Here is the finding every broker-owner needs to hear: agents don’t leave because their sales drop. They leave because of leadership, culture and the support they get, or don’t get. If you’re watching production reports to predict who’s about to walk, you’re watching the wrong numbers. That’s the central conclusion of our Agent Migration and […]
Tag: #100DaysOfSuccess
Effort Isn’t a Motivation Problem
Every month at least one broker-owner tells me, “I have people who just won’t do the work.” Sometimes it’s an agent. Sometimes it’s someone on staff. Either way, the diagnosis is the same: they aren’t motivated. Angela Duckworth, the Penn professor who wrote Grit, offered a better diagnosis. Full effort depends on four thoughts: Miss even […]
Rates, Not Prices: Coaching Ourselves and Our Agents Through the Real Market
This week a reporter reached out to me with several questions about a new report showing that nearly one-third of U.S. counties are now seriously unaffordable for homebuyers. One question stood out: why aren’t falling home prices making homes more affordable? It’s the right question, and the answer should shape every coaching conversation we have […]
What 17 Brokerages Taught Us About Growing When Everything Falls Apart
Between 2008 and 2012, the real estate industry went through the worst stretch most of us will ever see. Values collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of agents left the business. Brokerages that looked unbeatable in 2006 were gone by 2010. And yet some firms grew. My friend and longtime business colleague Steve Murray and his team […]
The Clock Came First. The Compass Matters More.
Direction Beats Speed Every Time It was 6:31 in the morning, and my feed had already handed me six productivity systems. Pomodoro. The 3/3/3 Method. The Eisenhower Matrix. Eat the Frog. The Seinfeld Strategy. Time blocking. One graphic promised eight hours of work in four. Another had been shared more than thirteen hundred times. Then […]
Everything Is Borrowed. Only Time Is Yours.
Inspired by Seneca’s first letter to his friend Lucilius, written almost two thousand years ago. Seneca was one of the richest men in Rome. Villas. Vineyards. A fortune most senators could only dream about. He tutored the young Nero and then served as one of the emperor’s closest advisors. Power, access, reputation. He had all […]
Humility in the Dark, Conviction in the Light
Two Olympic golds. One silver. One standard. Freestyle skier Eileen Gu captured elite performance psychology in eleven words: “I train like I’ve never won, and I compete like I’ve never lost.” It sounds great on a motivational poster. But look closely at what it actually asks of you on an ordinary Tuesday morning. Gu’s equation […]
They’re Asking for a Faster Horse
Dollars Is Seventh on Our Own List. It’s the Only One They Ask About. Every leader in real estate knows how the recruiting conversation starts. An agent sits down, glances at the numbers, and asks the question you can set your watch by: “What’s your split?” And if we aren’t careful, we answer it. We […]
Why the Best Leaders Let People Flounder
Inspired by bestselling author and journalist Charles Duhigg’s research on how the best students and teachers excel. With the new school year starting, parents and kids are adjusting to new routines and fresh classrooms. But the research on how people actually master new skills is not just for students. As some of you know, besides […]
Four Blueprints for Turning Vision into Reality
Listening to my bachelor’s degree students pitch their business dreams this past week brought a jolt of energy into the room. Their drive is infectious. They see clear problems to solve, markets to capture, and lives they want to build. Sitting there listening, I kept coming back to a single question: What actually turns a […]