Everything I Learned From Being Around Top 0.01% Realtors

I’ve spent hundreds of hours learning from the top 0.01% of real estate producers and world-class entrepreneurs. In this video, I share 9 lessons that consistently separate average agents from top performers and how you can apply them to grow your business, income, and life.

Key Highlights:
0:24 What surprised me most about top performers
0:48 My background: from selling homes to building a $1.5B brokerage
1:54 Lesson 1: Keep showing up, especially when it’s hard
3:47 Lesson 2: Don’t rely on motivation; rely on a schedule
4:48 Lesson 3: Treat lead generation like oxygen
5:51 Lesson 4: Follow through with care and consistency
7:02 Lesson 5: Sell certainty, not houses
7:54 Lesson 6: Don’t just scale leads, build systems
9:05 Lesson 7: Protect your energy like an asset
10:14 Lesson 8: Keep your world small, focus on fewer, high-impact activities
11:04 Lesson 9: Think like a business owner, not an agent
14:46 Final takeaway: fundamentals over time lead to top performance
15:06 Next steps: commit to one lead source, track inputs, follow up consistently

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I spent hundreds of hours around the top 0.01% of producers, multimillionaires, or world-class entrepreneurs in the real estate space. I sit in the rooms with the names like Gary Keller, Tom Ferry, and Ryan Sorhan. Had a chance to learn directly from and spend time around some of the biggest producers, real courage owners, and coaches in the space. The people who closed tons of transactions, built massive teams, and set the standard for everyone else. Now, I'm building alongside Glenn Sanford and Leo Pareja. And here's what surprised me the most. It's not a secret sauce, it's not a hack. It's these nine specific lessons done consistently with standards that don't move. And these are the exact same lessons that took me from the average kid from the former Soviet Union coming to this country with just$600 in our pocket to building and running successful businesses here in the United States. I share the patterns I've seen over and over and how you can borrow them without changing who you are. For quick context, if you're new to my channel, I've been in real estate since 2013. Sold over 500 homes personally, led a 17-agent team doing 200 plus sides a year, then grew my brokerage best homes real estate from seven agents to hitting hundreds of agents with over 4,000 closings and$1.5 billion in sales, which I recently moved to the EXP reality. But what I'm most proud of isn't the numbers, it's watching agents transform their business, their income, and ultimately their lives. So when I talk about the top 0.01%, I'm not guessing. I'm just sharing what consistently works. By the way, if you enjoyed this content, give it a like, subscribe, and when the time is right, there's a link in the description to book a call with me directly. Here's what surprises me most about the top producers. They don't do complicated things, they do simple things with consistency and they use leverage and systems to make it easier to scale. Most of this video focuses on what I learned from the top 0.01%. But the first lesson, it didn't come from someone who's done tons of transactions. It actually came from my parents, growing up in a former Soviet Union. And the funny thing is, years later, I realized that top 0.01% practices the exact same lesson too. So let's dive in. So lesson number one, keep showing up, especially when it's not working. Yeah. The first lesson is simple, and it's the one that most agents fail. You have to keep showing up. Not when you're motivated, not when it's easy, when it's quiet. When results are slow, when your brain starts negotiating, that's resistance. And in business, the people who win aren't the ones who are avoiding setbacks. They're the ones who keep their standards when the emotions get really loud. I know this firsthand. When I pivoted into real estate back in 2013, I had three kids under age of five,$5,000 a month going out, and zero closings for the first six months. Expired listing calls for sale by owner calls, door knocking, getting hung up on, getting yelled at daily. And then my dad got diagnosed with colon cancer. Under all of that stress, I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and autoimmune disease. But I kept coming back to something that my upbringing burned into me when I was 13 years old. Handing out flyers for$1.50 an hour and bringing home what I earned so my parents can go buy groceries. You see, in life or in business, it's not what happens to you. It's how you deal with it. Month 7, I got my first listing. Not a million dollar listing, a$100,000 listing,$2,500 commission check. I sat in my car and I cried. Not because of the money, because it was approved. I finally got a win. All those months coming home, looking at my wife with nothing to show for. Finally I got one under my belt. 13 deals that year, 35 next year, 75 the year after. None of it happens if I quit in month four. So here are the steps that I take when I hear this voice of resistance in my head. One, set a minimum standard. I call it the no zero day rule. Minimum five conversations a day, five follow-ups a day, one post, one type of activity. That's the floor. The second thing, when doubt hits, shrink the target. Don't quit. Reduce the goal. Track your reps, not feelings. Measure calls, contacts, appointments. Let the scoreboard come your mind. And finally, number four, close your loops. I did it myself. I told this to myself. I will not end the day until I have at least five conversations or one appointment. Consistency beats intensity every time. Lesson number two, don't rely on motivation, rely on schedule. Average agents wake up and ask, what do I feel like doing today? High producers ask, what does my schedule say? And this isn't about being robotic. It's about being protected from your own emotional inconsistencies. When I was fighting all sorts of colitis for almost three years, there were days I had zero energy and zero desire. I could not wait to feel motivated. So I stopped trying to. I built my schedule and treated like a job. 8 a.m. prospecting calls. No exceptions. Didn't matter if I had no energy, didn't matter if I didn't feel like it. It's 8 a.m., phone in hand, I'm making phone calls. And here's the thing: if it's not in your calendar, it's not a goal, it's a wish. A structure I see consistently with the top producers as follows: 90 minutes of lead generation, that's not negotiable, 16 minutes of follow-up, 30 minutes of visibility, content, social outreach, then appointments, and then operations. Your income isn't random. Your calendar is. Imagine what your business would look like if you literally would spend two to three hours a day focusing on talking to potential prospects and marketing to them as well. Five days a week, not seven days. Lesson number three, treat lead generation like oxygen. Most agents treat lead generation like a phase. I'll do it until I'm busy. They get busy, they stop. A month later, there's stress again. I see this with agents all the time. They take their foot off the gas, within 60 to 90 days, their pipeline hits a low. The business shrunk, volume drops, closings disappear. The whole feast or famine's gotta stop. You deserve better. Your business deserves better. Your loved ones deserve better. Top producers don't generate leads because they're desperate. They do it because they are disciplined. They know that lead generation and lead conversion is their oxygen. I watched one agent in our world already producing strong, still keep a daily lead gen schedule. I never want my pipeline to depend on my emotional state or my mood. Here's how the lead gen reps compound. Skill creates conversion. Conversion leads to closings. Closings generate income. Income creates freedom and flexibility. Pick your pillars, whether it's sphere, past client, cold outreach, content, database, pit ads, and commit all in now. Speaking of oxygen, you don't decide whether to breed based on how full your lungs are, right? So treat your pipeline the same exact way. Alright, lesson number four. Follow through with the care and consistency. Let me tell you about one of the most important deals I ever lost. Early in my career, I met a great couple, thinking about sad. We met, had a great conversation, I sent a CMA. They said maybe in six months. Okay, cool, I followed up twice, got busy, moved on. Eight months later, I drove past her house, I see the soul sign. Different agent, different company. That deal didn't go to someone more talented or with more production, it went to someone more consistent than me. I remember I had a new agent tell me recently they ghosted me. When we looked at their database, she only reached out twice, then stopped. It wasn't ghosting, it was just the unfinished process. Here's a simple follow-up cave in stopping agents run. Day one, at least three phone calls, plus a text message, plus an email and DM. Same thing with comms to it, day two. Day three, home search, market update, relevant information, personal note perhaps. Week one, as well as week two, same routine, multiple touches. After that, monthly, indefinitely until they buy from you or someone else. Most deals go to the person who follows up the longest, not the person with the prettiest logo. Not once, not twice, consistent, organized, professional, leading with value every time. The fortune isn't follow-up. Lesson five. Most agents think that a product is in a house. It's not. Clients are really buying pricing confidence, strategy clarity, emotional leadership, problem solving under the pressure, and certainty. Here's the experience that I have with an average agent. Here's what they say, here's what I recommend, and here's why. It's not being arrogant, it's just clear. When I was heading to production, it wasn't because of my slick listing presentation, it was because when a client called me in a panic at 9 p.m. about a deal below an up, I answered. I answered the phone with a complete calm and said, Hey, I got this, I hear you, here's what we're gonna do. That's what they remember. Not your marketing, not your headshot, the feeling you gave them when the pressure was the highest and you got the job done. When the market feels uncertain, the agent who creates certainty wins. Stop trying to press your clients, start making them certain. That's what they're actually buying. Lesson six don't just scale leads, build a system. More leads can fix a lot because it gives you more at bats, more opportunities, more prospects to talk to. My first two years running a team, I had agents who were barely selling any real estate. I was working harder than ever before because I didn't really build any systems. My standards and my leadership skills did not really go well. They actually sucked. Everything still ran through me. And then when the cycle started, I would develop an agent, they get good, and then they would leave. I start over and over again. So I went all in on learning how to build the team the right way. Mested in coaching, studied the fastest growing teams nationally. 12 months later, 17 agents doing over 200 sites. That didn't happen because I worked more. It happened because I built systems, elevated my standards, and developed into a better leader. I work more on myself than actually doing more production. The top producers build a listing process, a buyer process, an offer and transaction process, a weekly pipeline review with their team, and they track inputs, new conversations, appointments set, appointments held, contracts written and closed, and conversion by a lead source. ICNA just finally relax when they start tracking inputs because now they're not running an emotional highs or lows. They're just running the process. They marry the process and stop overattaching themselves to the outcome. Look, if your business cannot survive two weeks without you, you don't own a business. You have a job that pays a commission. Lesson number seven protect your energy like an asset. Stop producers aren't always grinding. They go intense, then they recover, then they repeat. Burnout usually isn't from working hard, it's from chaos. No structure, no boundaries, and no clear plan. When I was fighting all sort of collects, running to the bathroom as much as ten times a day while prospecting, closing deals, managing clients, and being a father to three kids. I tried to upwork every problem. More calls, more hours, until my body said, No. Your energy is the engine of your business. You cannot build anything sustainable by running the engine until it fails. Top producers, they said simple rules. They don't live in their email inbox. They don't take every call instantly. They don't say yes to random meetings. They protect their mornings. They fire clients who drain that. Because one toxic client and has been there multiple times consumes the energy needed for 10 great ones. Your nervous system is either your secret weapon or your biggest liability. Look at your schedule, your client list, your habits. Where are you bleeding energy? Plug those leaks. Protecting your energy isn't selfish. It's professional. It's your duty. Lesson number eight, keep your world small. Average agents love complexity because it feels like progress. New CRM, new script, new strategy, new hack, new platform. Top agents, keep it very simple. Legion, non-negotiable, daily. Follow up, non-negotiable, until a clear no from the prospect. One invisibility move per day, weekly pipeline review, skill over strategy, always. Complexity is where goals go to die. I watched agents completely stole chasing the next shiny thing: a new dialer, a new farming strategy, new platform, while the agent down the street quietly closes 40 deals a year doing the same five activities on repeat. The goal isn't to do more things, the goal is to do fewer things, but better, longer, with more focus than anyone around you. Protect your focus like you protect your time. They're the same asset. Lesson number nine, think like a business owner. This is the one. If everything else bounced off you, hear this one. Top agents don't act like employees, they think like CEOs of a pipeline. They ask, what's my cost per appointment? What's my conversion rate? What's my pipeline value right now? What is my biggest bottleneck right now that's preventing me from going from here to there? What's the one skill that improves everything else? And when they start winning, when they start seeing results, they start buying back their time by leveraging admin, TC, systems, not to look more successful, but to become more productive. I learned this the hard way. When I launched Best Home's real estate, my brokerage, I thought, you know what, I've been a top-producing agent, I run a real estate team, this would be seamless. Well, it wasn't an agent mindset into a CEO role. The moment I stopped thinking like an agent, instead of thinking like a business owner, everything changed. I stopped reacting and started leading. I stopped surviving and started building. And that thinking is what led me to my biggest decision yet. Admin team, TC, systems. Not to look more successful, but to become more productive. I learned this the hard way. When I launched my best homes real estate brokerage, I thought, you know what? I've been a top producer, run a team. And it wasn't. I stagnated at 15 agents because I brought an agent mindset into the CEO role. The moment I stopped thinking like an agent and started thinking like a business owner, everything changed. I stopped reacting and started leading. I stopped surviving and started building. I started phasing out of the personal production, started attracting more producing agents. And that thinking is what led me to my biggest decision yet. On January 20th of this year, I moved my entire brokerage to EXP Real Team. Not because I wanted a change, because I finally saw the ceiling I was living under, and I wasn't willing to stay under that ceiling anymore. Okay, real quick, if you're a real estate agent team leader or a brokerage owner, and you're curious what it would look like to partner with me at EXP, listen closely. Look, when I say partner, I don't mean join my team. No team transfer, no control, no weird stuff. I mean this. You keep building your brand, your business, your team. And you get me as your behind-the-scenes support system. Hands-on coaching, training, mentorship, strategy. So you actually hit the goals you've been chasing. And you also get my business partners, like Joshua Smith, one of the best in the world at deploying systems and who coached over 4,000 agents and done over 4,000 transactions with his team. Kevin Kaufman and Fred Weaver, who I've known for over 15 years, run a real estate team and partner with over 2,600 agents at EXP. So it's basically four high-level coaches under one roof, and you get full access at no additional cost when we partner for EXP. So if you want to explore what the partnership could look like, there's a link below in the show notes. Book 100% confidential, zero pressure Zoom call with me. And I mean zero pressure. I'm not going to recruit you, I'm not going to push you. That's not my style at all. This is just a straightforward conversation. Where are you at right now, where you want to go, what systems, tools, and support you and mentorship we have, and whether this makes sense for you. The traditional model has one income link for the agents. Sell more homes, close more transactions, more hours, more stress. That's a treadmill. And most agents and brokers don't realize they're on it. I wanted a platform where agents stack multiple income lanes if they choose to. Commissions, revenue share, equity. So the business creates wealth and flexibility, not just income. Scale support without scaling overhead. Own a brokerage within a brokerage for about 85 bucks a month without the risks, without liabilities, and compliance bottlenecks. Partner with agents across the country and probably about what 28, 29 countries around the globe. Same culture, same standards, just a bigger engine behind it. That is the business owner thinking. Not just how do I close more deals, but how do I build something that keeps growing even when I'm not in the room, even when I'm not selling real estate. So let me lend this for you. The top 0.10% aren't doing any type of magic. They're doing fundamentals consistently over time. If you want a simple next step, here it is. Pick one lead source, commit to it for the next 6 to 12 months, track your inputs daily, follow up with real cadence all the way through, build a calendar that makes consistency easier than inconsistency. And I'll link my exact weekly schedule, by the way, as well as templates and the follow-up framework in the description below. And I'll finish with this. We get one life to live. Tomorrow isn't promised. Take chances, be bold, don't settle for mediocrity. Grow your business, create wealth, build the best life. See you next time.