What are we teaching?
How the relationship model fails agents - and the braver way forward
The real estate industry teaches two paths to success: master cold lead generation or lean into relationship-building.
The first path—scripts, dials, mass mailing—feels transactional and relentless. So naturally, agents are drawn to the second: “Be authentic, nurture your sphere, turn friends into clients.”
It sounds more human.
But here’s the truth: both methods, as they’re taught, can leave agents feeling gross—lonely, isolated, and unsure of where genuine relationships belong.
Why? Because the relationship approach (as it was taught to me) isn’t really relational at all.
Agents are encouraged to see every friend, talk to every neighbor, and volunteer everywhere — it may lead to your next client. Subtly, every interaction becomes a nudge toward real estate instead of a genuine connection.
Over time, this erodes trust.
Agents end up cannibalizing their networks at the altar of the real estate gods. Conversations feel awkward, and even supportive communities can begin to shrink.
This isn’t just unfortunate—it’s unsustainable. Most agents want to be helpful, not predatory. But the training rarely shows them how to build a client base without risking their relationships, sanity, or self-respect.
So what’s the alternative?
The answer lies in Law 5 of IBRE: The Law of Guide Evolution. The most impactful agents don’t hustle to be the hero in every client’s story. They step back and become the guide—someone who solves, not sells. That shift begins with identifying your distinct problem-solving strengths and then embracing the courage to claim them in your marketing. Once you make this transformation, you don’t need to chase clients or “convert” friends. You attract the people who genuinely value your identity-based expertise.
Your knowledge about homes, contracts, and negotiations?
Those skills are necessary, but they aren’t what differentiates you - it’s what most are selling.
To admit that means agents are faced with a choice.
Am I a going to be a realtor who sells? Or solves?
To solve, agents must answer much deeper questions.
To sell? Not so much (that trade-off was one I could never make - didn’t have the stomach for it).
It’s a tough choice, and that's why most don’t. Many stay in what I call “real estate purgatory,” A very strange and stressful place where an agent claims to be relational but never asks for business and can’t articulate why anyone really hires them.
Rooting out these answers is the only path to building a career that feels right.
Until each agent is ready to make that very personal call, let’s stop teaching agents to “leverage” relationships like assets. Instead, let’s help them become guides worth trusting.
That’s how we build a better industry, one real relationship at a time.
