The 20% Club: Why Most Agents Miss Out and How to Stop Being “Most Agents”

The other 80%? Too busy “getting ready to get ready.” Meanwhile, your future clients are hiring the first agent they talk to, and it’s not you (yet).

Someone sent me a graphic recently that Mike DelPrete put out, and it got me musing (you know you love it when I muse). It shows what percentage of the deals are done by which agents.

Here’s the headline: 20% of agents do 65% of the business.

This isn’t new. The Pareto Principle has been around for a looooong time. (Pareto observed it back in 1896, and Joseph Juran popularized it in the 1940s. So yeah, it’s been a while.) The 80/20 rule is simple: you go to 20% of the restaurants you know 80% of the time, you wear 20% of the clothes in your closet 80% of the time, and yes, it applies to real estate too.

Except in this case, it’s 20% of the agents doing 65% of the deals. Still tracks.

But it got me thinking about other numbers in real estate. Like these:

• 81% of home sellers talk to one agent.

• 71% of home buyers talk to one agent.

(Source: NAR)

Let that sink in. Blend those two numbers and you get this: 75% of the time, a potential client talks to one agent and just rolls with them.

Now Mike’s research doesn’t go into this and I am officially just hypothesizing and this is a dramatic over simplification (is that enough disclaimers?) but…

What if the reason 20% of the agents do 65% of the business is because they’re simply the ones getting called first?

What if they’re the ones putting themselves in more uncontested situations, just showing up and getting picked?

Could real estate be skewing this way because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Like I said, I don’t know if it’s true. But this part is:
The fact that 75% of clients just call one agent tells us everything we need to know.

You’ve got to market to the people who already know you, trust you, and like you.

Yeah, yeah. “Thanks, Crazy Uncle Keith, I already knew that.”
I’ve only been in the business six months and I’ve heard that 100 times already.

Then why don’t we do it?

Answer: Our brains.

I won’t go full science nerd on you (you’re welcome), but the human brain is wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. We are WAY over-indexed on “right now” dopamine vs. the pain of investing long-term. And then… mix that with the independent-minded, independent contractor mentality, and buddy, there’s your 80-90% of the problem.

Your Brain:

We’re evolutionarily terrible at thinking, “I might need this in 10 years, so let me pay attention to it now.” Add a little rejection to the mix and boom, your brain's like, “No thanks, hard pass.”

The Independent Contractor Part:

Here’s the wild part. If I paid you $10,000/month, you’d do (within reason) whatever I asked. You’d:

• Add people to your database every week

• Build a giveaway to collect full contact info

• Send your emails on time

• Review the postcard and get it out

• The list goes on…

But here’s the kicker: If you did that for yourself, you’d probably make more than $10,000/month.

I’ve written about this before when we talked about the freedom of residential real estate. (You can find that whole write-up here.)

It probably won’t happen, but here’s my hope: That one or two of you read this and go,
“S**t. I’ve been telling myself I’ll get my Sphere of Influence locked in for years… and I haven’t. This is the kick in the pants I needed.” Because working your sphere should be the bedrock of your business. Rank yourself on a 1–10 scale. If it’s not a 9 or 10, start there.

Don’t do anything else until your SOI marketing plan is a 9 or 10.
Please. I’m beggin’ ya.

If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me. Because I said “please.” :)

P.S. Stay tuned for the next article, it’s the best Sphere of Influence marketing plan I’ve cobbled together over the years. You're gonna want this one.

-k

If you’ve made it this far, two things are probably true: 1. You kinda dig what I’m saying. 2. You know you need to hear more of it. So do us both a favor: subscribe. It’s free, it’s fast, and it means you won’t miss the next muse-fest that just might light a fire under your business. Click that button. Let’s keep going.