Eighty percent of sellers contact only one agent before they hire. That number comes from the National Association of REALTORS, and it should change how you spend every working hour. If you’re trying to figure out how to get real estate clients, the answer isn’t more dials to strangers. It’s being the agent people think of first when they finally need one.
Here’s what most agents get handed instead: buy internet leads and cold call until your ear hurts, then sprinkle in generic market updates and wait. That playbook burns money. Worse, it burns confidence, because you spend your days getting rejected by people who’ve never heard of you.
There’s a better pipeline, and it’s already within reach.
Your Sphere Is Your First Pipeline
The National Association of REALTORS also reports that 37 percent of sellers picked their agent because a friend, neighbor, or relative referred them. Referrals beat every lead source in the industry. Your job in your first 90 days is to make sure every single person who knows your name also knows what you do.
Send the honest message, not the cheesy one:
“Hey Sarah, it’s Marcus. I just got my license and I won’t pretend I’ve sold fifty homes. What I will do is outwork anyone you’d find on a billboard. If you ever hear someone talking about buying or selling, I’d love the chance to earn it.”
That message works because it doesn’t fake experience. It sells effort, which is the one thing you actually have plenty of. Work through your phone contacts in batches of twenty a day and track every conversation. We built a full system for this in our sphere of influence strategy guide, and the agents who follow it consistently get their first transaction within a quarter.
Expired Listings Are Warmer Than You Think
Only 6 percent of sellers go it alone without an agent. The rest want help. When a listing expires, you’re not looking at a cold prospect, you’re looking at a motivated seller who already committed to selling and just watched the plan fail. The market didn’t reject them. The marketing did.
Call within 24 hours of the expiration date. Open with this:
“Your listing came off the market on Tuesday. Before you re-list with the same plan, I’d want to know why it didn’t sell and whether that’s actually fixable. Can I ask you two questions about the last 90 days?”
That opener earns the conversation because it leads with the seller’s frustration instead of your pitch. Our expired listing scripts break down the full call, including how to handle the seller who’s defensive about the agent they just fired.
Follow Up Faster Than Anyone Else
Remember that 80 percent stat. Sellers call one agent. If you respond in four hours and the next agent responds in ten minutes, you’ve already lost, no matter how good your script is.
So build a non-negotiable follow-up cadence. Call first, text an hour later, email on day two, and drop a handwritten note by the end of the week. Then check in every month until they tell you to stop or they sign. Speed plus persistence wins deals that better agents lose to laziness.
Most agents quit after two touches. That’s your opening. A lead that goes quiet on Tuesday is still a client in March if you’re the one who stayed in the game.
Win the Conversation, Not the Argument
Prospects will push back. “We already have a friend in the business.” “Commission seems high.” “We want to wait until spring.” Every one of those objections has an answer that doesn’t sound like a salesman’s answer, and you need them ready before the phone rings, not improvised after the call goes sideways. Our objection handling scripts cover the ones you’ll hear weekly, with exact language.
Referrals Are Earned After the Signing
The fastest path to a referral is a client who felt taken care of, and that feeling starts the moment they sign, not the moment the deal closes. Agents who lose referrals usually lost them in the quiet stretch between contract and closing, when the client felt ignored. A structured client onboarding process keeps every new client informed from day one, and informed clients talk about you to everyone they know.
Stop Waiting for the Phone to Ring
Your next client either already knows your name or is sitting in an expired listings list wondering why their house didn’t sell. Go call them.
