The CEO Blog

Let me be blunt about this — more leads do not automatically translate into more business. I have seen agents with databases of 15,000 people make no money. I have also seen agents with databases of 1,500 people make a million dollars annually.

That difference should wake you up.

The problem isn’t the number of leads. The problem is what you’re doing with them. Or more accurately, what you’re not doing with them.

If you’re lead generating without a home for those leads — without a proper CRM that tracks every contact, every conversation, every life trigger — you don’t have a business. You just have noise. You have a collection of names that sit in your phone or on random sticky notes or in that spreadsheet you swear you’ll organize “when things slow down.”

Here’s what nobody talks about in those “grow your real estate business on social” courses: You can have a million followers and still be flat broke. I’ve seen agents with massive online presence struggle to pay their MLS fees while agents with tiny followings buy investment properties with their commission checks.

The disconnect happens because most agents are optimizing for the wrong metrics. They’re measuring likes, comments, and followers instead of measuring what actually pays their bills: appointments booked, listings secured, and deals closed.

Let me show you the real cost of chasing vanity metrics:

The broker holds your license for regulatory purposes and offers resources to help you grow. But you are in charge of everything in your business. Your marketing. Your lead generation. Your client experience. Your financial planning. Your daily schedule.

When I understood this fundamental shift, I stopped waiting for motivation and started creating momentum. I stopped looking for someone to save me and started building systems to scale me.

The agents who struggle emotionally in this business are the ones fighting this reality. They jump from brokerage to brokerage looking for someone to manage their career instead of managing it themselves.

Your breakthrough starts when you accept complete responsibility for your business outcomes. Not your broker’s fault if you’re not making money. Not the market’s fault if you don’t have leads. Not the economy’s fault if you can’t close deals. Your business, your responsibility, your results.

I’m going to ask you the same question I ask every coaching client in our first session: Can you show me your business registration documents right now?

Not your real estate license. Not your MLS access. Not your broker agreement. Your actual business entity formation paperwork that proves you own a company instead of just having permission to participate in other people’s companies.

About 73% of the agents I work with can’t answer this question, which explains why they feel like hamsters on a wheel despite closing deals and making money. They’ve been operating like entrepreneurs while legally functioning as freelancers.