Brian: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show today. I am here, as usual, with Christina Morales. Christina, thanks for being here.

Christina: Hey, glad to be here.

Brian: What do you want to know about? I know you were talking to me about how tough the market is with such low sales volume right now for the last year or so — what’s important and what’s not. You get to see all these agents out there in the industry and see how the ones that succeed and the ones that don’t. Why don’t you tell me your questions?

Christina: Sure. We both work with a lot of real estate agents. What do brokers and team leaders need to know right now? We’re hearing so many things, and I wanted to refine it down to what we need to do and not do. What are the three things we shouldn’t compromise on? Where should we focus our efforts? And what are some things we don’t need to think about so we can harness our energy on what matters?

Brian: Thank you. Three things we should never compromise on in any market — and we’ll pay particular attention to a slow market with low inventory and reduced buyer demand from elevated interest rates.
The first one — and also the most underrated — is mindset. From a coach’s point of view, and hearing from all of our coaches right now, some agents just get into a scarcity-based mindset when things go bad. It’s like they’re convincing themselves it’s okay to quit on their dreams. We all got into real estate with at least one or two goals: to make more money and to have more flexibility and time for the things that matter — family, friends, travel, whatever that looks like for you.

People lose sight of that second goal all the time. They get into panic mode, start doing everything themselves, burn out, get angry, say it’s too hard, and the spiral just continues. If they run a team, they start showing buyers again. If they’re out of production, they go back into it. They start running all the team meetings, firing people, doing it themselves — all because they’re in scarcity mode trying to figure out how to pay the bills.

The path to success is never a straight line up. It’s three steps forward, two steps back. If we give up every time the market gets tough and scale everything back, that’s too many steps backward. The mindset has to stay on growth — what I call an abundant mindset. We’re going to continue to try to grow. We’re going to play more offense than defense.

Yes, we’ll keep costs reasonable. We’ll tighten the belt and look at the P&L. That’s obvious and reasonable. But most of the time, that’s all people do. They don’t double down on growth. And the only way to do that is to have the right mindset instead of the excuse mindset — all the reasons why it can’t work or won’t work.

The only time you see major companies slash costs and fire everyone is when they’re going out of business. The ones that get through bad markets don’t abandon their systems or their goals. They know this will pass. They act like they’ve been here before.

Jerry Rice — the greatest receiver in NFL history, scored the most touchdowns for the San Francisco 49ers — every time he scored, he just put the ball down and handed it to the ref. He said he just acted like he’d done it before. He went right back to work. That’s the mindset. If you panic and get into scarcity mode, your family will see it, your team will see it, your clients will feel it in your listing presentations and buyer consultations.

Market downturns happen roughly every 10 years. The 2007–2008 recession was severe — prices dropped, foreclosures spiked, short sales were everywhere, and no one thought real estate would hold up. And then in a couple of years, buyers were back. A couple years after that, prices had fully recovered. It felt like forever when you were in it, but it didn’t take long. So the number one thing is keep an abundance-based mindset. Don’t get into scarcity. Stay focused on growth.

Brian: And that’s number two. Focusing on growth is the next thing you can never compromise on. In what I call harvest season — roughly April through August — agents see the most homes sold and get very busy. In a scarcity mindset, they stop all lead generation and just focus on servicing current clients. This is very bad, because it starts what I call the real estate roller coaster: you have a ton of business, then in October, November, December you have nothing. You fire people. You think about other careers. Then fear kicks in and motivates you to lead generate at the start of the next year — until spring rolls around and you’re too busy again. Up and down, up and down. Never security, never safety, always panic.
You are not steadily committed to growth. You only do it when your back is against the wall. That is not a business.
So we have to stay focused on lead generation and never stop. For agents, that means getting listings — always listings first ahead of buyers. Listings bring buyers, build name recognition, and attract more listings. We never stop working to get listings.

For team leaders and brokers, this is when you recruit the heaviest. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I’ve watched people go backwards with their agent count because the market is bad and they don’t recruit. The ones that stayed head down and committed to recruiting? Every agent on the planet wants to change their current situation right now. It has never been easier to recruit. We’ve coached teams that went from 50 agents to 150 in the last two years — through a slow, low-volume market — because all those agents were finally open to a conversation.

Back in the hot market, in 2017 for example, most agents were doing fine. They didn’t even want to talk to you about joining your team. Right now, that’s changed completely.
People still want to buy and sell houses. That still happens. We have to focus and never stop trying to get business. Never shut the marketing machine down. Not ever. Learn to get through the busy months and still do some form of lead generation every single day. Maybe it’s an hour a day, maybe two, maybe three if you’re really determined. Calling, emailing, mailing, door knocking, social media — whatever you do to generate new business. Just make sure it’s designed to generate new business, not fall back into a customer service mindset.
Customer service is important. I love customer service. But I don’t see a lot of agents quitting because they hated customer service. What separates the successful ones from the unsuccessful is the ability to lead generate — or not. It’s a very small number of people who can go out and make business happen. If you can learn to do that, the fear, the roller coaster, the scarcity — it all goes away.

Think about it this way: if you have a brokerage with 20 agents and you can’t hit your margins, what happens if you recruit two agents a month for the next 10–12 months? You’ve doubled your agent count. You’ve doubled your revenue. That opens up your profit margin, and you weather the market by swimming upstream through it.

The most successful companies in the world put enormous effort into sales and marketing. They never take their eyes off growth. Neither should you.
Brian: Number three — and maybe the most important — is professional growth. If you think you’re going to navigate this all by yourself with all the knowledge you’ve picked up over time, I’ll tell you right now: you don’t have enough. Everybody who has built anything significant will tell you the same thing: find someone who has succeeded at the level you want to reach, and they will save you every trial-and-error step you’d take alone.

It’s not even about knowledge. You already know what you should be doing. The reason agents go searching online for more content isn’t because they need more knowledge — it’s because they’re looking for something to motivate them. And if you always need something external to motivate you, that’s a serious problem. You’re chasing magic pills that don’t exist.

LeBron James is one of the greatest basketball players alive. At some point, I guarantee going to work is still work for him. He just does it anyway because he puts in the work. If you’re always looking for new motivation instead of developing the ability to push through the hard steps yourself, you’ll never build the discipline you need to succeed in this business.

You may have gotten into real estate because you love houses and people and the flexibility. That’s great. But here’s what they didn’t tell you on HGTV: you’re going to spend a portion of every day doing things you don’t enjoy. Imagine if you did one hour of lead generation every weekday — that’s 250 hours a year of business development. Two hours a day is 500 hours. I have never seen anyone fail who was genuinely willing to put in a couple of hours a week toward lead generation.

But the only way you’ll actually do that — I guarantee it — is if someone holds you accountable. A coach keeps you in it. When you pay for coaching, you show up. You have skin in the game. The financial commitment creates accountability, which makes you do the growth activities you’d otherwise avoid.
We all tend toward customer service activities — the bird already in hand. A coach puts you back on growth. Not everyone has access to a paid coach, but even a team leader whose business you respect or a strong broker at your office who gives you real training — that’s better than nothing.
Professional growth through coaching, training, and mentorship is what gets you out of trial and error and into a system that’s already been proven to work. Why reinvent the wheel? Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Find someone who’s done it and has the roadmaps.

Most of our clients at ICT are powering through this market right now and picking up steam. When it turns, they are going to dominate — because they have more agents, more listings, and more momentum than their competitors who were waiting. They’ve got lots of fishing poles in the water right now. When the fish run, they’re ready.

A coach also helps you let go — another big challenge tied to scarcity mindset. Team leaders and brokers start finding themselves taking back tasks they’d delegated, doing $20-an-hour work instead of $200-an-hour growth activities. A coach keeps you on the right work.

So those are the three. Mindset: keep it focused on abundance, not scarcity. Growth: stay committed to lead generation and recruiting — never stop. Professional growth: make sure you have mentors, coaches, and trainers in your life pushing you forward and keeping you accountable to a growth mindset.