I started in real estate in 1996 with no team, no brand and no safety net. In my first year, I made $183,000. Then I made myself a promise that I have kept ever since: Never have a worse year than the year before.
That promise has forced me to take an honest look at how I spend my time, energy and resources. It meant cutting things that felt productive but weren’t and doubling down on things that seemed obvious but that most agents still weren’t doing.
Twenty-eight years later, I still ask myself the same question every January: If I had to build this again from scratch, where would I put my time and money?
Here’s where I land right now.
The dinner always wins
The best investment I ever made wasn’t in marketing. It wasn’t in technology. It was in showing up, consistently, for the same people before they needed me.
Early in my career, I realized that the agents building lasting businesses weren’t the ones with the most leads. They were the ones with the deepest relationships. I started treating my network like something that needed regular tending, not a list I tapped when things got slow. That shift changed everything.
Today I’d do the same, just more deliberately. I’d spend at least a third of my week on relationship maintenance with no agenda attached: calls, dinners, showing up to things that matter to the people I want to work with. That kind of investment doesn’t pay off in 30 days. It pays off in Year 3, when someone calls you first without ever having seen one of your ads.
I’ve watched agents spend thousands on digital campaigns trying to reach people they could have had dinner with for $200. The dinner wins almost every time.
Own something specific
The market is too competitive right now for anyone to be everything to everyone. Clients have access to more information than ever before. What they can’t easily find is someone who knows their specific world — their neighborhood, their price point, their lifestyle — better than anyone else.
I’d pick a lane earlier and commit to it faster. I did this naturally in luxury, but I didn’t fully build it into my identity as a brand until later than I should have. If I were starting over today, that commitment would happen in Year 1, not Year 5.
The agents I watch grow fastest right now own something specific. That specificity makes you easier to refer, easier to remember and harder to replace.
Stop funding your ego
This is harder to admit publicly, but I’ve seen it at every level of this business, including in the mirror.
A lot of marketing spend is really ego spend. It feels like an investment because it’s expensive and it has your name on it. But if you tracked it honestly — every dollar in, every deal it actually touched — a lot of it wouldn’t survive the math. I’ve run those numbers on myself, and it’s humbling.
Before I spent money on anything without a clear line to a client conversation, I’d ask one question: Would the same amount spent on a meaningful dinner with the right person outperform it? Most of the time, the answer is yes.
Stay in motion when everyone else stops
Uncertain markets don’t ruin careers. Waiting does.
The agents who plateau fastest in difficult conditions are the ones who go passive. They tell themselves they’re being strategic. They’re waiting for rates to drop, inventory to loosen, buyers to get off the fence. What they’re really doing is losing ground to the people who kept calling, kept showing up and kept investing in the relationships that matter.
I made the promise never to have a worse year than the year before because I knew that discipline, not conditions, would determine the outcome. The agents who grew through every cycle I’ve lived through made the same bet. They decided to grow first and let the market catch up.
When the market did turn, they were already positioned to win because they never stopped building. That’s not optimism. It’s a choice. And this year is as good a time as any to make it.
Mauricio Umansky is the founder and CEO of The Agency in Los Angeles. Connect with him on Instagram.
