“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” ~ Stephen Covey
Have you ever worked backward from Friday? At the end of the week, imagine you are sitting down and looking back…what would make this week great?
We can’t control the market this week, yet we can control the daily activities that lead to our expected outcomes.
I’m sure you would agree – without a doubt – we are in uncertain times. The paradox is this: we need both uncertainty and certainty in our business. Yet, from the conversations I’ve had this week, we have more uncertainty than certainty. How can we create more certainty?
If you show up for the day with no structure in your calendar and decide to do “urgent” tasks like returning calls and texts and checking Facebook, those activities will expand and eat up all the time you hoped to devote to more “important” activities. You will end the day unfulfilled and have more uncertainty. Get clear on what you want, make it part of your everyday routine, and have a plan for when you feel stuck or lost. That is a winning formula.
The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.
The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
Ten excuses the top 1% all made, yet figured out a way to bust through:
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.
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.
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:
Make an appointment-setting goal for the next 2 weeks and share it with an accountability partner.
Gather your past client list, all of your past leads, open house registers, and people you know, and start making appointments today.
Be CONSISTENT… list the 1, 2, or 3 things you must do consistently to propel your business forward.
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.
Why Appointments Matter More Than You Think
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:
A listing presentation with a motivated seller
A buyer consultation to understand their goals and timeline
A property preview with someone thinking about making a move
Coffee with a past client or referral source
A conversation with an investor, an HR director, or a relocation specialist
For recruiting professionals, it includes:
A first phone conversation with an agent who picked up
Coffee with someone who has been on your radar for six months
A follow-up call where an agent finally opens up about their frustrations
A brokerage tour with someone seriously considering a move
Any conversation where an agent asks a question about what you offer
Every one of those counts. Every one of those matters. Start treating them that way.
Know What Drives the Business: The 8 D’s
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:
Death — When a homeowner passes, the property often needs to be sold to settle the estate.
Divorce — Separating couples almost always need to sell their shared home.
Diamonds — Engagements and marriages send couples looking for their first home together.
Downsizing — Empty nesters want less space, less maintenance, and more freedom.
Diapers — Growing families need more room, and they needed it yesterday.
Deployment — Military families face unique challenges that often require a sale.
Default — Financial hardship can lead to foreclosure, and those homeowners need guidance, not judgment.
Displacement — Job changes, company relocations, graduations — life transitions move people.
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.
The Recruiting 8 D’s: What Moves an Agent to Make a Change
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.
De-Risking — Agents want protection and support. They need to know their broker has their back on legal, compliance, and problem-solving when things go sideways.
Development — Agents want to grow. Stage-appropriate training, coaching, accountability, and mentorship are powerful draws — especially for agents who feel stuck.
Differentiation — Agents want to be proud of their brand. What makes your brokerage meaningfully different from every other option in the market?
Direction — Agents want to follow leadership that has a clear plan, high standards, and a compelling vision for where the office is headed.
Dollars — Agents want to understand their true net. Not just the split — but fees, caps, lead costs, support costs, and what they actually take home.
Dynamics — Agents want a culture where people collaborate, hold each other to high standards, and win together. The day-to-day feel matters more than most brokers admit.
Digital — Agents want tools that work. Automation, lead systems, tracking, and marketing assets that produce measurable results — not shelfware.
Dissatisfaction — This is the one that opens the door. When an agent is unhappy enough with their current situation — their leadership, their culture, their compensation, their trajectory — they become reachable. Your job is to be in the conversation when that moment arrives.
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.
7 Keys to Setting Daily Appointments
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.
Arm Yourself with Market Intelligence
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/)
Your Action Plan Starts Today
Block your appointment-setting time — same time, every day, no exceptions.
Craft a tight intro — two or three sentences that clearly communicate the value you bring.
Know your D — for every prospect on your list today, identify which of the 8 D’s is most likely driving them. That’s where your conversation starts.
Script and rehearse your objection responses — then practice them out loud until they feel natural.
Track your numbers — calls made, conversations had, appointments set. What gets measured gets improved.
The Bottom Line
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.
A System Will Produce What A System Will Produce, Nothing Less and Nothing More!
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:
Starting a team too early;
Starting a team for the wrong reasons;
Starting a team without a straightforward value offering;
Starting a team with no or poorly written team agreements;
Letting your team and performance get stagnant.
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?
Will you be a lead provider?
Will you be a coach, trainer, and mentor?
Without a clear value, turnover will be the challenge you face.
Team Requirement No. 2:
You’re on Target or Ahead of Your Production Goal
Bringing additional team members aboard is not only a big responsibility… It’s taking on a serious expense.
If your income cannot support additional team members, you only set yourself up for failure.
Get your house in order, and then consider taking that next step.
Lead with revenue first
Team Requirement No. 3:
You Have At Least 4 Successful Pillars of Lead Generation
You have solid influence strategies (referrals) in place or control strategies (online leads) in place.
You’re tracking and measuring all your leading indicators, right? (If not, you’re not ready for a team.
When you look at your lead sources, are you producing multiple sales monthly from AT LEAST four different pillars?
The key here is to ensure your business is diversified sufficiently to support additional sales agents on your team.
Team Requirement No. 4:
You Have Lead Follow-Up Systems in Place That Create Raving Fans and Ensure a High Level of Service
Are your systems in place to the point that you can say you’ve operationalized your business?
If not, it’s not a total deal-breaker, but know that developing systems as you grow your team will steal precious time away from your more immediate dollar-productive work. Can you afford that?
Team Requirement No. 5:
You Have an Accountability Structure in Place That is Utilized Daily
As a team leader, you need a built-in system to hold you accountable to your schedule, the systems you have in place, and the others on your team.
This accountability structure begins with you and must extend to all who join your team.
Suppose you’re not consistently sticking to a morning schedule and setting that example for others. In that case, it will be difficult for you to expect team members to perform with the necessary daily discipline to succeed.
If not, you might want to work on your discipline a bit before putting yourself out there as a role model.
Team Requirement No. 6:
You are on a mission to grow your leadership skills and serve your team members
Face it, some of us just don’t want to “manage” others, and all that entails
If you are not into people with a decent EQ level, you might want to consider options like a sales or operations manager who can handle those things.
Now that you’ve considered six factors for team success, I have a practical exercise to start the process.
Why do you – and your team – do what you do? This may sound like an odd question, yet one example could be: Are you in the real estate business (I sell real estate) or the problem-solving business? (We help consumers navigate the complex process of buying, selling, or investing in real estate with ease, transparency, and less stress.) See the difference?
How are you different or unique? And does that matter to the typical consumer?
Who is our ideal client? And how do you reach them in relevant, consistent ways?
Hyper-local. Are you constantly working to become a hyper-local expert? The portals and national chains can never be the hyper-local expert.
Growth plans – what is your vision? If you are in one city, do you want to expand into other cities or even another state?
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.
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.
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 don’t feel like it.”
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:
“I don’t feel like it.”
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?
What if you could make a different choice?
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.
When our commitments outweigh our feelings, that’s when a breakthrough begins.
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:
