seth Godin
Leaders make one thing more than any other: decisions.
Every environment has constraints, and the decisions about how time and resources are allocated – about what to do next – drive all outcomes.
How do leaders decide what’s next? Is it based on urgency, proximity, or values? It’s a mix of each, yet the top 1% make more value-based decisions.
The top 1% know the first in + first out approach is not an effective strategy; it’s typically an excuse or by default. Even worse: defaulting to the squeaky wheel strategy. Leaders minimize the whirlwind. By design vs. by default.
PS: Need help with talent attraction, selection, or sourcing accountability? Just a DM away.
If information was enough, we would all be top performers in our profession, exercise every day, eat more vegetables, be within the government’s height and weight standards, and have a ton of money saved for the future.
Think about it: you can use Google or YouTube for the instruction manual for almost anything. You can access a step-by-step guide, the best practices, and the quick start guide. So, I have a straightforward question – with access to all this information and proven evidence – why do we still struggle with limiting beliefs and behaviors?
The answer? Our feelings outweigh our commitments. When our commitments outweigh our feelings, that’s when a breakthrough begins.
The five words that kill more dreams, more potential, and more happiness than any other five words spoken are:
I’m not sure of your dream, yet I suspect that for many of you, it’s more financial freedom, better health, stronger relationships, and more connectedness with your community. Yet let’s face it, so many times when you are about to start something toward those dreams, the onslaught of excuses flood your mind like water gushing out of a broken pipe. The theme of these excuses always traces back to the same root:
How often have you said, “I don’t feel like it?” How often have you listened to that thought, allowing it to alter the course of your actions? What has that cost you physically, financially, and emotionally?
I know that “I don’t feel like it” is the universal human condition that silently kills dreams. Yet you and I don’t have to accept this dream killer, and we can overcome the feeling and move powerfully toward our goals and objectives. It starts with intention: the intention to live on your terms, not the terms of your moods and feelings.
Sports psychologist Bob Rotella, said “I tell people: If you don’t want to get into positive thinking, that’s OK. Just eliminate all the negative thoughts from your mind, and whatever is left will be just fine!”
Maxwell provides 6 steps to expanding our possibility thinking:
#100DaysOfSuccess
Resistance is like a Jedi mind trick. It’s not really there, but it feels like it is. And the more you think about it, the more powerful it becomes.
New goals are likely to fall apart before February ends. That’s according to data from Strava, a social network for athletes. The company analyzed more than 31.5 million fitness records from its users and found that our annual commitments start crumbling in the middle of January. Strava’s research only draws from its own user base, so it could be skewed, yet a frequently cited study from the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment produced similar findings:
Only 55 percent of participants stuck to their resolutions for a full month.
Yet don’t let the data discourage you.
Resistance is normal. You’re likely to experience it at some level when trying to change, regardless of how positive your intended change is. Try not to fight resistance; instead – accept – that it will happen. By recognizing resistance and understanding why it happens, you can focus your energy on making positive changes stick for the long term.
And by spending a little time thinking about the potential obstacles, roadblocks, and impediments you may encounter during the change process, you can reduce your resistance levels and increase your chances of success — and overcome resistance.
“In the end, someone or something always gives up. Either you give up and quit, or the obstacle or failure gives up and makes way for your success to come through.”
~ Idowu Koyenikan
Step one is getting back in touch with the reason you started the change, resolution, goal, or process to begin with. Review these four questions:
Step two, no judgments! Once you’ve identified the reason for your resistance (typically fear of something) – the root cause of your frustration – you can look for a way to meet the needs of your resistance while not allowing it to prevent achieving your goals. Like taking a 10-minute break, then returning back to the task – a pattern interrupt.
Step three is to act opposite to your feelings. Of course, if you don’t feel like making your sales calls, make them anyway!
Step four, take action. Let go of what you have no control over. Sometimes, becoming aware of your repetitive patterns – and making a new intention – is all that is required. But other times, a deeper dive is needed.
In the book A Course of Miracles, it is written there are only two emotions: love and fear. If you are in a place of resistance about something, look for the fear behind it and find a way to dissipate it. Find a way to embrace it and “love” it!
And finally, my friend and mentor Tom Ferry wrote about four “addictions” that kill more dreams than any other. In my view, they are all patterns of resistance that each of us can control and change if we choose:
Resistance is not futile it’s a valuable learning tool. Use it to your advantage. Think breakdown to breakthrough!
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
~Henry Ford
