The One Thing No One Taught Me When I Got Started in Real Estate

If someone asked me what I'd do differently if I could go back to the start of my career, I have an immediate answer: I'd work my sphere of influence from day one instead of assuming I had to buy my way into business. I brought my friend Khash Saghafi of Liberty Home Mortgage on to make this point with me, because he's built an entire business around it, and I wanted him to walk through exactly how. You can listen to the full conversation on our podcast, Free Beer and Real Estate.

"If It's Free, It Ain't Easy. If It's Easy, It Ain't Free."

That's Khash's line, and it's stuck with me. You can call up Zillow today and buy a thousand leads with a credit card. That's easy. It's also expensive, and the conversion rate on cold, purchased leads is nowhere close to what you get from people who already know and trust you. The alternative, working your sphere of influence, is free. It's just not easy, because it requires consistency and a level of comfort with reaching out to people you already know, which is exactly the part most agents avoid.

The Math Nobody Runs

Here's a simple exercise. Say you have 100 people in your sphere, real connections who'd use you if they ever bought, sold, or needed a mortgage. On average, people move roughly once every 10 years. Run that math and you should be getting about 10 transactions a year from your sphere alone. Even if you cut that number in half to 50 people, you're still looking at five transactions a year, plus referrals, since a healthy sphere should also generate roughly one referral per person every decade. That effectively doubles the number. Most agents never run this math, which is exactly why they don't see how much business is already sitting in their own contacts.

The Servant Mentality

The most common objection Khash and I both hear is some version of "I feel weird calling people I know." That discomfort almost always comes from the wrong framing. If you're calling someone with the goal of selling them something, of course it feels awkward. Reframe the call entirely. Khash's example: he checks in on an old wrestling teammate regularly, not to pitch a refinance, but because the guy just had a defibrillator put in and Khash genuinely wants to know how he's doing. Business sometimes comes up naturally in that conversation. It's never the reason for the call.

That's the servant mentality. You're not selling. You're checking in, offering something of value, or just reconnecting. Tom Ferry has a line that fits here perfectly: there's no such thing as a past client, only clients. The relationship doesn't end at closing, and treating it that way is one of the biggest missed opportunities in this business. About 72 percent of people say they'd use the same agent again, but only around 12 percent actually do. That gap exists because most of us do a terrible job staying in touch.

Build Your Wedding List

Khash calls this exercise the wedding list, and it's the best starting point I've heard for building out a real sphere. Picture you're planning a wedding and write down everyone you'd invite: friends, family, anyone you genuinely know. Then do a little reconnaissance on each name. What do they do for work? What do they care about? A quick look at someone's Facebook page tells you what they're into, whether that's hiking, a recent life event, or something they post about consistently.

If you think your list is too short to bother with, start smaller than you think you need to. Pull every closed transaction you've ever had, even if that's only three. Then look at who consistently comments on your own social posts. Most people are surprised how quickly that adds up to 30 or 50 real names once they actually sit down and do it.

Once you know who's on the list, look at what they do professionally. Some of those names might be divorce attorneys or financial planners, people who regularly run into others who need a real estate agent or a lender. You're not selling them anything either. You're becoming a resource they can hand off to their own clients.

Do Reconnaissance, Then Build a Cadence

Once the list exists, the next step is a schedule, because if it's not written down, it doesn't happen. Start smaller than feels productive. One phone call a day, or even one a week to begin with, is a completely reasonable starting pace. Build from there over months rather than trying to force fifty dials a day right out of the gate. That kind of pace is the fastest way to burn out and quit the habit entirely.

The reconnaissance you did earlier pays off here too. Knowing that someone just had a baby, just got married, or is dealing with a divorce tells you exactly how to open the conversation like a human being instead of a script.

Keep It Simple, Master It

Khash trained alongside one of the most decorated wrestlers in U.S. history, and he told me something that surprised him at the time: that wrestler didn't have a thousand moves. He had three. He was just better at executing those three than almost anyone else on earth. The same principle applies here. You don't need fifty scripts or a complicated system. You need a short list of habits, done consistently, for a long time.

Part of that consistency is staying sharp enough to be useful when the conversation naturally turns to real estate, which it usually will. Real estate is a topic people love to talk about, whether it's asking how the market's doing or whether it's a good time to buy. If you've done your homework, you can give a real, informed answer in that moment instead of a shrug, and that's what positions you as the expert people come back to.

Start With One

The biggest hurdle isn't the system. It's making that first call. Once you make one, it stops feeling as strange as it did in your head, and the second, third, and fourth calls get noticeably easier. The people in your sphere already know you, like you, and in most cases will actually pick up the phone or call you back. Compare that to a purchased lead who has no idea who you are and is far more likely to hang up. Why dig at the bottom of the mountain when there's gold sitting right at the top.

If you want help thinking through how to build out your own sphere, or you're looking for a lender who genuinely operates this way, reach out to Khash Saghafi at Liberty Home Mortgage, 216-780-1103. And if you're an agent looking for more training like this, join us for Tuesday training or reach out to me directly at mike@21mike.com.

Mike Ferrante
The Mike Team at LPT Realty
www.21mike.com
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