Most real estate professionals know what they should be doing: following up with past clients, staying in touch with their database, prospecting, building relationships, staying visible and creating more opportunities. Doing the work that moves the business forward.
The problem is that knowing and doing are two different things.
As a REMAX Broker, I hear some version of this from agents all the time: “I know what I should be doing. I’m just not doing it consistently.”
And that’s where my fascination lies, because in real estate, inconsistency is often treated like a discipline problem.
An agent is not following up enough, so they need more accountability. They aren’t prospecting enough, so they need a better schedule. They are not staying consistent, so maybe they need a new system, CRM or strategy.
Sometimes those actions can help, but often, I believe we jump to the solution before we understand the problem.
In addition to being a Broker at REMAX Premier, I am also a Realtor Performance Strategist. That means I study the gap between what agents know they should do and what they actually do consistently. My work focuses on identifying the patterns that affect execution, confidence, focus and follow-through so agents can better understand what’s getting in the way of their performance.
Through my ongoing research and conversations with agents, one thing keeps standing out: The same behavior can come from very different causes.
Take two agents who both avoid making follow-up calls. From the outside, they look exactly the same.
But from the inside, one is avoiding calls, because they are uncomfortable with rejection. The other is overthinking every part of the conversation – what to say, when to call, how the person might respond — until they never make the call at all.
While one of these agents may hesitate, because they don’t fully trust themselves, the other may be forcing themselves to use a prospecting method that feels unnatural to them, making it harder to stay consistent.
Same behavior, different reasons, different solutions. And that matters.
If we assume every agent has the same problem, we are going to keep giving them the same solutions: more discipline, more accountability, more scripts, more education and more systems.
As I’ve studied agents more closely, I’ve started seeing recurring patterns around avoidance, confidence, overthinking, pressure and the way agents see themselves.
These patterns can show up very differently from one person to another, but they can lead to the same outcome: an agent who knows what to do but does not consistently do it.
That is why I don’t think inconsistency should automatically be treated as the problem.
Sometimes it’s simply what we can see, but other times, a different driver may be underneath it. Until we understand what that is, we may be trying to solve the wrong thing.
The real estate industry has become very good at teaching agents what works. There is no shortage of strategies, scripts, technology, coaching, lead-generation ideas or systems. But more information won’t necessarily change behavior if the reason for the lack of action isn’t identified.
Two agents can struggle with the exact same behavior for completely different reasons, and if the cause is different, the solution should be different too.
So before prescribing more education or technology, ask a fundamental question: What is actually getting in the way of execution? Understanding what’s driving the behavior is often the first step toward changing it.
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