We keep telling agents to do more. More calls. More posts. More leads. I want to make the case for doing something else entirely.
I have been in this business long enough to watch a pattern repeat itself.
An agent has a slow month. The response is almost always the same — go find more. Buy a lead package. Add another CRM. Start another campaign. Post more often. Attend one more networking event.
Meanwhile, sitting in that same agent's phone is a list of forty, sixty, a hundred people who already trusted them with one of the largest financial decisions of their lives. People who already know them. People who already said yes once.
And most of them have not heard from that agent in eighteen months.
The Math Nobody Wants to Look At
Think about everything it costs to bring in one brand-new lead. The money, obviously. But also the time. The follow-up. The nurture sequence. The conversion rate you already know is not great.
Now think about the cost of a phone call that opens like this:
"A friend of mine told me I needed to call you."
That call costs nothing. It closes faster. It is less price-sensitive. And it usually brings another one behind it.
We all know this. So why does the referral side of the business get almost none of our actual attention?
I think it is because "generate more leads" is a task you can put on a calendar, and "be someone people want to introduce" is not. One feels like work. The other feels like a personality trait you either have or you do not.
I do not think that is true. I think it is a skill. And I think most of it comes down to communication.
The Part Most of Us Get Backwards
Here is the thing that took me the longest to learn.
I used to think I was a good communicator because I was clear. I explained things well. I was thorough. I answered questions before they were asked.
What I was actually doing was communicating the way I like to receive information — and then quietly judging clients who did not respond to it.
Some clients want you to skip the preamble and tell them what to do. Give them a paragraph of context first and you have already lost them.
Some clients need the full picture before they will move an inch. Push them to decide today and they will dig in.
Some want to talk about their kids for ten minutes before they will talk about the house at all — and that conversation is not a detour, it is the transaction.
That is what a framework like DISC is actually for. Not to put a label on your client. To notice, early, that the person across the table processes decisions differently than you do, and to adjust before the misfire happens instead of after.
It is not about becoming someone else. It is about listening better than you talk.
A Closing Is Not the Finish Line
The other habit worth breaking is treating the closing table like the end of something.
Clients do not remember your marketing. They do not remember your CMA formatting. What they remember, years later, is how you made them feel during a stressful stretch of their life — whether you were steady, whether you told them the truth, whether you picked up the phone.
If you got that part right, staying in touch afterward is not awkward. It is not a "touch campaign." It is just staying in touch with someone who likes you.
That is where referrals actually come from. Not from asking for them. From earning the kind of experience people bring up on their own.
We Are Putting This in a Room on September 9
I am writing about this now because two people I respect are teaching it in San Antonio this week, and it is open to agents in the market — not just to our own.
The class is called Leads on Repeat.
Leads on Repeat
Wednesday, September 9, 2026
9:30 AM – 12:00 PM CST
Stewart Title – Bitters
2338 N. Loop 1604 W., San Antonio, TX 78248
Space is limited. Registration is through the QR code on the graphic above — scan it with your phone camera and grab a seat. These fill up.
Who Is Teaching It
Kim Patterson is a REALTOR®, speaker, and coach working across the Greater San Antonio area. What I appreciate about the way Kim trains is that she does not hand agents a script and call it a day. She works on the conversations, the mindset, and the behaviors underneath the script — which is the part that actually transfers from one client to the next.
Jennifer Davis is a Business Development Officer with Stewart Title in San Antonio. She sits on the title side of hundreds of files a year, which means she has watched the same communication breakdowns play out from a completely different seat than the rest of us. That perspective is worth showing up for on its own.
The class is hosted at Stewart Title – Bitters with support from Legacy Mutual Mortgage – The Adams Family, Mia Prather with The Credit Vixen, and Stewart Title. Sponsors cover the cost of the room. Nobody is paying for referrals, and every agent in that room is free to work with whatever service providers they choose.
If You Are Not in San Antonio
Most of you reading this are not in Texas, let alone off Loop 1604. So let me leave you with the part that travels.
Pick five past clients this week. Not a list — five. People whose transactions you actually remember.
Call them. Not to check in on the market. Not with a value report attached. Call them because you thought of them.
Do that for a month and tell me it does not outperform whatever you were about to spend on leads.
A Question for the Rain
I would rather hear from you than talk at you, so here is what I am actually curious about:
What percentage of your business last year came from repeat clients and referrals — and did you do anything deliberate to make that happen, or did it just happen?
I have my own answer and I am not sure I love it. Drop yours in the comments. I read every one.
Agents in the San Antonio, Boerne, New Braunfels, Schertz, Cibolo, Stone Oak, Alamo Heights, Helotes, Bulverde, and Converse areas — the full class details are here, including a longer FAQ on what the session covers.
And if you are an experienced agent who has started quietly wondering whether your current brokerage environment still fits where you are trying to take your business, that is a conversation I am always glad to have. No pitch, no expectation. You can reach me here or take a look at why experienced agents have been making the move.
Onward and Upward,
Jeremy Williams
Founder & Leader
JLA Realty – Omnia Elevate
omniaelevate.com
Omnia Elevate is an agent development organization within JLA Realty and is not a brokerage. All real estate brokerage services are provided by JLA Realty, a licensed Texas real estate brokerage. REALTOR® is a collective membership mark owned by the National Association of REALTORS®. Attendance at any class is voluntary. Classes and refreshments sponsored by title, mortgage, or other settlement service partners are offered as an educational benefit; agents are free to choose any service provider they wish, and no compensation is exchanged for referrals or endorsements. Commissions are negotiable and are not set by law. No representation is made regarding results any agent may achieve. Equal Housing Opportunity — JLA Realty complies with the federal Fair Housing Act and the Texas Fair Housing Act.
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