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 […]
Tag: Goal Setting
Small Inputs, Big Days
Maybe you’re a broker-owner who just watched a good agent walk out the door. Maybe you’re a recruiter who has heard “not right now” six times this week. Maybe you’re an agent staring at an empty calendar, an affiliate watching referrals slow down, or a student wondering if you picked the right career at the […]
Your 2027 Plan Is Already Written
You Just Have to Read Your 2026 Numbers It’s Q4, which means planning season. And most brokerage plans start the same way: “We’re going to grow 20% next year.” That’s not a plan. That’s a result, and an opinion with a number attached. Earlier this week I wrote that action produces data and theory produces opinions. So […]
Action Produces Data. Theory Produces Opinions.
Ten days ago I wrote that one step beats a dozen programs. Last week Joe De Sena reminded me why: complacency kills. The cure isn’t another program. It’s one step. Let’s be real. Every broker-owner I know has a shelf full of programs. Recruiting scripts. Retention playbooks. Onboarding binders. A webinar series bookmarked for “when […]
Complacency Kills
Which Generation Is Your Brokerage? Joe De Sena, the founder of Spartan Race, has a two-word warning I can’t shake: complacency kills. He starts with a line made famous by novelist G. Michael Hopf: “Hard times make strong people.” The rest of the cycle goes like this. Strong people create good times. Good times create soft […]
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 […]
We Weren’t Meant to Run Alone
The Big Four and the Power of Community It was 105 degrees. Too hot to run outside, so I headed to the gym, set the iFit treadmill to a 5% incline, and let trainer Hannah Eden do the talking. Somewhere in the middle of that climb, she said something that stuck with me. She talked […]
One Step Beats a Dozen Programs
It’s October. Which means the plans are coming. By Thanksgiving, most offices will have more programs than agents using them. Benjamin Franklin cut through all of it in seven words, in the 1737 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack: “Well done is better than well said.” Almost three hundred years later, it’s still the best business advice […]
The Partner Who Stayed
Ask any broker-owner who ran an office through 2008 about their affiliate partners. They’ll name the lenders, escrow officers, and title reps who disappeared when volume dried up. Then they’ll name the ones who stayed. They’ll say those names with a completely different tone. Nearly two decades later, the ones who stayed are still getting […]
The Appraisal Just Changed. Who Told Your Agents?
Picture a seller in early November. The appraiser has been in her home for ninety minutes. He’s measuring rooms with a laser scanner and photographing the kids’ bedrooms, the home office, the medication on the kitchen counter. She calls her agent. “Is this normal? Where do these photos go?” Her agent has no idea. That […]